Holly Northrop Blog

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WOW. Okay THAT was so fucked up. Surgery is no joke, not that I thought it was and just in case I happened to forget all the little frightening parts from Jasmine's birth, all those years ago, this whole adrenal thing slammed it all back home for me. Abdominal surgery is fucked up no matter how you look at it. Just because they drilled four little holes in my belly (laparoscopic surgery) instead of a nice and lumpy eight inch, incision does not mean that they treat the insides any differently.

Jesus Christ, I feel like my gut has been used as a bowl for scrambling eggs in. And the eggs were my innards and wolves ate the resulting omelet.

Oh, but let's talk about the drugs.

I was on Dilaudid ® every three hours for three solid days. To sum that up so we can all better understand the level of pain here, that is 24 shots of synthetic heroin every three hours over a seventy-two hour period. Some would call that "the Mother load" and I would be one to agree with that observation. Now, a great many of those hours, that delicious drug was the only thing that kept me from passing out from the shear pain in my back, shoulders and neck. For two days, I was so fucked up that I could not see past my nose. I displayed in front of my partner, daughter and best friend just about every revolting thing a human body can do except shit the bed. The only reason I didn't do that, was because all opioid-based narcotics cause constipation - thank God. Poor Jasmine, she not only witnessed me crying, an act upsetting all by its self, but she had the added bonus of watching me cry out in pain and seeing me naked. For her, the big mystery as to my natural redhead status has been completely answered, even though she never asked.

The reason my back was completely out of control I didn't find out until Sunday afternoon when this totally hot Anesthesiologist chick stood at the foot of my bed and explained to me just exactly what the hell they all did TO me. I have four holes in my belly. Three along the bottom starting on my left hip area and moving toward my belly button and the fourth one is very close to my left breast at the top of my rib cage and very near my diaphragm. One of the holes was used to pump large amounts of Carbon dioxide gas into my abdomen. The idea being to EXPAND my torso and get a better look around. The trouble is that we humans cannot handle large amount of C02 and in fact, too much can kill us or make us kill ourselves, which, come to think of it had I been strong enough I just might have attempted on Sunday because the pain was god awful.

Carbon Dioxide gets in the muscles and while it eventually works its way out of the body, until it is gone, it is a nightmare. Think bubbles in all of your muscles, tummy, neck, brain and all around your innards. Burping and farting are good but nothing but time moves the C02 out or your muscles. Time and a whole bunch of Dilaudid to pass those days away.

Now, I was dealing with a weekend staff at the hospital so you know things didn't move as snappy as they do Monday- Friday. The night shift was probably the worst and the first night there was fucking horrible. I had to insist, through tears, that the fucking nurse give me a catheter. She was hesitant because they didn't give me one in surgery so why would I need one now. The doctor she was trying to reach wasn't calling back and my bladder was so full that it was making me sick. Let me just say here, you know you are in a fucked up scene when you personally have to beg for a catheter. Finally, she listened to me and well, I was so fucking right and she was so fucking wrong as her nice white nursing shoes aren't so white anymore. After our little interaction that night, she pretty much stayed away from me and I hissed at her whenever she came into my room.

I had a roommate for one night, the first night, also known as catheter night, and although I never saw her nor do I know her name, I wish to apologize to her wherever she may be. That night sucked for both of us and I am so glad they let you out of the hospital the very next day. You definitely drew the short straw that night and I hope you have a great life. I am so sorry that I cried like a baby and that our night nurse sucked ass.

From then on, the karma gods saw fit to let me stay alone in a double room. It was a total score but the price was pretty high.

So now what? I am home and I have nothing to do but drugs, nap and write. We are waiting on test results and I have a slew of doctor's appointments both this week and next. Eventually, I will have to go back to work and life should return to normal. Hard to remember just what the hell normal is, but I am looking forward to finding out.

The reason my surgery has been moved to Friday is because of one person. One doctor, my Endocrinologist, whom I tried for three weeks to get a hold of but he never returned my calls. Finally, my M.D. got in touch with him a week and a half ago. He said that my medications were fine and that he didn't need to see me and good luck with the surgery. THE DAY BEFORE MY SURGERY, that fucker call the hospital saying that my surgery needed to me postponed because he wanted me on yet another drug.

From then on, shit hit the fan and at one point, I was on a 4-way conference call with Martha, my M.D. and the surgeon. My M.D., who rocks so hard, negotiated with the hospital for me to have the surgery on Friday as long as I take these bright red pills that not only fuck me up like crazy, (they are tranquilizers) but also have the unfortunate side effect of plugging my sinuses up like cement.

I have fired my Endocrinologist and I am actually considering filing a complaint against him.

Sheri is here until Sunday, Jasmine has the entire week off and I am too wasted do anything. So now, Friday is the day. Yeah, right.

RAMBLE ON HOME
Okay, here is the deal. I am supposed to have surgery this Wednesday at 10am. We shall see. My doctors have increased my medicine again to the point where I am now a walking zombie. It is a little tough to do anything and that includes staying awake.

Going to work last Friday, after spending hours at the hospital, was a HUGE mistake. A mistake that I fully did not appreciate until it was way too late. I was only at The Voice for three hours and that was three hours too many. I was spent before I got there and only kept walking down the street towards the building because I had to go to the bathroom. I have a lithium shuffle in my walk now and crossing a street is down right dangerous. Hmm, the idea is that I am going to work on Monday but then I'll be off the rest of this week and then the next. I just don't have the days that I need, to take the proper amount of time off. Fucked up isn't it? I wasted all that time in February for nothing.

Energy comes in spurts with no indication of duration. Saturday, Martha helped me shoot the West Village for The Voice. We did it early and it all worked pretty well until a headache took over and my right eye kept going in and out of focus. So we called it a day and when I finally got home, I slept for three hours. Sunday, I didn't get out of bed until almost 4:00. I like to lie around just as much as the next lazy fucker but even I know how ridiculous all of this is.

Last week was all the doctor prep work: blood, urine, EKG, psychological work up (shocker, I passed), etc., and while the ramp-up is quite impressive, I am hesitant to get on board with the program. I just don't trust that it will happen. The hospital is pleasant and everyone is all about the operation. I am a special thing so it is all very "watched". The good news is that I am to take Valium from now until the minute they knock me out with anesthesia. That works for me.

Karen, the bug-eyed women who is the Head of Anesthesia at the hospital, went into graphic detail about what all is going to happen to me and from the sound of it; I am going to be completely violated. I will have a central line, a catheter and a breathing tube. My heart, lungs and brain will be continuously monitored by state-of-the-art equipment. My blood pressure will remain the constant topic of conversation in the operating room. Afterwards, Martha and Jazz can come to Intensive Care to look at me and try not to flip out, (good luck with that) but hopefully, I won't be in there too long. If the doctors fuck up and there is a problem, I'll be in there for a while. Yet, if it goes well, I'll be in a shared room, lying on my right side, trying not to dry heave and white knuckling my self-inducing morphine drip. Hopefully, by dinnertime, someone will give me a Jell-O cup to lick.

I have a few concerns. Well, I have about a zillion really, but one of the big ones is that, while they may take my left adrenal out, that still might not fix the problem. I might have another pheochromocytoma somewhere else. I could wake up from surgery and still have all these fucked up symptoms. I have been sick for almost two (2) years; I do not even remember what I am supposed to feel like. The last time I felt normal was when I was smoking and that cannot be right. Or maybe it is. Maybe I am just one big hunk of white trash and I am supposed to smoke two packs of Marlboro a day, weigh 235 pounds and drink a fifth of whiskey every two days. Maybe, by fucking with that winning formula four years ago, I altered the core of my Ohio raised DNA.

Of course, the other big worry is that they just might kill me on Wednesday. A valid concern, but a highly unlikely outcome. My freakazoid M.D. did the risk factor and I am at a zero (0) for something bad to happen. But, that chart she used didn't have my disease on it because it is so rare. (In the general population, 0.001 - 0.01%, I think I have better odds winning Mega-Millions.) Yes, yes, I know, zero (0), but it still does not make the 'kick the bucket' idea leave my troubled mind. Then there is the fear that it will be called off again because of, well, God only knows what but I am sure it would involve another scan.

Wow, what a weekend. The Mermaid Parade at Coney Island, The Dyke March at Bryant Park, Billy Graham in Queens, The Gay Pride Parade and a massive street fair, one block from my apartment building. I had none of it. Well, I did watch some of the street fair out the window through the binoculars, but even with all that photo worthy stuff, I just could not get my shit together to go outside. Martha and Jazz managed to go shopping for red Pumas and Rose scented perfume in SoHo but not me. It was so absurdly hot again and after what happen in Brooklyn Heights a few weeks ago; I thought it best to simply not. Besides, I recently bought a shit load of music and I had a big, long overdue date with my stereo. I am working on a strange little project that requires me to listen to massive amounts of weird and wonderful stuff while maintaining a rather large list of songs. All things best done, alone...and, uh well...alone. Just me being really, really weird. It's what I do best.

CHILDREN ARE A PRODUCT
My brain has been a little distracted as of late. Surgery is back on the table and Martha and I meet with the surgeon this week to pick a damn date. If all goes right, unlike before, I should have my operation within the next two weeks. This would work just fine because I am sick to death of this tumor and so desperately want to move on with my life. Jasmine had her PET scan Thursday and we are waiting on the results of that test. This time of year always makes me a little crazier then normal and she does not help matters by blurting out crap like, "If is get cancer again, I am NOT going to have chemo. I'm just not Mom." This late breaking news came to me while we were trying to have a nice little sushi dinner.

I could have stabbed her in her baby blue eyeball with my chopstick.

After reading an article about Jasmines' generation being called the Boomerang Generation (we keep kicking her out and she keeps coming back) the fear of her moving forward becomes a fright, especially when I start to think about how fucked up it actually is out there and how ill-prepared she is. In so many ways, she is still a child and a mouthy one at that. I keep telling myself that how she is around the house and around me is different then what she is like in the world but how do I know that? It's like that asshole at work that everyone has to deal with. You know, every office everywhere has the one guy who is just a total dick. (Some offices have more then one.) Well, he has family, friends, and a whole other life support system outside of the office. Do his people know he is the office asshole? Do they care?

Not that Jasmine is an asshole by any means; I know it sounds like I am comparing her to one but this is all more of a general worry about her moving into adulthood. Well, if she is reading this she will be pissed at me but for all the wrong reasons. I am not saying that she is childish - not really, except for that chemo remark. There are so many explanations as to why she is not embracing the whole adult thing. I mean Christ; I have yet to come aboard that ship, although, I at least acknowledge that there is a ship. I really do wish that life were just one big tightly packed bowl of crazy fun.

We are coming up on her 21st birthday here in a few weeks. This one is a strange one because, for this one and only time, she will be exactly half my age. Or I will be twice as old as she is. It's a strange thing and most mothers and daughters are a little older when it happens. You know, 25 & 50 or 30 & 60 or as with my Mom and I, 40 & 80 after which my mom promptly died eleven days before my 41st birthday. But all that math is just math and the strangeness of ageing is never dull.

MEDIA FRENDLY
Martha entered a contest at work, technically, it was a raffle, and she won first prize: a Sharp 13 inch flat panel TV. It is cute as could be and she gave it to me to put in the office. So now, we have a three-room apartment with a TV in every room. There is something so very wrong about that. But it is cute and I'll watch the news on it once we get cable hooked up. However, this has opened a whole new can of worms about if I'm going to get a cable box in the office then I should just go ahead and get a cable modem. See, I am still on dial-up (whatever I have my reasons). One of the many is that dial up keeps that fucking phone line busy for hours and I can only be reached by cell phone and only if I happen to notice it is buzzing. Another is the cost, on demand lifestyles are expensive. Probably the one reason that Martha doesn't understand is that I really do not want to give up an email address that I have had for ten years. It is old and dependant on maintaining a certain account that would become obsolete if we switch to a cable modem. It is like having a 212 area code. Ideally, I would like to get DSL but get this; they do not offer it in my area. I am in a weird 5-block pocket of non-DSL availability. That sounds about right.

HELLO FRIEND
I shot a little pit of product last week for Lynn Yaeger's column, Elements of Style and in doing so; I met possibly the nicest man ever. The place was Charlie's Place (it's closing this week, hence the photo), but Charlie is so sweet and delightful that twenty minutes in his little jewelry shop on Mulberry Street restored my faith in human kindness. Right out of the gate, when I introduced myself he shook my hand with both of his hands and told me I was beautiful. Now, I used to be attractive, but the last four years have taken a big chunk out of me, so I know in my head that this is nothing more then a sweet little old man lie, but it totally worked for me. From that moment on, he was delightful and I was relaxed. Anyone who can calm me down is a gift from God in my book.

So much of New York City is the exact opposite of nice that when someone smiles at you on the subway or holds a door open for you instead of slamming it in your face, it makes you soften for a minute. And when you find a person that is sweet and gentle in a place where everything has slowed down to a more normal pace, you want to just hang out and breath in the calm cool air. Meeting Charlie changed the rest of my day. I carried him with me all throughout work. On the way home I walked slower with my head held upright, managing to catch other folk's eyes before they shifted nervously away from mine. On the subway, I smiled and actually looked around at my fellow passengers. I am sure they thought either I was out of my mind on drugs or a tourist but I didn't care. I wanted to look around me instead of burying my head in a book. I wanted to see if anyone else was out there. And well, okay not on this particular ride home did anyone smile back at me but Charlie's gift of kindness was the best thing ever because my odd behavior gave me a wide berth of seating to stretch out in. Apparently, being nice is a great way to keep people away. So is possessing a foul odor but that is another story.

I have to admit, I've got nothing. Well, in theory, every week I have nothing and usually pull something out of my ass but this week I've really got nothing to blather on about. But then again, it isn't as though most or you stop by to read what my brain damaged head can spew out because I say it with an amazing amount of eloquence. No, I'm more like a car accident before the ambulance has arrived. A minor fender bender but traffic is all fucked up and you at least feel you deserve to have to look at the mess as you drive by, just because of the shear inconvenience of it all. No one is hurt but things are definitely twisted.

After a few side detours chasing new medical rabbits, it seems as though I will now be getting back to my tumor, where things move at the normal pace of cold molasses. I had a big brain twisting moment at the doctors' office last week when it was mistakenly interpreted that I was trying to get pregnant instead of the whole adrenal thing. I have a new doctor who has only seen me twice and apparently, I look like another patient of hers who is infertile, and now along with everything else, it appears that I am too.

My new doctor, (who I think looks like Susan Sarandon, and honestly, who doesn't want that in a gynecologist) momentarily became confused during our office visit and said to me;

"We have to take some sperm..."

...and then she looked over at Martha who was sitting on a tiny stool in the corner of the room and concluded her wicked diagnosis by declaring;

"...and it looks like you are going to have to provide the egg. We can fertilize it outside of the womb."

Noticing our confused and contorted faces, she kept going.

"Aren't you trying to get pregnant?" she asked.

All three of us looked at each other with overall horror on our faces before there was a massive snap of communal understanding and we all started speaking at the same time.

I yapped out one of my long sentence rambles, complete with hair flinging and arm waving; "What, no, wait ...um, let's review. I am a 42-year old woman and I have a rare adrenal tumor and we are here because of a pelvic MRI that looked a little funny and I had additional screwed-up tests last week, that YOU personally ordered and we are here to go over the results of those and an abnormal PAP test to see if I have CANCER and...um, I already have a 20-year old that we are trying to put through college and Jesus Christ I don't ever want to have another child - EVER. WE do not want to have children and frankly, on some days, we are not really that pleased with the one we do have. But what can you do? She failed Economics you know."

Martha squirmed around on the little stool, adjusted her pants and said; "I don't understand. When does sperm make anything better? My God, no, no, no we don't want children."

The doctor immediately apologized and now she knows exactly who I am, and while yes, I just happen to look like another patient of hers who is trying to get pregnant, that was no excuse and she was deeply sorry. I look just like someone else. I could say the same thing back at her; that she looks like Susan Sarandon (Martha disagrees) but I'm not acting like an idiot and fawning all over her asking for an autograph.

We all had a good laugh but the whole thing made me feeling strange and freaked out for unexplained reasons.

SMALL TALK
Jasmine seems to be settling in with her new job at the stationary store, also known as Breederville. I stopped by the other day just to check out the shop. It is pretty much a bridal type deal with cards and unique gifts. Jasmine is way deep in straight land but considering that she is boy crazy and unfortunately living with two mommies I suppose she can stomach all the demands of the typical Hoboken bride. I met the owner, playing the Mom role with little fan fare.

Afterwards, the owner told Jazz that she thought I was nice. Good to know I can still work the small talk. I think the key to me is short bits of structured insignificant chatter. None of this rambling gibberish and non-stop giggling that I tend to find myself caught up in. It always appears as though I am on drugs, and while yes, I am on prescription medication it isn't the good stuff. Folks usually walk away from a conversation with me totally convinced that I'm nuts, an amphetamine addict or both. Whenever I replay any first meeting with just about everyone I've ever met, I'm aghast that I have a job or friends. I think the only reason I have Martha is that she happened to think long ago and far away that all my rambling and giggling was kind of cute. These days, it pretty much drives her crazy but after thirteen and a half years and thousands of dollars in dental work, I am an investment that she simply is not willing to walk away from. Plus, she loves me, but I really don't know how that all happened. I think we were drunk and I'm pretty positive that I was on the good stuff.

BEACH DREAMS
Miss Simon and Miss Martha have taken matters into their own hands and have ordered us up a beach house on Top Sail Island. It isn't until the middle of October, but considering that all of us are isolation freaks and cool weather suits us just fine, October appears to work. It should still be warm during the day and the house has a fireplace for those chilly nights. I'll probably have to take the whole week off from work without pay because by then I'll have no days left at all. But I simply don't care. We will make it work and I am glad they went ahead and did it even though technically, right now Martha and I are cash poor. We made a vow to go somewhere every year because it is so important to actually get the fuck away from it all. Two very cool things about the house are that it is a WHOLE house, all four walls are ours and it has a hammock on one of the back porches. Is summer over yet?

Hot damn, it is The Siren Music Festival time again and every year I always tell myself that somehow, someway, it WILL be different. I will not work on it at home or make myself nuts with the pressure to get it done. Whatever, who cares? It is live and I did it in three days. The band pages are still to come because, ah, well, they haven't announced the bands yet, but at least the site resembles all that expensive marketing material that hits the streets on Monday. This year will probably be extremely huge and it is still a question as to whether I will go or not. Part of me hopes for a hurricane to hit the coast on the 16th just so the crowd will be thinner.

Last year, I sent Jasmine along alone and after the 90 minute travel time from our apartment to Coney Island she fought her way up to the backstage security only to be told that she couldn't enter the roped off area because she was under 21. Did not matter one bit that her name was on the list or that I work for The Voice. So this year she is all ramped up and could give a rats ass if I go or not because she will have turned 21 three-days prior to this free monster of a festival. I am no longer needed because she will be an ADULT, ta fucking da. Well, she still needs me around to sign my name on those student loans and various other things that are not in her field of vision at the current time.

But hey it's no time to be bitter because why, because I'm not going to let any of it bother me. Plain and simple. I have a new Xanax prescription and I cannot seem to stop listening to Johnny Cash. For the moment, life is tolerable.

THE WRONG END OF THE SADIST'S WHIP
Last week, last Friday to be exact, I had a test at St. Mary's Hospital that I swear to the good lord above if somebody ever does something like that to me again I am going to punch them in the nuts. I don't want to go into all the crazy little details, but there was about a two-hour period where I would have given away all my passwords, my social security number and bank card for a little relief. In addition, I would have gladly converted to ANY form of either organized or unorganized religion just to make it all stop. Fuckers, every last one of them, and the only reason I keep going back for more fun at that sadist lab called a hospital is because of Martha and Jasmine.

As you know, or could probably guess, I'm so sick of being sick that I just don't care, but they seem to, so what the hell. I'll chew a pill, find a happy place in my head and try not to lash out at strangers. But Friday was the limit to the amount of bodily discomfort I can put up with.

But last week was just one long continuous game of Wac-a-mole from the start. That's what usually happens when you leave town for a few days and go hang out with people who do nothing but hang out. Life starts to look a whole lot better from the warm brown paneled rec rooms of suburbia.

Suddenly, that fucked up pain in your belly starts to disappear and you are not so concerned about the risk of puking in public. You start daydreaming about crazy stuff like yard sales and backyard gardens, but none of that really matters because for the first time in almost half a year you are unexpectedly relaxed from a no-brainer visit with the folks. Who knew? Another odd thing is that for four-days in a row you were able to take a nap without the aid of a Valium because you forgot to pack the tension claw that usually grips your skull à la one of H.R. Giger's aliens and you could take it all down about a hundred notches all by your big, bad self.

Ah, but upon your return to the homeland the claw awaits you and you will be punished. All fun has a price and we never seem to have enough money.

I LOVE YOU BABY. ALWAYS AND NEVER
For Martha's birthday, along with taking her out to lunch, the folks that she works with gave her a gift card for Target. This could not be any better timing for us. Now, we loath Target, and in fact I used to work at one in Denver about a hundred years ago. (Jesus, talk about depressing. Shit, that could have turned way ugly for a whole bunch of folks if I had been thinking a little clearer.) At any rate, she and I resist Target because everything in the damn store is made in China or some other imprisoned country, for pennies on the shrinking American dollar. And honestly, I'm sick of supporting China's economy. But to actually BUY AMERICAN in this country is expensive and damn near next to impossible. American Apparel is nice and all but a little pricey, and the company has that whole Day-over 18 ad campaign that personally, kind of bothers me in a borderline pedophilia way.

Okay, besides all that nonsense, the point is this; money is too tight right now because of my teeth, the IRS, hotel rooms, gas prices, airport taxis and well, yes, our little TJ Maxx thing. But life keeps spinning out of control and Jasmine needs new clothes. Not just for fun either; she needs the massive makeover for her new job at The Stationary Store. She has to hide those crazy tats and put the butt crack way away. Basically we needed to make her look like the nice young republican that we all know she could have been had her father dug his hooks in a little deeper and I'd had been committed somewhere out west and unable to influence her through democratic witchery. Or so one version of the story goes.

So Sunday, Martha and Jasmine made the quick little drive over to Target, and three hours later she has two skirts, two tops, a pair of pants and a cute little sweater. Nice comfortable lesbian shoes had to be purchased at Payless, but those girls where so on it that they only left fifty cents on the gift card. Awesome shopping and they paid nothing for it except time at Target, which of course we all know is priceless. I stayed home and napped.

I have promised to take Martha to see the new Star Wars in the theater, and yes Jasmine has to come with me, that is the deal. We did not do that this weekend. I didn't promise to wait in any line and I don't think even Martha wants to do that. We did however see Sin City and I loved it. Too much fun and way over the top. Yeah, yeah Star Wars, but Sin City was so strange and absorbing I couldn't stop laughing.

Martha pointed out to me that if you do a quick glance of my homepage one might think that I just may possibly be some kind of right wing nut. One look over to the right where my postings are and you will notice:
Holy Land USA: An American Dream
BUSH: Four More Years
Church & School: on a Cold Sunday

Hmm. The whole thing got me thinking about piece that I just read in Chicago Life Getting Frank About Conservative Politics by Jane Ammeson. Basically, it is an article about Thomas Frank's book, What's The Matter With Kansas? How Conservative Won The Heart of America, by using 'social issues to lure people into voting against their own economic interests'*.

What all this makes me mull over is the word diversity. Diversity in America to be exact and how we, as a nation, really don't like it in people. We like it in our investments but not in our neighbors. Because of my voting record, lifestyle, belief system and liberal perspective I am viewed as too self-important to give a fuck about our social ills. I simply cannot be bothered to effectively make a difference to the hardworking, middleclass salt of the earth republicans.

What? Yeah, that's right, salt of the earth republicans.

What is really enthralling about an idea like that, is that, in a manner of a just a few years and by nothing more than pure marketing, a few properly imbedded news events, (like a war) the republicans have managed to completely flip the message without changing a damn thing. Oh well, wait they changed it all right. This country is hemorrhaging money and jobs at an alarming rate. Almost all the crap we haul home every weekend from Target, Wal-Mart and Kmart is made in China. At least Ronald Reagan (the greatest president ever according to the latest historical rewrite) had that whole "Buy American" slogan going on. This country is so far in debt that I cannot even fathom how ANY next president, regardless of party affiliation will handle cost-cutting measures. Even the fucking planet is so over us. There is something strange going on between the Eurasian plate and the Australian-Indian plate. Mother Earth is pissed and is gearing up to expel this human parasite once and for all and crack wide open.

I managed to get one hour into The Corporation before I actually couldn't take it anymore. My head was spinning and I had a total sense of doom wash over me. Then I found myself pissed at the director for extreme propaganda on the left. I will finish the movie and I hope to God they stop with the 'we are doomed; we are fucked' direction and turn it into a few solutions.

Maybe, just maybe, I have been reprogrammed via subliminal messages transmitted through The L Word, The Nightly News and CSI Crime Scene (Vegas baby). Maybe I really am a republican. Hey, the smartest thing the right could do would be to spin the message to the homo crowd about a kinder gentler party. 'Republican lite' as Mr. Frank refers to it as. We are roughly 10% of the population and if they fill our heads with the promise of equality, we would defend that pipe-dream to the death.

CALLING OUT FOR ART
Every now and then, I get a bug up my ass to maybe, just maybe submit a few pieces to a few galleries, just for shits and giggles mind you. This all started because I have been working on building out my Holga section and well, golly gee, some of those there photos are kind of purty'. This gets my crazy head thinking that maybe I could handle a gallery thing and before I know it, I'm submitting stuff.

I have always had a weird relationship between showing my art and producing my art. One would think that the two things go together but not in my head. Why I do it isn't why I show it and what I show is not necessarily my favorite pieces. My favorites usually tend to be my fuck ups and are only of interest to me. I usually put them in as Photo of the Day so I can figure out what is wrong with them. Not all Photo of the Day photos are like that but enough of them are. The photographs that I drag out to the frame shop for gallery hanging are different. Those are chosen with eyeball appeal. These are more prone to gallery stuff because why? Because they might sell and that is the name of the gallery game. To sell. Worst-case scenario I might make 50% off the selling price and for someone like me, unknown and nameless, that would be amazing or so I am told. Oh sure, I have sold before and it is quite flattering when a non-family member whips out the cash but the whole process is entirely too nerve racking. But, but but, I haven't shown in almost three years, so my view is that I need to get up and over myself, eh?

PASSING FOR NORMAL
Martha and I have decided to buy life insurance. Well, it is a little more than that. It is something called Variable Universal Life and it is possibly the most boring thing on earth.

Rewarding my family members after I die is the least I can do for them after putting up will all my bullshit. It is the least any of us could do especially for those of us who live decades of misery, well beyond what was originally envisioned. After all, these folks LOVED you and while I do believe that love is so much more than a four-letter word, any way you cut it; it is the right thing to do. If you can afford it, that is. Life insurance is not just boring but expensive. Martha and I figured that we have to start now, somewhere before we cannot afford the premiums or no one will insure us. I will however, have to pass a blood and urine test. Now that should be interesting.

MORE TUMOR TALK
The final numbers on my last test have made my MD, the one who originally diagnosed me and kudos to her for finding such a rare disease, want to look deeper and run a few genetic tests on me. She wants to make sure that I don't have something even more fucked up than pheochromoyctoma.

Yes, yes, yes, she gets the big brain prize but both of these genetic things are scary as hell and one will, over time, cause kidney failure.

All this asks that, if you could know what you might die of and there was not a damn thing anyone could do about it, would you want to know? I kind of do and I kind of don't.

All this latest nonsense is because my right adrenal is a little elevated and she wants to make sure that I don't have a tumor in that one too. Can't loose both, well you can but it is a life of misery and medical concoctions consisting of hormones and steroids. Eventually, I will be forced to put a bullet in my brain, for sure. However, if I wait two years after we sign the life insurance police, suicide is covered. It is considered a mental illness, (duh) and they wait two years but they will payout in full. As Martha said, "Two out of three of us will inherit half a million dollars."

While my doctor keeps reassuring me that I'm not going to die she keeps testing me for shit that might kill me. It's an interesting dance.

* Jane Ammeson

I watched a shitload of TV this weekend. Not sure why, but sometimes it just feels right to sit in front of the idiot box and zone out. Well, it did rain like a MoFo all day Saturday, so I suppose that was the excuse I needed to fuck off. It rained sideways the entire day and the wind gusts were so violent that, by evening, I was certain our windows were going to bust open and destroy everything in our apartment.

At least I did not watch all garbage. Some things were worth the wasted hours.

I managed to finally watch In Cold Blood. Excellent movie and kind of eerie to see where Robert Blake began his Robert Blankness. After that display of crime and punishment, I skipped on over to the Sundance Channel and watched a disturbing documentary titled Sex in a Cold Climate. It is about young Irish women who were condemned by their families and churches to the Magdalene Asylums because they were thought to be promiscuous. They were sentenced to years of backbreaking laundry and nun abuse.

Then I started to watch Jean-Luc Godard's Band of Outsiders but got tired of reading the subtitles. My head was spinning and I needed a nap.

Speaking of brain draining TV, what is up with The L Word? I think that this season's episodes are stacking up to officially make it dumbest show on cable. Look, I understand that it was not winning any Emmy's before, but this season is just down right retarded.

Maybe we should start watching it with the sound off? Just a thought.

I don't even like the actors that I did like last season. At least wardrobe fixed Jennifer Beals slack/pantsuit problem but I see that she did not feel the need to maybe take an acting workshop over hiatus and because of that, the whole cast has been infected with the Beals Bad Acting Bug. Sandra Bernhard should have stuck to her guns and stayed away. She was right, the show does suck but now she is part of that sucking sound.

Who is writing this shit? Actually, two writers, that up until this show I had a fair amount of respect for, Guinevere Turner and Rose Troche have either lost their minds or totally sold out. The story lines are particularly painful this season and are starting to ruin my Sunday night fluff.

And for God sake, stop showing me pregnant lesbian sex. Just stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it.

WHAT'S YOUR NAME, WHAT'S YOUR NUMBER?
After a week and a half of wondering, just what the fuck goes on down there at Bayonne Hospital, my MD finally received my test results. I still have a tumor and it is only in my adrenal gland but the real stunning part of the test results was that Bayonne Hospital didn't indicate on the test which adrenal had the elevated metanephrine numbers or if the 876/240 number was in fact 876/240 or 240/876. (By the way, normal is between 30 and 130.) Top, bottom, left right it is a pretty simple and STANDARD thing to indicate. How stupid do you have to be? It is one of the first things I learned in-that-there-expensive 'Art School' I went to. Golly gee guys, indicate the TOP so folks understand the intention. Stupid fucks.

My doctor was so pissed that I thought her head was going to pop right off her body. Until she gets the number squared away, she technically cannot give me a diagnosis but she and I both agree that it is the left adrenal and it is only in the adrenal. After this mess is cleared up, my guess is that surgery would be next - unless there is some other fucked up test they want to do, but my doctor is sure that this is it. Of course, they could start the whole scanning bullshit all over again. Nauseating isn't it?

SOCIAL CHALLENGES FOR THE NARCISSUS
A life long friend of Martha's was in town Friday for a job interview here in New York. She lives in Victoria, Canada and while moving to New York would be a big change for her, probably not as big as when she lived in say, Beirut. She's a big brain girl that actually does things with her life involving Human Rights all over the Middle East, not just here in our little self-centered part of the Yum-Yum tree.

Talking with her made me realize how lazy and downright self-absorbed I am. Never a good public realization and best done in the privacy of your own home, alone with the shades drawn. Preferably with your partner out of town so as not to drag her down with you, cause then all you have, is a real mess on your hands, eh?

Anyway, the three of us had dinner at Carmines, which is technically in the historic district where the smell of fish was breathtaking. What the fuck are they doing to Water Street? Jesus Christ, I was just over there a few months ago and while I knew they were renovating the area, I didn't realize they were destroying it in the process. Christ, the South Street Seaport is already a joke but by the time the fish market moves to the Bronx that whole 5-6 block chunk will officially be vanilla and ready for middle America. Water Street has been gutted and the entrails have been ground up and deposited in the East River. Soon will be the simulation of what used to be with prices starting at 2.5 million (if you want to live down there) and with nothing but a Chili's and a Fuddruckers to eat. Well, they are going to have to get rid of those cobblestone roads because the Double Decker's will never make it down there. Maybe they could pave it with simulated cobblestone.

Let us see. Tuesday I had a surgical procedure and the lessons from that day were abundant. What all did we learn? In no order:

• No yelling in the car on the way to surgery.
• The driver of the car needs to listen to the copilot or 'You Need to Shut Up!' will be said in a loud, stern voice to the driver and all laughter will stop until driver apologizes and admits they are an asshole.
• Always pack extra water and noshing pretzels no matter where you are going because it is a given that at some point during the day, any one of us, will become thirsty and feel nauseous.  Moreover, all that will be available is New Jersey tap water and hospital turkey meat.
• One cannot rush Same Day Surgery.
• Always bring more drugs into the operating room then will be required.  The patient just might need the double amount due to decades of recreational drug use and the nonstop quest for the perfect buzz.  If you have it with you, then in the middle of an operation, one of your nurses will not have to run out of the OR to get more narcotics.
• Having anyone do anything to your groin (besides fuck it) is ridiculously uncomfortable and the average non-doctor brain has no place for imagery of that nature.  Unless you have a hospital fetish or more of a surgery fetish, I suppose.
• When I sleep, my blood pressure is 60/40.   If my blood pressure falls below 90/60, I will pass out hard, scaring the nursing staff, and terrifying Martha.
• Bayonne Hospital has an extra box in the 'relationship' question for 'Life Partner'.   
• It is possible to have an IV taken out of a vein and seconds later shoved right back in the same fucking vein.
• Having a woman dry shave your 'woohoo' under florescent lights while both of you are wearing surgical hair nets is not a secret fantasy of mine.   I have a tickle spot that no one, not even I knew about.  
• Nurses are cranky for very, very good reasons.   

LETS HAVE CHURCH
Easter is Sunday? Wow, that seems fast. Isn't it in April? The calendar I look at every day is not a Christian one and no day is Easter. According to The Witches Almanac, Spring 2005 - Spring 2006 (The Complete Guide to Lunar Harmony), Friday is a Full Moon called The Seed Moon and Sunday is nothing more than the 27th of March. That entire Easter thing has always seemed strange to me.

The first thing is how I found out about the Easter bunny and the whole Santa thing from a 5-second sentence that my mother spit out at me, one hot summer day in Meadville, PA. Prior to her outburst, I enjoyed the whole basket of candy and the cute little bunny icon concept. The pastel colors made me feel good and I was even getting on board with the bonnet thing. While not a huge fan of candy I did love those speckled eggs and the solid dark chocolate bunny. I was happy in my ignorance and knew very little about that other version of it. I new Jesus died "...for somebody's sins" but I did not understand how the candy basket thing related to that. I could not understand what we were celebrating. But I ate the candy anyhow.

That particular summer morning way back in 1967, I was digging around in the kitchen cupboards when I found a bag of the specked malt Easter eggs. I pulled the bag out and showed it to my mom, who was sitting at the kitchen table smoking a cigarette.

I said, "Look mom, it is the same candy that the Easter Bunny brings me." holding the bag up to show her.

She looked at me, took a drag of her Salem and said; "Yeah, I'm the Easter bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Clause too."

Ah yes, no one ever said that mental illness was pretty. I was five and she killed three birds with one stone that day. Plus a whole bunch of other stuff that works itself up and out of me at weird, inappropriate times.

Shortly after THAT, I started watching Dark Shadows in the daytime with the elderly couple who lived kitty corner from us. They had a poodle and I would sit on their living room floor in front of the TV, with the dog lying beside me watching the black and white Dracula soap opera. The couple never had any children so the dog had an incredible life. The woman, whose name I think was Grace, taught me the meaning of the words, 'porcelain figurines' and 'animal worship'.

The second thing is a fast-forward a few years to the age of nine when I was living in Trenton, New Jersey. At this point, I am a stone cold horror movie buff and all holidays sucked - except Halloween. That is the only holiday worth a damn. Every Saturday afternoon I would watch countless B-Movie horror flicks instead of running around the neighborhood.

I was particularly fond of the Dracula theme in the films but not when he was mixed with The Wolfman and Frankenstein. I liked my creatures of the dark to remain individual. They are three different things and there is no reason for all of them not to kill each other. Like their one big difference from the remainder of the herd is what will bond them to the rest of the dark side. No, no. Why wouldn't Dracula drain The Wolfman's body dry?

I would watch The Munsters but I could never understand why not one of them ever took a nip at the niece. Same with The Adams Family. Normal looking humans were always stopping by but it was just fun and oddness. And just exactly where was Jesus in all of that? I mean all that rising from the dead and living in suburbia but those were comedies with very little horror.

At that point, my little nine-year-old brain had begun merging Jesus stories with horror stories. Unbelievably I went to Sunday School then and every week I found myself taking issue with one thing or another that they were teaching. I had begun to see Jesus as more of a Dracula type figure or Dracula as Jesus. It worked both ways.

So then, in 1970 the three of us moved to Cincinnati Ohio where I could not stop doing drugs, reading Steven King novels, or flipping my own shit out with The Exorcist. Easter was a four-day weekend filled with springtime teenage vulgarity. By then, there was no church and there was no bonnet. My head was filled with Salem's Lot and I had made a connection between Dracula, Good Friday and Easter. A few bong hits later I even had it all wrapped up nicely to now include the speckled eggs and a chocolate bunny. A little bit more 'mind expansion' and I had wrapped my head around the fallen angel, God's right-hand man, Satan. Horror and The Bible go hand in hand. Death, dying, and the fight for our soul. Good vs. evil: classic B-Movie Horror stuff.

Having been raised on a watered down version of the Presbyterian faith, and my own faith in horror, this holiday always makes me want to see a scary movie or read a good ghost story and The Bible doesn't count. I have an idea; maybe we will go see a midnight showing of The Ring II this weekend. We have wanted to see it and I think Saturday night just might be right.

Daniel 12:2 And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I had the weirdest dream about Jasmine the other night. The whole thing was screwy but all I remember now is that I bitch slapped her because I caught her huffing cleaning supplies in the living room. I'm not sure what THAT all means but the whole damn day was stained with that fucked up image. The big 'ta da' for her last week was that she changed her major. Miss Jasmine Rai Northrop is now majoring in Journalism. I am so very proud and thrilled that she has found something she likes to do. So two photographers made a writer - the cycle of poverty continues.

After a little bit of typical Middle American confusion Jasmine's lease is all secure for her apartment next year. Being that she is living in a small college town all of the apartments have over-drafted leases to protect themselves for non-payment of rent. Yeah, no shit. So it was no surprise at all when they wanted Jasmine's parents to guarantee payment. Okay, sure, we know all about crazy leases but when this paper work came it was ridiculous. They wanted to guarantee the guarantor by having Jasmine's father, to not only sign it, but to have the dumb thing notarized. Yeah, right like that is going to happen or make a difference for that matter. Martha called them and explained that although he is not dead, he is, oh what is that word... 'estranged' Yes, that is the polite way to explain the situation. Martha also proposed that she could sign it too as my lesbian partner of 13 years but they declined the offer. The really funny part, well at least I think it's amusing, it that the whole nine months rent on this place is just a little more than what we pay for one month here. Is that sick or what?

MY DISTAL IS FINE
I was so fucking happy last week after leaving my root guy's office that I almost did pirouettes down Park Avenue all the way to Grand Central. I was totally having a klutzy ballerina moment that is for sure. But I couldn't help it and in any other city, someone would have carted me away. I had been dreading that visit for days because my teeth are nose-diving like crazy since I have been on this blood pressure medicine. I already had two cavities that we knew about. I personally can't believe that I have any of my original teeth left to decay. I think they are held together via a series of fillings. A few on x-ray look like filled Swiss cheese. Anyway, I had been very pensive about this visit because I don't have any extra patience what's so ever or an extra $1800 for more bling bling.

Oh he tried all his little tricks to make me jump in the chair but that tooth is fine. Now I do have another dental visit on Thursday but that is for my six-week root scraping. Nice eh? Living large, living larger.

I'M IN-LOVE WITH PLASTIC
I am in love with my new scanner and the Holga camera. The combination is unbeatable. It is so bad that I didn't even take my digital out of the house for three days last week. I only had my Holga with me. I have film in the freezer, in-camera and at Spectra Photo. It feels great and I love it. Everywhere I go I have the Holga around my neck and I look like a total jackass with a black plastic toy camera on top of my coat. Whatever. It can take any weather that is pummeled at it 'cause it's plastic. The only metal on the thing is the spring inside and the two clips on the outside that hold it together. But I have black photo tape around both of those so the back won't accidentally spring open. On the subway, folks always look at my camera and then look at me. It's a tourist thing to have a camera around your neck but I look nothing like the basic New York City tourist. Anyway, I love the shots I'm getting even if Martha is starting to do the simple math of film, processing and contact. If I can keep it to no more than two rolls a week then she shouldn't freak out too bad. The Polaroid is similar with its dollar-a-shot principal and I've managed to keep it reasonable - sort of.

Ah whatever, the camera is too much fun and the scanner is a gas.

OCD ON MY BODY, BABY
I honest to god think that some days my doctors are just making weird shit up that they can do to me. Like in some kind of bizarre frat hazing. Now, they want to stick a catheter in my groin (their word not mine) and run it up the artery to my left adrenal. I'll be awake but sedated. You got that right and they might want to take me to the point of coma 'cause the 'ick' factor is pretty high with this latest torture test. Apparently, while that shit is going on I'll be on a table under a florescent plate of glass and the doctors will "Oooo and ahh" as they observe the little plastic tube crawling up my artery. When it gets to the adrenal, it will then measure the blood that is zooming out of the gland to determine if this is the source of the tumor or if it is a secondary site. These fuckers are convinced that the tumor is somewhere else too. Despite constantly injecting me with radiation and scanning me for days on end, it is only showing up in the FUCKING LEFT ADRENIAL. The obsessive-compulsive desire to test me repeatedly is leading me to think that all of my doctors have OCD.

SURREALISTIC THRONGS
The Salvador Dalí exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art was amazing on so many levels but one word really sums it all up for me. And that one word is, volume.

The volume of pieces on display were impressive as was the volume of Pennsylvanian yahoos who stood around with headphones on and refused to move about the exhibit. It was damn near impossible to see anything. There were eight or nine rooms packed with art and retards. The crowd that Martha and I were shoved through with had to have been bussed in from the 'burbs of PA. I'd recognize that marble mouthed pronunciation anywhere on the globe. We were all packed in there so tight and up each other's asses just like stacks of waxed rimed drink cups. Drink cups with headphones on.

At least the whole stroller thing was outlawed (thank God) but still there were stupid mothers with infants strapped to their fronts in that external womb concoction. These things make a kid look like it's skydiving off of mom's body. All of the child's screaming and kicking are forced outward and onto the rest of us. One mother was so close to me that her baby grabbed my hair with her sticky little fingers and would not let go of it. The mom thought is was funny until I turned around and flames of white hot fire shot out of my eyes. I found not one nanosecond of humor in any of it and while yes, that is my problem in general when placed in large, unruly crowds I tend to loose all sense of fun, I also exist in a city of 8 million people who understand how to 'move about the room'. We all do it every day in a million ways and in five years, no one has grabbed my hair and screeched like a seagull.

But, but, but - what I did manage to punch my way though to and stand before was stunning. Dalí was an amazing painter and that whole 'attention to detail' and 'use of color' thing was jaw dropping. No reproduction can even come close to holding the color on that CMYK + what, probably 7? His compositions have always been the crazy thing but one needs to get up close to see his real obsession with detail.

Martha and I have two Dalí prints at home, one she bought me the first year we were together and one I bought her five or six years ago. The Philadelphia museum had a study of 'The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used as a Table' and they also had 'Untitled (Female Figure with Head of Flowers)' and it was pretty cool to see the originals.

While the whole thing was breathtaking however, I hold the Philadelphia Museum of Art totally responsible for orchestrating a near unsafe crowd control policy and Martha was so pissed that she wrote a letter to the museum director. I, of course, am awaiting the bird flu that will hopefully shave a few million off the top of this here latté and give some of us a little more space.

Martha bought me a scanner. How cool is that? Seriously, she is pretty fucking great if you ask me. She is my very own "bad kitty" Yes, yes I hinted at every chance but she could have pushed me off quite easily seeing as how we really do not have any money. But, that is how she is. She is my biggest fan AND my psychiatric nurse. She rocks.

Now I can scan the Holga stuff but just need the time and energy to play with my new toy.

Speaking of energy, I went back to work last week and Christ if it didn't almost kill me. One night I came home so tired that I fell asleep by 8:30, just like grandma. I am still doped up all the time but I cannot take any more time off unless someone is going to step up and operate on me.

I need to stay medicated because of reasons that I could not care less about but what it all means is that I am pretty much a paranoid scatterbrain at work. It is all so ridiculous that I actually cried in front of my boss. You know, I can count on one hand the amount of times that I have cried at work in the past twenty years. Days like the day Jasmine was diagnosed with cancer, shit like that, but never ever because some paper work was filled out wrong. Jesus Christ it was such a chick thing and I hate it.

I tried to shoot the Lower East Side this weekend for the Neighborhoods column but the whole thing was more like a pilgrimage then anything enjoyable. Aside from feeling like I am an observer in Koyaanisqatsi, I did manage to get few shots and I most certainly did not phone it in, but... [sigh] I want my fucking life back. If I had more energy, I'd kick someone's ass.

Big news this week is that I now need another root canal. Yes that's right a root canal. So in addition to my doctor issues I now have to go see my 'Root Guy', and the regular dentist for another gold tooth. (Bling, Bling). Not only is going to cost around $2000, (nice) I cannot have regular novocaine. I have to have something else because of the epinephrine that is in regular novocaine and the reaction that my tumor has. The irony here is all this blood pressure medication that I have been on since September is what is causing my already fragile teeth to rot out of my head. Since September, I have had to go to the dentist every 4 weeks to have my roots scraped and that still hasn't helped. And let me tell you, you have no idea what kind of promises you will make to the demons that visit you in your dreams until you find yourself in the screwy cycle of one Thursday of every month, for five months straight, you have a woman scrap each root of every tooth. I would sell Jasmine to make it all stop.

So in review my choices are take pills all day long that in the end are destroying my teeth and my career or stop the meds and have a heart attack. Hmm, now that is a tough one.

SUREALISM IS MY LIFE
Martha and I are going to Philly Saturday to see the Salvador Dali exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A very sexy cool thing is that we are taking a train. Oh God, I do love Amtrak. A little train ride to Philly, a little surrealism art thing and then a little train ride back, sounds perfect. We never do shit like that and I am excited like a giddy schoolgirl. Only the enticement is art. That sounds about right. The surrealists get me going better then just about anything else.

BA BAM
Miss Jasmine is coming home for spring break this Saturday. Greyhound bound once again she will be here a whole week. She'll have one solid week of riding the red couch, Grand Theft Auto and eating all of our food. Considering that she could be one of those wretched college fucks that go to Florida and terrorizes the coastal cities with their drunken stupidity and Girls Gone Wild mentality, I would say that she is a fine, fine young woman. At least I will not be seeing her on TV, drunk with her tits hanging out and shaking her tattooed booty on the beach. I could live my whole life without ever having to witness that, although, now that I think about it, I might video tape something like that for future use.

BLACK OUT
Sunday night the cable went out and not only did I miss the News, 60 Minutes and The Academy Awards but I missed The L Word. I'm so pissed. How on earth in this day and age of flick a switch technology can the cable go out all fucking night and into the next day? Are they serious with that shit? Sunday night is, honest to God, the only night that I actually look forward to TV. Sad but true. The L Word is just crazy candy but 60 Minutes is the real deal as is the News. The weekends are when The Whitehouse does bad shit in the hopes that big media will not pick it up. However, if the networks do report some crazy right wing confirmation or sweeping changes in The Constitution, The Whitehouse then relies on the fact that most Americans are too busy fucking off watching the "GAME" to tune into the Sunday Night News.

THE BEST INTENTIONS
I made a CD for a friend's birthday and I was supposed to mail it last week but I cannot stop tinkering with it. This is the first true mixed CD I've made and I have to say I don't like the process all that much. I am still a diehard mixed tape maker and making a mixed CD just isn't as personal. Well it is if you keep fucking around with it like I have been doing. Changing songs, moving things around, endless tweaking. But there is something very creative about standing in front of the stereo and all of your records and really thinking about shit, listening to it all the way through and feeling the moment, that I find more of a gift to someone instead of something just tossed together. But most folks don't even own a tape deck these days so I didn't want to give her something that she can't listen to - because of the format. If she can't listen to it because of the content, well then, not much I can do about that. So, Melissa, if you are reading this it is going in the mail today, I promise.

IN HEAVEN ALL THE INTERESTING PEOPLE ARE MISSING*
I heard somewhere that Hunter was on the phone with his wife when he put the phone down and shot himself in the head. This made me laugh when I heard it and even days later I still think its funny, regardless if it is true or not. I know myself that there are people whom I have been on the phone with and if I would have had a gun in my hand at the time, why yes I probably would have shot something; the phone, a random person walking by my window, one of the cats or even my very own head. Conversations either so ridiculous or intense that simply hanging up could not possibly end the rotation of torment. The logic being "Now is as good as a time as any, I suppose." Every day is a good day to die, eh?

* Nietzsche

Martha and I took a one-day road trip to Holy Land USA. This place is almost impossible to describe let alone shoot. It is so freaky that I spent a good deal of time walking around with my mouth open instead of shooting and because of that I did not even shoot a full roll on the 35mm. I only shot six on the Holga and six on the Polaroid. It was though I had to remind myself to take photos. We are going back though, you bet.

So check this out, Martha and I stopped at a scenic overlook - yes, we are those kind of people - to check out the big fat view from a mountaintop. We walk down a narrow little path to a small paved area and behold before us is a breath taking view of the Hudson River and all that nature stuff that is way up north. We take a few photos, laugh and kiss. Then, off in the distance I hear a rattling that is getting louder and louder. I look up the path. Here comes a yuppie couple in brightly colored skiwear pushing a stroller towards us. A fucking stroller. I am on a mountaintop with not one other human beside my partner when suddenly here comes a bunch of smiling bullshit. I had to lean against the safety rail so they could shove the stroller past. It wasn't even a kid it was a fricken baby. Why on earth would you drag all that horseshit down a muddy little path? If it was a kid, it could have walked. However, if it were a kid they would not have stopped.

Here is the sick truth to all of that. By the time that baby is a small child of say of around five, you know the time when memories are stored way back in the dark cracks of the brain. That whole judgment on whether or not you had a fucked up childhood starts to come into play around this time. A time when actually stopping at a roadside event of any kind and interacting with nature and nothing consumer food related (i.e. McDonalds) would be a great thing to do. It is a wonderful way to teach a child all about life outside of electronics and establish a fine tradition of some solid family interaction. Ah well, those same smiling yuppie fucks will be too tired when baby is five because they shot their entire wad within the first year. Now what? Now they are beaten down and every other word out of their mouths is 'no'.

THE FIRE OF LOVE
I am not at all surprised that Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide but I was dumbfounded by the news. My jaw dropped and it is still hanging open like an unhinged docking ramp. Yes, shocked at the timing but not at all surprised by the method or the event. Thompson is my favorite author and has been since I was a teenager. His observations on the human condition and the political machine fed my insatiable desire for awareness. He made me laugh and scared me at the same time and THAT has always been the starting point of everything for me. Every relationship, friendship, film, book or album that I find irresistible, rides the giggle/fear sensation. I have long considered him one of the greatest living writers. Living, that is, up until Sunday night, I suppose. Saying I will miss his insight and wit is a massive understatement. There really is not anyone who even comes close to him and I am so very, very sad.

TUMOR TALK
The deal with my tumor is that the new surgeon 'passed' on operating on me. So now, I have to start all over again. His decision not to go forward was made less than 24 hours before the surgery was scheduled. Long after Jasmine had ridden a bus for 15 hours to get here. Long after Sheri took time off from work to be here. And long after Martha missed almost a week solid of work for all the pre-testing that was needed by the hospital. I had massive amounts of blood work, a chest x-ray, a nuclear scan, a CAT scan and the triple dosing of all my meds to guarantee that I was blocked. Englewood hospital pre-admitted me for fucks sake. I missed two-weeks of work and blew almost all of my vacation time. When I finally do have the tumor removed, I will probably have to go on short-term disability that pays $174.00 a week. Nice.

The reason is that the adrenal mass is shaped 'funny' and Mr. Surgeon thinks I should wait and be retested in six months. I have already been sick for one year and four months. This whole event has left all of us depressed and cranky. All except Jazz, but she's far away and in college and has all that college drama going on around her. She is cranky for a whole bunch of other reasons that mostly have to do with being twenty years old. In a weird way, I am somewhat jealous. Stupid college shit I can so do. Stupid tumor stuff is taking its toll.