Holly Northrop Blog

So let me just point out something. This guy, the jackass on the left, is a total (and I mead TOTAL) tool.

Moving on, or is it backwards? Not sure.

When you write about Ohio, Ohio writes back. Although not in direct response to what I wrote last week but more like some cosmic black hole of southern Ohio strangeness.

I got an email from an old friend from a long fucking time ago. What do you say to someone to whom you haven't had a conversation with (almost to the day) in twenty-four years?

"Hey, what's up?" Seems way too open-ended but in a way we all kind of want a sum up. A fifty-point events outline of our lives, minus all the heartache, long-winded explanations and balls out exaggerations.

Like this:

1. Graduated College
2. Moved to Ohio
3. Got Married
4. Got a Cat
5. Moved to Denver
6. Had a Baby
7. Got a Job
8. Laid Off
9. Stopped Driving
10. Got Another Job
11. Quit Job
12. Moved back to Pittsburgh
13. Got Another Job
14. Started a Magazine
15. Cat Died
16. Started Showing Photography
17. Laid Off
18. Got Another Cat
19. Moved in With Martha
20. Got Another Cat
21. Moved to DC
22. Got a Divorce
23. Got Another Job
24. Lived in Misery
25. Quit Job
26. Moved back to Pittsburgh
27. Got Another Job
28. Bought First Car
29. Started Driving
30. Moved to Butler
31. Got Another Cat
32. Got Another Job
33. Bought a House
34. Moved back to Pittsburgh
35. Father Died
36. Transferred to New York City
37. Stopped Driving
38. Sold House
39. Moved to New Jersey
40. Laid Off
41. Got Another Job
42. First Car Stolen
43. Daughter Got Cancer
44. Daughter Sent to College
45. Cat Died
46. Mother Died
47. Got Real Sick
48. Bought another House
49. Moved to Upstate New York
50. Laid Off

See then one can weave in-between the numbers all the emotional reactions that one would assume happened but not necessarily what did happen. Example, #44. Daughter Sent to College, does not mean that there was that sadness, empty nest thing. Hardly. But if I just put it on a list, anybody can assume anything they want and most people, would think the nicer things.

Another example is that I was more upset when my cat died then when my mother died. Odd? Why yes. Not normal at all, but you know, that is just the way it was. And five years later that's still kind of the way it is. What upsets me about my mother has more to do with what life was like with her, instead of actual death. My cat's death was just wretchedly sad.

But #43 Daughter Got Cancer is exactly as fucked up as sounds.

The nuts and bolts of a list like that is without knowing who we are; which after a twenty-four year absence how could you possibly know anything about anyone; our lives are nothing more than a series of events. I was here at this time and did this. Period.

It means nothing, it's not ever going to mean anything and when I'm dead, it will just be some weird chick's list.

Don't get me wrong. It was very cool to hear from him and for several days I found myself lost in memories. It's just that when something like that happens it really brings this whole time flies thing home. I guess you could say I'm in a creepy mood but I'm good. Seriously, it's all good. Or at least I'm comfortable with it all.

But how can you even explain the happiness that something like this can bring to a list.

Or this, which is downright awesome. Where do I put that on the list. Maybe between, #12 & 13 I suppose.

So for now, I don't want to think about my list. I'd rather be forcibly diverted given that we are all witnessing the end of the economic world. I think we could all use some evaporation into a healthy dose of Cosmic Slop, where things are not so fucking wicked.

With the fall colors in full bloom all around upstate New York, even the blackest hearted, black and white photographer feels the pull to break out the Ektachrome 200 color slide film and go shoot a tree with some water around it. Nature is just screaming at you to look at it.

So this Saturday I have two openings. Both are within the same block of each other in Hudson. One is A Show of Heads at the Limner and the other is a Hidden Hudson show at The Deffebach Gallery. At The Limner, I'm showing a photo of a floating head and at The Deffebach Gallery I'm showing three Polaroid's.

I have one more medical thing to get through this week and hopefully, (for fucks sake) I'll be done. Pretty much every week for about two and a half months I've had some doctor up my ass for various things. It's awesome. It's so extreme that even my therapist interjected last week that in all fairness this is too much and it is no wonder I'm a jumpy mess. Everyone thinks I'm overly dramatic until they hang out with me for a year or so.

Since the end of July when I ended up in the ER, I've had an X-Ray of my lungs; a CT scan of my lungs; several freckles burned off my arms and face; a pap smear; an internal sonogram (super fun); a mammogram and massive amounts of blood and urine work. The icing on the fuck-with-me-cake is a D&C this week. Fantastic. Thank GOD I have insurance.

In my head, I've had every known cancer that corresponds to whatever organ they are testing. Not only am I driving myself nuts, (that's a given) just imagine what I'm doing to Martha and Jasmine, when they'll listen to me.

It's all I can really think about, well that and the election and the deep dark cloud of doom that will cover the globe if McPain wins; our nation's/world's economy; thousands of layoffs in New York/world, and the weekly hemorrhaging of money from our nation's/world's existence and our own personal lives.

It's like we're racing our GMC Yukon down a highway that dead ends in 1000 yards. We can't seem to stop flicking Benjamin's and lit cigarettes out the window every two seconds and laughing our asses off while ACDC blasts from our iPod car integration systems.

So disappointing.

Right, so to spare "all ya all", this weeks post is short.

Aside from trying everyday not to freak out about something, things are...well now, who am I kidding, things around here are a little jumpy. I wake up jumpy and so the fuck what. So what if I have too much anxiety, who the hell doesn't at his point in the game? These are frightening times. As I've been saying to Martha, "I'm sick to death of seeing horrible shit happen that has never happened before."

At least my unemployment benefits have been extended. Extended until I get another job? Probably not. The good thing about being unemployed, (aside from the obvious) is that by this year's end I will have been in ten shows. That is the most ever and I think. Too bad it's a crap time to buy art, let alone an unknown artist but still. I did manage to sell one print! It's not like I've been sitting on my ass. I actually think that is impossible for me to do. I'm too squirrely and my project list is endless.

I am almost finished with next year's calendar. Every year around this time, I notice that the calendar I'm working on is way better than the last one. I suppose that is good; that whole thing about my work evolving and all. The idea that whatever I am working on is much more interesting than what I've done, keeps the fires burning, I guess is what they say.

Martha was in San Diego California all last week for a solar convention and I was home alone, avoiding the sun and waiting for dark. It didn't take but a day before I reverted back to my old weird self by staying up until after 2:00 and then waking up at 7am. I thought the meds were going to stop that but much like a runaway truck, sometimes only a sand ramp will stop me.

The show that I'm in during November is going to be awesome. I love showing at this gallery because Tim is not only a great artist, but he is a great curator. The show is called; A Show of Heads and the link is here.

Sometime over the past two weeks or so, our next-door neighbor has taken the air conditioner out of her window and now, she is leaving her magenta curtains open. The problem with this new, fuchsia view of her life is that she has a medical bed, complete with metal side rails up against the window. I know she is taking care of her father-in-law and yes, he deserves to see the outside world but in the two years we have lived up here, I do not remember this window being open. The man is mobile and does not spend the day in bed. I have to say that it is a little bothersome every time I walk out of our house and smack right there is a medical bed. It makes me think of two things that, much like bookends, are very related.

The immediate memory I have is when I was a kid, my little twin-sized bed had rails on the sides so that I wouldn't fall out of bed. I was a roller and I used to fall out all the time, almost every night. After about two weeks of middle-of-the-night incidents, my parents put up rails so they could get some sleep and, in an added bonus, I wouldn't break my neck.

The second thought I have is how I am probably going to end my final days in a bed with side rails. The whole inevitability of it all is a sobering way to start the outside part of any day.

She needs to move him back to the other room he was in, or maybe a nice room with a view of the meadow behind all of our houses. I'm sure he doesn't want to stare at the side of our house all damn day. All summer long, he used to sit on the porch every day, all day and watch the people go by. He always let us know if someone dropped a package off at our house and one time, he told us that he noticed a 'dark man walking around in our yard.' (It was a delivery guy looking for the side entrance.)

My guess is that neither one of us are happy about this. It's not like I can go over there and say to her, "Hey neighbor! So yeah, I'm a self-centered asshole and your father-in-law's medical bed bothers me, can you move it?" I'm sure her father-in-law's medical bed bothers her too.

So wow, is the world broke yet or what? What are we down to, 36 cents and a coupon for a free Egg McMuffin with purchase of medium coffee? Can you even buy coffee for 36 cents? Oh and, can we vote now? I'd like it to be over so can we just vote now. I want a black president for Christmas and I would like for Frankenstein and his Alaskan Bee's-nest-for-brains running mate to slither back into the shadows for the next decade or so. Well, he'll be dead in three to five but I have a feeling she'll be around for awhile. She wants to be president. A few years from now the Republican Party will have gussied her up and will parade her down the 'inside the beltway' runway as their version of the new Hillary.

"You bettcha" cha, cha, cha Palin went to five colleges in five years, (as apposed to Jasmine attending one college for five years) and she was a beauty queen? So hell yes, why not give her the keys to the country? Why stop at the country? Why not have her run the whole earth! Wooooo Queen of the Earth. Now she can really sink her teeth into a title like that.

This whole this is so insulting it makes me sick. I am nauseous to the point of barely being able to keep popsicles down.

Anyway, here is something weird; up until now, I've never seen anyone that I've ever taken a photo of again. I usually just take a photo and move on only to see them again on the light table. If I somehow manage to shoot something really cool of them, then they end up on a print and in a frame. There are just too many of us in this city to think that it would happen.

Well, I saw this guy at the train station again but this time he was drinking a Diet Coke® and eating a BABY RUTH® candy bar. Very different vibe indeed. At first, I smiled at him, as if I knew him because I thought I did. It took me a few seconds to realize where I remembered him from and how my wide smile must have seemed odd to him. And it did. He got kind of a weird look on his face and then kept glancing over at me every few seconds like I was going to get crazy on him. I had completely weirded him out by smiling at him, which I understand.

When I smile, a few things happen that do not work in my favor. I'm kind of transparent so I look super creepy in broad daylight and honestly my teeth do not help the overall presentation. I'm best gazed upon in more of a low light atmosphere, or in black and white. I had freaked him out so much that after a few minutes, he moved to another row of seats. Nice.

I had to pick up my mammogram films from St Mary's in Hoboken last week and from the second I stepped through the hospital doors to the second I walk out an alarm went off. Sometimes my timing is amazing. I couldn't make up the surrealism if I tried. The siren was like the old air raid sirens from the 40s but with a monotone voiceover "CODE RED 4TH FLOOR" on a ten second loop. All the lights were flashing from dim to bright to dim and then back to bright. It reminded me of Tomb Raider III Nevada Levels High: Security Compound.

What was even stranger was that no one seemed to care. The people I rode with in the elevator, the folks in radiology, general nursing staff walking the halls; I got nothing, no reaction what so ever. Everyone seemed to be oblivious to the whole event. Another thing I found interesting is that once you have an envelope with the word MAMMOGRAM printed in 72 point Helvetica Bold across the front, you can pretty much go anywhere in the hospital.

Case in point.

Going into Manhattan with three cents in my pocket and never the right clothing, my top four worries are: (in no order and ever changing)

1. Did I bring my ATM card?

1. What is the weather going to be like?

1. When do I have to catch my train to meet Martha?

1. Where the hell can I go to the bathroom?

1. Where can I buy over the counter medication if needed?

1. Did I bring enough film, is it a Jewish holiday and how close to B&H am I?

1. Does this bodega have string cheese?

1. Oh my god, where is my hand sanitizer?

The Hudson Artswalk is the 10th -13th this weekend. Come up or down or all around if you can. I have five pieces in the main gallery and three pieces at the CCCA Gallery space for the Hang Dog Show. Martha has four pieces in the main gallery also. Here's how queer we are. We volunteered this year but the stipulation is that we have to sit together. Lesbians.

I'm in another show in Texas. I wish I could see that one. It's a life after death themed show and I have three pieces hanging down there. One is The Cross at Ground Zero, another is of a grave I shot at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn and the other one, check this out, is of my dead mother in her casket. Yep, I went there. It's a great shot, so there. This holiday season is the five-year mark of her death and somehow it seemed fitting. The fact that I'm writing this on the exact day that my father died nine years ago is even weirder.

But anyway...moving on.

I never say this but it would be nice to sell something. Probably not the print of my dead mother but still there are other things that are not so disturbing, sort of. But it's not really a selling kind of time is it? We are all hording our money. Hell, I've turned into my grandma Schneider. Every day I tell Martha to withdrawal everything, bring it home, we will hide it all over the house and bury it in canning jars in the yard. Fuck them. Fuck the bankers of the world. The banking industry has NEVER been good to me.

I have all these projects that I'm trying to work on but doctors appointments and a general case of the head crazies have been prohibiting me from focusing on them. I want to make my yearly calendar, and oh, by the way they are no longer free to friends this year. Sorry but times are fucked and I am unemployed. If you want to do something helpful and you still have a job, buy my calendar.

I'm also trying to gather prints for a book, two books really. One would be a large photo book of my work and the other would be a smaller portfolio type book. I so need to update my design portfolio website and blah, blah, blah. I'm the busiest unemployed person I've ever known.

For about the past year, our sunporch has been slowing crumbling back into the earth. Now, when someone mentions that they have a sunporch it implies that they have a wonderful space with sundrenched-whitewashed floors and gentle breezes of lavender scented happiness that floats through pale yellow window sheers. Fluffy white pillows cover an inviting whicker-seating collection and beautiful dark green palms create pockets of cool shade.

The reality of our sunporch is much, much different.

To begin with, we use it as the main way in and out way of the house. More like a mudroom. The door is fucked up from when I had to push the screen in to unlock the door when we locked ourselves out. The weather stripping is coming off the bottom so when you open the door there are strands of rubber hanging off the door. Kind of like a rubber tire that has exploded on the highway.

The floor had hideous, and I do mean hideous, wall-to-wall teal colored indoor-outdoor carpeting. The previous owners even covered the red brick steps with it. The carpet was filthy, seeing how I had never cleaned it; not once in two years. Because there was a feeding station in there, the whole room smelled of warm cat food, regardless if the windows were open or not.

But the windows are cool, kind of an old 50's slat type. Each window has about fifteen slats of glass that open outward, but tilt down, so that even in a thunderstorm, it never rains in.

Oh but the water has been traveling through there in other ways. Ways I didn't even know about until we had the floor ripped up. Apparently, there has been a small stream running through it to the back of the house for about ten years. The good news is that under all that carpet and rotten plywood, there was an actual cement floor. It does have a rather large crack in it, but with a new layer of cement, some paint and new baseboard all that we will have to deal with is repainting the walls.

It's not like we actually have any money to do this shit. But we have to. The floor in front of the door was falling in because the water was rotting it out. Another winter and one frozen ice ball would have made it impossible to open the door. That would have been fun to come home to some cold dark night.

We had to get the tree in the backyard trimmed otherwise when the ice comes, and you know it will, some of the large droopy branches would most certainly have snapped and demolished the garage. Again, an interesting thing to either, come home to, wake up to, or watch happen.

We had to get new gutters because we barely made it through last winter. The three-foot long ice daggers that hung twenty feet above the front door last year, would have killed someone this year. And my god, what a fucked up thing to come home to, wake up to, or watch happen.

My nerves are shot. My therapist tells me that I have enormous anxiety (ya think?) and to take more Xanax, that that is what it is there for. I so do. Clearly, with each passing day I become less and less employable. Oh sure I can go spend the day in Manhattan walking around for six hours shooting. I do think my photography is getting better but I can't help but think that in the not too far off future I'll be sitting in some Social Security office somewhere filling out a form having to do with my ability to 'handle' a full time job.

It started with a weird cold that I caught within minutes of landing in the Charlotte, North Carolina airport this past June. While Martha went to rent a car, I walked over to baggage claim to grab our bag. It's always a surprise when it actually comes down the chute isn't it?

Anyway, the minute I turned around to the carousel, a rush of air blew over me and within minutes, I had a sore throat. It was weird and got really weirder. The whole visit I had a wicked sore throat and on the last day it turned into a cough. Thankfully, the flight home wasn't a cough fest but from the first night home and for a solid week after I slept on the couch every night coughing my fucking head off. And I mean COUGHING. I would cough all the air out of my lungs and then gasp for air. It was frightening.

So frightening that after Martha tried for days to get me an appointment with a doctor but no one would see me for four-five weeks, I walked over to the emergency room where they took an X-Ray of my lungs, gave me a scripts for antibiotics and cough syrup with some yummy Vicodin in it. The X-ray looked good so they diagnosed me with Acute Bronchitis and sent me home with instructions to follow up with my doctor five weeks from then.

I took the antibiotics and nurtured the cough medicine and for about a week, I felt better. But the minute the drugs stopped I started coughing again. Some days it felt like I just couldn't breath. I started to get worried and well, a little weirder so the head doctor decided to up my meds. Nice.

A week or so later is when I dropped Victor's Horizon 202 camera.

After $158 to fix the camera I go to my 'follow up' doctors' appointment where my new doctor reviews the X-ray and then asks me if anyone told me what they found in my lung?

WHAT?

Seems there was something 'funny' on the X-Ray; a grayish area in the lower right lobe. She wants to have another technician review the X-Ray and then decide if we should do a CT Scan. She'll call me.

Right.

So I TRY to go about my normal existence by obsessively chewing gum and working out and then jumping out of my skin every time the phone rings. Finally, after two days my cell rings while I'm out shooting in Manhattan. They want to do a CT scan. I call Martha and in what can only be described as extremely pathetic, I start crying while walking along the edge of the East River under the Brooklyn Bridge. (Yet I still continued to shoot photos, very odd) I am convinced that I have lung cancer and that I was going to be dead by Christmas, or at least by the end of September. I think I'm turning into Woody Allen.

The CT Scan was set for that Friday with my follow up visit two-weeks from then. On the day I walked over to the hospital for the scan there was a monster storm coming over the Catskills. Thunder, lightening the whole works. I walked over a little early so as not to have the heavens literally open up on me. They took me early, walking me back to the waiting area of the machine. Just as I am walking by the open door of the room, a flash of pure white light bursts out of the door. It was as though an enormous flash bulb went off to my left just as I was walking by. The timing was perfect and I bet my skeletal image is UV Ray burned into the wall that was on my right. Kind of like an early man cave painting.

Obviously, the hospital, which is on top of a hill, was hit by lightening. The CT machine was fried and they had to take me over to the other machine in the ER.

After the scan I'm told that if they find anything they'll call me, otherwise I'll see my doctor in two-weeks. What is with the wait for a phone call thing? Jesus Christ. After a few days I have both Jasmine and Martha up my ass to call the doctor but I just can't. I do not want to know. La, la la la la la la... I retreat, withdrawal and go into my own little happy place. Besides Jasmine was easily distracted because she was in the process of moving back to Pittsburgh having finished up school. She found a nice one-bedroom apartment in a good area of town and she's even going to have a cat.

On a beautiful Saturday morning and four days before I'm to go back for my follow up doc visit, I innocently check the mail. In the mail was a letter from Jasmine's college. I open it thinking it was a letter congratulating her or maybe even her diploma, but no, it is a letter informing us that she isn't graduating. She is one credit shy of a degree and they have put her on academic probation but she is invited back for the fall semester to finish up her course work. The one credit that she needs is an incomplete. They also sent along a copy of her miserable transcripts unlocking the 5-year mystery on just what the hell was going on in college.

This event was truly unfortunate for all of us.

After the crying, yelling and a few nasty phone calls, Jasmine swears that once she gets a hold of her professor that the incomplete will be changed to a passing grade, I walked out of the house stormed across the street and called the neighbor a jackass.

Monday Martha got an alert from Jasmine's checking account that she was $100 overdrawn. Upon further inspection, it was discovered that Jasmine had managed to motor through $1600 in four days. All of which is more or less explainable except for the $263 at Ikea.

Tuesday Martha got another alert from Jasmine's checking account indicating that there is now $270 worth of overdraft charges.

Thursday at 8:30 in the morning and with 1 ½ Xanax in me I stood in the doctors' small exam room pacing like a caged tiger. Finally, she comes in and immediately tells me that everything is fine.

The 'funny' thing on my CT scan shows a calcified granuloma that is usually benign and generally caused from either a prior early childhood incident with the lungs like pneumonia, or histoplasmosis. Histoplasmosis is commonly caused by a fungal infection and is endemic to the Ohio River Valley. Interesting. I'm thinking it's the combination of sitting in the Ohio River Valley woods sniffing glue at the early age of twelve. That would cover both. Oh hush, it was only for one summer and the damn shit gave me a horrible headache. What can I say, it was Ohio and I no longer live there for many, many reasons. Think Gummo. Seriously.

So right. We go to Pittsburgh this Thursday to visit with Jasmine where we will dance and sing songs. Should be a good time.

It's not the individual events so much as it is the stress of the all events happening at one time or for an extended run of time. I dropped a friend's camera but it was fixed and he's still talking to me. As far as I know, I don't have lung cancer but for over two weeks I convinced myself that I did. I just have chunks of things in my lungs. So far, Jasmine is a mess but she will figure it out, she has to.

An abundance of workmen are currently plaguing me, adding to the overall persecution issue that I have. First off, there is the ongoing gas line replacement that Hudson is undergoing. They went away for a few weeks and I thought they were done but no, now they are back. Not only are they back they want to come inside and dick around in our basement for three hours on Monday morning. Then, we are having our driveway dug up and repaved. The thing is a mess and will not make it through another winter. And the same goes for the gutters, something Martha has been avoiding talking about. The siding people are coming back to rework all the trim around the windows and a few other things that they should have done right in the first place.

All this and a few other distractions have left me flustered, with my ADD working overtime. I'm so unfocused that while on the phone with Martha last week, I threw money in the trash and put receipts in my wallet.

Anyway, Jasmine took her 'final' final last week and now we wait. Tick, tick, tick. She said it was hard but she's sure she passed. Wasting no time at all, her health insurance sent us a letter informing us that if she is no longer a full-time student that they will no longer cover her. We or rather Martha, is going to have to start paying COBRA until Jasmine gets her shit together. Not only are we (Martha) going to have to pay COBRA but also her rent, and anything else that she can't cover. Martha said she wants to start claiming Jazz as a dependant, checking the box on the COBRA form for: Continuously incapable of self-sustaining employment as a result of a mental or physical handicap.

On the cool and exciting side of things, it looks like Jazz is going to be moving into her new apartment this coming weekend. How thrilling for her. Martha, who is living vicariously through her, is planning our trip to the 'Purgh' at the end of the month. We are going to spend five nights and four days in the lovely city of Pittsburgh. I haven't been back since September of 2000 so I'm looking forward to it. Martha wants to visit friends, go out to dinner and maybe a Baseball game. She also wants to drive around Mt Lebanon looking at her old house, various schools and general memory lane type stuff.

She also wants to go buy this two-bedroom condominium and move there, with or without the rest of us.

Aside from spending time with Jasmine, I want to visit my dead grandparents and go to the record store. Somehow that seems perfect. What the hell else am I going to do there? I have like one friend there, whom I will visit and of course I will be shooting photos but with some of the best records stores in the country located there, um yeah, I'm going to the record store. That and the fantastic Red, White and Blue.

Somehow, I managed to catch a small cold, no big deal under normal conditions but I started feeling sick while standing in front of the conveyor belt over in baggage claim at the Charlotte North Carolina Airport. My throat started to feel raw and I began loosing the ability to swallow without wincing. Add into the mix that I had just started my period, (sorry but it is needed to give the full weight of the situation) and it was 95° in the shade down there. Saying I felt a little under the weather is an understatement.

We flew down Thursday from Albany on an airplane with two crying babies. It was like dueling banjos, one trying to outdo the other for over two hours. This was the moment where Martha discovered the happiness that a good iPod can bring. But what made it even more super fun was that we were in the very last row, the last two seats next to the toilet.

Before leaving, Martha made a snarky remark about how I'm high maintenance when we travel to visit her mom.
"Do you stay in the same hotel?" I asked.
"Yes"
"Do you get a king size bed?"
"Yes, but I don't have to have coffee and yogurt brought up to me from downstairs and I don't buy water to have in the refrigerator or go to CVS and spend money on crap that we could have brought."
"But these are all things you like." I argued.
"But I don't do it when you're not with me. I get up and just go. I don't need water and I grab a coffee when I go out the door."
"What car did you rent the last time you were there?" I asked.
"I don't remember."
"You said you liked it."
"Right, but we can't get that because I put mom's walker in the backseat."
"So I'm high maintenance because I need a seat in the car?"

You Ever Seen so Many Damn Trees?
"What ever happened to blueberry?" I said while digging around in the ice bowl of various yogurt flavors unable to find anything other than peach. Martha and I were both downstairs at the hotel getting our own coffee and yogurt to bring back up to the room.
"What ever happened to laughter?" Martha added.
"Oh I know what happened to laughter." I muttered.

And so we were off to see Gen. But before we arrive at her apartment we stopped at CVS to buy Cëpacol Throat stuff, Sudafed Cold medicine, Hershey's Kisses and water. After taking the extra long way, we arrived at Gen's apartment, Martha opened the door and there she was, sitting upright on the couch sleeping.

We hug, visit, and laugh for about an hour. Gen told this story about how one night, just a few weeks ago, she was sleeping in bed and she heard scratches on her door. She though it was "that damn cat" that lives on her floor. After a few minutes, the door opened and a man walked into her bedroom.

Martha and I looked at each other and pressed Gen for more information.

"Oh my God Mom, what did you do?" Martha asked.
"I told him to get the hell out of here." She said.
"And what did he say?"
"Well, he said he didn't know where to go. He was lost you see and I told him to go away. He's new see, lives down the hall."
"How did he get in?"
"He had a key."
"What!"
"He had a key and you know I was thinking about that. With all these doors, how many different types' keys could they possibly make?"
"A lot, mom, a lot."

Once I got the gist of the story, I got up and walked down the hall to the Director of Care to relay this little story. She freaked out and promised she would look at all the men's keys who live on Gen's floor. Maybe a maintenance man left a key in a room and a resident picked it up by accident or something like that. But there is no new resident on her floor. The newest gentleman to arrive has been there for several months and he's not a wanderer. She has several women who wander but not men. Sometimes the women, with the short hair look like men and maybe Gen was confused. Was her thought. I just kind of look at her and she promised to look into it.

When I get back to the room, Martha tells me that they might have figured out what happened. Gen said that when the cleaning people come sometimes after they leave the door is unlocked and the wandering man just walked in without keys.

The Land of The Dead
It is so hot in North Carolina that there are hardly any bugs. Seriously. I noticed this last summer too. The grass is brown and the trees look funny. I remember as little as six years ago when we would go visit Martha's parents at their home, the ground was lush, the trees were bright green and everything was dewy. There were so many wasps flying around that I would wait until my desire for a cigarette outweighed my fear of wasps before I would go out to the carport to smoke.

But not now, I can run all around outside in #70 sun block (so I don't just burst into flames) and there is not a bug in the air. It's weird and surely a sign of the end. I saw one wasp in the three days we were there and it was trying to get into the Golden Coral restaurant where all the food there is that down home, all-you-can-eat buffet style.

I'm Paying You to Tell Me What to Do
Gen was reading the paper when she put it down turned to me and asked, "Do you and Martha do drugs?"
I looked up from my book and just stared at her, waiting to see where this was going.
"You know, what do they call them...um...um...pop...pop poppies. Yes, poppies. Do you kids do poppies?"

I paused for a minute trying to figure out what the hell is in her head. Poppers maybe, but where would she even hear about poppers. I took a hard look at her and then I realized that she is looking at the world news section of the paper.

"Are you talking about the Afghanistan poppies?" I asked.
"Yes, they said that the crop is even larger then last years. You don't mess around with that do you?"
"No Gen, we don't mess around with that."
"Well, that's good."

I heard the "that baby is cross-eyed" story twice. But only heard the block story once. The block story is fun in a weird way. It goes like this.

"When Martha was little she used to treat people so damn funny. She'd want Frank to read her a story so she would go get her book and throw it at him and then climb up on his lap. Her sister used to build these buildings out of blocks and Martha would come along and knock them all down and then run over to her sister and hug her."

It Seems So Long Between Visits
Because conversation between Martha and I usually turns to what our leaving plans are soon after we arrive, we decided that we wanted to fly out of Charlotte instead of Greensboro. Charlotte goes straight to Albany but Greensboro is a connection flight nightmare through Philly. She forgot her computer so in a weird way is was nice to be totally unplugged but we did need a computer to deal with the airlines.

So we stopped at the local library. It was almost 100° outside so Gen and I waited in the car while Martha ran inside to the bizarre world of small town local library politics. She just wanted to use the computer real quick but didn't have a library card. So they gave her a temporary library card but she had to wait until her number was called. There was a row of computers that were not in use, but she still had to wait for her number. This went back and forth for about fifteen minutes.

Meanwhile, I'm in the backseat of the air-conditioned car with Gen in the passenger seat and every minute or so, she's reaching for the keys to turn the car off while saying, "Its so damn hot out, come on Martha, what the hell are you doing?" Then I'd have to say, 'Gen, don't turn the car off. No, don't turn the car off."
"Well, what the hell is she doing?" she'd complain.
"She had to use the internet. She'll be right out."
"Oh for heaven's sake" and then reach for the keys again.
"Gen, please don't turn the car off."

I'm Sorry I Ordered This
"You know, everyone here could stand to lose between 20 and 200 pounds." I muttered to Martha as we sat around the country table of the Golden Corral® restaurant.
"Boy this Golden Coral isn't anything like the one on Stratford." Gen said while chewing on a Brussels sprout after having just asked us what it was that she was eating.
"No." Martha replied.
"What's the difference?" I asked Martha.
"I have no idea." She whispered to me as she got up to get desert.
A few minutes later, she arrived back at the table.
"I just saw a cockroach," Martha said to me as she plopped her plate of cake on the table.
"Where?" I asked as I tried to swallow a mouthful of cottage cheese.
"Up there", pointing to the 'biggest and best buffet' spread of cakes, cookies, pies, ice-cream machine and nut toppings.
"Up?" I asked with raised eyebrows, while scanning the counter top from our table, then quickly checking to make sure my purse is still on the back of my chair and not on the floor.
"Yep, up."
"Oh."
"I'm not surprised." She shrugged.
"How big?" I asked.
"Little", she put her thumb and forefinger together to about half an inch.
"Oh that's not bad."

Scattergories: More Categories for Extended Play
"What's that white stuff that they put on cakes?"
"Icing?"
"No."
"Cream cheese?"
"No."
"Whip cream?"
"No."
"Coconut?"
"Coconut! Yes, that's it. I'll eat lemon cake with coconut if they have it."

It's Hell to Get Old
"I don't' want to get old, like all those old people at the home. It's just sick. We are living too long." Martha said the night before we left, our visiting with Gen over for now.
"Yeah, but what are you going to do? Murder/Suicide thing, what when we are like 70? No wait we get to drink and smoke again if we live to 70. So 75?" I offered up.
"Yes."
"Who kills who?" I asked.
"Either way." Martha laughed.
"I'll do it, I can commit suicide you can't. I'll shoot you in the head." We both laugh.
I grab a pen and my little black writing book.
"You can't write that. Murder/Suicide is frowned upon."
"Not with my readership."

Ah yes, week four of our home renovations starts out with the siding people still here. The creamy yellow siding is all up; gone is the flapping foil and chunks of demonic wasp nests. That's right, I'm not just fucked-in-the-head over wasps, there really was an infantry of horror behind the old aluminum siding. The boys, (as we now call them), pulled out big slabs of nests all along the back of the house. Some still had wasps in them, but because it was cold, they died upon exposure. If only it were that easy. I can think of a few people that if all I had to do was to rip them out the house onto the front lawn where they would die from exposure, well then Martha, fill up the Prius 'cause we are going on a road-trip.

So what did we learn here? Sometimes, I am not as zany as I may appear to be. I am kind of like that warning on the side view mirrors; objects may be closer than they appear. Just because I'm freaking out about something does not mean that it isn't real.

Anyway, now all that is left to do on the house is the window treatments and all the other little details, which if I remember correctly, is where the Devil lives; in the details.

On cloudy days, the house looks (no doubt about it), yellow. On sunny days, it blends in more with all that damn sunlight and seems to be more cream.

Every part of the outside of the house has been hammered to death. What that means is that all over the inside of the house is dust and little one hundred year old dirt particles. Mostly the dirt crumbs are all around the edges, window frames, outside wall baseboards and any furniture that is against any outside wall. So pretty much everything. I've been trying to keep up with it but it's just useless. So once they leave, (hopefully by Tuesday) I have a immense whole-house cleaning to look forward to.

On the other side of torment, somehow, I ended up on a peculiar mailing list at work. Roughly twice a month I receive a package with a God book in it. I'm on a Christian mailing list. Of all the things that could come to the Voice it is hardly one for the record books. The fact that this package is addressed to me is odd. Someone out there decided that I needed to get my God on.

So far, Thomas Nelson, Inc. from Nashville, TN has sent me:
The Trouble with Paris: Following Jesus in a World of Plastic Promises
Jesus Brand Spirituality: He Wants His Religion back
Finding Our Way Again: The Return of Ancient Practices
And, from the Ancient Practices Series: In Constant Prayer

I've made a little shrine for all these books over my desk. Seeing how I really don't have much personal stuff there anymore. I have been putting up 'my flair' with either weird things I find around the office from past employees cubicles, or things that come to me, like the god books. Up until a few days ago, I still had hanging there my 20 x 13 photo of dead Pope John Paul II that Gianni Giansanti took and that I personally think is one of the top ten amazing shots of 2005, but I brought that home because I didn't want anyone else to snag it.

In addition to all the Jesus crap, I have a Sexual Harassment pamphlet thumb tacked to my cube wall, a webby award that the old web team won back in the 'tail end of the days' when we did shit that was cool, and a copy of a TPS Report.

Walking by my desk one would think that I am some kind of crazy religious dyke with the conflicting protestant and catholic concerns.

While poking around the Thomas Nelson's, Inc. from Nashville, TN website, I noticed a few interesting things. I particularly liked the menu on their homepage for the first three sections; Fiction, Non-fiction and Bibles. It is interesting to me that they find a difference between them. Upon closer look, the line between them all is pretty fuzzy but when you start using the term Non-fiction in reference to anything having to do with Christ aren't you already blurring the lines of reputable classification?

The reference section is more like self-help on how to read The Bible, which furthers my belief that all self-help books are bullshit. In all of the reference section this book: Captivating Heart to Heart Study Guide: An Invitation Into the Beauty and Depth of the Feminine Soul, bothers me the most.

Here is the first paragraph of the books description:

"Every little girl has dreams of being swept up into a great adventure and of being the beautiful princess. Sadly, when women grow up, they are often swept up into a life filled merely with duty and demands. Many Christian women are tired and struggling under the weight of the pressure to be a "good servant," a nurturing caregiver, or a capable home manager."

Eww, eww and yuck.

It's like Haiku:

little princess girl
capable home manager:
tired woman's dream

What the hell is a capable home manager? Is that what they are calling housewives these days? Well, by that classification, my mom was an incapable home manager with a "slight" prescription drug problem, but hey, maybe she just needed a little more GOD in her life or to be dragged out on the front lawn.

In the video section, I found out that James Brolin stared in a A Dramatic Presentation of the Birth of Christianity.

James, (Marcus Welby; Amityville Horror; Barbara Streisand's husband), Brolin plays Peter. The guy who put the Reagan in The Reagans. I hated Reagan so much (still do) that I just wanted to punch the TV anytime he was on the screen. Judy Davis was awesome as Nancy and the reason that I watched it in the first place. I remember thinking at the time that her version of 'Just Say No Nancy' reminded me of my nightmare of growing up in a house of republicans.

This is that movie that the Republican Party got all pissy about and threatened to boycott. But I'm confused here, it's network TV. Who the hell cares if a political party decides to boycott anything that is broadcast on network television? What is the larger message here; does the Republican Party own Nielsen TV Ratings?

Anyway, CBS caved to this threat and moved it on over the Showtime. Showtime, the channel that has always excelled in stupid programming and will run the sloppy seconds of HBO in a heartbeat. This explains to me not only why The L Word ever made it on the air, but why it is in its (gag me) fifth season.

Right, okay, let us see I've covered God and the Devil, home renovations, politics, mom issues, lesbian sex and drug use. Is there anything else I'm not supposed to write about? Why yes there is, but for now I'm good. So I guess I'll go flip back and forth between a little mind numbing girl-on-girl no sex/stupid sex, and the Nielsen TV Rated Oscars, while abusing a just a little bit'o prescription drugs.

The siding people are still in our lives and with only being able to work one to two days a week due to weather, it's anyone's guess as to when they'll finish up. We start week three this week, and I'm kind of getting used to having them around.

Last Thursday at the end of the day, the foreman and I were standing on the sidewalk looking at the front of the house when I commented on how great it looks, how it was really coming along.

He turned to me and said, "Yeah, you know all day people have been driving by real slow, checking it out. One guy even drove by then turned around so he could look at it again."

I looked at him and laughed, "Dude. People have been doing that since the first day you were here and ripped the shit out of it, making it look like a baked potato."

Ah yes, but we're not finished yet. The other night the winds were so high that more shit flew off the house and landed in our neighbor's yard. Nice, real nice.

Three weeks ago, the only restaurant that Martha and ever go to closed for a three-week holiday. As the weeks pasted by, Wasabi's lights were dark and Martha and I were lost. Every Friday night, we go to Wasabi and have a little bit of sushi and laughter. It's our thing and now our thing was on vacation.

Two weeks ago we thought we might try another restaurant, but all we ended up doing was driving around, giving up and then going home. Pathetic, we know, but we didn't want over priced Italian food, which in Hudson there are three of those places. The Mexican place is always crowded and included in your overpriced meal is unusually snotty service. The last time we were there they sat us next to a table full of children under five with the kitchen door at my back. After the hostess tossed menus at us we looked at each other and decided to go. We just walked out.

The diner closes at 8:00, strange for a diner, but not for this town. Hudson is more of a daylight kind of thing. There are several places to eat and have coffee when the sun is in the sky but at night, not much moves around out there except for deer, cats and an occasional crack dealer over on State Street.

But Valentines day brought along total happiness. Not only was Wasabi open but I got a t-shirt from The Elephant Sanctuary and my Polaroid film from Austria finally came.

I bought Martha the translated from German version of Arthur Schopenhauer's The World As Will and Representation, In Two Volumes: Vol. I. It's so intense and so very, very dark that just looking at the cover brings me fear, loathing and a heavy sense of nothingness. But hey, that's what she wanted. Nothing says love like deep dark German philosophy.

But back to happy thoughts. The super big thing that happened is that Martha had HDTV installed in the bedroom. Ha! This all started when months ago she bought the big TV for the living room and had HDTV hooked up in there. Suddenly, I was out there all the time making her watch stuff like Arcade Fire on Austin City Limits. But now, I can go in the bedroom, leaving her free to watch all The Family Guy she can handle.

We went to the mall on Saturday and I think I've figured out the best way for me to stomach that shit is to go straight there from therapy. If I spend an hour, digging deep into the crazy cracks of my brain, then go directly to a mall, it is several hours before I even realize that we are nothing but a society of consumer zombies and start cursing at the air. So with all that brain down time, we were able to get shit done.

We spent an hour in the Verizon store buying new cell phones and I did not freak out about it. Our cell phones have been an issue for months. We've been paying $89.00 a month for roughly ten minutes of cell phone usage. AT&T was totally ripping us off and because we were not on a contract anymore, they could not give a shit about us. Every weekend I would back out of the mall idea, but not this time. This time Martha just drove there and so the whole Verizon marathon was a breeze. Well, sort of. Nothing is really ever a breeze but let us just say I did not add to the situation, as I have been known to do.

After the Verizon thing, when I normally would have demanded we leave, instead we walked down the mall way to the overcrowded Apple store to check out iPods for Jasmine. Super long muddy Jasmine story made short; her roommate had a party with a bunch of people that Jasmine did not know. She left the apartment to drive a friend home and when she returned, the people were gone as was her iPod.

Jasmine told me this several months ago and she begged me not to tell Martha, which I agreed to because, well she fucked up and I see no need to underscore certain things in Martha's eyes. It was Martha's idea to buy her that iPod for her 21st birthday so I felt it would hurt her feelings to know that it was stolen.

Because my child is so very horrible at keeping a secret that is told to her, (she can't even keep her own secrets) while she was on the phone with Martha she got all blonde and let it slip that she no longer had an iPod.

"So, I was thinking, when I get my tax rebate can I use that to buy an iPod?"

Martha was like; "...wait what, hold on. What happened to your iPod." And so on...

This is the exact same way that I found out Jasmine was still working at Staples after she told me she quit— like we agreed that she would do so she could FOCUS ON SCHOOL. A few weeks went by and forgetting all about the little fib, she told me one Saturday night she was tired from working. A few weeks went by and forgetting all about the little fib, she told me one Saturday night she was tired from working.

[Insert a long heavy sigh here.]

Martha, being the nice one of the two of us, wants to buy her a new iPod for her 24th birthday. I don't want to buy her anything until I see a diploma.

All along the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge there are signs bolted into the light posts that read; "Desperate? Life is worth living! Call Helpline." I noticed this last weekend when I was on my way to therapy. Fitting, I know, but what struck me as odd was that they are mostly posted in the center of the bridge. Now, the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge is long and tall, and if, lets just say if, you wanted to jump off the bridge I would think that any point along the bridge would work. Why make a trek of it when around 200 yards in is just as good of a location as dead center? Maybe that is the point, Dead Center but see no matter what you hit, anything over two stories is going to kill you. Thinking that you can just dive off a bridge, slip into the water and then drown is a mistake. No, no, it's hit the water and explode. Hell, I could swan dive from the top of my house if I wanted to. Not that I do, I'm just saying. Relax, it's the holiday's isn't everyone thinking about killing themselves?

Thursday, before the snow actually started in Hudson, Martha was all cross-eyed and hell-bent on going into work. She managed to make it there, but not before driving through the tip of the storm, causing her concern on her ability to drive home. After about an hour at work, longer then it took her to actually get there, she got back in the Prius (!) and drove directly into a blizzard. It took her three-hours to get home, which isn't bad considering the severity of the storm. She said there was an accident every half mile of so, and the Prius did 'not that bad' in the snow.

Once Martha was home what more could I ask for? A huge snowstorm to dump fourteen inches on us the day before my birthday seemed just perfect.

Jasmine bought me a really cool photo book and I'm so proud of her. It arrived a day early and everything. All in all my birthday was great. I baked my own birthday cake that was so good Martha had two pieces and then passed out with yellow frosting still on her lips.

A new Diane camera is in my life thanks to Martha and I've been shooting with it like crazy. I'm currently out of developer and fix so I have no idea how the little camera is performing, (to me it seems fine), or where the light leaks might be. My chemicals probably won't get here until after Christmas, which sucks and proves that sometimes I really should pay attention to this holiday.

Speaking of Christmas, I have yet to buy one fucking thing for anyone and I'm not really sure what to do about that. At this point in the game, it's almost too late to buy crap online unless I pay crazy shipping. So that means I'm actually going to have to drag my ass out of the house and go into the places that have Christmas music, or excuse me, 'Holiday' music playing. Martha and I decided not to get a tree again this year, because Zoë is such a monster and will not leave any kind of evergreen alone. She is such as suck ass cat that the only foliage I can have is cactus and she tries to eat that. Stupid thing. I've even seen her try and chew on the Christmas lights. Anyway, we are exchanging a few gifts and we do have the outside decorations up but inside, it could be anytime of the year.

Bucktooth Neighbor Wave
Our neighbor across the street is totally obsessed with outside chores. I know this because he is forever making noise and seeing how my studio and the living room face him, well... he bothers me.

In the summer, he was ceaselessly cutting the grass, weed whacking the trim, mulching the flowerbeds and watering. In the fall, he was constantly blowing leaves down the driveway and then into the front yard where he would blow them into a pile. He would then get the lawnmower out and mow it all up. Now, in the winter, I watched him snowplow, salt, shovel, and again snowplow all day Sunday. Every hour he was back outside making some kind of noise interrupting my enjoyment of the hours upon hours of Planet Earth in HDTV that I was engrossed in. That show ROCKS and it rocks real hard on the new TV.

Anyway, Martha and I started talking about what might be going on over there and here are the loose facts. He looks to be around our age. It is his parents' house and they still live there. He moved in around the time we bought our house. My guess was to help with his folks. The mother is almost unable to walk, yet refuses to use a walker. I've only seen her a handful of times and she has the smile of elderly dementia. The father shuffles out every now and then in his slippers to take out the recyclables. There is a sister, who looks to be within a year or two of the brother and she has a little yappy white dog. Cute as could be but it barks at everything, including the wind. The sister only comes around every few months to visit. At one point yesterday, we noticed a kid outside, chipping away at some ice. Not sure where he came from. The house is small, smaller then ours and all one floor, so when everyone is in town, (like now) it must be gaud awful. Mom, Dad, brother, sister, kid and dog. It explains why at one point I looked over and noticed that he was just standing in the driveway holding the shovel. Just standing there, not doing anything but not going inside either. It was 17 degrees outside and he was just standing there.

I have to get an MRI Monday morning and I'm a little freaked out about it. So freaked out in fact that while Martha was at yoga, I laid under the coffee table for about ten minutes just to see what would happen. We have a rather oversized coffee table that was perfect for a visual test of something big hovering over my upper torso. I wanted to see exactly what the fucking problem was with my brain and small spaces. This whole claustrophobia thing is new; it only started when they kept scanning me for my adrenal tumor. I realized while I was under there that it isn't so much the machine but the whole thing, the noise, the lights the medical nature of it all, and well not being in control. I was in control under the coffee table. I could touch it and laugh at the silliness of it all and after a few minutes, I even had a cat join me, wondering just what the hell I was doing.

I have six blue, doctor-prescribed Xanax, a sleep mask to block out the light and Martha to help me through it all. Martha is taking the day off work just so she can sit in the room with me for my forty-minute test. Forty minutes is an awfully long time to have me shoved under a big metal pancake thing and expect me to keep it together. On the upside of it all, once I'm away from the MRI place and have calmed down, I should have a pretty great buzz on. Needless to say I will be working from home after a small nap.

Fantastic news from CCCA, (Columbia County Council on the Arts - these people seriously need a better website), they have chosen four of my photos to hang in the 13th Annual ArtsWalk. The super cool thing is that they are photos that I shot with my Brownie camera. That weird little blue camera shoots some strange stuff every now and then. Again, they didn't pick my favorite but what the hell. Even better news is that they also chose two pieces of Martha's to show. This is going to be fun. We get to go to the Meet the Artists' Reception where all of our social demons, (alcohol, food and mindless conversation) will taunt both Martha and me. Maybe I'll save a blue Xanax for that seeing how even on a good day I am still a total loon in public.

So the wasp guy came last week and I think we are now finally on the same page with the intensity of the problem. I know he thought I was crazy, as most folks think when they first meet me, but now, well, let's just say, he had an epiphany.

I was outside with him when his illuminating discovery had just begun. As he was placing the latter against the sunporch roof, it slipped out of his hands and tapped the gutter. That's when a small army of about a hundred brown wasps flew out in formation to see what was up. As I ran into the house, I looked back over my shoulder to see him jumping off the latter and stepping way, way back trying to get a better look at the whole house. I watched from inside the sunporch as he went back to the truck and brought out the big guns, (literally he had a big spray thing that looked like a gun) a big can of professional wasp spray and a fogger. As he started spraying, I went inside.

At one point, I looked out the upstairs bathroom window and there must have been a thousand wasps flying off the house. It was like the apocalypse out there.

After about an hour he came in the house and we chatted about the severity of the problem in which he actually apologized to me for not understanding just how many there were. It seems as though we are wasp central for Hudson. Well, at least for our little part of Union Street. Every five feet or so, and all along the sunporch was a nest. There are so many of them that he is going to have to come back and keep spraying and spraying. They have found a perfect place under the gutter traps and they don't want to give it up. Considering that they will probably be dead in six weeks I could live with it if they weren't over the main door into the house. Every time we open the windows, they get in and whenever I go outside to water or feed the cats, they are all around me. It's like we live inside their hive and it's rather spooky.

But again, outside of all that nonsense, we have officially lived in upstate New York for one whole year. That's right folks, Martha and I have been driving up and down the New York State Thruway for a solid year and both of our backs are showing the wear and tear. Woo hoo! We should get a sticker. We've had the Prius for just about a month and we already have over 5,000 miles on it. I do love living up here and I think I might have found a way for Martha to let me redo the bathrooms. We went to Home Depot to get a bug bomb for the garage, (spiders) and I had her looking in the bathtub isle at Whirlpool Tubs and talking about how fucking great it would be to have a soaking tub in the bathroom. It's the we could have "this" if you let me do "that" game.

Big, big day last Wednesday. I ended up going to the emergency room in Hudson. Late on Tuesday and while working from home, I started having a little dizzy thing happen. I felt sick to my stomach and considering that I wasn't dealing with anything other then normal work stuff, I figured that it wasn't my job that was making me nauseous (as is usually the case) but that it must be something else. I noticed that if I turned my head to the left or right I'd get dizzy.

I stopped working around 5:30, went downstairs cleaned up a little bit and took a shower. Then around 7:00 pm I rolled back on the exercise ball and wham!, my ear popped and my head started spinning around and around. Not horizontally but vertically. Everything I looked at spun around clockwise in front of my eyes, not that I think direction would have mattered much.

I had full on vertigo complete with spinning fisheye lens. I was even unable to lie on the couch without everything spinning around in front of me. I sat up and with a ridiculous amount of effort, I made it into the bedroom where I took a bunch of drugs and went to bed.

All night, every time I moved my head the room would spin, actually waking me up. At one point, I had just enough wits about me to make it to the bathroom and back before I passed out on top of the bed. Somewhere in the middle of the night Martha and I had a conversation about how if I'm still a mess my the morning, she would take me to the hospital.

So at 7am Martha drove me three blocks to the hospital. I was barely able to walk in the door and once admitted my ass was put in a wheelchair. After admitting me, the nurse wheeled me into an ER stall with a table and all the things that would be needed to save a life. There must have been roughly twenty of these stalls all around the whole floor. After first putting me on a table where the back kept falling down, spinning me around even more, we changed tables and they stuck an IV line in my arm, covered me in warm blankets and turned the lights off until the doctor could see me.

Moments after the nurse left me the woman in the stall next to me started vomiting. Vomiting, vomiting and vomiting. She was unbelievably loud and her voice was so low that at first Martha and I just assumed it was a man. Her vomiting went on for several minutes, (and I mean like ten), before she got it together. A nurse came over and started asking her questions.

"When was the last time you ate?" asked the nurse.
"Last night I had a bowl of cereal about 7:00." she replied. That is correct, something bad happened to all of us at exactly 7:00pm, I thought.
"In the past five years have you had any major surgical procedures?" asked the nurse.
"Just a hysterectomy three years ago." she managed to murmur out before she started vomiting again.

Martha, who had been leaning on my bed rail and petting me, mouthed to my face "That's a woman?"

It did boggle the mind and give me pause to all that hysterectomy chatter that I am prone to. Would a hysterectomy make my voice sound like the Ohio trucker that I already talk like? I pondered that as I laid in the cold dark room staring at a tan wall, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth, trying not to throw up all over myself. I heard the doctor order a CT scan with contrast for the woman next to me.

After about an hour, a doctor came over to see what my deal was. He looked in my ears, (which looked fine) and we chatted about the whole head spinning, unable to walk thing. He briefly went over the types of things that cause vertigo, trauma or tumor, and everything else. He ordered blood work and nausea medicine then he said he would check on me later.

The anti-nausea medicine was awesome and why that shit isn't on the market I'll never know. My stomach hasn't felt that normal since I was eight and when the nurse came around I mentioned to her that she might want to give the woman next to me some of it. She just looked at me and smiled. Yeah, sure, it sucked for her but at least she was able to walk away. Martha and I were trapped and I felt so sorry for Vomit Woman.

I kept drifting in and out of sleep but I woke up to hear a Bambi like nurse trying to give Vomit Woman two big things of barium to drink. I looked at Martha and whispered, "That's not going to work, I mean fuck, she's going to puke that right back up." Vomit Woman, understandably pushed back, saying there is no way she's going to be able to drink it, but Bambi persisted and told her to try.

So the woman tried and after about ten minutes of her making a low growling noises she started vomiting again. It was so loud it reminded me of an old SNL skit with Bill Murray at the Roman vomitorium. All Martha and I could do was look at each other and smile at the absurdity of it.

After a few hours of sleep, vomiting and a rather difficult bathroom break, the doctor came back around and asked me how I was feeling. I felt the same, except now my neck and back were killing me and I had a wicked headache. Quite possibly the worst headache I've ever had, I mentioned.

The doctor ordered a CT scan, (thank god, it was not an MRI) and told the nurse to give me something for my headache. Fifteen minutes later the wheelchair shows up to take me to the CT scan but the nurse, who was down the hall, told the wheelchair girl to wait; she wanted to give me something for my headache.

A few minutes later, the nurse shows up with a syringe full of Dilaudid, only my favorite drug on the planet. I want to make a t-shirt that reads, I (heart) Dilaudid. As she injected the medicine into my IV, I felt that welcome wave of warmth and that wonderful euphoric high that only clean, clean narcotics can give. Within seconds my headache was gone, my back felt great and I didn't even notice the spinning room around me. I had all the answers to the universe, I just wasn't able to tell anyone or move into a wheelchair they wanted to put me in. All I could do was lie there with a big fucking smile on my face.

"Why you were never a junkie, I'll never know." Martha said to me later when no one was around.
"Fear of needles." I slurred out of the side of my mouth.
"That's it, right?" she asked.
"That and watching my friends shoot junk and turn into trash."

After a CT scan determined that I did not have a brain tumor and blood work indicated that there was no meningitis, they loaded some instructions and a prescription on Martha. The doctor told me not to drive (ha ha) and sent me home where, fully doped up I climbed into bed and immediately I fell asleep half sitting up. I slept in that arrangement for about an hour. Martha made me lunch and I tried to eat some soup and a Pepperidge Farm Goldfish but threw up the goldfish and fell asleep again.

The pills they gave me are for nausea and/or vomiting. The prescription reads: Take 1 tablet by mouth three times a day as needed but I read it as take 1 tablet when needed and have been motoring through them at quite a clip. All they do is make me sleepy but they are making me dream weird.

Well I suppose I always have had weird dreams but my conscious brain seems to, as of late, not be protecting me as strongly as it has in the past. It's not that these dreams are horrible it's just that they are fairly disappointing. Things like, I'll dream about my ex-husband and that we are still friends, or I'll dream about my mom and not only is she still alive but she is, to some extent, normal. I dreamt about an old boyfriend and in the dream, we were just hanging out laughing. In all these dreams, there is laughter, something that has not happened in my waking life with these people in decades, and that is a hard plural meaning numerous decades my friends. Laughing is also a clue within the dream that makes me realized that I am in fact dreaming. Once that 'reality' enters the dream, the dream moves on to another improbable scenario where it flows around normalville, until it occurs to me that I'm dreaming. Not only is my physical balance off, my mental one is becoming sloppy. Super.

I have to see an ear, nose and throat guy on Tuesday. The hospital seems to think that I might have a rip in the membrane between my ear and my inner ear, or somehow, particles/fluid got in there and are brushing against hair follicles telling my brain that I'm moving but my body says that I'm not. Or I have an inner ear infection. Or I'm just fucked in the head.

I went to the dentist last week and it only cost $300. I don't know if I mentioned that I had oral surgery a few weeks back so making it out of her office with a bill less than $1500 is what I happen to consider lucky and quite possibly even a good day. So sad isn't it?

Even sadder is that I need to start wearing glasses. Oh sure I had reading glasses and would every now and then actually wear them, but for the past 6 months or so, I've started carrying them with me. I've never done that before. At first, I thought my eyes were just tired. Characteristically, all of me is tired so why not my eyes? But I noticed that I was having trouble actually seeing shit close-up no matter what time of day or what state of mind I happened to be in.

Martha and I would be at the grocery store, I would flip a can around to read the label, and I would not be able to see the fine print. I would hold if far away or pull it real close, nothing made it better. I can't see words under 6 point and I have ALWAYS been able to read tiny little things. I also noticed that the last time I used my 35m I had trouble focusing it. Fuck!

So Ms. Martha took me to the eye doctor. After several tests, some of which I found rather cruel; like that one where they dilate your eyes and then take a Polaroid (complete with flash) of the optic nerve. I saw nothing but magenta for ten solid minutes after she did that. Then she had to retake the left eye because I blinked. What, you didn't think I would blink? After realizing what was up when she shot the right eye, my internal self-monitoring OS intervened, thinking that I was on acid (hence the dilation) and was looking through the wrong end of one of my cameras. My eyeballs went into self-preservation mode. In any case, it didn't matter that I blinked on the first take, I still saw magenta because the flash was so intense that it just shot right through my onion skin eyelids.

After way too much fun at LensCrafters, it was discovered that my left eye, (the one I use to focus a camera with) is loosing its ability to focus. Super. Reading glasses will work for a time but the eye guy said that eventually I will have to consider bifocals. Even better.

Of course, Martha thinks I'm just a big pussy about it all. She's been wearing glasses since she was twelve, when she couldn't see the chalkboard in class. When she got glasses, it was one of the most depressing days of her life. And there you have that.

In what I hope is the last day that my back pain is on this here earth, I have an appointment to see the Pain Management Center on Ascension of Christ Thursday. Yes, yes I know, to hell I go.

Remodeling the Homeland
Jasmine is home all week and besides lying on my couch demanding On Demand and sushi, she is going to seriously paint our kitchen. Before and after photos will follow but the project is not just a simple paint job. She's going to paint the cabinets and possibly do a little backsplash tile work. It is a big enough project that we will be paying her, which should help on a number of levels.

We are also getting a new front door, if the guy will ever call us back. The trailer trash red front door will soon be in a landfill somewhere, replace by a nice white no nothing fiberglass thing complete with a sexy storm door.

After months of waiting it out, Martha got a "good deal" on a brand new Sharp stainless steel stove. In the beginning, there were only a few catches. First one was that we had to get it from Mahwah to Hudson. Okay, after she sweet-talked a few folks at work, they got it in the back of the Jeep and we drove it home on the New York State Thruway. I was a tad nervous seeing how the thing weighs over 200 lbs and was not tied to anything. But really, what could we have strapped it to that would have held? It was the kind of scenario where a minor fender bender could have killed us, mowed over by a stove yes sir. But then again, there really isn't much less than massive fireballs when shit goes wrong on the Thruway. On the tame side, it is either a flat tire, general car trouble or a dead animal on the side of the road. The other, is a pillar of smoke at the end of a 5-mile backup where at the ground zero site of the accident, it looks like a bomb went off. High-speed interstate fuckery is a death dance.

But yes, back to the stove for a minute. So we get this thing home and Martha has arranged for the gentleman who mows our yard (Homeland Dan) to help us remove the skank-ass 40+ year-old stove that came with the house and put the new free stove in its place. Old stove comes out, no problem. New stove goes in, no problem. New stove is plugged in and then, there is a problem. The sensor fan will not stop running. Something is wrong.

The next day at work, Martha speaks with the tech guys and everyone agrees that something is wrong. We live so far out in the middle of nothing that there are no Sharp service people to come to the house. Somewhere someone thinks it might be the cord, so we buy a new cord and have Homeland Dan come back over to pull the stove out from the wall and install a new cord. Which he does and when he plugs the new cord in, the sensor fan comes on.

So now, (as I type this now) I have a broken stove in the middle of the kitchen. The "plan" is to have Homeland Dan come back over and put it back in the Jeep. Martha and I will then travel with it back to Sharp where she will have others unload it. She's to find another stove, test it there, and then have that one loaded up in the Jeep and we will drive it home to where Homeland Dan will come over one-more-fucking-time to unload the stove, drag it in the house and hopefully be done with us.

During this visit down to North Carolina, the desire to smoke was not so overwhelming. Last November, all I wanted to do was have a cigarette. Like every fifteen minutes the urge to light up was driving me to force Martha's sister to go outside and blow smoke in my face. I do think that most of that was the noticeable impending death of Frank and Gen's constant, and I most certainly do mean constant, scratching her arms. But this time, the smoking thing was not so much. I was however chain chewing Orbit Sweet Mint gum.

All of our luggage was searched except for the one bag that I was sure they would not only search but blow up. In that bag was all of our 'gear'. We traveled with a pretty serious looking massager; a big blue exercise ball; the foot pump for the big blue exercise ball, a neck brace for guess who, a laptop and weird looking camera equipment. Apparently, this bag did not raise any suspicion but all of our black clothing and socks really caught their eye.

Martha's mom is so scrambled that stuff just disappears into thin air. She forgets where she puts things and then, well she forgets that there was anything to begin with. Several weeks ago, she received a check for $16,000 for Frank's life insurance policy from PPG. She told Martha's sister that the check had come so we knew it was there, somewhere because it wasn't in the bank. When we get down there and start going through all the paperwork, we find that some of the paperwork is filed away in the locked closet, some of it is in one of six desk drawers, or it is in the green lock box that Gen is now keeping behind Frank's chair, instead of the locked closet.

There is no order to her filing madness. Forms that needed to be filled out and returned are hidden behind old bank statements, or merged with solicitations for credit cards. In one desk drawer, Martha finds several checks in a stack that need to be deposited but not the $16,000 check. All the while w