Holly Northrop Blog

It took eleven hours for us to drive to Pittsburgh due to rain, fog, traffic and one highway closing accident. PA threw everything but snow and flying baby monkey asses at us. Well, at least with the detour I was able to see Altoona again. Woo Hoo! The day we arrived Jasmine was sick as a dog and we didn't see her for three days. The last time I got sick, I ended up in the emergency room so fuck that.

Martha and I ended spent five nights in a row at one person's house, instead of the original agreed upon three. We will be forever in debt. Thank god, she did not have to spend any of her daytime with us. Just the exhausting nighttime, where the only break she got from us was the one night she went to Seven Springs to see Ted Nugent, or 'Sweaty Teddy' as he is referred to.

This was a total cat visit. I met Jezebel, the most beautiful longhaired puff of a cat who is the closest thing to Mona that I've met since Mona died. I visited with roughly four or five (I cannot remember due to volume) of Amy's cats and one sweet aging greyhound. I saw a photo of Dee's two babies and of course, our grandson Oscar, Jasmine's new one-year-old part Main Coon boy kitty.

Martha and I went totally nuts at PetSmart. We bought him a new kitty tower, with scratching post. He is a big time scratcher. We bought a round plastic circle thing with a ball in it that spins round and round, hours upon hours of entertainment. (If I could only be so exhausted by shear joy without being chemically altered.) He played with that thing so much that he fell asleep on it.

We got him a gratuitous string toy, a big bucket of litter, a big bag of food, a case of wet food, three bags of Greenies, and three cans of the special Fancy Feast® Elegant Medleys®.

Man did he hit the jackpot or what. He was just days away from being abandoned or put down and now, he is living the good life.

While Jasmine new apartment is totally adorable, she didn't really have anything in it. She had a bed, Martha's old desk, which used to be my old desk, our old coffee table and a TV. It was kind of barren to the point the even the cat was bored. Yes, yes I know, most of us had sheets on our windows until we were 30, but still.

The next time we visit Pittsburgh we want to stay with her so we bought a futon couch. She needed something else to sit on so we bought her a chair. We went a little thrifting and found an old school desk that will make a great end table. Stuff like that that turned into a day of me wondering around a PetSmart, The Salvation Army, some weird discount furniture store on McNightmare road, Target (for fucks sake) and a Big Lots, all over a two day period.

I got a heat headache and cottonmouth from walking around slack jawed at the whole presentation of consumerism. Martha, amazingly, remained calm and up to the challenge of spending WAY too much money. Of course every morning I gave her a little "cocktail" consisting of a Tylenol® Arthritis, a prescription anti-inflammatory and just a touch of Xanax so the day would go just a little smoother.

Basically, we bought Jasmine a new apartment and Oscar a new life.

Jazz and I struggled (to the point of absurdity) to put the futon frame together. We put it together in every wrong way imaginable before it was finally right. Well sort of, the one piece in the back is supposed to be in front but after Jazz unscrewed the rails for the third time, she refused to do it again. After about an hour of fucking around with the futon, Jazz looked over at the new chair and there was Oscar lying on the ottoman with every fan pointed at him. He looked most comfortable while Jazz had sweat dripping down her cheeks and a runny nose from bending over for minutes on end.

Outside of the whole Jasmine money pit thing, Martha and I drove all around Pittsburgh, which isn't that big of a deal really. A person can go from Squirrel Hill to Mt. Lebanon in fifteen minutes. It was awesome to see people. Well, I only have two people but two very cool people.

We did try to find my dead grandparents. We drove around to several cemeteries that I thought might be the ones. We even went into the offices of two of them. At one point, Martha and I sat across from each other in a cemetery conference room lined with headstones, while the woman made a few calls to other places. Every time I looked at Martha, all I saw was the wall of gravestones behind her.

Thanks to Amy and Nellie King, we were able to not only go to a Pirates game but also sit behind home plate. With the idea that dinner was going to be at the ballpark Amy turned to me and asked me what I would like to eat.

'Well, I'm a vegetarian and I don't eat carbs."
She brought me back a huge kosher dill pickle.

Oddly, I realized that I do miss Pittsburgh. I've not been back in eight years but it is a place that I've moved back to three times in my life. I'm from Ohio, but Pittsburgh is most certainly a second or third home. Even stranger, I could see myself living there again.

However, I cannot believe what they have done to the South Side. What a fucking nightmare.

And clearly The Beehive people have totally lost their minds and have bestowed upon the obnoxiously carb heavy city of Pittsburgh, The Double Wide Grill. All I can say is WOW.

I mean the South Side was kind of a dead zone with the old J&L plant being leveled and yes the whole toxic waste fields thing needed to be dealt with but they made it a yuppie paradise. (Seriously, Forever 21?) I'm not so sure I'd want to eat one bite of a GODIVA® CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKE from the Cheesecake Factory on the former ground of a Superfund site, now labeled a nice and tidy word like Brownfield. Dirt is brown right, so Brownfield makes complete sense. It's just dirt.

I suppose a little plastic materials (which never biodegrades) and resin particles here and there is what we're all made of, right? Never really hurt anyone.

I remember sitting in my fifth floor dorm room window at Duquesne University watching the J&L furnaces lighting up the night sky. The glow was surreal. The furnaces operated 24-hours a day and on certain nights when the fog came in the silhouette looked like a large demon climbing out of the ground. Even in the daylight, the damn thing was frightening with its coal furnaces glowing from deep within and years of caked on black soot covering everything. It looked like they were burning a hole to the center of the earth.

I don't really have a solid answer to what should be there. On the other side of the river, where the other half of the plant was, they built the Technology Center so that area was repurposed for job growth. Maybe continuing with the theme of advancing technologies by dragging that shit across the 'Hot Metal Bridge' would be interesting.

One could argue that retail jobs are job growth but, not really. $7.00 an hour does not a career make no matter what city you live in. Relying on consumer shopping to boost the local economy is foolish in that if we are all working for Ann Taylor then we cannot afford to shop at Ann Taylor. So Ann Taylor will leave.

Ah yes, but now we are back. We came home to a weird smelling house and an orange cat puke stain on the carpet. It took us over ten hours to get home but that was because we had to pull over at a rest stop and sleep for two hours. At least we had our pillows with us.

I dropped the Horizon 202 camera that I borrowed from a friend. Well, technically it fell, (while still in its case mind you), but nonetheless it still hit the ground.

Actually, it looked more like a suicide than an accident. It chose to jump off a table rather than take anymore of my weird angled visionary bullshit. Instead of spending one more second or 1/125th of a second with me, it jumped to its death.

Now it sits in a Russian repair shop over on 30th street, where I've put down half of the $178.00 total to fix it. The equivalent of a Russian hospital—scary thought.

In two seconds, I spent almost $200 and put a hiccup in a friendship. Like I have tons of those to burn.

Jesus Christ.

I'm still not really sure what happened. I set the thing down to change film and it just took a swan dive off the table. I didn't even think anything happened to it because it was IN IT'S PROTECTIVE CASE, zipped up and everything. But just like most things in my life, it hit the ground 'just right'. It hit the one corner that didn't have that much padding and well, when I pulled it out the back was bent and I could actually see the spool of my film. I opened it up to see if it was just a temporary thing and no, it was not.

I called Martha.

'You're going to be really mad at me," I said.
Silence.
"You're going to be really pissed- I dropped Victor's camera."
"Holly, WHAT THE HELL? Where is the STRAP? Why isn't it around your NECK!"
I started to cry.
"Take something." She ordered.
"What?"
"Do you have anything with you?"

I stopped bawling for a minute and wondered if she was asking me if I had any drugs with me. And I wondered why she would think that I forgot my pill case. It's like asking a running faucet if it has water, isn't it? I tend to carry enough prescription and over the counter medication to kill both of us at any given time, if need be of course.

"What like Xanax? I asked.
"Yes, take it and calm down. I'm serious."

After I got my wits gathered, (without the aid of drugs thank you very much) together Martha and I worked today's technology. I walked up the West Side Highway towards any subway line, while Martha in Jersey worked Google, feeding me numbers of possible camera repair shops. There were hardly any choices but she did manage to find the one Russian repair place that appears to be the real deal. (I get the camera back this week so we will see) It's in one of those old New York buildings where the elevators ability to work is questionable so you'd rather walk the four flights up. The place was packed to the rafters with old and somewhat new, Russian camera parts, bodies and lenses. A photo in it's self.

The deal is this, either the camera is returned to its owner totally like it was when he gave it to me or I'll pay for a brand new one. Or I should say that Martha will pay for a brand new one and I will forever, suck.

Overheard at a Diner on 6th Avenue.
Mostly, therapy is nice. Last time I was there, he said to me; 'You drink too much coffee and then take the Klonopin. What's that about?'

I can't wait to start writing with you—well, I'll do the entire outline and the whole structure and then bring you in to clean it up, but I'm excited to start working together.

Overheard while waiting for the subway.
What do you do?
I'm a teacher. I teach 9th grade History. Early stuff, like beginning of time kind of thing. Ancient History.
Oh, you mean Jesus Christ stuff?
Long pause... No like the Bronze Age stuff.
Oh, when's that?

Jasmine to me on the phone telling me about her day.
I went busy.
It went busy.
It was busy, shit mom, don't write that down. Don't blog about that. Goddamn it mom I'm tired.

So that other day at the gym, yes I've been going to the gym. I started working out in June. I'm old and I need to deal with the many things that are wrong with me or that are not working properly.

Anyway, I was working out the other day and after my little round of back muscle strengthening exercises, I wanted to do my 45 minutes on the treadmill.

At the gym there are three TV's mounted to the ceiling and while running in place you can stare up at them and sweat open mouthed while being spoon fed useless garbage. I choose to listen to crazy music on my iPod but the images are still very there.

Sometimes one of the stations is Fox News. Now, if the treadmill in front of the TV with FOX News is on, I will not get on it. I'll wait. I could change the channel but undoubtedly there is someone there who is watching it and honestly I don't want to know who it is. I just might get a little vocal about it all. On this day there was an open one in the back so I figured I'd be too far away from the TVs to be able to read the subtitles on Fox News. I was wrong.

So check this out.

They were talking about how The Green Movement that is currently being taught in public schools needs to stop. Public schools shouldn't be teaching children things that are not based in truth. It should be up to the parents to decide if they want their children learning about something like 'Global Warming'. Parents are pissed that their kids are policing them about driving SUVs, recycling, and wasting energy.

Their concern was that the children are being fed this hideous propaganda AND one 'reporter' compared this teaching to the brainwashing of Hitler youth.

What. The. Fuck?

I am not kidding. It was like one long televised schizophrenias rant. I searched forever of the Fox News site, (until I felt dirty and on the verge of vomiting), for a clip of this but their site is a search nightmare. I think they keep it that way so you cannot go back, check, and deep link to any of their hideous propaganda. Seriously, Hitler youth?

Jasmine was in Europe on the day they discovered the plot to blow up ten or twelve transatlantic flights coming out of England. Her flight back to the United States was scheduled for 48 hours after a complete and total lockdown of all the airports within a zillion mile radius of the Atlantic Ocean.

I think Jasmine's entire trip on Saturday from merry old Oxford, England to Hudson, New York was a total of twenty-four hours, give or take an assortment of space outs and minute brain freezes that she surly must have had along the way. She started out on a bus ride to Gatwick airport, (she is so very lucky that it wasn't Heathrow) that was clogged with rush-hour airport traffic. Very late, she arrived at Gatwick with her baggy consisting of her passport, a piece of paper with our phone numbers on it and her wallet. In tow, she had two massive pieces of luggage that she waved goodbye to at luggage check and then it was on to a jumbo-jet airplane, for an 8-hour flight that, by the time it took off, was already three-hours late.

Arriving in the United States, she had by then missed her train to Penn Station and had to reschedule another one that left her with an hour layover in Philly's Penn Station (always a pleasure) and then another hour layover in New York's Penn Station (extra fun and freshly scented), very late on a Saturday night. In New York's Penn Station, she sat on the floor with her two gigantic pieces of luggage, her deodorant having given up several hours prior, staring at the track board, waiting for it to display the track number for her train and desperately trying not to fall asleep. At 11:45 pm (4:45 am Jasmine time), she boarded a train to Albany and rode for two-hours north to Hudson, New York where Martha and I picked her up at 1:45 am (6:45 am Jasmine time) Sunday Morning.

She had started this crazy pilgrimage in Oxford at 7:00 am, still drunk from the night before and ended up stinking up our car almost a whole day later. She never slept on the plane or the train and they did not serve ANY water on the eight-hour flight across the ocean. She had no iPod; paper; books; pens; music; no electronic devices whats-so-ever and not once was she allowed to use HAND SANITIZER. Are they trying to spread a pandemic? Bring it on you dumb, unprepared fucks.

Yuck.

But she is here, she is home and will be here for the week and the world is a very frightening place. Yeah, I know all about it but the idea of my child on an airplane on the day that Al-Qaeda decided to blowup people coming home, to America; to kill more Americans, freaks me out just a tad. Oh sure people are blown up every day in the name of religion or oil and I realize that statistically, there is little difference between my family and any family in northern Lebanon so why not blow up my kid? Who is to say? Why are we even dealing with this? Why is this becoming the only normal way to think? Why, as gas prices climb to the point where $5.00 a gallon will seem normal, why do we still have a president that SUCKS at foreign policy and continues to SUCK at foreign policy to the point that other people keep wanting to blow us up because he SUCKS SO BAD? Homeland Security my ass. I see him as the biggest threat to this country's ability to communicate and function in this world. Every time he fucks up, we, as in the collective we "The Nation", have to smile for the cameras, bend over and embarrassingly take it up the ass in front of all Nations. But Americans don't mind because they feel safer with all that extra security of forcing nursing mothers to drink their own breast milk in front of the armed National Guard.

Oh wait, that's right they hate us because we are free. Right. That is what makes them crazy for our blood in the streets. Right.

RUNNING WITH PACKS
I finally had a chance to do some serious walking about this little town I now live in. Even though we should have stayed inside and tinkered with countless things, Martha and I went for a major Sunday morning walk with the Polaroid camera. Then when Akash and Yasuyo arrived, we walked the whole length of the town, all the way down to the river. Shot some very fun very, odd photos and had good solid laughs, the kind that have been seriously lacking in my life. (Obviously) I think just having Martha and Jasmine home has done me wonders but the added laid-back company made it even better.

In less time then it takes to watch an episode of VH1s I love the 80's; Jasmine has managed to trash the entire second floor of our house. My office is full of crap; the bathroom is filled with odd personal product and things like a flat iron and a hair dryer are all fighting for space on a very narrow vanity. On my desk by the new computer is a bottle of OPI Nail Lacquer (Edin-Burgundy), a copy of the new GQ with "The Private Life of Justin Timberlake" bookmarked and underneath that is a copy of the new US Weekly with the VINCE PROPOSES! screaming headline.

Oh well, it's not as though the house was in perfect condition before she arrived. So much to do so little time to deal. All her shit is now mixed in with my shit so everything looks even messier then it did just the other day. I kind of feel like I have made no progress but I know deep down that is only an illusion. Plus, I kind of need to get out of the house with some family and friends for a few hours.

There is a rather large pet store that is just down the street from the house and I personally see that as more of a potential threat than living next door to the Happy Clown Soft Serve Ice Cream Stand up on RT 23. Currently, they have a gaggle of black and white kittens in there that would make even the blackest of hearts melt. It's sick and I should be forbidden from entering the store. Kind of like Tippy, the white and black cat that isn't allowed in the Muddy Cup Coffeehouse even though I always see her in there, napping on one of the many sofas. They even have a sign on the front door with her photo and underneath it, it reads; "Don't let me in!". I should hang a photo of me near the register of the pet store with the words "DO NOT SELL LIVE ANIMALS TO THIS CRAZY BITCH" plastered all over it.

This whole town has a cat thing. There are gangs of feral cats that roam around the town. There are about ten or so over by the hotel and then, at the other end of town, there are several more that hang near the train station. We have two that linger in our backyard and drive Zoë nuts. One is a big black cat who does not give a rat's ass about us and then, there is a cute tabby that appears to be pregnant. Oh Jesus, one way or another I see more cats in my life. I just know it.

Last Thursday and Friday, I went back to work. It was over 90º both days and I thought I was going to choke to death right there on the fucking sidewalk in front of The Gap. The first day, Jazz walked me to work, turned around, went back to New Jersey to the dentist to have two cavities filled, then came back to The Voice, and sat next to me for three hours until it was time for me to leave. She was my very own personal bodyguard and honestly, I was glad she was there. Thursday did not even mark two weeks since the surgery so I was a little nervous about it all. Friday was more difficult for me and I was alone that day. Whatever, I have exactly one week to get back up to speed because they are closing my subway stop and I will have to walk at least 5 blocks (ish) out of my way until February (06). Some kind of horseshit subway construction at the Cortlandt street stop that totally fucks with all of our lives starting August 20th.

SHIT, PISS & LAUGHTER
After Martha and I saw The Aristocrats, we went to the grocery store where we proceeded to make our own version of the joke while walking the isles of suburbia. Our slant, involved two over forty lesbians in debt up to their eyeballs and desperate for college money, seek a life of extracurricular Carney activities with their "gifted" 21-year-old daughter and two lesbian cats, one of whom has a crusty butt. Oh man, that movie is so funny I laughed almost the entire way through it - something that I have not done in ages. I felt like I was 10 and it was probably the most cathartic thing to happen to me since I rode a bike with a basket.

PROCLAMATIONS
"I refuse to fear September," said Martha and I thought, okay, sure, why worry about it? No one knows just how it is going to go, so, fuck it! Good approach to a yearly issue. Why ruin August with worry? Good and bad shit does seem to happen all year long. Just because the ninth month marks the end of Virgo and the beginning of Libra and we move from Earth to Air, Mutable to Cardinal and Mercury to Venus, not ALL that seasonal shit really means beans. Right?

At least Mercury will finally be out of retrograde soon. Jesus.

CLEANING HOUSES
Jasmine leaves in two weeks and although I cannot make the drive again this year because she has so much shit she needs my seat, I do get to clean the apartment. Believe it or not, I am excited about scrubbing it all down. We all have been living real strange in this tiny apartment with me being sick and Jasmine's constant hoarding and it will be nice to sterilize and spread out. Martha and I will get our living room back and I will have my office. Oh happy day.

It is time to move the creative therapy magnet on the fridge off of the "Freaking Out", slot (which Jazz drew in special for this house) back to the "Love Struck" slot, its permanent place.

CHOCOLATE SEX
Melissa sent me a box of crazy SoHo Chocolates from Kee's Chocolates and Martha and I sat in bed on Sunday and snorted half the box while Jasmine was at work. It was awesome and better than a good number of the drugs I have done. This place (Kee's) makes clever stuff but the good ones are fantastic. The Thai Chili was strange but I had to spit out the Passion Fruit. So many others were beyond yummy. Coconut, Almond, Hazelnut, you know the usual suspects but it was fun to try the intimidating ones. I am still holding out on the Balsamic one though. It was like stoner stuff. You know, "Hey man I wonder what pepper and dark chocolate would taste like rolled into a ball and sprinkled with Allspice?". This place is so off the wall that they drew out by hand the chocolate chart. Thank you Melissa, you rock.

Jasmine's friend Patrick arrived on time Thursday night despite oversleeping and missing his first bus out of the tiny PA college town he was stuck in for the summer. He managed to bum a ride to the next town over, where he was able to make his connecting bus. There was panic and tension in the air via Jasmine's cell phone Thursday morning, but she remained the calm, levelheaded one. I know, go figure, right? I must say it was impressive to watch. She made me leave my own office because I was making her nervous. Funny, I never think about that. How could I make someone else nervous when the entire world makes me nervous and twitchy?

Patrick spent all of his money on the first day here. It was kind of like when Jasmine got to the beach last summer and rode the boogie board all day long. By dinner time, her legs were mush and she was sun burnt like a five-year old brat, which by the way, was also her mood. The next day, she had to stay inside and could barely walk because she had shin splints.

Ah, yes, memories.

Jasmine, being the most excellent tour guide and obsessive nutbag, took Patrick bong shopping in the West Village, apartment trinkets and fabric shopping in Chinatown, Sushi in the East Village and bright lights and a movie (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) in Time's Square, all in one day. She came home with nothing but still managed to spend all of her money. Patrick came home with a green glass bong as long as my arm.

Okay, here is how Jersey, New Jersey is. The Chart House is a real nice place. It is on a pier over the Hudson and has an amazing view of Manhattan. If you eat there, you will spend roughly, $50.00 per person. Now, I understand that it isn't Manhattan, but for that kind of money one would expect a little bit of dress up from the customers. The five of us looked like movie stars compared to the rest of the room. Or as Patrick said, "We look like we have money." This made me laugh and stuck in my head as something that I just might want to look like more often. Face it, looking rich works.

For me, a clear indication that things are not quite right is when I find myself in the top tier of ANYTHING. Like a well-manicured lawn with weeds every eight feet, Saturday fuck off clothes and casual dress peppered the dining room of The Chart House. Not only were some men not wearing jackets, they were not wearing ties either. I saw women with no makeup and scrunchies in their hair. Some folks didn't even look like they had washed from the days running around. Two of the worst fashion nightmares that night were completely ridiculous. I saw an overweight Jersey girl wearing (very short) silk basketball shorts and a matching colored tank top. And no, it was not a J-Lo thing. It was an "I'm a lazy slob" thing. However, it was the guy with a bright orange tee-shirt with the sleeves torn off that really had my eyeballs. Once the sun went down, I did not notice my fellow diners but for about 30 minutes there, it was a little difficult watching some of those Garden State hillbillies run around the room.

Okay, enough, I'm done. Dinner was fantastic and between Martha, Sheri and myself there are probably over a hundred photos of just Jasmine. That child has had a personal photographer all her life. The flash on Martha's camera kept blinding the staff whenever they walked by and when Jasmine pointed out the we were annoying the people around us, Martha blurted out, "I don't give a shit, if someone wants to pay my bill then I'll be happy to stop."

Present giving is always a gas and this year Martha and I bought Jasmine an iPod. Now, all summer Jazz had been convinced that she was getting one so, in an attempt to throw her off that trail, Martha bought her a Mrs. Potato head. It is roughly the same size box so we thought it might be fun to fuck with Jazz a little. But she had none of it. In fact, she didn't even flinch when she tore off the wrapping paper. She opened the box and proceeded to "assemble" Mrs. Potato head right there on the table. So Martha made the long trek out to the valet parked car to get the iPod (we weren't sure how all of the whole present thing was going to work) and Jasmine played with the potato pieces while her Lava Cake candle burned.

The iPod was a hit and so was all the Emily the Strange paraphernalia and Sephora gift card from Miss Simon. Sheri's gift to us was a big help out on the dinner. Thank God. Martha pointed out that we ALL benefit from the fact that Sheri doesn't have children, yet.

So there was 21. Five days of celebration should be enough for her to remember her 21st, hopefully.

SUNDAY DRIVERS SUCK LIKE US
Getting Patrick out of here was even more panic filled then his arrival. Less than fifteen minutes away from Newark Penn Station, Patrick announced from the back seat of the Jeep that he didn't have his bus ticket. Something about it still sitting on top of the stereo or some such crap. It was 12:50, his bus was to leave at 1:35, and we had already been in the car for twenty minutes. Upon hearing this, Martha pulled a fast run around the block and we got back on the 1 & 9 headed towards home, except it wasn't really the 1 & 9 because coming out of Newark is a very different thing then going into Newark. Instead of highway travel, we were jammed up in local road traffic and not real clear as to where we were going. All we knew is that we had to get back to the apartment and grab that ticket or we were fucked.

Fighting our way through Harrison, Kearny and all the nice little dead body drop-off sections of Jersey City, we finally came to a road we knew. Only then, did Martha's Grand Theft Auto abilities kick in. She opened it up and I helped navigate. From the backseat, Sheri screamed while text noveling notes of terror to someone on the outside. Jasmine and Patrick laughed, bickered and cried out in pain as we slammed over potholes.

We raced all the way through Jersey City, past the old apartment where we almost ran over a realtor standing in the middle of the street holding white balloons and an Open House sign. We flew past the stupid mall and all the families with strollers, rushed by Queen Latifah's recording studio and snapped, like the tip of a whip, around the corner to our apartment building. Martha stopped on a dime and Jazz jumped out of the Jeep and ran into the apartment building, hopped on an elevator and rode up to the eighteenth floor.

Three minutes later, she came running out with the bus ticket in hand and dove into the back seat. Martha hit the gas, whipped the car around the block, up to Grove Street and straight down Erie, past the old apartment and back on the 1 & 9. In seconds we were back over the toxic swamps of Jersey headed towards Newark, it was 1:15. Panic set in when it occurred to us that we just might not make it. If Patrick were to miss this bus, we would have had to drop Sheri off at Penn Station for her train at 2:00 and then immediately begin chasing the bus to the next stop in Stroudsburg, PA.

At 1:25 we went the wrong way past Newark Penn Station and had to drive three blocks out of the way to find the proper One Way street to go back down to it. At 1:30, we pulled into the entrance to The Hilton, which is directly across the street from the bus terminal. We all jumped out of the Jeep, threw Patrick's luggage on the ground, hugged him and then Jasmine walked him over to the bus area, put him in line and told him not to move until his bus came. All of us got back in the Jeep and drove around The Hilton entrance to look for parking so we could walk Sheri to her track. We found parking but upon realizing it was $10.00, we drove slowly around to the very same Hilton entrance and this time we let Sheri out of the Jeep, kissed her and said our goodbyes.

Leaving Penn Station, we went the wrong way towards the 1 & 9 and ended up at Newark Airport, but by that point, no one cared and once we saw the airport, we knew where we were and how to get home from there. At 1:45 Martha, Jasmine and I were riding over the big black 1 & 9 bridge headed towards home. The car was quiet, our land speeds had returned to normal and I slipped into a small coma.

There is no way to describe the absolute joy and jubilation that comes from knowing that Jasmine's PET scans are all clear. I didn't even realize just how fucked in the head with worry I truly was until the word came that she was fine. I started to cry at my desk at work. Tears of relief. Then, within two minutes I suddenly was exhausted and in dire need of a nap. But, in the middle of a newspaper deadline, I stayed chained to my desk.

Jasmine is learning the fine art of first apartment furniture gathering. She has already snagged an end table from the clutches of the trash room and then, last Tuesday, she found herself with a day off, wandering around Macy's furniture liquidation sale. She bought an entertainment stand for eleven dollars. That's as good as any yard sale or Goodwill. I have trained the young grasshopper well.

The only catch was that she had to get it home all by herself. So, she carried it through Newport Pavonia mall, drug it on the Light Rail at rush hour and then walked it three blocks to the apartment. There really isn't any place to put this 4ft by 2ft thing so it is currently shoved up against the window in the living room. There really isn't any place to put anything in this apartment and we don't have a storage space. We have eight weeks until move out and the stacking of crap has already started. The office is a disaster zone.

Plans are in the works for Miss Jasmine's 21st birthday. They now include a fancy water front dinner at The Chart House and she is busing in college backup in the form of a boy from PA to help her celebrate. Oh sure, Martha, Sheri and I are just great and all but we tend to wrap it up kind of early. We'll get tired and cranky and the talk will turn into a three-way mom fest with no end in sight. At least with one of her own kind around we'll instinctively back off, not so much to save Jasmine but more of a not letting the others see how ridiculous we can get.

But yes, back to the idea of company in our cramped little domicile. He is gay and will be Jasmine's roommate next year. Horror of horrors we are having a boy in the house. Hmm, does it count if he's gay? Well, the cats will let us know.

CUT ME OPEN
Well, hey what's this I see? A surgery date has been confirmed...and why, yes, it looks like...July 27th at 10am in the morning they will be taking my left adrenal gland out. We shall see. I have to jump through all those hoops that I jumped through in February so let the games begin. I'll believe it when I wake up in the hospital doped up and hallucinating. At least all this time has made Martha and I deal with some adult stuff like Living Wills, Power of Attorney and the all-important Last Will and Testament. Hey, they are going to put me under so we had to go there. Thank you to Olivia for the use of her super cool Notary stamp.

AMERICA: THE MOVIE
Why has 60 Minutes been nothing but reruns for the past several weeks? What the fuck? Isn't there ANYTHING to report on? I mean the whole cancer sniffing dog thing was cool but honestly, they should be ashamed of themselves for phoning it in like every other news and entertainment program. What about Sandra Day O'Connor? (This country is so fucked) What about Live 8? What about the Increase in the Number of Documents Classified by the Government. Or National Organization for Women pissing and arm waving at Bush over abortion rights. It's not just 60 Minutes either. Dateline and 20/20 are just as useless. I don't get it. How can so many of us not care? My own newspaper has turned into something I no longer recognize. The Village Voice is not what it used to be that is for sure and the word "evolve" isn't what I'm thinking of. The right is the new left and the true left are a bunch of sky is falling fruit loops.

What? Everything is fine, the economy is great; don't worry about healthcare, or jobs. Where's my fucking iPod? Katie Holmes said YES! "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." -George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005

And you know, Freedom ain't free, biatch.

EVERYTHING ABOUT ME SAYS GO AWAY
Sunday night, a little after 5:00pm and I had the apartment all to myself for about the two hours. Jasmine was at work and Martha was out doing the most social of activities. She was golfing with two other lesbians. As predictable as that is, it is just as unpredictable that I won't play along and be the fourth wheel on the lesbian golf cart. I'm just not that kind of girl, although I happen to like a girl who is a golfer. I love to nap to golf and I really do dig Annika. But it's more than just golf that I won't partake in. Martha explains it away with excuses that I'm not very social and "that's okay", which, I suppose, it has to be.

She and I had a conversation about how if anyone ever needed a mentor in life it was I, because almost everyone I've ever known has turned up full of shit and exclusively self motivated. I did have a teacher once, senior year of high school that I trusted and gave me basic life stuff. She was part of that new Hippie way of Team Teaching and insisted that her students call her by her first name, which was Cindy. She treated all of us like adults, even if we fucked up and skipped class to go smoke dope in the parking lot. At the time, I thought she was cool because she was the first adult to vocalize to me that my mom was probably insane and not to pay too much attention to her. But, by that point, it was a little late in the game and I was out of the state of Ohio within three months, regardless of whatever horseshit my mom pulled. I would have thumbed to college if I had needed to. My mom hated Cindy and constantly told me so, but it was the only time I ever got straight A's in high school.

This was also around the same time that I met a girl that was a little older than me named Jenny. We both worked the nightshift at Frisch's Big Boy and became fast friends. She lost her right eye when she was a small child via her little brother and a tree branch and she now had a glass eye. One slow night when I was bored out of my skull I asked her if I could see it. She responded by popping it right out of the socket and holding it up in front of my face. Both of my eyes shifted focus between the marble eye in the foreground and the dark hole of her eye socket in the background. From that moment on, I thought she was the coolest girl I'd ever met. That single act of unconscious behavior blew my mind.

Ah yes, but that was a hundred years and countless buckets of whiskey ago and unfortunately, the basis of my bullshit detector rests somewhere within the seeds of my youth. Over the years, I have met some of the finest folks under the strangest conditions and I have watched some of those same folks turn the strangest. It really is tragic when you fail to live up to someone else's expectations.

Whether its lovers, family or friends, you think you are all on the same page but then the page changes and you realize that some of those that you love can't keep up. You recognize that they are in remedial reading and stuck on junk that was never who you were in the first place. Or maybe who you were for one day, on acid and walking around with a camera but not who you are all the damn time. But in their head, that's how you have been filed so now you are stuck living out somebody else's absurdity. Oh sure, some fake it real well and a have glazed over understanding of the words that are coming out of your mouth. They fake it until they can't follow along anymore and either walk away or blame all their heartache on you. Others act out in aggressive deeds of hostility in the hopes of showing you just what an asshole YOU are. That is when you start to realize that blood is thinner than water and everyone is apathetic unless it directly relates to themselves.

Ah, I have a point in there somewhere but who cares.

Yeah, so that is what I did when left alone. Write and listen to my new Say Hi to Your Mom CD. (Everybody send love to Eric in Brooklyn.)

Fuck it, and chalk it up to being so fucking overworked that I'm nuttier than normal. Siren is so up my ass that all I dream is green. Let's just say that this year is particularly painful and I spent the majority of my 4th of July weekend working on it. I like the site though but I am also fried. I keep telling myself that it is for the greater good of the collection of hours and another portfolio piece. I'm collecting my overtime to cash out for my surgery. It would be nice to use that instead of ALL of my vacation time. We do have that beach house thing in October that I daydream about daily. Last week was just downright ugly with the Union threatening to strike and then pulling me into there little circle of strange. That's right, I'm now a Union employee. God help us all.

Last weekend, Martha and I managed to make it out of Ikea with only a few things we really did not need. We went in for a bookcase, which we got, along with some cheap rugs and we bought Lily, (yes, that is right, the cat) a floor pillow that we inserted a heating pad into so she could have snuggly warmth. She is twelve or thirteen and our intention is to spoil her to the very end. Yes, yes, yes, I gotta say, it's good to be a cat in this house, well unless you're Mona, but she does have a sunny, 18th floor view of Manhattan 24/7 in a tastefully decorated, enshrined urn, complete with blood red ribbon and her favorite suede mouse.

Blink, Blink.

We also went to Ikea to price out and abuse the shit out of, a daybed that I want to buy for Jasmine. We simply must buy her something better to sleep on other than that disgusting child's bed that Jim and his woman made her sleep on. We will be taking that crusty thing back to PA sometime over the next five weeks because she wants to have it as a couch type thing in her new, Mary Tyler Moore apartment. We are planning to put all of her dorm shit into a storage space for the summer so that it is already there for next fall.

This daybed has massive storage underneath it and seeing as how I will not let her have any other furniture here, because there is no room in our room for things like a dresser. She needs something to store her clothes in as an alternative to all over the floor.

EVEN BETTER STONED
Synchronized Ice-skating? I have never seen anything like it until I walked into the bedroom and low and behold, there it was on the TV. For four solid minutes, I sat on the edge of the bed with my mouth open and my eyes glued to the screen. It was like a hypnotic drug. Every ten seconds or so Martha and I would go, "Wow". They were like liquid Rockettes. Most pleasing and I simply must know more.

WE ALL HAVE ONE THING IN COMMON
An acquaintance of mine died on Easter Sunday of liver cancer. It was fast and fucked up is what that was. He was diagnosed in September, actually around the same time that I was diagnosed with my bullshit.

Anyway, he and I would occasionally talk about the state of affairs with healthcare, how all doctors are assholes and his personal decision to continue to smoke with cancer. He didn't have lung cancer, so what the fuck, right? I have often said that if this crap I have turns ugly I am going to march directly to a liquor store and buy two packs of Marlboro Lights and a fifth of Southern Comfort. Warren Zevon smoked until the end and he HAD terminal lung cancer.

In a world that at times, seems to be riddled with assholes, my friend was one of the good guys. A first rate fellow who understood long before he was sick, that none of this really matters. Life is to live, stop bitching about it and go live it.

I am going to miss Bob and I am surprised that I met him here in strange and impersonal New York City. He and I spoke in his office about a week ago and I had a nagging feeling at the time that it was probably close to the end for him. I hate it when I'm right.

HOW MUCH WOOD WOULD A WOODCHUCK CHUCK IF A WOODCHUCK COULD CHUCK WOOD? (Repeat as Necessary)
Jasmine sent me and everyone physically and spiritually around me, into a three-hour freak-out on Monday morning when she found a lump on her groin —again the use of that fucking word. She had just past the three-year anniversary of being cancer-free in February and it was close enough to the lymph node that she went to the emergency room.

I passed the time away, waiting on a phone call, Googling LUMP IN GROIN and power reading all possibilities. Martha and I took Xanax at just a little past noon at our different work locations and we were all so flipped out that there were actual phone conversations (2) involving Miss Simon.

I truly contemplated calling Jasmine's dad but decided to wait until I knew more.

After one hundred and eighty minutes of nothing but pure fucking worry, Jasmine called with a diagnosis of an abscess in the tissue. Who knows why? And that is the GOOD NEWS. I am starting to figure out that there is no long-term guarantee on Good News. Yes, yes I know THAT — but I have always had a skewed vision that someday, for all of eternity, everything will be great. Deep down, I am an optimist. Don't laugh, it's pretty deep in there. So right now, Jasmine is fine and that is the best news ever. When she comes home in five weeks however, we are going to scan the shit out of her.

I do think that Sheri had a good birthday despite the fact the both Martha and I had to work on Friday. Sheri and Keri went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the Diane Arbus exhibit, which we were all going to do on Saturday but honestly, I have had enough of weekend exhibits and should probably stay away from all that horseshit until I am not so god damn sensitive. Sheri and Keri also went on over to Nassau Street for Japanese massages and Martha and I rounded out their day with Sushi at home.

It is very nice to know that I can still make Sheri laugh her ass off with my tall tales and even after all these years she still lets me be my most boisterous self with almost little to no eye rolling.

On Saturday, Martha and Keri got a Sharon Stone Sphere era haircuts and Sheri bought four new tires at Pep Boys. I suppose there are worse birthday presents to buy yourself. Sheri and Keri got a flat tire outside of Baltimore on the way here. Seeing as this was the same tire that Martha and I followed to the beach last August when we first noticed that it was a little low, I am surprised it lasted this long. I am even more surprised that they drove on the spare for another three hours but what the hell do I know, I don't even drive.

Here is the difference between us and them. A flat tire would have flipped me out. I would have lost it and it would have been the most detailed, long-winded story of survival known to man if it would have happened to us. Sheri and Keri, not so much. Keri's shirt was dirty and Sheri was not fazed at all. I would be a raving lunatic, Sheri not one bit.

I did not leave the apartment from Friday night until Sunday afternoon around 12:30 when we all drove over to Pep Boys to pick up Sheri's car and say good-by in the parking lot and even though I slept almost all of Saturday away, quite a few of my inside activities were delightful.

I spent a wonderful few minutes ogling over this. The article on purses is great but the multimedia slide show is so much fun. I also enjoyed a quiet morning deep reading Keri's Davis Drug Guide for Nurses, studying up on all my medications, Martha's medications and medications I want to be on. Just like a candy list. To me, the thing reads like the Godiva Chocolate Guide that is complete with Live Assistance Mon-Fri: 10am-10:30pm EST; Sat-Sun: 10am-6pm EST. The Nurses Drug Book comes with a CD and has the 'Do not crush, break, or chew caution statements' for each drug. A vital thing for me to be in the know about.

The four of us hung out mostly in my teenage bedroom/office, telling stories, shooting Polaroids, 120 film and a few silly digital. I worked on a small number of things with this here site. Silly stuff like, reformatting the Journal section, designing a new Holga section and trying to write this weird little story about my 21st birthday. Martha bought me the most beautiful tulips when she was out and we all agree that her new haircut is the total shit. She does look great and all weekend I kept mistaking her for Sharon Stone.

On Sunday, I finally did my nails my favorite blood red, it was a wonderful girly weekend, and when it came time to go, Keri thought she was going to puke. Seriously, head between knees type of shit. I had to give her (diet) Sprite and pretzels. I take this as the highest form of complement. But the real fun thing was Sunday night a really, really bad Sharon Stone movie was on. So of course, Martha and I suffered through The Quick and The Dead, for the second time in our lives. We actually went to see that thing in the theater, if you can believe it. She claims to have no memory of it, oh but I do. Bad movie, very bad movie. But Sharon Stone was nice and why that didn't kill her career, I will never know.

STILL ON A DEAD LINE
I am so not looking forward to Tuesday. That is the day that I am having the yucky test. Also known as 'Catheter in My Groin Day', I think I can honestly say that I would rather be at work and Tuesday is deadline day. While I am not really sure what all they are planning on doing to me, Keri told me that I am going to have to keep my leg straight for 4-6 hours until the vein heals together. Otherwise, I might pop it open and well I guess it would be a blood fest. That is kind of scary. Not the blood part but the assumption that I'm going to be able to sit still for any length of time even if you decorate it with 'you might bust out a vein and bleed to death'. I have no attention span and forget simple shit that was told to me five minutes ago. They better just go ahead and tie that leg down. And oh yeah, I have a list of drugs that I want them to give me for this stupid test. I don't want to know a damn thing that is going on.

Well it looks like Martha, Jasmine and I survived five days of some intense girl power in our little three-room apartment. All I can really say is "WOW".

Keri managed to commute from here to DC and back without too much trouble other than sleep deprived delirium, but after a few coffees and a nice walk down 5th Avenue she got her third or fourth wind.

Sheri is so lovely and having her near always makes me feel better no matter how sick we both are. She came with a cold and we kibitzed over medicinal herb and Sudafed Cold Medicine. Of course, not to be outdone I kicked up my buzz a notch by drinking Vicks NyQuil Cough syrup straight out of the bottle like it was Southern Comfort. For two days, I carried it with me in all around apartment seeing as how I didn't really go anywhere else. Too sick and full of cold medicine to run amok like normal, I did manage to get out and go to dinner with everyone one night and Martha, Sheri and I went shooting early (crack of dawn early) over at the Fulton Fish Market and then on up to Time's Square. At eight o'clock in the morning, Times Square was already a buzz of nutty. Not as bad as normal but that whole fucking area has a pulse, I swear to god. It is kind of bothersome because it feels like a corporate monster pulse instead of the vibrant creative pulse like other areas of the city.

But that was it. I stayed home almost the entire four days. I have a cold that will not leave me alone. My voice is just now coming back but the constant coughing night and day is maddening.

Jasmine's friend Courtney is a nice little hippie chick from Jim Thorpe and is, at times, the polar opposite of Jazz. I suppose that is how those things work sometimes. Jazz had someone (other than us) that she could boss-around. Martha called it "Jazz Lite: Just as Filling but Half the calories".

Courtney is very, very laid back and I know she had a great time because she made the announcement that "this was the best New Year's of my life." It is always funny to hear something like that coming out of the mouth of a twenty-year-old. She has a good decade ahead of her filled with retarded behavior and complete New Year's Eve debauchery before a statement like that can carry some weight. But I have no doubt that Jasmine is a most excellent host and besides, they got served in a Chelsea bar on New Year's eve and hooked up with two boys from school. Boys, beer and balls dropping; sounds like an ideal time.

Jasmine, ever in tune with my neurosis and listening to the place in her brain where I have taken up permanent residence, also known as "the Mother Zone", made sure she was home by midnight on New Years. I have been in New York at midnight and it is kind of crazy on the street so I wanted her here. Yes, I can be a drag but I only had to ask her once. Besides, at midnight if we all cranked our necks we could see the fireworks in the harbor from the comfort of our big fat lesbian bed. Who would want to miss that?

My office had become the dressing room for Sheri, Keri, Jasmine and Courtney. Girl clothes, jewelry, strange bath pellets and hemp oils sat next to my Holga camera. Silver chains and finger rings curled around bottles of perfume on top of my filing cabinet. There were three stacks of clothes. Sheri's pile under my photo table; Jasmine's pile, stacked against the closet door and one of Courtney's luggage (the other one was in the living room) next to my chair/Lily's ottoman. I think Keri had a small pouch in there somewhere but it was lost to the room. It is so jammed full of stuff that even the cats stayed away, too dense for cat play.

Sheri and Keri shared Jasmine's twin bed, (they are either more cat-like than Martha and I or are just plain crazy) while Jasmine and Courtney slept on the air mattress in the living room.

For the most part it all seemed to work and there were only a few moments were I felt trapped without a place to go. New Years Day at 7 am was one such time. Everyone was sleeping so I made coffee, sat on the kitchen counter, and waited for Keri to come home from work. She was due around 8:00 so I though I would write a little and hang out on the counter, something I haven't done since I was a teenager.

Our red kitchen is around 12 x 7 and that's about it. Jasmine, blessed with the curse of not being able to sleep more than four hours no matter how drunk she was when she fell asleep, woke-up and joined me. She and I hung out in the kitchen for an hour and chatted about everything. It was so cool. We caught up on Courtney's visit, the up coming weeks activities and doctors appointments and the general state of the household.

Keri came home and then Jazz and I went for a two-hour walk around the water and canal in Jersey City where I took photos and Jasmine bitched about the sun. Every now and then, I took photos of her bitching about the sun. We talked about everything from boys and school to her cancer and my tumor stuff and Jasmine is quite possibly the coolest person I have ever known. Oh yes, she is lazy and makes all of us crazy and yes, there was a small conversation about trading her in for Courtney but that was just because we were all wooed by Courtney's usage of the dishwasher and the folding of clean clothes. Jasmine rocks and I would never trade her in. I would consider selling her but I would never, ever just trade her in.