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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHAT?

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

Right.

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

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

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

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

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

This event was truly unfortunate for all of us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So just like that, it is 100° with 97% humidity. Ok, sure that should make shooting all day in Manhattan all the more fabulous. I think some of the summer days will be spent looking at art rather than attempting to make it. MOMA here I come.

I remember a few years ago when Jazz and I went to Siren. It was early in the day and I wanted to be in the crowd for a few bands before going backstage. With not a cloud in the sky, we stood on the black pavement watching The Kills when about halfway through their set, I got silly sun sick. Despite being lathered up in #45 sun block, fully hydrated and with plenty of personal space all around me, I got dizzy. Like rolling eyes, dizzy. Jazz got all authoritative and pushy and we were out of there in a matter of seconds. Then rest of the day she kept shoving me into the shade.

What was my point? Oh yeah, summer and I just don't get along. Not even like a bad relationship, that would imply that at one time we liked each other. I just spend as much time as I can in my air-conditioned pod praying for the temperature to go back into the 80-degree range. I only go out at dusk, and pretty much piss and moan the entire time. It's great.

More work on Martha's office last weekend in what is now the longest running makeover in history but once it's finished it will be nice and functional. The bookcases are built, mini blinds are hung and now the shredding, filing and general organization begins. Considering that this is all shit that we should have either done before we moved in here or taken care of years ago, three weeks in, isn't that bad.

The sunroom however, looks like storage shed. Unfortunately, a storage shed that is the first thing you see when you walk in the door. There are two large tables, a bookcase; Martha's old desk; our old coffee table; a bench; the bottom half of the china cabinet; two small glass end tables; a kite and a wind sock; and of course Martha's exercise bike, all shoved in there for all the world to see.

I look like I have some mental defect, outside of the one that we are all aware of. Some kind of fucked up hoarding thing that has now upped itself a notch to include large furniture.

Last Wednesday was a big day for a bunch of reasons. At 7:30 in the morning, Martha had to drive my pathetic non-driving ass twenty minutes north to Chatham in order for me to pick up the print for the CCCA Landscape show. Already in a slightly miserable mood after informing work that she would be late, driving AWAY from work was not something she wanted to do at all. The print was supposed to be ready to go by 8:00. We arrive at 8:00 and the guy isn't there. For twenty minutes, he isn't there and Martha is now no longer talking to me, preferring to wait in car and stare at a brick wall while listening to a forty-five year old speech by JFK on NPR.

Finally, the framer arrives and guess what? He's not finished.

"I need about another twenty minutes", he said to me. F.U.C.K. I think in my head as I walked to the car. Needless to say, Martha was not pleased to hear this.

After another twenty minutes, he was finished. We dropped the print off at the house and then proceeded on our merry way down the thruway.

All told we were running over an hour late. There was a last minute push to make it to the Suffern station by 10:45 otherwise I would be stuck there for almost an hour until the local train moseyed on down the tracks.

As we got off the highway and rounded the bend, Martha sort of slid through the stop sign instead of coming to a complete stop. Just as she did this and sure as shit, there was a cop.

His lights went on and we pulled over. Sitting there on the side of the road with the flashing blue and red lights behind us, the 10:45 train to Hoboken passed by us. I waved at it and giggled; Martha just glared at me.

The cop got out of his gas guzzling SUV and walked toward us. Martha looked over at me and said, "Do not say ANYTHING."

Martha rolled down the window.

"I stopped you because of the stop sign back there."
Martha said nothing and handed off her license and registration. The cop noticed that she had a Fraternal Order of Police Newark, NJ card in her wallet.
"Do you want to hand me that now?"
"Do you want it?"
"Well, you want me to have it before I start writing the ticket."
She handed him the card.
"Do you know where you got this?" He said turning it over in his hands.
"Ah well, we do charity work for them."
"Do you remember the name of the person down there?"
Martha pauses...she can't remember, "No"

He walked away.

After a few minutes of us fumbling with the card and bitching at each other in hushed tones, she turned it over, and there on the back was the name.

The cop came back.

"I have one question for you. What are you ladies doing down here from Hudson?"
"I work at Sharp."
Having no real purpose for being anywhere, I just smiled.
"Oh you make the drive? So do I, well from Kingston but I'm down here everyday. I know it looks like you are in the middle of nowhere but you need to stop at the stop signs."

He handed Martha back her license and registration and check it out, he let us go WITHOUT a TICKET.

Holy shit. I marked that day down on the calendar just like I did when Martha remembered where the AAA batteries were at. That stuff just does not happen every day.

More funny weird stuff: Ever since Frank died, I've been ordering books every few months for Martha's mom. Gen used to be a big reader and by all appearances she still is, she sometimes just can't remember what she's read. But who cares, it makes her happy to get books and I love books so, there.

We always ask her what she would like, and together we usually go over the New York Times Best Seller's list and pick a few. There are some glitches; she keeps asking for A Thousand Splendid Suns, even though she's read it more than once and The Kite Runner keeps coming up also. But we push through that and move on.

Here's the thing, her book requests are fucking up my Amazon.com personalized recommendations. Not that I usually use them (my wish list is a more accurate gauge) but I'm starting to get pushed some seriously strange stuff and this last request has really screwed with the algorithm.

Gen went to the doctor a few weeks ago and while there, she struck up a conversation with one of the nurses. As she put it, "She took a liking to me."

Anyway, they starting chatting about reading, both agreeing that they were avid readers, the nurse recommended that Gen read Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers.

Ok, well Winston-Salem is a Christian town in a Christian state in the Christian south. North Carolina is more of the New Testament South and Francine Rivers is a Christian writer, who specializes in Christian Fiction and Christian Romance.

So know I'm being pushed the entire Francine Rivers collection.

From Amazon's review of Redeeming Love:
"In this splendid retelling of the biblical story of Hosea, bestselling author Francine Rivers pens a heartbreaking romance between a prostitute and the upright and kind farmer who marries her; the story also functions as a reminder of God's unconditional love for his people. Redeeming Love opens with the Gold Rush of 1850 and its rough-and-tumble atmosphere of greed and desire. Angel, who was sold into prostitution as a child, has learned to distrust all men, who see her only as a way to satisfy their lust. When the virtuous and spiritual-minded Michael Hosea is told by God to marry this "soiled dove," he obeys, despite his misgivings. As Angel learns to love him, she begins to hope again but is soon overwhelmed by fear and returns to her old life. Rivers shines in her ability to weave together spiritual themes and sexual tension in a well-told story, a talent that has propelled her into the spotlight as one of the most popular novelists in the genre of Christian fiction. This is one of her best."

Of course the main character is a whore. I would expect nothing less.

Aren't spiritual themes and sexual tension the problem with just about every organized religion on the planet? And some would argue, combined, they are one of the fundamental causes of mental illnesses.

Anyway, so all this Francine stuff is meshed in there with things like: Hunter S. Thompson's Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga; William Eggleston's 5x7; A bunch of Dali prints; most of the God stuff from Dylan like Saved; some good old S&M Satanic stuff from Lydia Lunch; some Handsome Family and then every third or fourth item is a Francis book like the The Last Sin Eater.

Or even better: One Night With the King (2006) DVD. One Night With The King is a 'sweeping epic about Hadassah the young Jewish girl who becomes the Biblical Esther Queen of Persia.'

And one quick look at the overall reviews for One night with the King:

"... Lush production but inaccurate telling of the biblical story"

"... If you're looking for biblical accuracy, you'll be disappointed.

And OMG my personal fav: "... as a girl, I have to say, some of the outfits are quite cute, and I'd love to wear them."

Awesome.

Because of a miscommunication between Martha and I we have two copies of 7th Heaven (The Women's Murder Club) by James Patterson. She got the book from work and I ended up ordering it for Gen. I've looked at it and I'm not sure I can read it. I couldn't even keep my mind from wandering when I was reading the back of the book jacket. So we have an extra copy here at the house, email me if you want it and it's so yours.

More work this weekend on Martha's room and I think I'm going to die. Her 3000-pound desk arrived and it took us all of Saturday and well into Saturday night to build most of it, taxing all of my problem solving and geometrical relationships skills. We stopped working only because our backs were broken, I was unable to hold things with either one of my hands and I could no longer think straight.

The house is still a misfortunate mess but her space already has a real good vibe and once it is finally finished, (we still have to build the bookcases and then go through everything, file it and organize the whole mess), it will be a great office. Unlike the fucking disaster, it was before. I wanted to take before and after photos but no one needs to see the before. However, here is the almost done photo and another of Miss M at her new desk.

The outside of our house is turning into crazy cute, which after the cold dead winter look combined with the whole foil thing, we are very happy to at least look normal. It's just the inside that has problems.

Sunday we had to drive a framed print down to Connecticut for a show I'm going to be in at the Ridgefield Guild of Artists. While the whole thing was not so much fun due to back pain and general stiffness that both of us were suffering from. I felt extra bad about making Martha burn a weekend day in the car but we did it. Drove all the way down to Ridgefield, dropped off the print but then we got a little lost when we drove off the Taconic to look at a golf course. Not just any golf course but the James Baird Gold Course, which was built in 1948, apparently an historic landmark of golf course lore.

We then drove around some weird little back roads until we finally came upon civilization and spotted a Dunkin Donuts where just like that, all was made better with coffee and a muffin.

Wednesday I have to pick up another print for a Landscape show up here in Hudson and I just found out that I'm going to be published in Lightleaks.

More home projects on the horizon include a new floor for the sunroom. I had wanted to just rip up the nasty carpet that was in there but right before the last snowstorm in February, I noticed that the floor was buckling in front of the door. So now we have to replace the floor but we can save a shitload of money if I do the demo. Now that is going to be fucking painful. I am scared for my back, shoulders and the general whole body area.

Speaking of pain, I get to go to the dentist every Wednesday for the entire month of June. I've also moved my therapy to Wednesday night, so um, Wednesdays are going to be full. I will either be having a filling filled, a mold made or a crown put in, and not all on one tooth. This a la carte presentation spans several teeth on all four corners of my mouth.

Then after fucking with my mouth, I get to ride the train to Martha and then another hour to therapy where for another hour I'll probably talk about my teeth and all the nuttiness the entire thing is causing me. You know loss of control, pain and that nasty persecution thing that is on an endless loop in my dizzy brain.

The whole thing is a total drag in that I'll have to break up my day of shooting to go to the dentist, not just once but for four weeks in a row. How the hell is that going to work. Start placing your bets now as to what week you think I'm going to crack.

After $2,700 and a week and a half later, Jasmine finally has the Jeep back and not a day too soon seeing how she moved Saturday and Sunday. Her living situation has always been a little screwy but this one was down right stupid. Now she's in another place until August, when by all accounts she is supposed to graduate. She's not going to walk though, she'll just have the diploma sent here, where upon opening it, Martha and I will drop to our knees and weep.

What would the three day Memorial Day weekend be without a little home renovation project? For about two years now, Martha's office has been one of many official Black Holes in the universe.

Working within the tight budget of Martha's mind, we managed to paint, rip up nasty blue carpeting and order appropriate office furniture. The cats had been using her office as a vomitorium so I didn't' even like walking in there with shoes on. That's if you could make it in. Things were so bad that you could only make it a few feet in the door. This isn't entirely Martha's fault. We've been using the room as a dumping ground for stupid things for months.

The first day we spent just weeding and digging the room out. All the crap that she is keeping was moved to the kitchen with some spillage into the living room and bedrooms. I guess what I'm saying here is the house is pretty much trashed. We look like we are moving but without any idea on how to move.

Right out of the gate on Sunday morning, Martha attempted to pick up one of our four TVs by herself. She made it about two feet before things went weird and she fell to her knees with the full weight of the TV landing on her thighs. She almost fell over on her back with the TV on top of her, but somehow I managed to grab the TV, rather precariously with my left arm. She looked like a weightlifter that can't pull that bar up past the knees. She's going to have a nasty bruise.

After painting two coats and the room still has a slight blue hue to it. We ripped up carpet and all the carpet tacks, nails and the nailed wood strips around all the corners and walls, all the while moving three very heavy pieces of future around a small room. We rolled and bound the carpet and moved it to the garage. We vacuumed up thirty or so years of dirt and then washed the floor.

Add in there a trip to Home Depot for more paint and two outdoor solar lights; lunch at the diner; the installation of a new mailbox (with the help of a neighbor) and some light yard work that involved planting six new plants and the installation of the new solar lights. By that point, I was so exhausted and numb with pain that I when I dropped a crowbar on my pinky toe and it didn't hurt nearly as much as it should have.

It wasn't until the sun was setting Sunday night that Martha said she wanted to kill me and go lay on the couch and order pizza.

As of Monday, we were almost finished with just the closet carpet to rip up. My legs feel like I have been lifting cars and my back is threatening to paralyze me just to save itself.

Later on in the week, a new desk unit and bookcase will arrive, just waiting for some more backbreaking assemblage.

In other news, the Jeep needs a new transmission, which is not that surprising seeing how is has 130,000 miles on it but it's just more of an expense that none of us were prepared for. It's still cheaper then buying Jasmine a new car or another unknown used one. You are just buying into someone else's nightmare and I'd rather stick to my own scary monsters.

So Martha sent of a bitchy email to the Waldorf=Astoria and guess what? They apologized repeatedly and offered us a free night in their Luxury Suites. We only had the deluxe room before. The Luxury Suites sounds like there might be more then one room involved. Woo hoo!

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.

I haven't been in to Manhattan for over a week to shoot and I'm starting to get a little wiggy about it. But, Sunday is Miss Harvey's birthday and it's a big one. We are going to a wedding on Saturday in Manhattan so she rented us a room for two nights at the Waldorf-Astoria®. Two nights and one whole day of nothing but Manhattan to shoot, you can bet I'm going bring more cameras then god intended. I'll probably even bring the Lubital, which hardly ever makes it in because it is so boxy and heavy.

For two days, we are so going to live a different life. Then it all comes to a crashing end with a 2:00pm dental appointment on Monday. This time, Martha will actually get to go to one of my dentists. Apparently I have a mouth full of cavities and I see nothing but a horror show headed my way and while I'm glad that she will be there, I know she's going to be pissed sitting in the waiting room with our luggage. The cool thing is instead of calling her from the dental chair and bursting into tears with horrible news, I can just walk out and drop the money bomb.

After that, we then get to ride the path, to the train, to the car, to the thruway to home. Awesome. Like I said, crashing end.

Big news around here is that we got Reverse Osmosis. Woo, hoo. But seriously, this will cut down enormously on the amount of plastic bottles this house brings home every week. We recycle, but you know, I lived in Jersey long enough to know that just because you put you shit out on the curb does not mean that it actually ends up in the right place. Besides plastic does not totally break down. It just gets smaller and smaller.

I remember when there was hardly any plastic in our lives.

Milk, juice, RC Cola, mayonnaise and Listerine® were all sold in glass. Toothpaste, TV Dinners, cream cheese, fancy cheese spreads, (including Velveeta®) were packaged in foil packets. Food was stored in foil, wax paper and meat was either cut or ground fresh and then wrapped in butcher paper. Lunchmeat was also cut fresh, wrapped in a wax paper and then in butcher paper.

Boy, you can really tell that I grew up in White Land or as I like to call it, Mayonnaise Land.

Almost everything was in a cardboard box of some kind and potato chips and pretzels could be bought in large tin drums.

Of course, this was way back in the day when you could smoke in grocery stores. I remember riding in the child seat, sitting next to the little red beanbag ashtray that my mom had with her everywhere she went. She carried an ashtray, isn't that the oddest thing? Anyway, when we were at Kroger's sometimes she would accidentally singe my leg when she bent over to pick something off the shelves. Whenever this happened, she would give me a small brown bag of M&M's to eat.

At the check out all of our crap was put in paper bags and then a bag boy would go out to the parking lot with us and load the bags into our excessively large trunk. When he was finished, mom would tip the kid and then slide into our gas-guzzling Thunderbird. We would then ride off into the sunset without wearing seatbelts.

Every mother had at least one piece of Tupperware in her kitchen but that was it. No one lived by plastic like they do now. Even at cookouts we used paper plates with real silverware. Hardly anything in the kitchen was plastic. I remember when my mom and dad bought a new dishwasher and mom tragically put a knife with a rubber handle in there; it melted stinking up the whole house and ruining the washer. It was winter, we had to open all the windows to air out the house, and my dad was so very, very pissed. Pissed at my mom, pissed at the usage of rubber and pissed that it was winter. It's a good memory as most of them are.

A woodpecker has moved into the neighborhood. He's hammering away at something across the street. I can't tell if it's someone's house or a tree that is his construction zone. It's pretty cool to hear the tat, tat, tat every few seconds. It's cool because it's across the street and sort of a muted sound by the time it reaches me. Closer, it would drive me crazy as most things do when they get near me.

Because the Earth is attempting to rid itself of the parasite known as Homo sapiens, the weather here went from 40° to 70° in a day. So it was no surprise that a big black wasp somehow got into the house, specifically the darkroom. I was the unfortunate one to discover this. According to Martha, I turned into a basket case, which I am sure is the correct assessment given my behavior. It is however also unfortunate that she said this to me, instead of muttering it to herself under her breath. But in her defense I do tend to become emotionally unhinged at the strangest things.

Interestingly enough, the phrase 'basket case' originated in WWI. It was used to describe solders that had lost both their arms and their legs and had to be carried around in a basket. It is only recently that it is used as a description for someone who is losing his or her shit.

Learn something new everyday.

One funny thing about the whole wasp episode was that Martha was just getting ready to take a shower when I freaked out. Because she is awesome and the one to kill flying things, (I kill the crawling things) she walked up the stairs, naked except for her glasses and a pair of socks. The wasp was in the window right behind the new Irish Shamrock that we had just bought exactly two days prior. I have to hang these plants or Lily mows them down like grass. They are beautiful and I love having them in the house. She killed the last one we had in the high-rise so I was thrilled to have a new one.

When Martha fired off a blast of Raid Earth Options Wasp & Hornet Killer, she not only sprayed the wasp but nicely misted the plant.

Me: You sprayed the plant!
Her: Did you tell me not to spray the plant?
Me: No but we just got it.
Her, sort of yelling at me: Did you want me to kill the wasp or what?
Me: Man that shit stinks.
Her: I think it smells nice. Kind of lavender.
Me: Yeah, poison lavender.

Monday the exterminator was at the house and I just loved it when he told me that I needed to calm down. He was here for about an hour and it was much like therapy as well...therapy. Considering that I haven't been in two weeks, it was a deeply needed session. At least he's a nice guy. I should have made him some cookies or something.

Wednesday, I had my rescheduled doctors' visit and here is what I learned. If you cause me pain and then leave me alone in Hoboken for too long, I WILL go to the record store and I WILL most likely buy something. I bought the new Breeders and I managed to find it in a more reasonably price vinyl then I was finding in New York. Considering that I bought The Song Remains the Same in 1976 for a whopping $7.00, $12.00 for a new record today isn't that crazy. Plus, it comes with a free digital download. It's like getting two records for the price of one. I couldn't afford not to buy it. At least that is what I told Martha. But she has a soft spot for The Breeders so she wasn't too mad at me. Anything to stop me from talking about wasps or Jasmine, right babe?

Finally around midweek, Martha was able to escape my madness by traveling 700 miles south to the other side of the crazy coin, and spend three days with her mom. This trip was to be a little different because her sister, her niece (complete with husband and one-year-old baby in tow), were meeting her there. I managed to get out of that shindig because I had to deal with some gallery stuff. Besides there were already too many people planning to shove their bodies into Gen's tiny overheated apartment. It would look more like an intervention then a family visit, (sort of like the same thing I suppose) but anyway the deal breaker was a crying baby added to the mix.

Been there; done with that, I'm out. Instead of messy diapers and constant whining, I get to hear about Jasmine's logistical problems with dropping the Jeep off for a checkup because the person that was supposed to drive is on acid and can't drive her back from the dealership. I guess it is better then her telling me that she's on acid and can't drive the car.

This is what happens when you let them live, teach them to walk, talk and wipe their own ass. That talking thing was a big mistake.

With Martha leaving on Thursday, I was alone for three and a half days. Gone are my 'whoop-whoop' days, that is for sure. But I did notice that once I'm alone I immediately revert to my old sleeping patterns. Staying up until two or three in the morning, waking up at seven and then napping around three, it was classic stuff. It's amazing how living with one person who is relatively normal; sleeps normal, eats normal etc., how living with that person changes my sleeping regularity. When she's around I seem to stop being so weird.

All I know is that our big fat bed sucks without her in it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Insert a long heavy sigh here.]

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

Jasmine said it best when she mentioned to me, "Mom. Construction doesn't follow you, you follow construction.", and I think she might be right. There is something wrong with us in that we only like to do major home repairs when the weather is below 20 degrees. More adventures in home ownership; we are having new siding put on the house.

The first day when the workman were here ripping off all the old aluminum siding, it sounded like I was in a tin can. I told myself that everything was fine and reminded myself that is was in no way as loud as when we had the new roof installed. For whatever reason, I actually found comfort in the noise. Go figure I'm a little weird.

After a few hours of yanking old aluminum off the house, they then started either hammering in nails or prying them out. As I noticed that cats were sitting on top of one another in the closet, it occurred to my why it was that I felt like I was in a movie. The hammering and snapping noises from three of the four sides of the house reminded me of Night of the Living Dead. The whole zombies tying to get into the farmhouse sensation.

After a few hours of demolition, I decided to go outside and 'check in'. I stood on the sidewalk and looked at our house all covered in this odd insulation/aluminum foil material. We looked like a big baked potato. In places where the foil had ripped off, I could see the original clapboard; clapboard that had not seen the light of day in over one-hundred years. The wood was in such great shape that if we had a shit load of money we might look into having it restored. But as it is, we don't have a shit load of money so we are covering the clapboard back up with a lovely cream colored vinyl siding with white window trim.

The next day of the project it rained in the morning, (poured is more like it) and then the high winds came, (wind-chill -1), blowing our foil all over the yard. We weren't going to use it anyway but now in addition to a house that looked like it had been singled out by an angry tornado, we now had big sheets of space foil all over the yard. It's a good look. By Thursday, our house was such an eyesore that folks would slow down and stare when they drove by. At night, the house sparkled in the moonlight. The word is they will be done by Friday.

Sickshit
What would a new semester be without a trip to emergency room for Miss Jasmine? Jasmine caught a cold, which turned into a high fever. Therefore, in using the emergency room as her personal doctor she drove herself over there and after about an hour of so they determined she had bronchitis.

Here is quick review of Jasmine's ER visits since she has left home. Oncologist and OB/GYN issues are not listed here.

• She cut the tip of her thumb off fucking around with scissors while opening a box.
• She found a lump in her groin.
• A routine eye exam went to hell when the eye doctor noticed that her optic nerve seemed swollen. He mentioned the words 'brain tumor' and off the ER MRI she went.
• She felt sicker then normal and it was determined that it was because she was dehydrated.
• She fell on her wrist and it proceeded to swell up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right out of the gate, actually it was well before our gate at Albany airport and deep in the bowels of TSA Checkpoint Charlie land, I was yet again, made to stand off to the side, away from the herd and forced to do weird things. The folks over at Homeland Security are as friendly as a bag of rattlesnakes. So I was all the more delighted when a guy wearing the standard issued white shirt with the big Helvetica Bold lettering TSA on the back, grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me off line. He broke my number one rule —do not fucking touch me. He told me to leave my shoes on and to come with him.

'I'm going to put you in the puffer." He said.
"The what? A puffer? No." I pulled away.
"Yes. You're going