Holly Northrop Blog

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.

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.

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 in 'The Puffer'." He demanded. Honestly, he could have been just a tad nicer.

I looked at him and he had the classic 'do not give me any shit bitch' look and I threw my hands up in the air and laughed, because for whatever reason I always seem to warrant a second look and I obviously give the impression of being someone who knows how to handle explosives.

So there I was standing in a clear plastic phone booth type box, wearing a Rolling Stones t-shirt and a bad attitude. Three or four puffs of air blew my hair straight up, like an allover fluff and then there was total silence as the explosives trace detection portal analyzed my particles. Super Sexy.

Once we were actually on the airplane things moved along rather seamlessly. The planes were on time, the rental car was there waiting for us and did not stink to high hell. Things were good.

You Know Martha, It's a Dangerous World Out There
Driving over to Winston-Salem from Greensboro I noticed that while it is technically fall, the overall color of the leaves were dull and brittle. The woods were so dense with dead underbrush that it looked as though they could burn for years, much like an underground Kentucky coal fire.

When we got to the hotel I pulled my suitcase out of the back of the gas guzzling SUV that we had rented (having forgotten that I had been digging around in my suitcase earlier looking for gum and not zipped it back up), I then proceeded to spew the contents of my travel life all over the parking lot. Along with my underwear, socks and a Jesus Loves Me shirt, my digital camera, the holga and my 1940's Brownie Reflex camera hit the ground hard.

After a quick survey of possible breakage, Martha helped me shoved all my shit back into my suitcase and onward we went.

Later on that evening and after a speedy visit with Gen we went to scary downtown Winston-Salem to a little café for some tea. Walking back to the car, I was holding my digital camera in my left hand when it became tangled up with my purse strap. I was attempting to untangle it all when my lens cap sprung off, rolled down the sidewalk and straight into the sewer grate. Had Martha not seen it with her own eyes she would have never believed me. Go ahead ask her.

"How does this shit happen to you!?" she yelled.
"What do you mean, this IS my life!" I laughed.
"Oh Jesus Christ Holly," she said as we both stood over the sewer looking down at my lens cap resting nicely on the comics page of the local paper.
"Okay, all we need is a big stick and some gum. Do you have any gum?" she asked.
"Yep I got a bunch of gum and why don't you pull that big stick out of your ass and we'll be all set."
"Only if you kiss it first."

We started walking back to the car to drop off our teas and purses, all the while looking for something stick like to use. First we walked towards a garage door that looked as though there might be plastic tubing on the ground in front of it but upon a closer look we noticed that the plastic tubing was coming from the garage door like for some kind of ventilation, like you might find in say, a meth lab. So we moved away from the garage door. Across from the meth lab was pile of broken up wooden pallets. Perfect, now I just needed to chew a bunch of gum. We get back to the car and I stick one piece in my mouth and start chewing. I wait a few minutes and then put another one in there, chew for a few more minutes and I put the third in when Martha looked at me and in a snarky tone said, "I think two is enough." I opened my mouth to say something snarky back and half of the third stick of un-chewed gum fell out of my mouth and landed on the sidewalk.

"Okay, well two and a half should be good" she laughed.

I frantically chewed gum while we walked back to the sewer grate. The gum couldn't be too sugary otherwise it wouldn't be that sticky. After a few more minutes, I stuck the gum on the end of the stick and Martha proceeded to poke at the lens cap. She was able to get the thing stuck to it but when I would try to grab it, it would fall back to the paper. After a few attempts, a passerby asked if we dropped our keys.

"No, the lens cap to my camera", I replied, and within seconds this guy was on the ground, in the gutter, helping Martha navigate the stick over to the side that had more space. In the blink of an eye, I was holding my sticky dirt cover cap.

The guy started to walk away and I asked him if he wanted some hand sanitizer. Sure, he said as I squirted a big dollop into his palms. "Thank you so much, I hope you have a wonderful life." I called out as he walked away.

I never know if I'm blessing someone or cursing them when I say that.

Weird Sushi Drug Breath
The next day at the Assisted Living place from 10:30 until 3:00 was Glamour Shots Day. For $50 bucks you could have your photo taken against a lovely Seasonal backdrop. A stylist could do your makeup or if you chose, you could do your own. It is understood that there are no Glamour Shots of Gen. You know that, right?

This was the day that we took Gen to the mall to get her a pair of shoes. I'm not sure I can accurately describe the whole rotten ordeal other than that she's got a bunion on one foot and the other one is half a size larger. She wanted laces but she can't tie her shoes anymore but was hell bent on ignoring that fact. All she did was bitch and by noon, I already had a whole Xanax in me and was periodically licking another one just to take the edges off the edges. By mid-afternoon once we were safely back in the comforts of Assisted Living, I ended up taking a two-hour nap on Frank's bed.

I think this was the night that Martha and I decided to try the Japanese place that we had driven by about a zillion times over the past year. Actually, there are two, but the big one looked to be the better choice, until we got in there and realized it was more like a Benihana then anything we might be interested in. The last thing I want to ever do in my life is sit in a room full of southern Christians under florescent lights, unless there is some kind of old-time revival snake handling thing going on and I have a camera. I most certainly don't want to be stuffed around a large round table with a Japanese 'chef' cooking the shit out of my food while juggling knifes and pepper shakers in front of me.

So we drove down the street to the other Japanese place and what do you know they had a sushi bar and by first glance it appeared to be normal. But in a matter of minutes, good feeling gone. A totally out of control Wake Forest drunken college jackasses were over in the corner. There must have been ten of them and then another eight or so came in to join in. They did this sake!, sake!, sake!, scream and then slammed the table when they were done chugging shots of...sake. It was beyond loud.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked Martha when there was a break in the screaming.
"I weep for our future." She said.

For Christians, They Sure Do Raise Hell with Each Other
Our last day in Winston-Salem my spirits were high but my back gave me the finger. It was done. It now hated me and was going to punish me anyway it could. The last day was difficult mostly because I couldn't wait to get the fuck out of there. I was so impatient with just about everything. I kept zipping and unzipping my drug pouch and at one point, while looking inside it I said to Martha, "I'm just going to eat everything in here and spend the day at the hospital."

"You're sick", Martha said laughing as she hovered Pecan Sandies at quite the velocity. I lifted my head, smiled and rotorted, "It's either that or vodka, right?" She shrugged her shoulders agreed and shoved another cookie in her mouth.

At one point Martha and I went to Tanglewood's Festival of Lights. I can't seem to remember what night that was but it was fun in that creepy the earth is doomed kind of way. Of course, only I see it that way because I'm such a cynic, but whatever, it was disturbing and after a few days of listening to Gen spout out things like, "I used to know this area but since I've been incarcerated I've lost all that knowledge." I was a little drained in the warm fuzzy sector of my brain. Good feeling gone.

Jasmine came home for a short three-day visit this past weekend. She can do things like that now that she has the Jeep. Just decide to drive on over to New York without much advanced warning. It was good to see her and really great to have her home to drive my ass around. Friday, we went out shooting, to lunch and to the store. She's a lot of fun to hang out with, she makes me laugh and I don't think I get on her nerves too much. I can only imagine what it must be like from Jasmine's point of view when she comes here. Friday night we made her go to the local Democratic debate for Mayor here in Hudson. Martha and I had wanted to go, and if she wanted sushi she had to go with us. Now, I didn't know it was going to be two hours long, (I was thinking maybe an hour) but we made it through, and hightailed it out of there once it was over.

Lately every time she comes home, she makes out like a bandit. This time, she left with the big 150 lb TV that had been in our living room, a batch of newly burned CDs of Gogol Bordello and Balkan Beat Box and a Tupperware container of homemade chocolate chip cookies. She got the TV because Martha bought an insanely large 42-inch Sharp AQUOS^® from work that is supposed to be delivered this week. The better to watch golf on I suppose. All I know is that we are one of those crazy households that have, (check this out) four (4) televisions. (Jasmine alone now has as two.) And considering that we only have seven rooms, (not counting the two bathrooms), it does seem a bit excessive. The rooms that are TV-less are the kitchen, the darkroom and my photo room. Pretty nutty, right? It looks like we are obsessed with television.

Lately Martha and I have been chalk full of family visiting. Last weekend we were in North Carolina with Martha's mother, Gen, where for three solid days I had the same conversations repeatedly. It was as if I were in rehearsals for a play. Every time we drove by Wake Forest University Gen would mention that they own all the land on both sides of the street. Or when we would drive by a particularly woodsy part on Silas Creek Parkway, she would point out the window and say, "Look at the bamboo. It stays green all year long. Rain, snow, sleet, doesn't matter." She must have said these two things alone six times in three days. Once going by on the way to somewhere and then once again coming back. Those were just little things but the bigger bits of banter were not only repeated but repeated in the same exact way. The stuff that is in her brain is a gossipy mixture of things about where she lives involving staff and neighbors.

Every day Gen told me that she loves Valium and asked me where she can get some. Now, the last time Martha was there she took Gen to her doctor to see if he would give her a script for some Valium but he refused. She's 87 and recently widowed, give her some fucking valium, were my thoughts but instead he gave her a sample packet of Lexapro. Now some of the known side effects of Lexapro are; agitation, confusion, sweating and a fast heartbeat, along with; insomnia, nausea, diarrhea and heartburn. Let's break this down a minute. Gen already has this list covered. She starts her day slightly agitated, confused and with high blood pressure. Mostly because she has insomnia, stomach upset and Irritable Bowel Syndrome, each day is a tad rough. Tack on a little bit of dementia and short-term memory loss and well, she sounds like a perfect candidate for this new drug, right?

What happened is no real surprise. She took the drug for about a week, it made her sick and then she quit taking it. She won't go back to the doctor and she doesn't want to find a new one no matter what we say.

The whole trip was like a twisted version of Groundhog Day. Finally, on the last night there we thought we would take her to an early dinner at The Olive Garden. From the minute we left the building, the stress of it all became apparent.

"Wake Forest owns all this land. Dear, Where are we going?" Gen asked.
"Mom, we are going to The Olive Garden"
"Oh, lets' not go there. Your father and I don't like it there."
"Yes, you do mom. You like it there. It will be nice."
Gen, now raising her voice and her hands in the air burst out with, "Look at all this traffic; we must be crazy to be out in this!"
"I'm beginning to see that." Martha laughed.

After a few minutes of silence, "Will you look at all this traffic." and she would start up again. "Where on earth are we going?" or "I just don't understand where we are going."

Once we get to The Olive Garden she asked me five times if she brought her purse, which she did not. She didn't need a purse we were paying but for some reason this would not stick in her head.

I can't believe how fucking stressful it is to have the same day over and over again. Not for Gen, she can't remember that she said the same thing the same way yesterday. Her stresses come from having to face the same nervous frustrations over and over again. She can't remember that there is nothing to worry about which is maddening in a whole other way.

What was frustrating for Martha and I, was watching this show unfold in front of us. Martha pointed out to me that it takes her all day to read the tiny Winston-Salem paper and that makes complete sense. She can't remember an article twenty minutes after she's read it, so she reads it again. And what's even more freaky is that she'll make the same comment that she might have made out loud the first time she read it. The same comment, same tone, same pacing, everything. It's super freaky. The mind is amazing and I do find it all very interesting. Distressing to watch, wearisome to be in the middle of but fascinating, nonetheless.

The first night I was in North Carolina, I slept for 11 hours. Not straight through, I did get up three times to go to the bathroom, but the total bedtime was 11 hours. The only thing that made me get up was that I think my organs were starting to fail. I finally woke up with a splitting headache and lower back pain that felt as if my kidneys were shutting down. My brain having checked out for so long that the overall decision was made to power down. "She must be dead, shut her down!" I guess I'm exhausted because I also ended up taking a 2 hour nap the next day.

On Saturday at Wendy's while Gen was waiting at a table for us, Martha and I were in line sandwiched between a group of really white folks from the Bridges Church in North Carolina. They all had a Jesus saying on their backs and I wish to God (ha, ha) I had written it down, but the whole thing in general was so surreal, that I was absorbing other things instead of t-shirt slang. At the register was a seriously weird man in a Boy Scout uniform, which at quick glance looks like a cop uniform. Just something I noticed, that's all. He had moved off to the side and was watching the group of church people. He looked normal enough except for the uniform and the doughy smile he had on his face. He was waiting for one of the church folks to notice him. Finally, their eyes met.

"We're new in town," a churchwoman said.
"I know, I've heard all about you. We knew you were coming." He replied in a heavy southern drawl. He then removed a handful of business cards from his wallet and passed them out first to the adults and then to the children. The church folks then dug out their business cards and passed them along to the Boy Scout leader. I started to feel a little queasy.

Another church guy who was in line behind us was on his cell phone constantly. He was talking about the overall turnout of the carwash that they had just had. He had counted 26 cars but someone named Cory counted 50. Seems like a large discrepancy, it must be that Christian math.

We make it through the line and were in the middle of eating lunch; the Christians having made a nice large table for themselves over on the other side of the dining room; when Gen started telling a little Martha story.

"When Martha was little I took her to the doctor, oh what was his name? Oh well, never mind. Whatever..." she trailed off.
"Koons! Dr. Koons. Koons! Koons!" Martha shouted as if she was on a game show.
"Jesus Christ, shut up." I whispered to her as I look around at the staff of Wendy's.
"What dear? Oh right, right Dr. Koons. Anyway, I took her to the doctor and he put her up on the table and looked at her and said, 'That child is cross-eyed!' and I said 'She is not! She's beautiful!'"

There's Nothing Funnier Than People
So God was very much in the air and all around Winston-Salem. This trip was a God trip. I even wore my 'Jesus Loves Me' t-shirt on the last day, just to fit in. Gen turned to me in the elevator at the assisted living home and asked, "What the hell are you doing walking around with that on?" "Note the irony," I said. We all laughed.

I read an interesting little tidbit in the local Winston-Salem Journal. It seems that unemployment in NC is on the rise. The report cited two main reasons. One reason is because the housing prices are so much cheaper in NC then the rest of the country and folks are just moving to the state without any employable skills. They are unable to find jobs and end up on some kind of public assistance. (A personal fear of mine.) The second reason, one, which I found comical, was that most people could not seem to pass a drug test.

Favorite Gen-ism:
"I'm not anti-social, and neither are you," she said pointing her finger at me, "I just don't want to participate anymore."

He Showed Him How the Cow Ate the Cabbage
On the day we were to leave NC Martha and I got up at 4am and drove in the morning dark towards the heat lightening. Once at the airport, the very first thing we noticed was that our flight was the only flight delayed. The only one. The problem was that because of a 'crew issue' we were going to miss our connection out of Boston. On the way down to NC, we flew out of Albany to Boston on a 40-year-old plane no bigger than an MRI machine. They only fly that plane from Albany to Boston twice a day and we were going to miss the morning flight. The next one out of Boston was at 5:00pm and it was full. Everything was full. The guy tried every combination on every airline to get us to Albany. The only flight out of Greensboro was to LaGuardia. Now here is the thing, if you live here, or if you have had to travel to New York a lot, you know to stay the hell away from LaGuardia airport. Kennedy or Newark are the better choices, hell, Newark will fly in anything. But LGA shuts down on a whim.

"I'd rather shoot myself in the head." Martha told the Delta ticket guy and that about summed it up.

It didn't matter if Martha threatened suicide or not, we were going to LGA. Delta shuffled us off to USAir at the other end of the terminal. Once there, new tickets were issued, (last row, directly in front of the bathroom but hey they were together).

Because of the airline change, USAir issued tickets that, unbeknown to us as to the meaning, had four capital letter S's at the bottom. We found out what these meant at the Homeland Security part of the trip. Four S's mean …"that you have been Specialty Selected by your airline for Security Screening".

Ah man, fuck this.

Martha went through the machine first, Mr. Security guard noticed the ticket and yelled out "One female no alarm." They escorted Martha to her chair, asked her which containers' were hers and removed them from the X-ray machine, taking them over to the special screening table. It was all rather pleasant in that southern way.

Next I go through the machine, he looked at my ticket and yelled out "One female no alarm." Right out of the gate, (literally) they started shit with me. They told me to go sit in the left corner of the holding pen. I noticed that while they managed to grab Martha's purse and laptop, my purse and sandals are just sitting at the bottom of the conveyer belt where anyone can take them. So I don't sit down I yelled at them to grab my stuff. The security guy who was facing me and did not take his eyes off of me and kept repeating, "Ma'am please sit down in the left corner" and I kept repeating, "Could you grab my shit?" But he wouldn't look at anything other than me because I wouldn't sit down. Finally, a woman over by the X-ray machine figured out what my problem was and took my purse and shoes over to the special table along with Martha's stuff. Just as I sat down in the chair I hear the security guard speak into his walky-talky, "She's sitting down now." I got the feeling that I was minutes away from being forced into the chair.

At this point, a rather large woman came over to me and asked if she can pat me down. "What. Ever." I reply as I stood up and did the Christ on the cross stance. Up down and all around she went as I watch them dig around in my purse. All through my drug pouch, all around my camera and even swapping my baggie of trail mix.

They finally let us go, I grabbed all my shit while muttering dumb obscenities under my breath. It is not even 7am yet, fuck these people.

We walked down to our gate in a desperate search for coffee. We came upon a small coffee and muffin stand that was manned by a middle-aged Asian woman and an obvious stroke victim. Her face; contorted like an old racist Loony Tunes WWII character that they no longer air on TV; was exaggerated by the use of heavy makeup and her choice of a brightly colored floral dress and the constant utilization of the word "Honey", heighten an already overwhelming situation.

"Okay honey. You got it honey. Two coffee honey? That'll be $4.17 honey." I felt like we had stepped back in time through the David Lynch door.

The flight to LGA was on time and of little concern except for the poo smell coming out of the bathroom. However, once at LGA we spent 5 hours waiting for our 40-minute flight to Albany. LGA kept delaying the flight in 20 minutes increments. Or as Martha put it they were 'slowly trying to kill us'. It was here somewhere at LGA that my deodorant failed. But I was far from the only one in the room.

We arrived in Albany after 10 hours of traveling. It was 92 degrees and once we found the Jeep, we were unable to find the parking ticket. After bartering with the ticket guy in long-term parking we were finally on the road home in our Jeep, without air-conditioning. We will be traveling back to NC in about 6-weeks.

Last weekend I made my Famous Chocolate Cake for the neighbor Jack because he shoveled out our driveway with his snow blower after we got over two-feet of snow. Well this weekend I made my Peanut Butter Kookies for our chiropractor's 46th birthday. I'm not sure what is up with me and the baking niceties.

Who's to say? I do know that I've been thinking a great deal about people that I no longer talk to anymore for a variety of stupid reasons ranging from nothing to say to logistical to general irritation, none of which are legitimate. And that makes me so very, very lame. So I guess I'm trying to make up for it all with baked goods to people who barely know me. Strange isn't it? Ah yes, the mind is a terrible thing.

I Would Mug Me
Martha bought me a Polaroid back for my Holga and while I love the shots that I'm taking, working with the material on the street is a nightmare. I don't know how folks used to shoot with the peel apart films. I look like a idiot out there trying to juggle my camera; the toxic disposable paper of the backing that I want to keep because they are cool; the wet print I just peeled apart; a small accordion file for the wet print to go into when it dries; a long zip up pouch for the disposable paper backing to go into when it dries and my purse.

Of course I know that years ago they didn't care about the paper backing and seeing how most of the photographers were men, there were no purses on the job.

Tax Time
Martha and I finally broke down and had our taxes done. Now, if we lived on a different planet, one that truly did treat all people equally, there probably would still be taxes but I do think that at the very least, she and I would be able to file a fucking joint return. The tax benefits that the government dollops out to legally married folks should be available to all of us that are in any kind of cohabitation in any kind of "family" scenario. Boy, boy, girl, girl or even boy, girl and yes, those polygamous marriage people too. A family is a family is a family.

Instead, the IRS only sees my status as single or the more depressing category of divorced. Although I do get to claim Jasmine, I cannot claim the house. Martha, filing as single but with none of the benefits of actually being single, gets to take the house. She and I pay higher taxes within a year because of our single/divorced status. This goes with the governments' theory that because we are single, we have more disposable income and with less overhead, we should contribute to the overall community on a higher level then those that are actually draining the system. I pay more in taxes for the local schools then traditional families only my invisible family will never use those services. I understand how it's supposed to work, with Jasmine in a whole other community, draining that towns resources etc. But what is happening instead is that Jasmine is at an out of state college and we are paying almost double for her to go there. So we pay higher taxes in our town and higher tuition in another state.

And once I consider all the money I make in a year, that which isn't in my pocket is funding the beginning of The Third World War, I get super cranky about being told what I am verses what I really am, sexual preferences being left out of the equation.

All this tax shit is nothing new to me; it has been going on for years ever since I stopped being a straight married mom and switched teams. What is new is that I keep getting irritated over it all. It cost Martha and me a total of over $500.00 to have our taxes done. Two single returns, one using the long form and one using the standard, a bunch of bullshit around living in Jersey and working in Jersey then living in New York, student loan interest and a new home purchase. All of that could have been on a joint return and saved us probably $250.00.

The good news about all of it is that we are getting money back, money that will so help with the payment on the new roof. I'm not sure if we would get more money back if we could file a joint return. If it wasn't so complicated I'd run the numbers just to see.

The Carpet Highway of My Two-room Apartment
In the two weeks since Martha's mother, Genevieve, has been alone things had been relatively quiet. The first week passed without us being aware of any incidents. However, the second week proved to unveil the stresses of elderly confusion. Genevieve, not wanting to bother anyone except direct family, ran out of blood pressure meds and in an attempt to get medicine without asking someone to take her to CVS, she signed up for Medicare through the Assisted Living home. Now her medicine is going to cost her $300.00 a month instead of $3.00. It will probably take Martha weeks to fix that.

Genevieve also signed almost $8000.00 in checks over to the desk jockey at the Assisted Living home. Her insurance company reimbursed her for her living expenses and because she would not ask anyone to take her to the bank, she signed the checks and told the receptionist to credit her account. No receipt, no anything, and most importantly the Assisted Living home never called Martha.

Martha spent a great deal of Thursday on the phone to just about everyone at the Assisted Living home drilling into all of them that they are to contact her if Genevieve gives away anything, (jewelry, cash, furniture) or if she tries to leave the property without some kind of supervision.

For Genevieve, the mail is a foundation of incredible anxiety. Everyday something arrives that is so confusing to her that for all she knows it could very well be written in Taiwanese. Her job before Frank died was to open the mail and lay it out for him to read. She never actually read anything. So now, everything is confusing. A credit card offering 0% interest for 9 months is cause for serious concern. "What is it, what should I do?"

There is still a great deal of tinkering that needs to be addressed before Genevieve is in a place where she can't screw up things. Martha and I are going down in about a month to tie up some loose ends, to say the least.