Holly Northrop Blog

A quick look at April and I see that Jasmine is coming home for a weekend visit. I'll be shooting a friends pre-wedding photos all around Manhattan. Then I'll be alone one weekend when Martha travels to North Carolina to visit her mother. This time I'll be baking cookies for profit and hopefully visiting lots and lots of art museums. Somewhere in there maybe I'll get an interview or two.

Before a job interview last week, Martha and I were lying in bed enjoying a little morning conversation.
"I had a dream last night that I had cancer." I said.
"Oh god holly"
"Yep, I was in a hospital bed and I had cancer. Oh and I had to have a little dental work done; they did it right there in the bed."
Laughter
"You were there, I had started chemo, and well yeah, that is it. It was..."
"God Holly", she interrupted, "why don't you cheer up a little?"

After I printed out the last page of my resume packet, the printer died. But considering that it's almost six years old and the endless amount of prints, resumes, letters and general directions I've printed out on the thing, it's amazing that it has lasted this long.

I use shit to death. I wear clothes until they are rags. I rip though coats like nobody's business. It seems like at the end of every season I need a new coat. My CD player is eighteen years old, the receiver is roughly thirteen, and the turntable and cassette deck I've had for at least ten years. The speakers however are new. I even have vinyl records that I bought when I was is high school. My Canon 35 mm camera is the one my dad bought me (new) in 1981. Even my Holga is over three years old and they are not supposed to last past a year. Right now, all Martha hears is that I have a bunch of shit that is going to break all at one time and I will need $1,000 to upgrade. She did buy me a new printer, however.

The older I get, the older all my crap gets.

There are only three physical things that I have left from my marriage. The emotional things are too numerous to mention and in reality, it's not what happened in the marriage so much as the outstanding shitty behavior that happened well after the divorce. But anyhoo, all three of these things were already old when we bought them. There is the Victorian lamp in my photo room. Originally, we bought two of them; Jim got the other one. I am sure his second wife promptly made him throw it out along with all of his guitars and other musical instruments and anything having to do with his former self. I suppose that is one way to weed out the past. Let the replacement dig through your crap and make a new life for you.

Ok, obviously I'm having a few issues here but let us press on.

Jim and I bought the pair of lamps at the Salvation Army in East Liberty for $14.00. The lamp I have still has the price on it, written in Sharpie Permanent Marker on the metal base. I have a 1960s marble table that I now use to cut mattes and file negs on, but back then, it was our kitchen table. Many a thanksgiving dinner and morning cereal has happened around the thing. I think we paid $20.00 for it.

Lastly, there is the 1940's red leather chair in the living room. Jim and I bought the red chair at the Salvation Army in Bloomfield for $45.00, the most we ever spent on a thrift store item. When Lily was a kitten, she went after it so there is some damage on the left side but over all it's in great shape. I am debating on giving it to Jasmine but not until she looks to be a little more stable in her housing. Could be awhile.

I've been thinking about throwing out a bunch of stuff. I know I should. I've done this before but I could always weed out more. What is the fucking point of dragging around crap year after year? Ok fine, I understand why it has happened. My mom threw away anything that I couldn't take with me when I left home. She tossed out paintings, drawings, journals, yearbooks, photos, furniture, art supplies, clothes, sketchbooks, reading books, letters etc. Gone, all fucking gone. The problem is, that shit was not hers to throw out. I would have eventually put it on the curb but I lost that opportunity.

So now, because I'm so damaged I hold on to things like grim death. I have a painting that a friend did, that I hate but cannot seem to throw it away because a friend did it. A friend I no longer talk to. So it sits in the sunroom facing the wall in the corner. I have old journals that I WILL NEVER READ, and most certainly do not want anyone else to read after I'm dead, so I really should toss that shit out. I have stacks and stacks of old VCR tapes from when Jim used to bring home the video camera from work. He would put the thing on the tripod and film whatever happened in the living room for hours and hours. Mostly, it is of Jasmine running around the room, chasing the cat with her bubbletop toy vacuum cleaner, screaming out total gibberish all the while looking like an add for Ritalin. Although the tapes could be used as a public service announcement for birth control, the thing about the VCR tape is that Martha and I don't even have the VCR hooked up.

So maybe some weeding is in order. Seems like my life, while tidy, upon a closer look is pretty chunky with useless crap. Throw out all the shit and have the VCR transferred to DVD is what I'm thinking. At least the storage of a DVD is much, much smaller. Eventually, things will be so small; I won't even notice them at all. And I suppose that is the real point.

In a coffee shop last week, while sitting amongst the tourists and the unemployed, I let my mind wonder as I watched a girl at the next table over. She was franticly thumb-typing on her Sidekick^TM (isn't that a $300.00 phone?) laughing and snorting to herself, completely oblivious to everything around her. Her wallet was sticking out of her purse, just inches away from me screaming to be stolen. Something in the way the late afternoon sunlight crawled across her Louie Vuitton Monogram Canvas Tote, combined with her mouth-breathing laughter, made me think of New Jersey.

Between the ages of seven and ten, I lived in Jersey, Trenton to be exact. My father moved us there one year after the race riots of 1968. I did 4th grade and half of 5th grade there before my dad moved us to Ohio. Jersey was so very different from Meadville, PA. Jersey is where I started playing with matches behind the school, had my first encounter with a bully and dabbled in the teachers' pet role by way of crossing guard. Not in that order, if I remember correctly, I think it was suck-up, bully and then matches.

My dad had a ranch house built on an empty lot on Darrah Lane. We moved in just as they were finishing the final details and the whole house had that new house smell. However, the yard was not finished. The whole thing was one big mud pit. Soon after we moved in the landscapers came around with their backhoe and in an attempt to level the back yard they smashed the digging bucket through the wall and into my bedroom, knocking my bed across the room, breaking the window and leaving a huge gash in the wall.

My mom freaked out, (obviously), but she was freaking out at the idea of at night, an animal would be able to crawl inside the house. My seven-year-old brain had not even thought of that until she mentioned it but once she did, I could not stop thinking about a foaming-at-the-mouth animal, clawing its way into my room in the middle of deep dark night.

For three nights in a row I hardly slept at all. This was the beginning of a long, long road of my mother's neurosis keeping me awake at night.

Anyway, when we first moved to Trenton we still had a baby grand piano in the living room but soon after we moved there my parents sold it and bought a Hammond organ and my piano lessons turned into organ lessons.

My teacher The Organ Lady, lived across the street from us and twice a week I would walk over there for my lessons. It was an hour of me butchering Bach's Toccata in D minor for organ (very fitting I know), a few show tunes and standards like Greensleeves. After my lessons, The Organ Lady would come over to my house and hang out with my mom.

In the summer, mom would always bring out two glasses and hand one to The Organ Lady and they would proceed to talk about my progress. Together they would stand under the tree in the front yard, drinking gin-spiked lemonade; my mother in her cream and white pinstriped Capri pants, laughing as cigarette smoke streamed out of her nose, while they both swatted their hands in the air at the mosquitoes.

Eventually the conversation would turn to the 'big accident' that happened about a year before we moved there. It was on the corner of Princeton Pike and Darrah Lane. The Organ Lady was clearly fuckup about it because it seemed like every conversation I overheard was eventually about the crash, a crash that my mom never even witnessed.

From what I remember overhearing, it was a massive accident involving four cars. One of the cars pulled out in front of a truck causing a chain reaction where a large white car became airborne and smashed into the house on the corner, killing the woman driving the car. Apparently, there was alcohol involved and I think a dog was killed inside the house. The Organ Lady lived next to the house on the corner and on that day, she brought a blanket out to cover the woman who, having been thrown from the car was now dead in the front yard near her property line.

Sometimes I would listen to this story while doing summersaults in our yard. Other times I would go in the house and stare at them from my bedroom window, listening to their low murmurs. I could always tell when they had stopped talking about the accident because as the sun went down the sound of my mother's cackles would grow louder, with an occasional snort here and there.

In the short time that I lived there, I managed to make a few friends. One friend who lived down the street had more toys then I had ever seen in my life. She had a younger brother but still, the entire basement was her play area. They even had a trampoline and an above ground pool. My parents used to tell me all the time how spoiled I was, but this girl was the living example of spoiled.

I had another friend that lived directly behind us. She was Italian and had seven brothers and one sister. She was the youngest and named after Saint Therese.

A few times her mother invited me over for dinner. Dinner at Theresa's house was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. They had two kitchens; one was in the basement that had a walkout into the backyard and the other was upstairs, on the first floor where normal kitchens are supposed to be. The kitchen in the basement was the summer kitchen. In middle of the summer kitchen stood an enormous 'L' shaped table with two plastic checkered tablecloths over them. All the dishes, silverware, serving bowls and glasses had been in the family for generations.

When it was time to eat we all held hands as her mother said grace and then everyone began talking, yelling and passing food around the two tables. Theresa's father did not speak English so most of the conversations were in Italian. I really liked Theresa's house mostly because it was the complete opposite of mine. Dinner at my house was a painfully quite event. We had a small square table, my parents sat on one side and I sat on the other, directly across from my mother. The only sound in the house was the sound of the kitchen wall clock ticking away at the night. Nobody had anything to say to anyone and one of my father's favorite lines was, "Children should be seen and not heard."

I had another friend who lived two houses down from Theresa but I didn't like going over there. Her house was totally trashed and I mean garbage and dirty toys everywhere. The whole place smelled like pee. It was disgusting and I'm not sure just what the hell was going on down there. In that version of suburbia, they clearly did not fit in.

About once a month, our next-door neighbors would get into a fight. They would scream so loud at each other, that I would sit in my bedroom and listen to them throwing shit; the sounds of crashing and glass shattering went on for well over an hour. Then I would hear the man crying out, "Help me, help me, she's trying to kill me. Please someone help me!" But no one ever did. No police car ever came to their house. It was weird because the next day, after an argument, I would see him walk out of his house and go to work, or I would see him mowing the yard. He didn't look like his life had been threatened. My dad used to say that they probably like to fight, that it got them all riled up. At the time, I had no fucking idea what he was talking about.

Jersey was weird. I had my bike stolen from our driveway and believe it or not, they actually found it. The cops found it in downtown Trenton. Some kid who lived in a horrible, burned out area in the city stole it. My dad and I went to pick it up. The kid had taken my basket off, removed my bell, changed the license plate, and ripped my banana seat. It didn't look anything like my bike but according to the serial numbers it was. My dad put it in the trunk of the Buick Wildcat and we drove home. But you know, I never really wanted to ride the thing again. Even when my dad fixed my seat, it just freaked me out that someone took it. I had the same feeling when someone stole the Jeep (again in Jersey only thirty years later) and they found it, stripped down to nothing but the frame, wet with rain and bird shit, abandon in a burned out field in Newark. (The repetition of certain events in my life is absurd.) Once everything was made to look all new again, I never really wanted to ride in the Jeep.

So where is all this going? I have no idea. Something about being unemployed in a coffee shop make me think of living in Jersey. Who knows how my mind works.

So far, unemployment is going well; keeping my head on straight and all. I figure, this one will suck, given the current state of the economy going to hell in a hand basket. It does no good to flip out about it all. In one of those 'little things you just happen to see' category, I watched a neighbor walk out of her house and shakeout a large 3 x 4 wee-wee pad in the bushes by her front steps. I think I need to make a concerted effort to get out of the house more.

My goal is to at least once a week devote the whole day to shooting in Manhattan. Picking an area or two and just focusing on a ten-block radius. One of the areas that I've been wanting to reshoot was down at the very tip of Manhattan, near the Staten Island Ferry.

I took the Path to WTC and scurried through that mess as quickly as possible. It's still fucked up, only now it's louder with all the construction. I walked up and over towards Liberty Park where I noticed that Double Check is back.

For a while, he was sitting over in Jersey at Exchange Place, just down the street from where we use to live. Martha and I stumbled upon him while out shooting one day. He was sitting right next to a huge clump of twisted metal that had been an I-beam at the WTC. All very bothersome.

Anyway, last week after zooming right by him, I stopped, took a big sigh, turned around and walked back over to him. The artist (J. Seward Johnson) as chosen to leave all the dents and scratches on him. I think I took a photo but I can't remember. I guess I'll have to wait for the film. That hardly every happens. I usually know whether or not I've taken a photo. More WTC art lives down at Battery Park. Unbeknownst to me the city decided it was a good idea to stick the big metal globe that used to sit outside of the WTC, right in front of the entrance to the Staten Island Ferry.

Maybe I did know this but completely forgot. Whatever, my psyche locked up when I walked by the bashed in globe. I'm not sure what upset me more. The thought of every commuter, twice a day walking by this thing, or the gaggles of tourists who where pointing digital cameras and cell phones at it.

Why must this city feel compelled to terrorize its commuters? What a nightmare it must be to work on Wall Street with all the flash bulbs and police in riot gear on the podiums at Federal Hall. They look like living gargoyles

After my fill of lower Manhattan, I went up to the International Center of Photography, which by the way for $12.00 I should see more photography then the splashing they have on their walls. All combined, there are more photos in the bookstore then in the gallery. Hell, I think I have more photography on my walls at home then they do in their weird little layout of a museum.

Either I have subliminally shoved the knowledge of where the displays of tragedy are located in this city or I'm on some karmic game of real time Stumble Upon. At ICP I walked into a room filled with over 100 newspaper front pages from around the world, dated the day after things blew up around here. It was the world enouncing the day the world ended, in full-page, full color photographs from every angle and in every language.

It seemed so fitting that it was down in the basement in a dark hole of a room. As I stood there surrounded by three walls of horror, I felt the air slowly leaking out of my lungs and I was unable to take in a breath. It reminded me of when I was a kid and fell out of a tree. It knocked the wind out of me when I hit the ground. Next to me, sitting on a bench was a woman crying. The sound of her blowing her nose snapped me out of it and I turned, walked out of the room, ran up the stairs, and pushed my way out of the front doors and into the bright sunlight of a beautiful Manhattan day.

It seems like all this city has to offer visitors is glossy nostalgia and tragedy. I don't see New York that way at all. I've been here too long, I've walked around too much to only see the highlight reel. I understand that the WTC is one of the top ten tourist stops on the Hop On Hop Off, All Around Town Double-Decker Bus thing. I mean I get it; Broadway in nothing more then one big strip mall, Times Square is Disney and Ground Zero is tragedy as a destination. The dollar is in the tank and the world is coming here with empty suitcases so they can load up on crap. We are nothing but Wal*Mart.

I get it. I get it, but I just didn't realize how it has all evolved seamlessly. I can't help but notice how things have become so streamlined in a very short time. It is getting harder and harder to find the kind of miscellaneous mixture of creativity that was so abundant just a few years ago.

A woman walked up to me and asked me if I spoke English. She was an American visiting New York City. Lost and frustrated, could not find anyone who actually lived here, spoke English and could tell her which way Carmine Street was. After I pointed her in the right direction, I just stood on the sidewalk, struck by sadness at the weirdness of that question.

Well, last week the siding people finally finished up. Jesus Christ they are gone. There is still some caulking that Martha and I are going to have to handle. If we don't fill up the seams, when the wasps come and you know they will, our house will once again be one big hive.

After the massive rain storms that pounded the shit out of us over the weekend, Martha noticed a drip pattern in the hallway. Having just put a new roof on last year and new siding all over for the past five weeks, the only drip pattern in my life should be in my head. I was supposed to go out on the roof and see if I could see anything but my heart just wasn't in it. And you know, if I'm on a roof and if I'm not feeling it, then I probably shouldn't be out there in the first place. Oh yea! Here come more noise making workers to find the mystery leak. It is endless.

Like everyone else around here we have a little bit of water in the basement and we have a small pond, or as I like to call it, a seasonal pond, in our back, back yard. The birds like it and of course, the ducks are migrating to it. When it freezes, we will then have a little ice-slaking rink. Standing at the kitchen window it is fun to watch the birds play in the water, seeing how I have all this time now to do things like gaze at ducks.

I went into Manhattan on Thursday for a no charge dental checkup, Martha's favorite kind. After that, the day was all mine. Now of course on the day I have to go in there was a bomb in Times Square.

It was just a coincidence that I had already planned on going over there to shoot a little and maybe go to the International Center of Photography. Boy, if we had some extra money, (isn't that funny) I would take a class there. But as it stands, I can't even join with an Individual Membership running $75.00. Most of the classes that I might be interested in are over $600.00.

When I left the house at 7:00 am that day, I read that they had closed Times Square. By the time I had finished my three hour pilgrimage (I mean commute), and in true New York City fashion, traffic was back to normal. When I had finished with my dental appointment at noon, they only had the island where the recruiting station sits, and the flash point of the bomb, blocked off. I actually walked right up to it and shot some film and a few photos with my snazzy new cell phone.

Having nowhere to go and no real agenda was despite being awesome, a little stressful in that 'where to go to the bathroom' kind of way. I have a few spots in the village, but midtown, I'll need to explore that further. I can't keep asking my friends to let me in their buildings so I can pee.

For lunch, I tied my purse to a chair and ate soup in Bryant Park where I sat two tables over from an Indian man who was practicing the violin. Sitting in Bryant Park I noted that most of the folks around me were nothing like me at all, which is a sensation one would think I would be used to by now. But uptown is so very, very different than the village. It's not that I'm not familiar with it, I so am. When we first moved here, every damn day I commuted into Manhattan via Times Square. I had to walk down 42nd street and catch the subway downtown to 8th Street. It was a twice-daily nightmare. I also think Times Square is where I started loathing anyone not from here.

Later on in the day, I met a friend and after a cookie and some sunshine, she took me back to her office. Someone that I used to work with has been freelancing for her. I hadn't seen him in over two years. He quit the Voice after the merger, along with a bunch of other people from the web department. Seeing him was sad and happy at the same time, if that makes any sense. I suppose this city is littered with shell-shocked ex-Voice employees. I feel like I was in a cult or something. Some kind of Heaven's Gate thing, except I got out before the Phenobarbital and plastic bags were passed out.

I remember someone telling me years ago that once a Voice employee, always a Voice employee. I kind of knew what he meant at the time and now, I really understand.

I'm done, I'm done. Its' January and we all know what that means. It's a new season of The L Word! Hurry, mute that fucking theme song!

Like all bad relationships that do not end in gunplay, eventually someone either leaves on their own, or walks away after being told to get the fuck out. I have been in a nasty staring contest for about six-months with the mothership and finally, they blinked. Of no real surprise to anyone, I was officially laid-off on Monday, I was asked to leave.

I have numerous mixed feelings about all of this but the foremost reaction I have is the desire to take a sauna everyday for about month so I can sweat the past two years of ugliness out of my pores.

Having worked there for over six years; the last two being one of the worst professional spans of my career, forced to watch well over 100 people leave either voluntary or involuntary; I am a little weirded out by the length of it all. It was the longest job I have ever had, so it will probably take me some time to get my bearings.

I guess the best way to gauge my state of mind is to review what I did upon leaving the building for the last time. I walked down Bowery, deep into Chinatown and shot two rolls of film. As I slowly wiggled my way back up to C-Lab to pick up a roll of color film, I stopped and had coffee at Starfucks, where I openly and aggressively applied Tiger Balm to my back while sucking down a tall coffee. Walking further up Broadway, I slid into Best Buy and bought the new Cat Power with a Christmas gift card that I had been carrying around with me. All extremely normal things.

I was hired at the Voice on my 39th birthday, one week after my unemployment had run out and three months after the Towers fell. The pit would continue to burn for another two months and every day on my way into work, out to lunch and on the way home, the air smelt like a combination of chemicals and wet earth that would get up in the sinuses and linger on the tongue.

How I got the job was a simple matter of having a friend who used to work there. He made a call for me and before I knew it, I was hired. The funny thing about my interview was, deep down in my gut I just knew I was going to work there. Before my interview, I sat over in Cooper Square Park smoking a cigarette, looking around I could just see myself there. The other funny thing is that for the past two years I haven't seen myself there at all. Long gone are the folks whom I respected and enjoyed working with, replaced with people who never wanted to have anything to do with me; an interesting environment to say the least.

Yes, my last day at the Voice ended quietly. After shooting for several hours, I made my way to Hoboken where I jumped on a train to meet Martha. I dived right into the post-apocalyptic nightmare that is known as The Road, which I am right in the middle of. Then something completely unheard of happened. I managed to have a whole three-seater to myself all the way to Suffern, New York.

Crazy Isn't Stupid, Stupid is Just Stupid
Moving on, spring is coming, I can tell even though we still have white snow and brown deer poop in the yard. We start this week out as week five of the siding people and with the exception of some kind a weather issue; they just might finish the job. No. Fucking. Way. I know, right?

Martha and I did what we always do when one of us is let go and our financial future is sent into a tailspin, we bought something pricey. We consider it the layoff gift, because we're that damn weird and being laid off isn't a big enough gift in and of it's self, we bought art. Excuse me we bought Photography, apparently, a dying art form, which complete strangers delight in telling me once they see a Holga around my neck. People are so damn strange.

I remember years ago when Martha bought me a digital camera for my 40th birthday. I fooled around with it for days, shooting in all different modes and all the different settings. Eventually I settled on a programmed setting of no flash, white balanced, ASA 400, no beep, no sound and one shot only. Basically over time I navigated as close to my 35mm as possible. I goofed around with the Black & White setting but the whole thing felt stupid. I shot hundreds and hundreds of digital images over the course of two and a half years. The very first version of my website was almost all digital. Roughly all the Voice work I shot was digital, except for a few features where I was able to use the Holga for that 'Holga Look'. On a side note, I find if very funny that the last thing I shot for the Voice was this, although, it is not the one I would have picked. I would have chosen this one, but I'm just a picky bitch.

Countless times when I am out shooting or just walking from one place to another in New York the soundtrack in my ears perfectly matches the visuals of my path. Some are obvious like walking down McDougal Street while listening to Dylan or walking in step to Marquee Moon, over by Bowery and Bleecker, even though all that exists down there are hi-rise apartments full of Upper East Side Blonde girls who suddenly want to live the 'Downtown Lifestyle'. Thank god for places like Avalon Bowery Place, (Studios starting at $2,895) that can make those dreams safely come true. For Martha and I to live there, it would cost us around $6,500 a month and I wouldn't be able to have a darkroom.

Anyway, despite New York's continual slide into wealth management, I am talking about the delightful musical surprises that happen. Things like listening to Elvis in the middle of Union Square, or the Pixies in SoHo. Weird little bits of musical chance that can make the most miserable event tolerable.

One such moment happened last week when I was on the 6 Train going uptown to what I thought was to be a routine dental visit, but more on that in a minute. I had to stand on the train, which normally I don't mind but when the train is crammed full of shithead foreign tourists coming fresh off a Ground Zero stop, I turn into one big cranky face.

Just when I decided that I hated everyone, through my ear buds the sounds of the Butthole Surfers, Leave Me Alone flowed faintly in the background. In the process of yanking my hand up to adjust the volume control, I smacked the ass of the girl in front of me.

She jumped up and around allowing me the full on force of her lunch choice involving buckets of garlic. I smiled, she didn't, I rolled my eyes and shifted my direction by precisely one inch to the left and turned up the music. Standing three inches from my face and mouth breathing garlic at me, she glared at me for exactly one whole subway stop, and then looked away once we passed 14th street, having taught me a harsh, harsh lesson. (Like that had any effect on me, honestly now, all you did was stare at me and make my eyes water.)

This particular 6 train was being driven by Mr. Fuck-You-I'm-in-the-Union-Driver. You know the guy. He doesn't give a fuck about any of it and pushes the train to go as fast as he can, stopping on a dime in every station, laughing to himself in his little booth at the sounds of bodies banging about each subway car. He's the guy that we've all seen get off his shift and slide out of the subway car like Superfly, saying "Hey Baby" while pointing to all the female Transit employees.

Riding with Youngblood, you know the drill, find a nook and ride the wave. While traveling between subway stations and well beyond 60 miles per hour on some of the long stretches, for a split second your feet can actually leave the ground. It's the slamming on of the brakes that you have to be ready for. Every stop, all the tourists went flying, yet oddly, they never stopped talking to each other. Hands on pole, legs in the air, yak, yak, yak. I know they are talking because I can see their mouths moving around, but thankfully, all I hear is Butthole.

Once we get to my stop, I birth myself out of the subway car and immediately moved into the salmon upstream sensation of 59th street at lunch hour. It doesn't matter what direction you are headed, it is always the opposite of the flow. It's like a blizzard, always in your face and way too bright.

I am late when I get to the dentist so within seconds I am in the chair with the little napkin thing around my neck. Things move along like normal when the hygienist notices something about my upper left molar. Great. Okay, well, let's see what it is.

Now my relationship with this particular dentist is long and strong. For years, she was the only professional of any kind that I was seeing. That means that she was my therapist, my doctor consult and a life coach. She went through Jasmine's cancer with me where I would go there for check ups, just lay in the chair, and cry. Sad but true.

All this drives Martha crazy because:
a: Dr B (as she is known) is out of network;
b: she's fucking crazy Park Avenue expensive; and
c: I simply will not consider anyone else.

I can guarantee that as Martha is reading this, her hands are sweating and she's getting a headache, combined with a little stomach upset.

Dr. B pokes around in my mouth and does not like what she sees. Three shots of Novocain and a laser procedure later, I am numb and slightly shaken. But it wasn't as bad (meaning I wasn't as bad) as it can be. In fact, Dr. B touched my shoulder and said, "I just want you to know that was the most normal I've ever seen you. You're almost like a normal patient."

Drugs and therapy baby, drugs and therapy.

So, good feeling gone when I go to check out. The total for the day came to $4,500. Upon hearing that, I just started to ball. Dr. B walked over to me and hugged me then told the billing clerk to cut the bill in half.

Half is still crazy but not $4,500 crazy as I pointed out to Martha later on that evening, when she about had a heart attack.

I may be unemployed but as Martha pointed out to me while lying in bed one morning, "Thank god you're on medication."