Holly Northrop Blog

The big news around here last week, (aside that the upstairs toilet is now fixed and I got a new hand mixer), was that I finally managed to deal with my photo room. I still haven't filed negatives in over a year but at least I've cleaned the room out and made stacks of negatives to file. Big difference. I did manage to file all of my prints and either throw out all the used X-Acto blades or put the clean ones far away from my wrists. (Oh I'm kidding.) Now I just need to, put on some music, sit down and file for a day.

I also threw out a shit load of trash. Not garbage, but stuff I've been dragging around with me for decades and Christ did that feel good. Emotionally draining but good nonetheless. I wouldn't say that I am a hoarder but I do hang on the weird shit. Some of it is so strange that I can't even remember why I kept it in the first place.

I did however find some cool things amongst the troubling wreckage of my mind. I finally hung up an old Breeders poster over my computer and I hung a really cool thing that a friend from work made me. The Voice as an old school rolodex that has been in the building for decades, in fact I think it is almost as old as the archives library. The rolodex is renowned and some would even say that it is just as famous as the names and numbers inside it. The rolodex sits in the photo department and every now and then, it is fun to spin the wheel around and see who you will get.

My friend pulled a few cards out and made an 11 x 17 Xerox for me. On it is John Water's Maryland phone number, Andy Warhol, Arthur Miller, Robert Mapplethorpe and Abbie Hoffman's old phone numbers and addresses. There is Anne Leibowitz's Manhattan studio number and even the address for Los Alamos. Jessie Jackson's card has various numbers and I also have Tim Russart's DC address and number. Plus, all of Hustler Magazine's Ohio/LA contacts and numbers. It's awesome and I hung it in the darkroom.

The fall leaves up here are ridiculously beautiful. Martha and I went shooting last weekend and the stuff I got was just gorgeous. It finally feels like Halloween. I think this will be the last weekend for color shooting before I get in my moody black and white mode. Speaking of moody black and white, the opening for the Hudson in Black & White show is this Saturday at Time Space Limited. It starts at 5:00 and I have eleven pieces in it; the most I've shown outside of our house in quite awhile. Last Friday, Karen and I ran the order and it really is a great looking show. Plus the folks over there are nice so it's not so draining to be there. I actually felt good. Shocking I know.

We will Win the Lottery the Day Before the World Ends
Sunday morning Martha started freaking out about money. Money is always an issue, no matter what is going on, but lately things have been a little extreme. It seems like everything costs more. Food, gas, heating, the car payment, the cost of Feline Greenies, it was enough to make her flip out before 8:30 Sunday morning. Not a good thing, I tell you. There is nothing I hate more then having the 'Money Talk', let alone having it before I've even finished my first cup of coffee. I look at it like this; she and I have always been behind some kind of money eight ball. The names of the problems change, (except for Jasmine, that one always stays the same) but the issues are still identical. Instead of credit card dept, we now have insurance dept, which I think is a better tradeoff but it still costs a shit load of money to have life and long-term care insurance. I'd rather be paying for that instead of a Macy's credit card, right?

Anyway, I think I'm going to start playing Mega Millions twice a week instead of just on Tuesdays. It can't hurt, well the extra dollar and all but still.

Last Friday it took me all day, and I mean from 9am to around 6pm to cut ten matte boards and frame ten 16 x 20 photographs. I only have to re-cut two mattes but one frame arrived broken and then I broke the glass on another. I can count on one hand how many times I've broken frame glass; it never happens. So now, at the eleventh hour before hanging I have frames racing towards me through the FEDEX system.

Bending over for nine hours was murder on my back. Even with the TENS unit plastered to my skin and cranked up, I still had trouble. I wonder if I can just have the TENS unit implanted under my skin and wired to my back spasms?

Martha and I actually went out on a Saturday night. We went to the Fall Supper at TSL and it wasn't as mentally taxing as I thought it would be. I had fun, met new people and my god the desire to smoke did not permeate every second of conversation that I was involved in. Weird. Who knows, either the planets were aligned just right or one-hour of therapy beforehand actually did some good. I still felt like a jumpy nut bag but part of me was okay with that.

An Advertisement for Birth Control
As most of you know, Miss Jasmine is now in her fifth year of college and that is not because she is going for her masters. This is just to pull a simple bachelors degree in Journalism out of her ass. About two-weeks ago she called to tell me that she is going to have to withdrawal from three, (3) THREE! of her classes because she is flunking out. Now, she was only taking four classes so having to drop three will put her down to one class for the semester. My reaction to this news was, oh what's the word that could best describe my retort? Wrath, anger, profanity-laced rage? I say yes to all of the above.

The details of this nonsense are silly and revolve around Jasmine's sometimes lacking ability to see the big picture. It is not drinking, drugs or even a boy that is the problem. It is Italian. Jasmine cannot seem to learn Italian. Because of that, she started screwing up in her other classes, one of them being Health, which to me is like failing gym.

The thing that cracks my brain and makes me want to smack the stupid out of her is that I had to get a fucking student loan for her to go this semester. Yes, this one precious class that she has left is now worth around ten grand.

And in what I consider unfortunate timing for me to be happy for her, but good for her because she doesn't have a whole lot of school to worry about, Jasmine and a bunch of her sticky friends are driving to Asbury Park to see Gogol Bordello at the Stone Pony on Monday night. Sounds like a great time and if I were twenty-three, this is what I might be doing. I'm just not in the mood for her to be having a great time right now.

Martha is so pissed at her that we really can't speak of it yet. We are driving to PA for Thanksgiving so we all have about five weeks to find our 'happy places' on this issue so we can have a nice holiday with each other.