Holly Northrop Blog

Still shooting with the Horizon 202 and I've got about another week before I should 'respectively' give it back. Seeing how I have to go into Manhattan twice this week I should be good. Going from the solid square format of my Holga to shooting in panoramic is a refreshing change. Suddenly the world has opened up. Not all shots can be pans, although it could be fun to do a series.

Martha and I went to see Batman over the weekend. We originally had tickets to the IMAX in Nyack but we decided against making Martha basically drive to work on a Saturday. After driving all week long from Hudson to Mahwah and then back, by Friday she's pretty bat shit crazy so adding another day, is nothing short of cruel. At the time we ordered tickets it sounded like a fun idea but on the day of the event we changed our minds and went up to the local crap theater, here in Hudson.

There were maybe fifteen people there but the truly stand out bunch was a family that sat in the last row up to our right. There were four of them, mom, dad, and two sons and all so very, very overweight that together they could have made three more people. They sat in the last row with an empty seat between each one of them and proceeded to wrinkle paper and chew food for a solid two hours of the two and a half hour movie. They would eat and eat and then every fifteen minutes of so they would send one of the kids down to the concession stand to stock up on candy and free refills on popcorn and soda. They only stopped eating when the food trough closed. Finally, the last thirty minutes of the movie were quiet.

The movie was long and Heath was awesome. I found the nurse outfit more disturbing then anything else. Free refills and processed foods should be eliminated.

I think I might be reaching the end of my ability to go to a theater. Martha and I have large TV so honestly what the fuck are we doing? At home we can get fucked up, pause for bathroom and water breaks and the occasional 'I need a moment break' without any trouble at all. I can touch and lay on anything I want without fear and stickiness. The only things that are sticky in my house are the things that are supposed to be sticky, like tape and spray mount. Ok so we don't have surround sound and for the moment we have to wait until things are released on DVD but still.

Jasmine's apartment saga continues. She's found a place that she loves, and is in the high range of her price range. That's funny, it's not really her price range it's more like ours now isn't it. Martha spoke with the landlord, she being the more responsible sounding out of the two of Jasmine's mothers. Technically, Jazz has three mothers, but none of us considers that beer-drinking bitch in PA to be anything more than a pain in the ass.

Speaking of asses, Jasmine's father has yet to pony up any money to help his daughter out. He gave her 100 bucks for her birthday, which she proceeded to spend on gas money to go see him, visit a friend in Pittsburgh and then back home to school. Nice. You know, I could get over shit faster if he would stop doing shit.

Anyway, the plan is to go to Pittsburgh once Jazz is a little settled. I think we are going to stay a few days and hang out with her. I want to visit my grandparents' graves and Martha wants to see actual living people. It will be hard to resist the urge to drive that extra hour up Route 8 and burn down a certain brick house with a recently landscaped yard, but I'll try.

I have more bling in my mouth, via a new gold tooth. Yes, that makes two. It's in the back so who cares but it is kind of fun to have. I told Martha she doesn't have to buy me jewelry just buy me teeth.

For the first time in my life, I have borrowed a camera from a friend. I know, I know I'm scared too but this camera he has is very unique and I couldn't help myself. It is a Horizon 202 and it shoots pans but what makes it super cool is the look and feel of the pans. Plus, it's Russian. I have a thing for Russian cameras. I've wanted to Kiev 88 (basically a Russian Hasselblad) for years and my Lubital, while heavy and a picky bitch, is super fun to play with.

Anyway I'm going to take the beast into Manhattan this week and well, we'll see what I get. Just because the camera is cool doesn't mean I know what the hell I'm doing with it.

Jasmine has started looking for an apartment in Pittsburgh. Ah yes, the average Pittsburgh landlord is truly unique to the region. South Side, Squirrel Hill, Bloomfield, Friendship and Shadyside all have distinct 'characters' and so do the Landlords.

Just in Pittsburgh alone I've lived in seven places, ten if I count the three dorm rooms I was in while I lived on the campus of Duquesne University. One of those places was a four bedroom brick house that Martha and I owned in Friendship. The funny thing about Pittsburgh is that I'm not from there I just happen to end up living there a lot. I went to college there but then I've moved back (of my own free will) two other times. Martha, who is from there, would move back in a heartbeat.

So now Jazz has begun the process of meeting prospective new landlords and witnessing just how fucked up people can live.

Two apartments come to mind that I've had the misfortune of standing in while apartment hunting in Pittsburgh. Both are from the same hunt and I think they were both on the same day. It is from the time period that Martha and I were looking for our first apartment together. I was unemployed (surprise, surprise) and Martha worked all day, (again surprise, surprise) so it was my 'job' to scope out a good apartment and then bring her back later for final approval.

The first place was a one bedroom right on the edge of Shadyside near The Center of the Arts. They allowed pets, but it was on street parking. The outside of the building was awesome Big old sloppy Pittsburgh row house. Just huge. It was four stories high and the apartment was on the top floor. It had amazing original woodwork and the bedroom was possibly the largest bedroom I've ever seen. It was the whole top floor and while the ceilings were slanted in that attic way, there was good overall floor space and it had a balcony just off of the kitchen. There was just one MAJOR problem.

The floor looked bizarre. It was wall-to-wall carpet but it had a weird texture to it. When I asked the crunchy hippy chick who lived there what kind of carpet it was, that is when she told me that she had never vacuumed the floor in the ENTIRE two years that she had been living there. She had a cute little dog and the carpet was COVERED in dog hair.

My mouth dropped open and I looked at her and then the owner and then back at her in total disgust and confusion. How could you not vacuum a carpet for over two years AND how could you show an apartment in that condition and think for one second that anyone is going to rent it. What was even more bizarre was when I made the comment that the whole thing was disgusting she shot back with a 'vacuum cleaners are expensive' explanation.

The second apartment was just down the street, also in Shadyside and had an even more disgusting problem. The place was huge (two bedroom) and again, I would have totally considered it except the kitchen had roaches crawling all over everything. The stove, the counter tops, you name it they were there. Some dead, some living and all of them not even running away from us.

This apartment still had people living in it so really, I'm not sure what the hell was going on. There was a kid's room, so there was a child living there and the furniture was nice but the apartment was infested with roaches. And again the owner just shrugged her shoulders and went rambling on in some heavy Slovak accent about how great the neighborhood was.

Needless to say, Martha never saw either one of those places.

Jasmine came home for her twenty-fourth birthday this weekend and I think we sufficiently scared the hell out of her. In just a few short weeks, she will be graduating and moving to Pittsburgh. She's yet to secure a job, apartment or any kind of real "plan". Now, when all of us were twenty-four were we not all total jackasses that flew by the seat of our jeans? So it is interesting for me to be on the other side of the whole 'after college' scenario. Jazz is overwhelmed and Martha and I can't help but see just how fucking easy it all would be to have a $600 a month apartment instead of mortgage. To be able to self-medicate with cheap beer, whisky and cigarettes instead of weekly mental illness checkups. Rather than be unemployed over 40, to be very employable with a salary requirement of under 25k a year. And I of course want better teeth.

But anyway, she's freaking out and I feel that given the time frame that we had to freak her out in (roughly 72 hours) we did a fine, fine job.

Seeing how it was her birthday, we tried to have a little bit of fun. Sushi, and a brand new iPod, but at Happy Clown Jasmine dropped her ice cream in the dirt.

Right now, you could say that she is in a bit of a rough patch. She's got a new iPod but her computer is broken and down in Pittsburgh waiting for someone (not us) to donate money for her to get it fixed. The apartment she's in has no air-conditioning and no cable tv. She's working fulltime at Staples, driving a gas guzzling SUV at a time when gas is over $4.00.

I know she's worried and it's real hard for her to see that in as little as six months things will be totally different and in a year she will have found her grove. That's the thing with life; it keeps moving.

Besides I don't know what the hell she's freaking out about, I got an AARP membership card in the mail. Now there's something to get weird about. But I did manage to sell a piece at the CCCA Landscape show. How cool is that?

We did so much running around this weekend and between all the crap we did on Saturday, (Psychologist check-in; Home Depot; Best Buy; Lunch; dropping off submissions at one gallery and then visiting another; tea shopping; sushi dinner and of course Happy Clown) then the massive yard work that Martha and I did on Sunday, it is no wonder that on the way to the grocery store I discovered that I had put my pants on inside out. Now that is tired.

Well it seems as though the little cold I caught turned into a coughing nightmare. Wait, saying it was a nightmare implies that there might have been some sleeping involved and that has not been the case. I had a dry hack for four days. I would cough so hard that all the air would leave my lungs and then I would gasp for air. It was awesome. I took NyQuil and all that happened was I would pass out for an hour wake up coughing but still be fucked up on the NyQuil.

It was like this. You know when your drunk and you fall asleep but wake about an hour in and you realize that you're still drunk but now it's even worse because it's not the fun drunk but sleepy unable to sleep drunk, thinking you're going to puke drunk.

It was like that, only with out the fun drunk part.

The whole thing turned into a cycle of days the started with DayQuil, then Sudafed Severe Cold with Sudafed Sinus a little nose spray and then sucking on a few Halls Mentholated Cough Drops. Then I was quiet for a while, I might even fall asleep for an hour or so but bolt upright coughing and then the whole cycle of DayQuil, Sudafed, nose spray, cough drops would start all over again.

At one point, I was taking Dayquil and NyQuil Cough interchangeably. Drink one and chase it with the other. I totally had a major buzz on but I was still coughing.

That was my week. Nothing happened and I did nothing. I didn't go shoot, go to therapy, or cook. The house is a mess and I'm so not happy. I slept on the couch for three nights in a row solid. Then I would spend a good chunk of the day there downing shots of DayQuil and chewing Sudafed pills. When I add in all the over the counter medicine combine with the lack of sleep, I could barely handle any TV that was more mentally stimulating than Charmed.

By Sunday I am still coughing, the glands on the left side of my neck have swollen and I am totally exhausted. Martha has tried to get me in to see a doctor but because I'm not a patent of anyone I have to wait for three more weeks for an appointment. Or I could walk over to the ER at the hospital and see a doctor within a hour or so. But the cost for the insurance company would be ten times higher then if I could just go to a doctor. If I had a doctor up here then they could see me that very day but because I'm a new patent, I have to wait. How does that make any sense?