Holly Northrop Blog

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.

Something is wrong with my hands.. It's the only explanation for the recent rash of droppings I've been experiencing. In addition to dropping the Horizon camera a few weeks back, I dropped the Russian Kiev in front of the owner. Thank god it only fell about five inches, but it was directly in front of her and landed on her desk. It had the lens cap on and everything was ok, but it is moments like that when I really hate myself.

Then Saturday, while trying to buy a small bushel of tomatoes from a local vendor I dropped a tomato on the ground. Then when the kid handed me back my change I dropped that on the ground.

"It's like what my football coach says to me, 'I've seen better hands on a clock.'" He laughed at me.

Ha ha, funny kid.

And I dropped my iPod while I was on the treadmill. The damn thing shot out behind me and hit the wall. It's fine because it has no moving parts. Kind of like my brain.

Speaking of brain drain, I have been summoned for Jury Duty. This makes the third time in my life that this has happened and all three times have been when I was unemployed.

The first time was in DC of all places. The trial was about a visitation violation and the rights of the father to enforce a previous court order for the wife to allow him to see his kids. Not so funny timing seeing how that was when I was in the middle of dealing with my own visitation issues with Jazz's father.

The second time was in Jersey City. That really should be all I have to say about it. Jury Duty in Jersey City was mindless for three days on end. The first two days I sat on a hard wooden bench in an airless room with roughly 200 of my fellow citizens. It sucked and as a race, we suck. The third and final day I was pulled into a jury pool and for several hours feared that I might actually make it into a trial but they managed to pick enough people before it got down to me.

This time, I'm not so sure. It's Hudson and there are only about 5,000 of us. I'm guessing they need just about everyone they pick. My only hope is that there is a light caseload or that things are real simple. What do you figure; most of the cases around here are either a domestic, drugs or robbery. Why go to trial on any of that? Just fess up to your retardation and pray you get a good judge. Upstate is the land of penitentiaries, no one has time for stupid shit. If you hit someone, sold crap to someone or stole from someone, just fucking admit it and let the rest of us move on with our lives.

Now, if it's something more then that, well, I walk a fine line between harsh language and kill the fucker mentality.

I'm real simple; if you hit your girlfriend/wife/mother of your child, you are guilty and should go to jail and your girlfriend/wife/mother of your child, should receive a new identity and job training.

If you abuse an animal, I fucking totally hate you. You are guilty and you should die.

If you are a republican and commit some kind of white-collar fraud, you are guilty and should go to a regular jail and you should have to work in the regular jail while all of your assets are liquidated and you FOREVER will have some kind of wage attachment.

If you sold drugs, I am extremely flexible as to the circumstances surrounding that.

Growing pot? Please, why are we here?

Meth? Stop it, stop it, stop it. Drug treatment for the rest of your life. Because you are going to need it.

If you are a woman and get busted selling drugs for your jackass boyfriend/husband/baby's father, then you should not only testify against him but also receive drug counseling, job training and some kind of therapy.

If you just so happen to kill your boyfriend/husband/baby's father because he beats the shit out of you on a pretty consistent basis, then fuck him. You get a walk, job training and some kind of major therapy.

I guess my real point here is that I have an open bias against men. Whatever. I am not just bias against men because of my sexual preference but because of the percentage of horrible things they are responsible for. Oh sure woman do shit but in much smaller numbers and it is almost always personal and quiet. They usually use posion, tend to kill what they love, hardly ever start wars or destroy employees trust and 401K accounts because of greed.

Should be a good time.

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 just love the general oddness's and flukes that can happen within roughly a one-block radius in Manhattan. Sometimes it is as though a whole day is contained with in an hour.

Last Wednesday I stumbled upon the tired old bones of the Cheyenne Diner on 9th and W.33rd street located across the street from B&H. I was just up there in the spring when it was open, and at that time, it looked just like any other railroad type diner in Manhattan. So as I was walking across 33rd not only did I notice that the door was oddly propped open, it appeared that the building was in the midst of demolition.

I asked if I could come in and photograph it. They didn't care one bit. I wasn't able to poke around as much as I would have liked but I think I might have a few shots that are pretty interesting. At least right now in my head they are interesting, we'll see what happens when I develop the film. One guy mentioned to me that the Diner was moving over to Brooklyn. Probably Williamsburg in some bastardization of hipsterness.

Right after shooting ½ a roll at the Cheyenne I walk further down 33rd to Saint Michael's Academy where I shot a super weird photo of an all white Jesus. While walking near AP I was almost hit by Lincoln Tunnel traffic because I was too busy gawking at all the folks standing around outside smoking. At first I thought they were having a fire drill or something. We used to have them all the Voice. Stupid things. I'd usually walk out and go to lunch although many folks would just stand in the street, stare up at the building and wait to go back in. After studying the Associate Press folks for a few minutes I realized they were all on a break. Further along the road, (technically ½ a block down on 34th street) as I was shooting the New Yorker sign I looked down and saw someone I used to work with at the Voice.

We both looked at each other and smiled that big happy-to-see-you smile. "I was just standing there when out of the corner of my eye I saw this fuzzy red-headed chick with a camera pointed up at the sky and I thought to myself, NO WAY!"

Good to see good people and I do miss working with good people.

"I'm moving back to Greece. I'm keeping my apartment though, sublet it out I tell ya. That landlord can kiss my ass I tell ya, fuck him." —Greek diner on 23rd

The Horizon 202 Camera is officially back in the hands of the owner. He was to use it over the weekend and report to me how it's working. I'm just glad it's no longer around me. I didn't even want to hand it back to him, instead I displayed it on the center of the kitchen table. If I would have had a cake plate I would have put it on that. The technical report of what all was wrong with it: (Said in heavy Russian accent with a slight shaking of the head ending with a small puckering of the lips.)

"It was all screwed up. Berry, berry bad."

Every now and then, I remember that instead of wandering aimlessly around New York, there is stuff I want to do instead. I managed to see the When Color was New Show at the Julie Saul Gallery. As side from the rudeness of a Chelsea Gallery, the show was motivating in so many ways. Photography is luck, lighting and timing. I stood in front of one the most inspiring photos that I've ever seen. There are three things that work together perfectly with this shot.

The man is staring out into infinity with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. The woman is looking at her wedding ring. There is a plate of white bread with a few pads of butter around the edges.

Man. Woman. Butter. Perfect.

The whole show was encouraging and many of the prints I've seen before in publications here and there. A few of them are in postcard form hanging in my studio. Just a subliminal reminder to myself that I need to look around more when I'm out shooting. Every shot is there, I just have to see it.

I got into an argument with a neighbor about noise. Now to be fair, his timing sucked for I wasn't really furious at him, (that's a whole OTHER story) but he took the brunt of my anger.

He and his fat fuck of a buddy were working on a car across the street. They had a volume control issue with their voices, deciding to shout normal conversation at each other while standing only two feet apart. After about 15 minutes of that horseshit I walked out of the house and across the street where I, in a rather calm tone, asked them if they could stop shouting at each other. No big thing right? Well while walking back to the house, the fatter one, started trash talking me the minute I was behind the hedge line, only he's an ass see, and he trash talked me loudly.

I turned right around, marched across the street, and got all up in their faces. I stood there sandwiched between too rather large and bulbous bellies with a combined weight of well over 400 lbs, bitching at both of them for saying shit behind my back. According to Martha, who by now was standing on our front stoop, I called one guy a jackass. I do remember being in his face and pointing a finger at him so it is of no real surprise that the words, "Listen here Jackass," came out of my mouth. But really isn't that just my way of making friends?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jasmine has asked me to burn all my Joy Division for her. She swears she's not depressed, that she just likes the music and I do believe her but part of me did pause when she asked me. It's one thing when I decide to 'go there' but it's a whole other can of worms if your child 'goes there'.

"Mom, I also listen to Tool, but that doesn't make me want to go out and kill myself."
Although she was making a point I never got past the "I listen to Tool" part of that sentence. Tool makes many people want to go out and kill themselves.

She's coming home for her birthday and I can't wait to see her. She's driving and the cost of gas alone is going to be as much as a night at the Waldorf.

Can I just say that the West Fourth Street subway station is a total pit of shit? I hate when I have to use it and will walk the extra blocks just to avoid the damn place. Every time I'm down there I feel like I'm either going to be mugged or shoved in front of a train. It's one of the few stations in Manhattan that makes me feel that way. Even the station in the South Bronx didn't make me as uncomfortable as West Fourth Street.

I don't know why but that station just creeps me out, the vibe is all wrong. It's super spooky when you're all dressed for an interview, (or a job on Wall Street), you become a target for bullshit. I've seen it with other people and I've seen it with me. Dress like any other scourge of the earth and no one looks twice, but slap and pair of dress shoes and a Fossil Red Leather Business Tote on your ass and well, here they come.

Again with the dental visits, another Wednesday, another filling. I am seeing these people on such a weekly basis that I'm starting to know their lives, you know how their weekend was, etc. I could be an employee, except there is no way I could stick my hands in another person's mouth. I can barely tolerate the sight of my own horrible teeth let alone the fucked up crap of someone else's nightmare.

Funny, my dad was always trying to get me to go to dental school. That's all he used to say to me all through high school. "You know Holly, those dental hygienists make damn good money."

He'd always say that after he'd had a dental visit, which if I recall was with about the same frequency that I have. I get my shitty teeth from his Irish/German side of the family tree. Come to think of it, I get a lot of shitty things from that side of the family. Interesting how he never thought I could actually be a dentist but that I just might be smart enough to handle teeth cleaning.

Speaking of stupid, for two days last week, I periodically watched two guys from National Grid dig a hole in our front yard.

Union Street is undergoing a MAJOR construction project, in fact all of Hudson is but now they have started on our street. They are replacing all of the gas lines, the main one and the one that feeds into each and every house. So the drilling, tarring jack hammering, and general jackassiery should be a good time for all of us. It wouldn't suck so much if everything wasn't in the front of the house. My studio, the living room and the bedroom all have direct viewing of the construction. The only place I can hide out in is either the kitchen or Martha's office.

They have marked up the road in front of each house with colorful orange, blue and white spray-paint. It looks like HTML markup. I do notice that our house seems to have quite a few more notes then either one of our neighbors. Not sure what that means but I'm sure it sucks. It's been my experience that anything that has more code around it or special notations is most likely problematic.

The first day of the project is when they started digging the hole. They were looking for the main gas line. They found our pipe with out any real trouble. It's only about two feet down and right in front of our driveway, but the main line was a mystery, wrapped in a enigma that was stuffed inside a Triple Whopper^TM with Cheese. The magnet that they use to find pipe indicated that the main line was in our yard, so they started digging. Digging, digging and digging. End of day one: nothing so they covered the hole up put a bunch of orange cones with yellow tape around it and went home.

Day two. They dug out the hole that they had just filled fifteen hours before and then they dug further. By now, this hole had interested a neighbor, he came over to stand there, and watch Darrel and Darrel dig a hole.

He stood there for over thirty minutes, looking down at the hole. Amazing. I don't get it, I don't understand what part of the brain wants' to watch someone dig a hole. This is such a man thing. Is this the same thing as when we watch each other put makeup on? Just stupid brain shit, kind of like the power save on the computer.

They finally found the main line three feet over and under the road instead of in our yard. So they filled up the hole, and dug a new one, out in the road.

Saturday morning I woke up at 7am to the sound of aluminum ladders being extended and the general clanking that aluminum can cause. The weather has been so nice here that for over a week we've had the windows open and I'd like to keep it that way. Air conditioners cost money and seeing how I'm unemployed and the entire country is in some form of biblical disaster, (flood, fire and food are all attacking us), I figure the less I can crank up the air the better.

After a few clanking moments, I hear a weird noise coming from across the street. I look out and see a man standing by the neighbor's big tree in the front yard. He has the ladder and is looking up at the tree.

Ok whatever, the neighbors are having something done to their house, painted, shutter stuff, whatever, don't care I move on, pissed that I'm awake so early on a Saturday. But this weird noise keeps drifting over. I think it's either a treed cat or one of those crazy squirrels. I figure whatever it is, it's some kind of animal that is caught in the tree and because the workers are right there, it's freaked out. I know a woodpecker lives there but I wasn't sure they make a growl-moan sound.

Finally I figure it out. One of the workers is a mute. He's not deaf because there isn't any signing going on, just loud moaning sounds after everything the other guy tells him to do, which like normal conversation is every few seconds. He sounds like Peter Boyle in Young Frankenstein.

"We don't have enough errands to be away from that all day." I said to Martha.
"Well, we're just going to have to take the long way." She said.

Sunday was rough. I have no idea why but it was rough from almost the get go. Sunday was flea day. I hate the day when we give the girls flea treatments. We never had to do it until we moved up here and I just hate it. Zoe always acts like we've stuck a piece of tape to the back of her neck, staring up at the ceiling then flipping her head from left to right in a vein attempt to lick the back of her head. She looks like she is hearing voices. She can do this for hours and she makes me nuts. She drives me crazy, which drives Martha crazy and before too long, one of us (me) is sleeping on the couch with a little prescription overdose. I hate flea day.

In the middle of talking to Martha about how fucked up my head was (and chewing gum) my temporary crown fell out. Like right in front of her. I wish I could say that this was the first time she has ever seen this but alas I have had many a temporary crowns in my mouth and she is way over the shock of seeing something fall off my body. Sixteen years is a lifetime.

Well, I made it through the first of four dental appointments on Wednesday. I have a standing Wednesday afternoon reservation through the month of June. While walking around midtown shooting and killing time before my appointment, I started taking Xanax because of nerves and back pain.

By the time I was inside the building and around other people I realized that I just might have taken a little to much. I know this because while sitting in the waiting room all I wanted to do was go drink and have a cigarette.

But it's good for me to calm down at the dentist, otherwise it's just hell on everyone involved.

In this batch of unemployment, I have managed to become addicted to Law and Order. In over the twelve years that the show has been on air, I have never once watched it. Oh no, but now, since I've become part of the national statistic number of "The Unemployed" that show is so on. It's on because it's always on. They run hours and hours of it, all shows I've never seen before. It's fucking ridiculous and driving Martha crazy. I can't help it, I find an odd comfort in it consistency, and that "always on" feeling. It seems as though I am finally ready for the Orwellian Present.

I had an interview last Friday the 13th, with nice normal people who were so unlike the lovable lunatic fringe that I used to work with that I could not stop smiling at everyone. An odd site I'm sure.

With this job the not so lovable lunatic fringe is on the outside of the building seeing how the company is located in the World Financial Center, World Financial Center 1 to be exact, which by the way has the same damn elevator look and feel as the Twin Towers used to have. The main lobby has a stunning, jarring, disturbing, (pick one), view of the pit.

Once inside the building the offices themselves face Jersey, directly across from our old apartment. If I get the job, this image should only bother me at least once everyday when I think about how I could have been at work in under ten minutes, as compared to the over two-hour commute that would lie ahead of me on any given day.

Rough shit, I tell you, but like I said, really nice people.

Been having trouble sleeping for about a month or so and I'm not sure why. That whole counting sheep thing has never really worked for me. I fixate on too much on the details. How many sheep? Are they in a field? What color are they, brown or white? Are they shaved? Do they look like sheep, whose faces are super creepy and kind of demonic/human looking, or do they look like the sheep in the Serta Commercial? Is there a fence and if so what color is the fence? White picket or barbwire? Is there grass or dirt and are there other animals around?

It goes on and on and before I know it, I'm more awake then I was before.

Now, what sometimes works for me is rather odd indeed.

I imagine that I'm in a dark space, not so much a room as a void. No ceiling, walls or floor, just darkness all around me and I am suspended from a rope that is tied to my head. The rope leads up to nothing, kind of like one of the cages in Time Bandits.

My body dangles and all my muscles relax, my head is held steady, not so much as choking, but more like a block thing. I imagine that gravity is stretching out my spine.

Sometimes if my back is really killing me, I'll imagine hanging upside down, pulling my spine out the other way, just for a different take on the whole thing.

What can I say about a week that started with a grand wedding in Manhattan with a deluxe suite at the Waldorf=Astoria, and then ended up with a 4am visit to the Emergency Room of Columbia Memorial Hospital?

Talk about a slide.

Thursday, Martha came home from work early complaining of some serious stomach pain and body aches. By 3am, things had deteriorated so horribly that we went over to the hospital. Ok, here is where I will admit that I suck; she drove herself but, but, but, I DID DRIVE BACK.

I know, I'm horrible but if it's anything, I think I'm getting it. My glands are swollen and I feel like ass.

Once at the hospital they took a bunch of her blood, hooked her up to an IV and gave her three shots. Blood work came back with nothing out of the ordinary and after three hours, they sent us home. Friday sucked, Saturday pretty much sucked but by Sunday she was on the couch, surfing the web and waiting for me to make her breakfast, seeing how she hadn't eaten anything outside of Gatorade, toast and rice since Thursday night she was pretty hungry. I think she just might make it.

In the 'I can't stop laughing at you' department, the last man standing on Survivor Island: Voice Edition, quit last week and who could blame him. The Voice is such a sinking ship that I'm amazed he found a life raft. The department has now shrunk to one person who hasn't even been there a year. In two years, there have been fifteen people who have left the web department.

It's funny after the wedding last week and seeing a good chunk of everyone I used to work with, I realized just how horrible the last two years my life at the Voice were. I used to work with some truly awesome people. Somehow by the end, I had to deal with a know-it-all from Boston who really didn't know too much at all; a total (and I do mean total) jackass who was never really able to make it in New York but seems to be flourishing in Phoenix; and the final entry in the trifecta of shame, a backstabbing two-faced son-of-a-bitch.

Anyway the wedding and a weekend in Manhattan were both fantastic. It was Martha's birthday and we decided to live a little and get a room at the Waldorf for two nights. But alas, the Waldorf did not impress Miss Harvey. She started making a list almost immediately.

Right out of the gate the big screen LCD Samsung TV didn't work. Only one channel came in but at least it was golf. While waiting for the TV guy, we lost our minds, eating $14.00 cashews from the mini-bar and $8.00 mini sized Evian. After that, if I even went near the mini-bar, Martha yelled at me.

In room internet was not free but $10.00 a day. The Waldorf is part of the Hilton Honors Program, which is what The Hampton Inn in Winston-Salem is and where they have FREE in room internet.

We could get free internet in the lobby with all the other travelers hogging up all the plush seating and electrical outlets. This idea sucked and we only checked email once over a three-day period. Kind of freeing actually. We squirreled away around a corner and sat on an eighty-year-old marble step that leads up to the Grand Ballroom, right before we left on Monday morning.

We ordered room service only once and after $30.00 for a pot of coffee and a bakery basket for breakfast, that too went on Martha's list.

But the real unpleasant thing was that our air conditioner did not work. The first night there was rather stuffy. Upon leaving in the morning to run errands and walk around Manhattan, we stopped off at the concierge to ask if someone would look at it.

"Which room? The living room, one of the bedrooms?" he asked.

We just looked at him. Martha laughed and said. "THE ROOM. There's just one room."

We walked out of the hotel into the beautifully sunny, cool and breezy day of midtown and not even twenty feet from the doormen a homeless guy walks up to Martha and asks her for money.

"No, sorry." she said.
"Hey, I went to Kindergarten with you." he replied laughing.
I laughed too, because it was kind of funny. He then looked at me and we both laughed.
"That's just great." Martha said.

We ran errands, picked up film, stopped at Blick, had a little Mudd Truck coffee, and walked up to A.I Friedman, before returning to our stuffy hotel room.

"That's it; we are going to open the window." I sighed. It had the suicide locks on the sides so we could only pry it open the allotted seven inches. The fucking thing was so heavy and awkward that it took both of us pushing up while clamping down on the locks.

"Jesus Christ, the only way anyone could jump out that window is if they were anorexic." I mumbled.
"...and if you're anorexic you're not strong enough to open the window." replied Martha. We both busted out laughing as the breeze and sounds from Lexington Avenue filled the room.

The Waldorf is ridiculous in all the wrong places. Clusters of tourists, (some fat as fuck and some just rich as fuck), wandered around the roped off area of the Famed Sunday Brunch in the lobby. A brunch we only walked by, tickets were $100.00, but strolling by I did manage to see a tiered liquid chocolate fountain. Sliced fruit was displayed around it like a living fondue alter. There was an enormous leg of a lamb the size of my own leg, resting on a wooded slab, nicely lit by the heat lamp. Unidentifiable pastries, some sprinkled gold flecks, filled three large tables and there was something that I'm considering to be a wall of bread. Various bread products stacked in such a manner that when combined they formed a three foot high wall that separated the vegetables from the meats. So much food, so much of it was bagged and tossed out.

From the minute we got off the elevator on our low-level floor I was reminded of the Overlook Hotel; the hotel from The Shining. The long halls with rooms on either sides, the red carpets, the Deco interiors. Our room was three long hallways and two blind turns from the elevator. At every turn, I expect to see The Twins or a door ajar with some weird woman in the bathtub.

Before we went to the wedding, we had some time to kill so we took a ride up to the 18th floor to the Starlight Roof. The 18th is a maze of hallways and various size rooms. Some rather large for meetings and presentations and some smaller for well, smaller things. Let me tell you, the walls up on 18 are pillow-paneled with a pastel tan and mauve pattern.

When we were wondering around up there, we were alone. Totally alone. We walked into the Starlight Roof and my jaw hit the floor. This room is a Deco Dream and the view from the windows is breathtaking.

"We have to come back up here tonight after the wedding!" I said.

And we did. Somewhere after midnight, we rode the elevator back up to 18 and immediately walked over to the mirrored French doors of the Starlight Roof. The room was dark, the only light in the room came from lights of Manhattan through the floor to ceiling windows. The Manhattan skyline from inside Manhattan is stunning.

We shot a bunch of photos and after a few minutes, we walked out of the room and we were instantly twisted around. Things has changed since we had been up there in the daylight. A few doors to darkened rooms that had been closed were now open. The path back to the other set of elevators, the ones that go to our floor, was different, or at least looked different. Combine this with the fact that most of the lights were off, so if you looked over to the right or left, all you saw was darkness it started to get a little spooky. We knew we were the only one's up there and that made it worse.

This is when I started shit.

I stared talking about how spooky this whole place was, with its hundreds and hundreds of black and white photos from the 30's, 40', 50's and 60's lining the walls. The downright disturbing ones were the photos of the Starlight Roof taken around 1934 during certain galas, such as New Years Eve, society dinners, etc. All shot with a long exposure so some of the folks faces are blurred and some are looking right at the camera. When you stop and think about how everyone in the photo is now dead, well then in your head, the ghosts appear.

"Shut the fuck up." Martha said as she started to walk faster and faster away from me down a long twisted hallway.

"I'm telling you all I can see are those twins. Come play with us... forever and ever and ever."

"Holly, fucking stop it!"

I was doing the thing with the finger but she didn't look back at me. Honestly, I even scared myself.

Jasmine and her friend Weber came home for three nights and two days and my god I am exhausted. As is always the case with Jasmine I did more in two days then I do in a week. Sometimes I do think that she is trying to kill me although not intentionally more like on a subconscious level. Weber had the sweet set up. She got the upstairs, the queen size air mattress and the studio to hang out in. Jasmine got the red couch in the living room with two cranky women in the next room.

The first day they were here, we toured the spooky Hudson Library, went to the mall, Home Depot, walked around Olana and ended the day with a sushi dinner and a trip to Happy Clown for some soft serve.

Day two Weber drove into Jersey City, (two blocks from where we used to live) so I could pick up my 15 x 40 print. About every hour or so on the way down the Thruway, I would coat up with Tiger Balm in Weber's car. I am so good at applying Tiger Balm that I can even do it while crossing a street, never missing a step. So the all day glazing went on without a hitch. My back only started to really give me trouble about the last two hours of the ride home. Considering how things used to be, I'll take two hours of a little back stiffness any day.

After picking up the print, we drove on over to Newport Mall and witnessed all the horror that is Newport Mall and parked the car. We jumped on The Path to the World Trade Center where there we 'ran into' Weber's sister. New York is like that, you just run into people all the time. It's super weird.

Anyway, after that we went to lunch and dug around in the dirty vinyl bins of record stores; where I would like to point out here that I was in three record stores and did not buy a single thing, even though I have been wanting to buy more vinyl. But the prices on new vinyl is through the roof. $30.00 for Nick Cave, $20.00 for The Black Keys and on and on.

After the record thing, we walked down to the Asian Mart on Broadway and Canal; pushed our way around the store and then out Canal street to the subway. We then reversed the order of the whole day by jumping back on The Path. It was at that moment that I realized that my deodorant had given up and I stunk. Actually all three of us were kind of ripe but I was by far the worst.

We rode The Path back to the mall where we hurried back to the car before 6:15 because the price of parking went from $10.00 to $22.00 if we didn't clock out after six hours. After some ridiculously tense moments at the parking machine, we made it with roughly fifteen minutes to spare.

Once in the car we crawled our way through Jersey City to Hoboken to Edgewater, (stopping at Whole Foods naturally) and then on to Fort Lee, under the GW Bridge and onto the Palisades Interstate Parkway. I was eating sushi in the backseat when we merged on the I-287 which fed us onto the New York Thruway were three hours after leaving the mall, we finally pulled into our driveway.

Jasmine brought with her from school an enormous painting (4ft x 3ft) of two cherries on a black background. There is really only one place it can go and that is over my photo table. No place in the house can you get far enough away to appreciate it. She did it in squares, not as crazy as Seurat but more of a cubist grid thing. It's all pretty cool and I love to see her painting, plus she has one of the best signatures I've seen in a long time.

Zoe was a complete and total bitch cat the entire time Jasmine and Weber were here. Not only did she attack Jasmine on the stairs with some kind of midway standoff; she attacked Weber when she bent over to pet her. That monster cat smacked me with multiple jabs and then bit me when I was petting her in the window. Jesus Christ she's a drag and I will NEVER have another calico no matter what. All that red hair just makes them crazy.

Big fun news: I was accepted into two (2) shows last week. One is up here in Hudson at the Limner Gallery for a show titled 'Art Biologic'. The opening is May 3rd, 4-6pm and the show runs to May 24th. I have one piece in the show that is a little different then I usually hang. Come on up to Hudson if you want to see some art. It's First Saturdays' and all the galleries will be open late.

The other one is in Johnson City, Texas for a show titled 'Urban Ambience: Scenes from the City' at the Watson Studio Gallery. The opening is April 19 and runs until May 24. I have two pieces in this show (#42 & 43). So if you are in Texas...

And then finally I am in a current show in Jersey titled: 'Is it possible to make a photograph of New Jersey regardless of where you are in the world?' (Great Idea) Link is here but know that it is a rather large .PDF and takes a few minutes to fully load. All the photos are awesome and my piece is on page 19.

Busy, as a beaver, yes I am. I am submitting to three more shows, and well, we will see how that all goes. A while back Martha joked, but half-seriously, that I should get an intern. As truly funny as that is, she's kind of right.

Some friends of ours just had their first baby. Well, probably their only but anyway, they are brand new parents and congratulations to them. Welcome to the rest of your life.

Speaking of forks in the road, (or is it in the head?), Jasmine comes home for a quick weekend visit. She's going to play Photo Bitch for me on Saturday while I shoot a dear friend of mine and his fiancée in various locations in Manhattan. Should be fun and exhausting at the same time, hence the need for Photo Bitch. Jasmine is bringing a friend, (Weber) so the Photo Bitch has an assistant.

I get to use Martha's new camera. It is a digital world after all but I'll still shoot a few moody black and white holgas because that's just the way I am: moody black and white. Oh and the new printer came and man it is beautiful. Just simply stunning. Thanks babe.

When you buy a house, it never stops. The siding people have to come back to finish up the shit they should have done in the first place. There are holes and some of the siding trim is popping off. Needless to say we are not happy and I think if one more thing goes wrong, Martha is going to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

The floor in the sunroom is buckling. Not sure why or what the fuck is going on but I can't wait to find out. If we don't fix it, pretty soon we won't be able to open the door.

Our taxes went up again. This makes the umpteenth time they have raised them and so far, our tax bill has tripled since we moved here two years ago. We are going to have to file a grievance, (that should be fun) but how in hells bells can it be normal to pay $8,000 a year in taxes?

And you know it you love it, the wasps are back. The bug guy will be notified. Those bugs are straight from hell and for whatever reason they love our house. I did however find some sick comfort in watching them build a massive hive in our neighbor's attic. They work with military precision. Martha said we should send them over to Iraq. While I shouldn't have watched it, (the hive is about thirty feet from our kitchen window) I couldn't look away. It was like the live National Geo channel.

And while I'm thinking of nasty wasps; worrying about speaking badly of a former employer is not such a problem when that employer is doing just a fine job all by himself. I'm just so very, very glad that I no longer work for them. It would be too embarrassing to say, 'Oh yes I work for this racist, good-old-white-boy Arizonian jackass, who while excepting and award, had no problem using the "N-word" in front of a room full of Professional Journalists.' Reporters who report, and did report and in some cases even video taped the whole nasty event. This is the same ignorant jerk who just one week prior to shooting his fat mouth off received an Civil Libertarians award from the ACLU.

Wow, and wow. Old news, seeing how it happened last Thursday. It has already circled the blog world about a zillion times, but the whole thing just makes me sad. I have a real problem when a former employer drops the "N-word" on camera and gives a snarky apology as an afterthought.

Jasmine called me the other day and opened with this.
"Hi Peanut."
"I just saw someone get hit by a car."
"Again?"
"Yep, she was lying on the ground with a pink blanket covering her..."
"Her head?"
"No, not her head, not her head."
"Where are you? Are you ok?"
"Yeah, I'm driving back home. I was hungry and I wanted to get something to eat."
"I don't know what to say, Peanut. In all the years I've been alive I've never seen anyone get hit by a car, and with the company that I used to keep you would think that would have been a common occurrence. I've been on this planet twice as long as you have and you've seen it twice."
"She was on a bike. Her purse was twenty feet in one direction and she was lying in the middle of the road."
"Oh my God. That's horrible."
"All this just proves that I need to get out of this town."
"Call me later if you want to talk about this more."
"Ok. Right now I'm going to go home and smoke a bowl."
"I would too, Peanut, I would too."

All day last Thursday, I was fighting with the Voice and their wacky math of severance. They say one thing while I have something very different in writing. After an all day affair of rapid emails, general frustration, back pain and that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, I think we finally might be on the same page. Well, at least we are down to a few days discrepancy instead of several, several weeks.

God, I want them to go away.

I rarely talk about pussy here, oh sure, in private conversation, but hardly ever here. Unless of course, I am talking about our cats or my ex-husband, (Oh stop.), anyway last Friday I had a gynecologist appointment in Hoboken. Now, this is a big fucking deal for me to get to, quite the pilgrimage you might even say. I live upstate and well, he is in Hoboken, some two hours away. The funny thing is I really don't care for my doctor that much. Well, it is not him it is his goddamn staff. They SUCK, especially that blonde one. I've been putting this whole appointment off for months. He has to do shit to me that I do not particularly care for but this is the main reason I still go to him. My mom had uterine cancer when she was 58 so I get that extra special scraping that honestly, I cannot take enough Xanax to make better. I know because I have tried to Xanax it all away before.

So after an hour and a half driving through mist, rain and fog and a forty-minute train ride I finally arrived in Hoboken. My appointment was at noon but it was only 10:00. With not enough time to go into Manhattan, I decided to stroll around Hoboken for a while. I had an umbrella but it was misting, more like a spritz thing going on then umbrella weather.

I started out by walking around the waterfront area. The fog and mist was so thick that parts of Manhattan were lost in the sky. It was pretty cool and I took a cell phone photo and emailed it to Martha.

I've been doing that every now and then. While I'm out and about I shoot a cell phone image of something pretty and send to Martha. To Jasmine I send shots of Sushi just because I'm a bitch.

Anyway, after that I walked up Washington Street to Dunkin Donuts and grabbed a cup of coffee. Having nowhere to go I decided to sit down and enjoy the coffee instead of walking around with it. While sitting there in the quiet of pastries, a woman came running in holding a Dunkin Donuts bag. She walked right up to the counter, interrupted the current sale and demanded her money back because they had charged her for two muffins instead of only one. She didn't want two, she wanted one.

So the cashier, who was in the middle of helping a customer stopped ringing him up and closed the cash register. Instead of finishing with him, she proceeded to loose herself in how to do a refund. The guy is just standing there while muffin lady was pushing him off to the side. His coffee and donuts where now on the counter in front of muffin lady.

After five minutes, (five minutes was an awfully long time to watch this shit unfold) the cashier figured out how to refund the wackjob muffin lady her two dollars. The cashier then took the extra muffin out of the bag and put is back in the basket for resale.

This is where I stopped drinking my coffee.

Wackjob muffin lady obviously touched the muffin and just where the hell have her hands been. The pastry had left the store and who knows what could have happened to it. She could have dropped it on the ground or any number of unsanitary things could have happened to it, but the cashier put it back on the shelf.

The cashier then turned to the guy who by now is beyond pissed, and started to ring him up again. The problem was that she had already rung him up and taken his money. She hadn't given him his change back and she cannot remember what the total was or how much money he had given her. He kept telling her that she was to give him seven dollars and forty-seven cents back but she did not believe him and could not figure out how to fix the problem. She was the only one there and there was no manager.

She put a tainted muffin back on the shelf but wouldn't give this guy his change back.

I stood up, threw my full cup of coffee in the trash and left the store.

Avoiding any and all humans I walked down Washington Street trying to convince myself that I had not been poisoned or that I was not going to be sick.

After walking that off for about six blocks, I loitered in front of Maxwells, slowly reading the upcoming shows and shooting photos. I walked back out to the water, finding a new park that has been built since Martha and I lived in Jersey City. It is right on the water in front of a massive high-rise. "It is certainly nice to be rich" I said out loud to nothing but the seagulls.

Finally it was time, or close enough to the time to where I could go into the doctors office and wait in the waiting room.

I walked in and noticed that the waiting room was only slightly full with four pregnant women hogging up two seats apiece. I see that blonde girl is still there, her overuse of Cerulean blue eye shadow announcing her well before the sight of her snarl. She is in her resting position when I walk up to the glass to check in.

"Hi, Holly Northrop for noon."
"Who are you seeing" There are three other doctors in the practice.
"I give her the name of my doctor."
"I can't find you here."
"I have a noon appointment, I'm about a half hour early but I should be on the list."
"Oh, right we didn't call you because we didn't have a number for you."
"What?"
"The doctor had three woman go into labor this morning. All of his appointments have been cancelled."
'What?"
"The doctor isn't here."
"A phone call would have been nice."
"We don't have your number."
"What do you mean you don't have my number? I've been a patient here for five years? How the hell could you not have my number?"
She opens my chart, studying it for a few minutes.
"Well, what is this 518 number?"
"That's my fucking number!"

Behind me I felt the weight of expectant motherhood shift uncomfortably in their seats. By now I'm starting to push my face though the little eight inch sliver of glass that is separating us doing my best to resemble Jack Nicholson in The Shinning.  'HERE'S JOHNNY. I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just gonna bash your brains in.'

"And this 917 number? What is that?"

"That's my fucking cell phone. The same number I've had for eight years. What the hell is wrong with you?"

It was at this point another staff member came over and told the blonde girl that she would handle this. Blonde girl raised her French Tipped fingers up in the air, (the universal 'whatever' sign), pushed her chair away from the counter and walked away.

The new nurse apologized repeatedly, made sure she had all my numbers in the computer and rescheduled my appointment for two weeks from now.

I walked out of there, slightly calmed down but still snarling and snapping at the air. I was surely alarming small children and the elderly. For fucks sake, I could be home instead of walking around for the next four hours in the mist.

Somewhere in my walk back to the Path station Jasmine called me. I knew the results of her Spanish test were due that day. Spanish is one of the reasons that Jasmine has to go to summer school. This child cannot learn a language.

"Hi mom!" she's all perky and shit.
"What did you get on your test?" I said with such flatness that she immediately asked me what was wrong.
"Nothing is wrong. What did you get on the test?"
"Um, he didn't grade them yet."
"What? Jasmine I am in no mood."
"He didn't grade them yet, he said Monday."
"Jasmine, just fucking tell me. Don't fuck around just tell me." I am yelling at her while walking down Frank Sinatra Drive. It's a good image.
"MOM! I'm telling you the truth. He didn't grade them yet."
I hang up. I guess we'll find out on Monday.

After Jasmine, I crossed back up to Washington Street & headed towards Tunes. Goddamn it, I'm going to the record store.

I was there for an hour digging through bin after bin of used vinyl records. It's probably the best therapy in the world. I ended up buying two Monkees records. One I have, but it is almost unplayable and the other I've often wanted. Yes, yes The Monkees, Monkees. Whatever, don't judge. I almost bought Joe's Garage, Green on Red, and a few new things, but Martha would have lost her shit with me. No matter how bad my day is, it is never worth it to piss her off by overbuying records.

Somewhere around 2:00 I went into Manhattan to pick up three rolls of color film, some over-the-counter medication and snag a bottle of my favorite ginger dressing. I walked the long way to everything and before I knew it I was running late. I need to scurry to get back in time to catch the train to Suffern. All day long I had nothing to do and then suddenly I was going to be late.

After being outside in the mist for six hours I officially had an Irish Fro. Every single hair on my head had its own curl and desired direction, completely unrelated to the hair next to it. Sitting on a crowed path train I could feel the guy next to me trying to push my hair out of his space. If I turned to look at him I could feel the girl on the other side of me jump because the back of my fro was touching her. I know I'm not gross but to them I am. It's an interesting sensation and even worse on New Jersey Transit, where we were all packed into the cars like dozens and dozens of eggs, each in a seat and no spare room for frizzy red hair.

And just to make looking for a job even more challenging, my email has been randomly deleting itself for the past three months. I don't know why and I'm not even sure I've fixed the problem. So if you've sent me an email and feel that I've ignored you more than I usually do (because I am totally dysfunctional), call me. The 518 number or the 917, you have them, right?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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