Holly Northrop Blog

Last weekend I made my Famous Chocolate Cake for the neighbor Jack because he shoveled out our driveway with his snow blower after we got over two-feet of snow. Well this weekend I made my Peanut Butter Kookies for our chiropractor's 46th birthday. I'm not sure what is up with me and the baking niceties.

Who's to say? I do know that I've been thinking a great deal about people that I no longer talk to anymore for a variety of stupid reasons ranging from nothing to say to logistical to general irritation, none of which are legitimate. And that makes me so very, very lame. So I guess I'm trying to make up for it all with baked goods to people who barely know me. Strange isn't it? Ah yes, the mind is a terrible thing.

I Would Mug Me
Martha bought me a Polaroid back for my Holga and while I love the shots that I'm taking, working with the material on the street is a nightmare. I don't know how folks used to shoot with the peel apart films. I look like a idiot out there trying to juggle my camera; the toxic disposable paper of the backing that I want to keep because they are cool; the wet print I just peeled apart; a small accordion file for the wet print to go into when it dries; a long zip up pouch for the disposable paper backing to go into when it dries and my purse.

Of course I know that years ago they didn't care about the paper backing and seeing how most of the photographers were men, there were no purses on the job.

Tax Time
Martha and I finally broke down and had our taxes done. Now, if we lived on a different planet, one that truly did treat all people equally, there probably would still be taxes but I do think that at the very least, she and I would be able to file a fucking joint return. The tax benefits that the government dollops out to legally married folks should be available to all of us that are in any kind of cohabitation in any kind of "family" scenario. Boy, boy, girl, girl or even boy, girl and yes, those polygamous marriage people too. A family is a family is a family.

Instead, the IRS only sees my status as single or the more depressing category of divorced. Although I do get to claim Jasmine, I cannot claim the house. Martha, filing as single but with none of the benefits of actually being single, gets to take the house. She and I pay higher taxes within a year because of our single/divorced status. This goes with the governments' theory that because we are single, we have more disposable income and with less overhead, we should contribute to the overall community on a higher level then those that are actually draining the system. I pay more in taxes for the local schools then traditional families only my invisible family will never use those services. I understand how it's supposed to work, with Jasmine in a whole other community, draining that towns resources etc. But what is happening instead is that Jasmine is at an out of state college and we are paying almost double for her to go there. So we pay higher taxes in our town and higher tuition in another state.

And once I consider all the money I make in a year, that which isn't in my pocket is funding the beginning of The Third World War, I get super cranky about being told what I am verses what I really am, sexual preferences being left out of the equation.

All this tax shit is nothing new to me; it has been going on for years ever since I stopped being a straight married mom and switched teams. What is new is that I keep getting irritated over it all. It cost Martha and me a total of over $500.00 to have our taxes done. Two single returns, one using the long form and one using the standard, a bunch of bullshit around living in Jersey and working in Jersey then living in New York, student loan interest and a new home purchase. All of that could have been on a joint return and saved us probably $250.00.

The good news about all of it is that we are getting money back, money that will so help with the payment on the new roof. I'm not sure if we would get more money back if we could file a joint return. If it wasn't so complicated I'd run the numbers just to see.

The Carpet Highway of My Two-room Apartment
In the two weeks since Martha's mother, Genevieve, has been alone things had been relatively quiet. The first week passed without us being aware of any incidents. However, the second week proved to unveil the stresses of elderly confusion. Genevieve, not wanting to bother anyone except direct family, ran out of blood pressure meds and in an attempt to get medicine without asking someone to take her to CVS, she signed up for Medicare through the Assisted Living home. Now her medicine is going to cost her $300.00 a month instead of $3.00. It will probably take Martha weeks to fix that.

Genevieve also signed almost $8000.00 in checks over to the desk jockey at the Assisted Living home. Her insurance company reimbursed her for her living expenses and because she would not ask anyone to take her to the bank, she signed the checks and told the receptionist to credit her account. No receipt, no anything, and most importantly the Assisted Living home never called Martha.

Martha spent a great deal of Thursday on the phone to just about everyone at the Assisted Living home drilling into all of them that they are to contact her if Genevieve gives away anything, (jewelry, cash, furniture) or if she tries to leave the property without some kind of supervision.

For Genevieve, the mail is a foundation of incredible anxiety. Everyday something arrives that is so confusing to her that for all she knows it could very well be written in Taiwanese. Her job before Frank died was to open the mail and lay it out for him to read. She never actually read anything. So now, everything is confusing. A credit card offering 0% interest for 9 months is cause for serious concern. "What is it, what should I do?"

There is still a great deal of tinkering that needs to be addressed before Genevieve is in a place where she can't screw up things. Martha and I are going down in about a month to tie up some loose ends, to say the least.

I'm not sure what the official snow total for Hudson was but in our driveway there was easily two-feet of it. Martha wouldn't let me shovel because of my neck and what happened the last time. The only problem was that she had left her snow boots at work and my feet are about two and a half sizes smaller then hers are. So with her feet wrapped in extra large freezer bags she punched through to the garage to get the shovel and then made a single shoveled line to the walkway. It was then that a nice neighbor named Jack took pity on us and with his massive snow blower saved the day. Without that happening, it would have taken Martha all weekend to dig us out. Her back would be broken.

Yep, this is crazy stuff. I've haven't seen so much snow since I lived in Meadville. I think it snowed more in Meadville because of the proximity to Lake Erie but also why I might think that it snowed more was because I was never more then four-feet tall when we lived there. If it snowed a foot well, twelve inches was a big deal back then.

I do remember the neighborhood kids sledding down the back nine of the Hailwood Golf Club that we lived next to. Right at the edge of the green was the woods, and if you got up enough speed, you could fly across the creek at the bottom. Some kids didn't make it across and they would get wet and have to go home. Only once did that happen to me. I got a shitload of creek water down my snow pants. It was cold and gross. Because I was a pussy little redheaded five-year-old, I cried all the way home. I was also the same child that would make so many snow angles in my back yard that from the dining room window the yard looked like Escher's Angels and Devils drawing.

I guess you could say my head is currently in a strange place. My dreams have been running on these three themes:

1. Being laid off and becoming embarrassed about it. (The embarrassment part has me puzzled.)
2. The roof leaking in the kitchen. (It's not but I guess I think it's going to, or this is a bigger thing having to do with water)
3. My dead parents. Now Glamour Magazine says:
A dream of your mother signifies happiness in love or personal affairs, and a dream of your father forecasts progress in business, professional or career matters.

But the folks over at Dream Moods have a totally different spin on the dead parent thing.
To see and talk with your dead father in your dream, signifies that you are about to enter into an unlucky transaction or rotten deal. Thoroughly think through your decisions before entering into them. To see your dead mother in your dream, signifies your wretched and mean-hearted nature towards others around you.

Nice.

So in keeping with my wretched and mean-hearted nature I made one of my fantastic chocolate cakes for Jack, the neighbor who shoveled us out. We tried to give it to him on Saturday. Martha and I put our winter coats on, slid into our shoes and walked next door with a big ole cake on a plate. Martha rang the bell, knocked on the door and... nothing. We went back home, ate dinner then put our winter coats on again, slid into our shoes and went back over. The lights were on so Martha rang that bell, knocked on the door. After a few minutes and very, very slowly, an elderly man pries open the front door but can't seem to unlock the storm windowed screen door. Martha and I stand there watching him fuck around with the small lock until finally, Martha gets his attention and tells him its okay, nevermind. But he can't really hear us through the door.

Is Jack here?
What?
Does a Jack live here?
Yes. He's my nephew.
He was nice enough to plow our driveway and Holly baked him a cake.
Who? What? Oh? Well, he's sleeping. You're going to have to come back tomorrow.

If he could just open the door, I could have given him the cake but that kind of deduction and the whole logistics of it all was impossible.

The next day right before we left to try to deliver it a third time Martha says, "Here me now, if they aren't home, we're coming back here and I'm having a big piece of cake. Okay? Okay."

They were home and they now have the cake.

Maybe He's Caught in the Legend
I have to admit that the whole Van Halen, R.E.M and Patti Smith thing is what had me hooked. Sad to say I spent my Saturday night watching the VH1 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2007 ceremony. Grandmaster Flash, R.E.M, The Ronettes, Patti Smith and Van Halen.

As far as Van Halen goes, I was always on the David side of that crazy train. Didn't matter one bit what a jackass David Lee Roth was, Sammy Hagar was and is a tool. I saw Van Halen in the summer of 1979, when Runnin' with the Devil was everywhere but this was one of my favorite songs and this lead in to You Really Got Me, (I was already a total Kinks nut to begin with) could be heard coming from my bedroom from half a mile away. No wonder my mother was just out of her mind with me. The only reason she never killed me in my sleep was because I was an insomniac and she was older. She was out by 10:30 on nights where I would go the distance and watch the sunrise.

Just a few short but jam pack years later, I was living in Denver, pregnant with Jasmine and totally nuts about REM. Pretty Persuasion; Talk about the Passion; Sitting Still and Perfect Circle.

Oh but Chronic Town was the total shit, 1,000,000; Stumble; Wolves, Lower; Gardening at Night and Carnival of Sorts, (Boxcars) which I actually think I put on a tape for someone just a few years ago, or I wanted to because I remember it being a really good fit. R.E.M was huge in my world but so was Camper Van Beethoven, X and Husker du. The Cramps and Sonic Youth rounded out tapes with Patti Smith on one side and Nova Mob on the other. And in thinking about this further, I was totally into Hot for Teacher at the same time that I could not stop listening to Little America.

So as REM took to the stage and Stipe started yakking, which always makes my eyes roll. I laughed to myself because years ago, he never made a lick of sense seeing how he was a mumbler, now he speaks clearly but he seems like such a big drag. As I tuned him out, I started thinking about what a huge disappointment they became after about four albums in.

The last time I saw them was at the Coliseum at Richfield in Cleveland. My best friend and I had waited out all night in the freezing cold so we could be one of the first in line to buy tickets. (What can I say, no one had a credit card and life was a little more fucked up then it is now.) By the time the show came around, it was warmer outside and I'd already heard the new album, (Green) and I only liked one song on it. Turn You Inside Out. That was it. That night the Coliseum was packed and the police were everywhere. I couldn't understand it. I wasn't allowed to move from my seat and no one was smoking ANYTHING. The show was horrible but the band looked totally into it. R.E.M. started to play Perfect Circle and I thought I was going to vomit. After thirty minutes, we left and drove back to Pittsburgh.

As I lay in bed the other night, watching them sing Begin the Begin, I started to feel a little better. Sounded good and I always did like that particular song and dammed if I'm not still totally swayed by that fuckers voice. But then they did Gardening at Night and not just phoning it either. The whole thing actually made me sit up, put the bowl down and listen. I haven't seen it done that nicely in decades. The whole performance made my eyes well up. Sad but true, good music does that to me sometimes. Sometimes, it makes me cry. Of course, I was already weepy from when Patti Smith was on talking about her dead husband, Fred. (Boy, is she really starting to look like Joey Romone or what?) She is sixty for god sake and she is still something to see. Strong woman. Even Jasmine is so moved by her. I can't wait for the new covers album. I saw her do Jimi Hendrix's Are you Experienced? at BAM last year and I about lost my shit right there in the 25th row. But as you can see, it doesn't take much for me to act like I'm fourteen.

The week started out simple enough. I had an MRI scheduled for Monday morning and I was a little nervous about that. The reasons for the test were simply to look at my neck and upper back so my chiropractor could figure out just how fucked up my back is. When I see him on schedule, everything is about 80% back to normal. When I go a week between visits, well, things go down hill hourly.

I figured that I would pop a Xanax about twenty minutes before I go in the "open" MRI machine. That whole year of testing that I went through a few years back made me claustrophobic; just another added spice to my Lazy Susan assortment of phobic ticks.

I get there and chew a pill while I pick out my music selection, (Elvis's Number 1 Hits), and fill out paperwork. Fifteen minutes later, they take me in the back, I take off all metal, put my purse in a locker and I wait. Ten minutes goes by and I'm not feeling the Xanax at all. I'm tense and starting to get a headache. The technician comes over and checks me out one last time for metal. I lay down on the table, he moves my hair and then he locks my head down. He placed a large plastic arm across my neck, not really touching it but I can see it and now, I can't move my head at all. This starts freaking me out on the inside. My heart rate jumps to roughly a zillion beats per minute, I instantly start sweating and I suddenly have to go to the bathroom.

Outside of my internal hell, the technician tells me that the first test is going to take twenty-five minutes and then he puts the headphones on my head, with the right one not even over my ear. I lift my hand to move it but I can't get to my head. I close my eyes as he pushes me under the machine and I instantly begin hyperventilating only now I can feel my hot crazy breath slamming back into my face. I open my eyes and I immediately become disoriented and feel like I'm going to pass out, which in hindsight, I should have tried to do. If I'd a passed out everything would have been fine. The machine is an inch from my nose, so close that I cannot focus; I can't turn my head to look out the open sides, removing any possibility of finding a focal point. Elvis starts in faintly with Heartbreak Hotel but I can only hear it in my left ear. The magnate starts popping and I freak out just as Elvis is getting to "I get so lonely I could die".

"Hello! Hello! Can you hear me?" I hear myself and I notice how insane I sound.
"Yes" comes out over the intercom, in a godlike presence.
"I want out." I said.
Long pause.
"Hello!"
"Yes, yes, I'm coming in." God said.

Mr. Technician pulls me out, and we have a conversation about how I really need this test and blah, blah, blah, all the while I'm trying to pull my head out of the big plastic head block.

"No, I can't do this." I say. And with that I am set free from the head block and I hear the receptionist call my doctor, "Yeah, your patient, Ms. Northrop. She claustroed."

They were all nice and stuff and I even got the complementary mug filled with candy even though I clearly did not deserve it.

I got the hell out of there as fast as I could. The testing place was way out in Mahwah, NJ and I had to walk about a mile to the train station. Normally, not a problem but about ten minutes into my 2º walk the Xanax hits me. Suddenly I can't pick up my feet and I'm tripping over air. The sun is way too bright, the wind chill makes me sleepy and my purse feels like a dead body on my back. I start doing the drug shuffle down the road all the way to the train station. Thankfully, the local came within minutes. Once on the local, I find an almost empty car, I crawl into a three-seater, shove my purse against the wall for use as a pillow and pass out before I am even fully lying down. I woke up an hour later as we were pulling into Hoboken. I was on my back with my mouth open, snoring like grandpa after Sunday supper.

I grabbed my shit and stumbled off the train and down the stairs to The Path where I had to stand. I was too fucked up to properly hold the pole so for ten minutes I was that stupid bitch on the train.

Climbing out of the 9th Street Path station was like moving through mud. Once on the street I shuffled along to the Voice at a snails pace. It took me almost twenty-five minutes to walk a walk that normally takes me ten, fifteen tops and that's if I hit the all the lights wrong.

Work was a joke, I nodded of and on at my desk until 4:30 when I packed up my little crazy train and shuffled on back over to The Path station. I slept on the crowded train to Suffern, sitting upright with my mouth open, then crawled off that train and slid into the car with Martha. I nodded off at least three times on the way home.

The next day (Tuesday), I had to go to the chiropractor because I had missed my visit the day before due to loss of consciousness. Martha could not take me and I thought, okay, I could handle this whole suburban transportation thing. The chiropractor is in Suffern so I just needed to call and order a cab, seeing how you cannot really hail one. I call a cab and everything is all set. The train is no problem and in fact, I managed to catch the early one so I called and changed my pickup time.

Everything turned to shit when I got off the train. It is again, 2º outside and even though I am wearing Martha's parka my legs freeze within minutes. There is no cab. Okay, no problem he'll be here. I wait ten minutes before I call.

"Oh yes he is on his way, traffic you know."

Suffern is a suburban stop and never once have I ever felt too weird there so my guard was way down seeing how it was light and so very artic out. I was standing near the ticket machine when suddenly someone yanked on my back. I didn't even hear another person come up behind me. I didn't have my headphones on but I did have the hood to Martha's parka around my head. That thing is soundproof.

So I flip around like a cat and there, not two feet from me, is a relatively young homeless man wearing multiple layers of filthy clothing. His face is smeared with dirt and his piercing blue eyes are staring right at me. My brain goes into attack mode and I'm convinced that this is going to get seriously fucking ugly real fast. No one is around, the station building is closed and the sun is going down.

He looks at me and asks for a cigarette. I start backing up and out into the parking lot telling him I don't smoke.

He smiles at me and asks me again for a cigarette while walking towards me.

I move out into the center of the parking lot where there are no cars and no hidden spaces. I never take my eyes off of him as he is walks towards me. In seconds, I had managed to put a good twenty feet between us.

Off to the left I notice exhaust coming from a parked car. I turn my head just a little to see if there is anyone in the car when I notice a young woman behind the wheel. I point at her and mouth, "I am coming over to you."

The guy changes directions with me, every few minutes asking me for a cigarette. He can't see the car that I am headed towards it just looks like I'm trying to get out of the lot, and this makes him start to move closer to me.

Within ten feet of the car, I hear the woman pop the locks. For the first time since I looked at the guy I turned my back on him and walked directly to the woman's car. I reach out open the door, slide in the passenger seat and close the door. The woman immediately locks the doors behind me. I turned to look out at the guy and he was walking back to the ticket machine having figured out that he couldn't get to me. That's when I noticed a stairwell next to the building. That's where the guy had come from.

I looked at the woman whose car I was now sitting in. I smiled and said thank you. She didn't speak English.

"¿Habla usted español?"
"No." I said
We smile at each other.
We point at the guy and I said the word bad.
"Jes." she said.
We smile.

A few minutes goes by and still no fucking cab. Another train comes into the station and the person she was waiting on gets off the train. I thank her while getting out of the car and just as I do I notice the homeless guy lingering around the passengers asking everyone for a cigarette.

He sees me but now there are too many people everywhere to fuck with me. He smiles at me with only one side of his mouth. A Lincoln Town Car pulls up to the station and a passenger gets out. After she is finished paying and fucking around with her hair, I flag him down, asking if I can hail him.

"I'm not going very far and I've been out in this cold for forty-five minutes." I plead. "Sure, no problem." said the driver.

Ten dollars later, I am at the doctor. I walk into the waiting room just as a patient is coming out of exam room.

"Hey you have the same coat as me!" He said it with the same heightened excitement that someone in kindergarten would have.

"Isn't that amazing? We have the same coat. Where did you get your's?" he rattled off.

"Land's End." I sigh as I start rubbing my face. My latest nervous tick that I'm trying out.

"Land's End, that's right. Isn't that amazing? Does your's do this?" He shows me the collar area of his coat where the fibers have all turned into grey fuzz balls. It's rather disgusting but he wants me to look at it.

I'm still standing in the waiting room with my coat not only on but zipped up, I have caught a crazy chill, to say the least and I've started to shake. I watch him rub his fingers over the fuzz balls for a few minutes and then he starts up all over again.

"Isn't that amazing? We have the same coat. Does your's do this?" And again he shows me the collar area of his coat where the fibers have all turned into grey fuzz balls.

"The drycleaners said it was from my beard. Does your's do this? Not that you have a beard." Now I am just staring at him as he rubs his coat. After a few minutes he starts up again, I shit you not.

"Isn't that amazing? We have the same coat. Does your's do this?"

He and I are the only two people in the waiting room. No one else is in earshot of this glitch in the matrix and I begin to laugh aloud. He doesn't seem to notice.

Just when it looks like he might start up again, his doctor calls him back to the desk for some paperwork. I'm left sitting there alone with my coat on just staring at the brown paneling.

My doctor comes out and asks me what's wrong, am I alright?

Yeah, sure, I'm fine, because I am right?

The next day, and let me just say that it was only Wednesday, I had a job interview. Great, cool very exciting. The plan was for Martha to drive me to the interview which was in Port Chester, and then for her to go on across the Tappenzee Bridge and on to work. I would then take the train into Manhattan after the interview and play it by ear from there.

Wednesday morning there was a light dusting of snow on the roads and for the most part upstate wasn't that bad but the further south we drove, the worse the snow and the traffic became. The first hour of the project hour and a half drive was uneventful but then everything went to hell. Every highway we turned on to had a multi-car, multi-lane accident. Originally, I was going to arrive in Port Chester with like ninety minutes to kill. I figured I'd find a coffee shop and just chill. But no, it took us FOUR HOURS to get there. I walked in exactly at my interview time with not one minute to spare. I walked in used the restroom, shook hands and proceeded to talk my way through a two-hour interview while Martha waited in the car.

After that, we drove straight home where we watched Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duvall in Robert Altman's 3 Women, because if things were going to be so weird then I needed to watch and even weirder movie then the one that I felt like I was a character in.