Holly Northrop Blog

Martha's dad fractured his hip somehow (his swears he didn't fall) and Tuesday he had hip replacement surgery. I am glad that the surgeon decided to replace the hip instead of using the pin thing. The recovery time is faster, in fact, he should already be at the rehabilitation center, and the pain is less severe. So yes, in-between the already normal high anxiety of home buying, add in the stress of parental health issues and there you have Martha's general state of mind. She is holding up surprisingly well considering that her mom has now decided to act like a wild caged animal and lash out at her daughters. It has been an emotional rollercoaster that is far from over.

HOMO HOMEOWNERSHIP
Last minute reworking of numbers about drove me crazy. Despite both Martha and I being on the verge of total panic it all seemed to work out. There is nothing worse then the sight and sound of two lawyers franticly punching numbers into calculators searching for a seven hundred dollar discrepancy. Yeah, now that was a good time and the error did not work out in our favor. But we also had to pay the rest of this years city tax so we walked out of the closing having to shell out an additional eighteen hundred dollars. Not ideal, but for New York property, it could have been a blood bath.

So here we go, we now own a home. I signed away my life and got a 106-year-old farmhouse in return. It all surprisingly seems to fit.

Miss Simon and her gang made the trip down from Vermont on Friday to spend two fun filled nights on an air mattress in the soon to be horn room of our new house. Sheri came with the new girlfriend (Jess) and two huge boxers (Josie and Oliver). We had a lot of dawg in our house that is for damn sure. After the initial frantic excitement of meeting new people and a new house, the dogs (and people) settled down and the four of us painted three rooms in one day. I bet Jess had a great time, all we did was work like crazy and bitch about Martha's mother and fret over the health of her father. For big fun on a Saturday night, we drove up the road for some soft serve ice-cream. God, we are a drag. I am sure when we finally get up to Vermont, Martha and I will have to plow a field or something of equal value. We owe them big time.

The town is super cute and at every turn, I love it more. This kind of thing makes me nuts because the more I like something the more I look for the other shoe to drop. It's a fucked up way to go through life but good and bad are like hot and cold faucets on a sink. Either one is too much without the other to tone it down a bit. When things really suck, I am always looking for something good to cling on to and when things are going great, I get jumpy. So this whole buy a house, dad's in the hospital thing is strangely on track.

The living room, our bedroom and the sunroom all have fresh color on the walls and that has perked things up enormously. We still need to deal with the living room carpet (disgusting) and steam clean the other carpets; paint the hallway, the whole upstairs and Martha's horn room. The kitchen and about a million other things will have to wait until we are in there. The grass needs cut and not only do we not have a mower we haven't dealt with having someone come mow it either. Martha is going down to North Carolina to deal with her whack job family so it will be two-weeks before we are back at the new house. Already, we have suburban concerns.

THE PUBLIC KILLING OF AN ALREADY DEAD HORSE
What a week to be without internet or more specifically, what a week to skip work. I didn't see a TV, email or a web page for four days, and I gotta say I'm okay with that. So it was over the phone on Friday that Sheri told Martha about Erik Wemple. Holy shit. You know, I should have known that that meeting was too good to be true. Erik's introduction and the hour and a half conversation that followed was, what I consider, an actual high point when reviewing the last five months of this merger bullshit in my head. For ninety minutes, I actually started to believe that things 'might' get better. I should have known. He seemed like a good guy, he seemed like he wasn't a big asshole, any more or less then is required in this business. The New York Times wrote, "His resignation thrusts The Voice back into turmoil." You think? Can't wait to go back to work. Should be a gas. I told Sheri that I was just going to sit at my desk listening to Frank Zappa, pump out the queer issue, and try not to pay a bit of attention to anything around me.

I am sick again. This is like the third cold I have had in three months. Jesus

I've been off of work for almost five-days and despite the snotfest I am sort of liking the hibernation of it all. With just a little more nurturing I could become, Agoraphobic. But when one is sick that's how the mind goes. Curl up listen to music, read and retreat. My cold isn't what has kept me home. Oh no, I had a little 'procedure' thing on Thursday and it is with that, that I am moving like grandma.

The only thing good about the hospital are the drugs. Fentanyl and Demerol, yum, yum. Yep, nothing better. Clean and pure as an Alaskan stream. It's still pristine up there, right? They haven't started drilling for oil yet, have they?

All this time off has been good for the back end of my site. Seeing as how I can't lift anything heavy or really clean to deeply I've been working on the code deep in the photography section. That whole area is/was such a mess; it didn't even have the right menu system. I would like to be able to post again and maybe do a whole thing on New York neighborhoods. Yes sir, five days at home and I don't miss work not one damn bit. But I haven't taken a photo in a few days either and I really don't like that at all. Ah whatever, it all comes to a screaming halt Tuesday when not only do I have to go back to work, it will be deadline day to boot. Woo hoo.

Jasmine's was down in Tennessee towards the end of last week for her grandmothers' funeral. All very sad and strange for her I'm sure. She starts the second half of her junior year on Tuesday. I already miss her and feel awful about her entire Christmas fiasco. The only fun she had was during the week she went home early. A few of her friends were there, and she was able to be fucked up without the added tension of having me around. I think I would like to go visit her but my guess is that she is sick to death of her entire family.

Oh yes, but there is a fun little road-trip in our near future. In about a month from now, near Valentines Day, Martha and I will be driving to Vermont to visit Sheri and see what all this down-home, small-town Vermont fanfare is about. Sheri is in the play, The Vagina Monologues and not only will we get to see THAT, but we are finally going to meet her parents. (That reminds me, I should place a film order now.) Anyway, I've never been to Vermont, nor seen Sheri act professionally, so this is all very, very exciting.

I am anxious to get back out to Green-Wood Cemetery and shoot but I have to wait for the right weather. The other day was perfect, with all that fog and mist but Martha was at work and I was house bound. Plus, I have ordered a new filter for my holga and would like to use it but B&H is still processing my fricken order eight days later. I know shit is out of stock but how out of stock is it? Is it being made in China as we speak or what?

I did mange to do a few things over the holiday besides lay around and watch movies. I cleaned up, or more likely messed up, some of my code; added a new logo thing and did some general site maintenance. Real boring stuff. I pulled work for the Krappy Kamera Contest and Toycamera.com has me as the featured artist. I'm not sure for how long I'll be on the homepage so the gallery link is here.

Miss Simon came through here Tuesday-Wednesday and then again on Saturday night. She has her very own version of travel hell that only underscores our decision to stay here and have the rest of the country clog the nations highways. Why travel when New York City finally clears out and one can move about without too much annoyance? Shave a few million off the total and things become quite nice. So nice that a trip from Jersey to Queens really wasn't that fucked up even with the 7 train running on a screwy schedule.

Jasmine went to Grandma Northrop's house in Tennessee. According to Jazz, grandma has been sick and therefore the two of them didn't do much. Jasmine spent the majority of her trip to the deep dark south hanging out with the twenty-three year old neighbor boy and his friend, smoking dope and getting drunk at an all-night bowling alley. The crabapple certainly didn't fall very far from that tree. She stayed up partying all night Saturday and then boarded a 8:30am flight to Charlotte where she had a small layover until her flight to Pittsburgh dropped her off at her fathers. By the time he saw her I can only imagine what she smelt like. I am so glad I was totally out of the loop on all of it. It's way funnier over the phone then in person.

Thanksgiving was different this year. Well, wait, Thanksgiving has always been a little different seeing as how I haven't played the roll of 'daughter coming home' in twenty-five years.

As your average disgruntled fucked up kid of the 1970s, Turkey Day was always my favorite day to do a shit-load of drugs. That is if we did not go to Grandma Schneider's House. Grandma lived on a hilltop full of black snakes, about 15 miles outside of Midway, PA. She had a chicken coup and every year slaughtered her own turkey. Grandma Schneider's house was crazy scary and anything stronger than a joint was NOT recommended. The coolest thing at Grandma's house was her black and white dog named Zippy. I hung out with him as much as I possibly could.

If we stayed in Ohio, I would hang out with dad all day while he watched hours of football. It was the one safe place to be, even if he fell asleep. Mom would never mess with a day of sports and I would lie on the floor between the TV and my father, reading horror novels. (I became the dog.) Salem's Lot and football saved me from my mother and myself.

The last time I "went home" for Thanksgiving was in 1980. I had been away at college for the five months prior and after eight hours on a Greyhound bus from Pittsburgh, I arrived in Cincinnati with a duffel bag full of neurosis and a head full of acid. I was having a good day and it was precisely because of the drugs that I was able to be pleasant.

It is almost as though my dilated pupils had taken a photo of that particular day. I remember the image of dinner so very, very well. Probably because it was the last time I ever went home for a holiday. I remember it better than I remember any actual conversation that most likely happened between the three of us. The image of the turkey candlestick holders that caught the wax drippings from the candles, their light flickering off of my mother's china and for a brief moment, everything seemed comfortable, still lingers in the shadows of my psyche. I recall how my eyes followed the light around the thin gold rim of my plate and then looking up to my left at my mom just as she smiled at me. I then shifted my eyes over to the right at my father and caught a glimpse of him watching her with his crooked, Dick Cheney grin.

He had good reason to keep an eye on her. My mom could go from semi-happy and laughing to yanking her lit cigarette out of the beanbag ashtray and pointing its red ember at my nose, murmuring strange things about Meadville, marijuana, abortion or my 'rotten friends'.

Yes, well enough of that silliness, she is dead now and her china sits in a moldy basement in Butler, PA. C'est la fucking vie.

Thanksgiving was different this year. I made Filet Mignon and Martha ate almost a whole homemade pumpkin pie. We watched the fine cinema of Fritz Lang with his masterwork M and we took naps. A little bit of German horror, a nap, extended family floating in and out, and turkey lunch with friends in Queens. It all sounds pretty perfect to me.

After completely dropping out for eight days, I now have 11 messages on the answering machine, over 200 personal emails, 2 feet of postal mail and 300 work emails. This is just one weeks buildup of crap. Nothing of any real importance lives within these messages; this is the information overload that I have somehow grown accustomed to. No wonder I constantly feel drained at the end of any given day. I should just erase all of it and start over. Reboot.

But, for eight wonderful days I managed to stay as wasted as possible and take a zillion photos. Many, many, many photos of the beach, sand dunes, birds, deadwood, beach bungalows and of course, Martha and Sheri.

Apparently, it rained in New York the entire time I was gone. Martha and I drove out of our New Jersey parking garage and into a monsoon at 6:00am on October 8th. It rained hammers almost the entire way down I-95 and by 7:30am, I had to take a Xanix just to be able to sit in the passengers' seat without repeatedly slamming by head against the window. Four and a half hours later, when we arrived in DC it was still pouring as I packed up Sheri's beach stuff into the back of the Jeep. Somewhere around Richmond, Virginia, it stopped being so fucking torrential and just drizzled. By nightfall, the rains had moved north but the flooding was apparent. Martha and I had been in the car for 12 hours and we were just a little loopy. I became twisted around with the directions the last leg of the drive and couldn't find the beach house. But after a little bit of yelling and a couple of U-Turns we finally pulled into the driveway of our new, blue bungalow. Another problem came with the front door. The combination lock wasn't working and Martha, crazy-eyed and pumped full of adrenaline, combined with Sheri's determination, pushed open the door. I don't want to say they broke the door because technically they didn't. It still worked; we just couldn't lock it anymore. This speaks to just how small of a town we were in. We would go to the store and NOT LOCK THE FRONT DOOR.

Although we were isolated on a non-tourist beach town, Sheri had a shinny new PowerBook with wireless internet, so certain parts of life could move forward if one chose to move them. Martha was able to test drive a MAC and I think she is possibly sold. There are some things that she isn't too crazy about but who isn't? So Martha and Sheri were posting photos of beach stuff and running slideshows for all to enjoy at the end of each day. I think I checked email twice but became despondent almost the second I logged on. One time I actually felt nauseous while hold the laptop. The nightly news had the same effect and by mid-week, I stopped all attempts to stay informed.

But with an active internet connection online shopping took place. Martha bought me a LUBITEL Russian 6x6 camera. It is coming from the Russian Federation and will be here in roughly three-weeks. All it really is is a cheap Russian toy camera but it does look fun to play with. The shipping costs just as much as the camera for a grand total, in US Dollars, of $40 bucks.

One thing that I did at the beach house was I turned the half-bathroom into a darkroom. I've had this pinhole camera kit forever and I thought it might be fun to mess around with it in a low-to-no pressure situation. At home, I can't get any room totally dark without altering something, (hell, we can't even see the stars at night) but at the beach house it was so simple. So for several days I took pinholes, made paper negs and printed contact prints using a light bulb and my arm as an enlarger.

On the nature front, two different crabs bit me on my foot within five minutes of walking along the waterline, completely freaking me out. Those little fuckers hurt and they weren't the cute sand crabs either. These were the crab, crabs. It was then that I made the decision not to swim in the ocean and to wear flip-flops while walking on the sand. But I was able to frolic at will in a hot tub overlooking the ocean under the moonlight, so that more than made up for the lack of oceanic action.

Biggest lesson learned is no real surprise; laughter is the best sound and medicine in the world. Well, almost. Drugs are good too and the sound of our cats purring as they ram their heads into me is pretty fantastic.

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.

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

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

Ah, yes, memories.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's spring and time for the annual Anal Gland cleansing of Lily, our favorite black and white kitty. Ah yes, nothing says love, or more to the point, nothing demonstrates how foul love can become until the duct cleaning. Martha handled it solo this season and I love her for it. Lily seems happier and considering that she is 13, she's holding up pretty well for an elderly cat. God love her.

Miss Simon was in town for the holiday and she brought with her a little DVD that had a big rippling effect in our house. Saturday night we watched Grey Gardens. Filmed in 1976, and probably one of the most disturbing things I have seen in years, Martha, Jasmine, Sheri and I sat on the big red lesbian couch staring at the TV with our mouths open, closing them only to reassure ourselves by sucking on dark chocolate.

This mother daughter duo lived like hillbillies in an overgrown monster mansion with feral cats, raccoons and god only knows what else. The house and the property had been taken back by the land but they refused to leave. Disturbing on so many levels, I recommend it to all of those who need a sanity check. After watching this thing I deem my house completely fine.

Just to keep the momentum going, Sunday night we watched Tarnation. Now, both movies have their place and while I think that Grey Gardens, at times, exploited the subject matter, Tarnation is the author exploiting himself through a series of video journaling and computer software. Grey Gardens was a fly on the wall of a very troubled house and both films are the whole life is art thing, but Tarnation is different because the art was his life.

If your art is your life then art will change your life. If your muse, your subject matter, is your inspiration for the work you do, then that inspiration will change the way you work, simply either by request or by a failure to connect with what you are doing. While this all seems logical from an aerial perspective, if you move in a little closer you can see where the deep dark trouble can start.

Everything is great as long as the artist creates things that the muse likes, but what happens when the subject matter starts to have an opinion about the work; about what is being represented of them? What if the subject matter tells you to stop simply because they feel differently about you? Maybe they don't like you so much anymore cause you're a dick or maybe they don't like what you are saying about them and don't want to play the art game any more. The great thing about inspiration is that it can be everywhere and no one thing holds all the cards. In and out of everything is inspiring. Whose life is it? The Artist, the Muse or both? Should all relationships be copyrighted?

DIRECTIONS
Martha and Sheri went to the Ashes and Snow exhibit on Saturday. I had wanted to go, but I felt like total crap and it was thought best if I just stay at home. I pretty much felt like total crap all weekend, but whatever. Monday I had to shoot Manhattanville for the Voice Neighborhoods, but not before Martha and I rode Sheri out on the Path to the Newark Train station. We were almost stranded there because we didn't bring enough cash to ride the fricken Path back. I keep forgetting that Newark doesn't take the Metro card; the only card I had and a card that had over $40 on it and now deemed worthless because Newark hasn't upgraded its system. We had to run back to Sheri and borrow a dollar from her before she boarded her train back to DC. Ridiculous.

But back to this neighborhood thing a minute. New York City is a maze of neighborhoods and little pockets of streets gathered together to form communities. Boundaries are important when you are trying to define a city neighborhood as diverse as New York. Walk into any bookstore in Manhattan, find the New York City Guides/Maps section, and the very first thing you will notice is how huge this section is. Hundreds and hundreds of books exist on touring, walking, living and general moving around in this city. I use the NFT: Not for Tourist Guide to New York City. I buy a new one every year and have been doing so for five years now. I consider it my shooting bible and it has hardly ever been wrong. It keeps me out of shit or puts me right where I want to be. So, the long way around to the point here is that the Voice writer sent along a few notes of interest for me to shoot for Manhattanville, something I always ask for; if not points of interest then at least the rough draft so I can get a vibe for the story. But anyway, she sent along points to shoot from a different neighborhood. She called it Manhattanville but it is truly Columbia/Morningside Heights, specifically 125th street & Martin Luther King Blvd., ten blocks south of where Manhattanville starts. Ten blocks is a huge deal, particularly up there where I'm in no mood to be wandering around looking like a stupid white girl with a camera. Martha says that while I have always been riddled with high-anxiety and general crankiness, since I've had this tumor, I am the worst she has ever seen me, but I still don't think it wise to be wandering around public housing projects or down deserted streets looking for the old Alexander Doll Factory.

Shit like this gets strange only because I've had it become strange. I have actually had a photo not run because it was shot on a street that the writer swears on Christ's cross wasn't part of the neighborhood he was writing about but belonged to the adjoining neighborhood. My map indicated differently but the editor went with the writer, even though he had no map. See, it isn't just me making myself crazy, I'm being helped.

CORPORATE NEWS WHORE
I don't know about you but I can't help but think that the more we know, the less we understand about any given situation. Most of us never shut up long enough to comprehend what is either happening right in front of our eyes or actually listen to information as it is being told to us. I can't believe they still make juries out of us. That whole system needs to be looked at with a closer eye that's for damn sure. We are a country addicted to our ADD afflictions. Running from one thing to the next without ever having the inkling to linger around on any one subject long enough to understand it or, god forbid, learn something new. Most of us walk the earth, secure in the knowledge that ours balls are in check and we know the difference between right and wrong ...and oh yeah, EVERYONE else is wrong. I think it might be a BUSH syndrome but seeing as how my dad was the same damn way I think it might be a republican thing that has now worked its way into everyday life.

This makes sense in a strange kind of way. I have a theory that eventually all of us who are currently working in any kind of News media (mainstream or alternative) will eventually find ourselves working for one big People Magazine type product via corporate mergers and the general trickle down effect of content being driven by the blind. Gone will be all News reporting. In fact, News will become Entertainment reporting (in some cases it already has) and all political stories will be considered left-wing, liberal bullshit. Regardless of the true slant of the story, it will be evaluated on whether the subject matter has anything to do with Hollywood, some abnormally dominate music channel, or blonde celebrity product. No pop life appeal = freethinking bullshit. Even the Whitehouse will stop having the morning press briefing and will instead replace it with the lasted dish on the Bush twins, or Laura Bush's travels around the globe. Bush (the Man) will become a non-subject matter unless he is meeting with celebrity types or hosting some kind of Skull and Bones roast. Think about it, no war, none of that crazy Senate talk and no more of that constant winning about the judges thing. It can all be about fashion, hype and for the local coverage, Bratwurst Festivals and Storm Stories.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well, the simplest things sometimes ruin the best-laid plans. Martha and I were supposed to go to see Jasmine this weekend. I wanted to see her before my surgery and we both need to go over her financial aid with her. But, Martha came home from work Thursday with a pretty nasty head cold and the very last thing I should do is get in a car with her for eight hours, spend two nights at a Super 8 and then get back in the same germ ridden car for the return eight hours. Plus, Jasmine is sick too. I might be able to stay away from one person with a head cold but not two different strains of it.

Now I am going to spend the weekend avoiding Martha by keeping her confined to the bedroom where I can still play nursemaid but spend my nights on the big red lesbian couch. I am on new medication and I hate it. It makes my heart race, gives me the strangest vertigo and stuffs my head up like a cement block. One would think I am sick too but it is just this stupid medicine. I slept for a combined total of three hours on Thursday night and I even had a big ole valium in me. I'm so tired in that "I've taken drugs tired but can't lay down" way but I can't breathe so every twenty minutes or so I wake up choking. It's awesome.

My surgery is next Thursday at 1:00 and I cannot get sick. Well, I suppose I can get a little sick but not like Martha in the next room, hacking up a lung and THAT seems to be the germ of the hour. This is going to be interesting. The thing that really sucks is I wanted to see Jasmine. I guess we will go on the 18th but I am pissed. Pissed at no one but everything, if that makes any sense.

I have two doctors' appointments on Monday but the one in the morning is the big deal. That is where they are going to drain a bunch of blood out of me to "match and type". I need a chest x-ray too because I smoked for twenty-seven years, (fucking amazing isn't it?) and I guess it's taken until now for someone to want to look at my lungs. You would thing that with all those scans I had, that the whole "lung question" would have been answered but what the hell. Xerox me one more time just for shits and giggles. I wonder how much all of this is going to cost?

Anyway, Miss Simon is headed this way on Tuesday, I think. I had trouble following the email trail. She will be here through Saturday or Sunday. The fabulous Miss Keri must stay in DC and will be missed. I am very glad Sheri is coming to help with Martha. Not the cold thing, which had better be over with by then for fucks sake. No, I mean for her to help with Martha's brain while I'm in surgery and all that visual stuff that freaks families out. You know, when I am in the bed and hooked up to equipment and talking crazy talk because of all the wonderful narcotics, I will be on. Sheri will be able to calm her down and make her laugh. Laughter is the backbone of this organization.

WE ARE FUCKED
I tried to watch the State of the Union the other night but after about thirty-five minutes, I thought I was going to puke. It might have been the over medication of some brand new shiny valium or it might have been monkey boy on my TV. What I am thinking though, is that, that asshole is just a total buzz kill. The funny thing is that I have always been able to stomach what ever talking head we happen to elect El Presidento and I am generally interested in all debates and Presidential addresses of all kinds. It started with Nixon, even though I did not understand half of the garbage that came out of his mouth, I was hooked. I suffered through Reagan, who never once made a lick of sense but I was not only unemployed but without a TV for a good chunk of Grandpa Bush's run at it. I could not get enough of Clinton, one of the best speakers ever, but Dubba freaks me out. There is something not right with that man. Not right at all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Miss Simon and the fabulous Miss Keri were here over the weekend, well Keri was only in town for 24 hours and the way my memory is working these days, I'm kind of wondering if I didn't just dream it. She could not stay because she had to work and study and do all this shit that amazes me. I am such a fuck off compared to her. I totally understand and it was lovely to see her but I didn't even get to retake a Polaroid that she ASKED ME to re-shoot. Now some other photographer with logo appeal and a big lens has wooed her into a shirtless adventure. Fuck.

Every time Sheri visits, my bathtub cannot handle our combined hair. It can barely deal with mine but add her raven tresses to the mix and a major Drano thing needs to happen after the first shower. Unfortunately, I forgot this and now I have a problem that I didn't figure out until late Sunday night. Stores are closed and I have standing water. Groovy.

Ah, but whatever it's just shit in the tub and Miss Simon can mess up my plumbing any time she wants to.

Saturday night Martha, Sheri and I watched Elf and All About Eve. There are a couple of things to glean from that sentence and I bet that on one of them you would be wrong. The first is, what a beautiful thing a shared Netflix queue can be, and the second is, only one person ordered both of those movies and it wasn't me. It was Martha.

When the three of us weren't talking about my fricken tumor we were talking about Vancouver. (Purr, purr, purr) Plans are in the works for the four of us to go to Canada in the spring. Sheri has actually been to Vancouver before and she said it was the most beautiful place she has ever seen. We are all going to try to spend a week there, driving around, shooting everything and perhaps setting a few things up with a realtor. How fun is that? I just love that there are some serious plans in the works.

On Sunday, Sheri had to go back to DC so we all rode The Path train out to historic Newark Penn Station. I must say that Jersey is a total pit of toxic shit. No really. I have been on the turnpike and Amtrak but The Path trains tracks ride along the canals in that disgusting swamp area of orange toxic water that we have all looked down on and thought to ourselves "yuck". It is all above ground, (thank god) and at one point while I was looking out the window, it looked like we were in Russia at an abandon chemical weapons storage area. There were no homes, trees or grass. Just gravel, miles of rusted out shipping containers, train track and pavement. There were a few factories scattered here and there with evil looking smokestacks but no one was outside. Let me rephrase that, NO LIVING THING was outside. I honestly think that if the train would have stopped and they would have opened the doors all of us would have been poisoned. Or at the very least, vomited. What a nice disgusting way for Sheri to leave.

BIRTHDAY BOX SET
I am so ready for the holidays now that the new Nirvana box set is finally coming out. Put a bow on it and call it mine. Martha has already claimed it as my gift for my birthday - I wonder if I can get it early, or better yet, "Hey baby, can I just walk across the street on Tuesday and buy it? We'll totally say it's for my birthday and on the 14th you don't have to do a damn thing." I am looking to it to get me through it, if you know what I mean.

XANAX TAKE ME AWAY
The latest and greatest thing that my own personal Mensa Club of doctors want to do to me is make me retake the fucking urine test that I took in September but now they want me to take it without ANY of my medication. This is the same medication that is keeping the full body hives, 5-6 hour adrenaline rushes, insomnia and general panic attacks suppressed. I pointed out that I wasn't on anything when they did the first urine test but that was met with "we want to check the levels of metanephrine" in that we know best tone.

I think that is possibly the most annoyingly retarded thing I have ever heard of and one that is going to cause me an amazing amount of discomfort for seven days. I am so pissed at all of them and I told my MD that she simply had to give me something else. I understand that they want a reading without medicine in me and feel that seven days, (not five) would be enough time to clear me out and in the process drive me to suicide. I bitched to the point of tears and then she wrote a prescription for REAL Xanax. Not the little oval orange pills but thick square creampuff color ones with a big italic X on the one side and fat whole number on the other. I am actually kind of afraid of them but that won't stop me, it never has and why start now? Honestly, I'm more afraid of seven days without my blood pressure medicine. Thank God, it is a short workweek. Martha and I have no Thanksgiving plans other than to sleep and paint the apartment. I'm not even making a turkey although I might make a weird chicken thing.

Painting should be fun and now with mega Xanax in the house I can make anything fun. She and I have been gathering paint chips for about a month now and we have finally picked a red (Hot House Red) for one wall in the kitchen and a yellow (Sunshine Yellow) for one wall in the living room. My office/Jasmine's room and the bedroom are still undecided and have multiple strips of color swatches all over the walls. I actually like what is happening with all the swatches in the bedroom and I am not that hard pressed to decide. Jasmine questions the whole painting thing and asked me if we were turning into "those kind of people". She also bitched at me that I never, ever let her paint that it is too much of a hassle. She said "I'm not bitching, I'm just pointing that out."

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Another new doctor wants to run a basket of tests on me. He keeps Saturday hours so right out of the gate I like him best. Although his waiting room was filled as if he was the only doctor in a three county radius but whatever, at this point I would rather fuck up a Saturday then miss more work. I am trying to save my days for when I have my operation. Short-term disability pays next to nothing here and will crush us if I am on it too long.

The new guy is an Endocrinologist and wants his own set of up-to-the-nanosecond blood work to play with. He was irritated that the other doctors had not faxed over all my stuff over to him. I thought it odd too. I mean my surgeon sent me to him so why not send along all my paper trail? I have a big file and one would think that the important stuff would and should travel. He wanted to take a shit load of blood but I held him off with the quiet reminder that my blood was still "hot" and the "let's wait until Monday when all the other doctors are in the office" sentence. My veins still hurt from earlier in the week and I didn't feel like passing out on Saturday is what the deal was. It had been a rough week and I just wanted to leave the doctors office and go to the grocery store. Plus, I had big plans later that revolved around "The Kids are all Right" DVD that Netflix just sent me.

RIGHT ROUND, BABY RIGHT ROUND
Jasmine continues to frighten us all by reminding us that she is no longer a child. Oh sure WE know that we are all getting older but Jasmine is doing things that make us feel just as old and weird as we really are. I used to be cool; at least I think I was at one time, possibly. Maybe not cool but not so neurotic might be a better way of looking at it.

Anyway, Jasmine called me last Friday to let me know that she and two other friends were going to drive to Pittsburgh to go to a Gay Disco that I used to go to with my friends fifteen years ago. We used to go clubbing two or three nights a week to dance, drop acid and troll around until sunrise. We were all on the John Waters carnival and it was total debauchery for about three years. What can I say I was only 26 at the time, late in club years, and it was fun. This was back we had disposable income and functioned perfectly on two hours sleep.

She had no idea that I had ever been there before and when she told me what she was up to, all I could do was laugh to keep from hyperventilating.

I spoke with her again on Saturday, (we talk every day) and she loved it. She had a great time and by all detailed descriptions, the place is the same including the old queens lurking about in the shadows. Jasmine has been bitten by the gay disco ball and plans are in the works to go back soon. I guess we have never been a typical family.

SIMON IN THE HOUSE
Miss Simon will be taking the train up on Thursday night for a little three-day visit to New York. Miss Keri cannot make it, which makes me sad but I understand. The girl has school. Like big brain nursing school. When I think about what she must have to remember my head hurts.

So I guess now instead of pounding disco music, dilated pupils and a three-hundred pound transvestites dialog in my head there is sushi, blood pressure medicine and a houseful of lesbian sensibilities. No wonder Jasmine misses her cat more than she misses us.

Sheri and Keri were here over the weekend and my god was it good to see them. Keri caught a cold upon arrival, which had to suck big time. The Sudafed Severe Cold and Nyquil combo seriously sucks when you are not at home to enjoy the brain drain. We didn't have any real plans and if they wanted to see Manhattan, all they had to do was look out the window but still...

We did venture out on Saturday for a little sushi and a K-Mart errand but coming home I wasn't paying attention and we ended up on an express train to Brooklyn. Not just the first stop either but all the way to Pacific Ave. This "Weekend Service due to Construction" stuff is screwy. We played the jump on the train then jump off the train game and I was almost sliced like a hardboiled egg by the closing doors. It is rare that I fuck up so severely.

It certainly was a busy festival weekend at Exchange Place. Saturday was the Irish Festival but they still had all the signs up from the Jazz Festival from the night before. Then, on Sunday was a marathon that had all the streets blocked off and (again) someone with a megaphone giving directions.

I have a bird's eye view of what all these normal people do and I am fascinated. Usually, I am down on the ground and all I want to do is move through any event. Or a least get a few steps back from it to take a few snaps. But if it is too large of a gathering then forget it I cannot handle it. Large crowds make my head twist. This way I can I get all the sights and sounds but none of the interaction. It's perfect especially with a good set of binoculars.

MOMA's new admission price is $20.00? Really? Jesus Christ do I get nude go-go and a drink ticket with that? I don't know I have always been a big fan of the DC method. The museums are free but you can donate anything you want. Admission should be free, or at least free to anyone who lives here. Go ahead and charge the tourists an outrageous amount but for those of us who actually have to live and work here we should get a day pass to visit whatever the hell we want to visit. Most of us don't have the time or money to do anything anyway so honestly cut the locals a break.

I have lived here for over 4 years and I still haven't been to The Museum of Sex or The Guggenheim, (Well, I did use the bathroom there once.) but I've been to The Metropolitan Museum of Art at least ten times, paying between $1 - $10. That flexibility is what keeps me coming back. Suggested price is $10 but you can pay anything. I have had lunch in the ridiculously over priced lunch room area twice. I have also shelled out big bucks for posters, cards, purses; jewelry, key chains and god help me, a tote bag. There is no way I will ever go to MOMA with Jasmine or Martha let alone by myself.

Is it me or was that 60 Minutes up close and personal with Bill O'Reilly thing strange? It had some serious fluff action happening about how he is an asshole but a more liberal, independent, respectful friend of the Bush's asshole. There is an interview that O'Reilly did with Bush that has not aired yet, but he supposedly "drills Bush on Iraq". 60 minutes aired about ten seconds of the piece and afterward O'Reilly Made the statement the he would not trust Bush again if WMD's were not found. He then made the connection to Rumsfeld by indicating that all of it was his fault. Bush, not so much. The whole piece was soft and strange.

The Bush team has figured out the best way to handle anyone who might be starting to sway or doubt them. They are going to offer up one of their own before the election and it is Rumsfeld. Blame all of Iraq on him and defuse all of it from Bush. The Republicans did the same thing with Oliver North and Ronald Reagan. Yes, Rumsfeld is crazy but that is beside the point because THEY ARE ALL CRAZY. Crazy and mainline connected to the 20 million American TV viewers of FOX News, where the Republicans have been test marketing all of their sinister little ideas since the station first went on the air. Testing the murky waters and see how Middle America handles it. It is brilliant and they are the masters at it. I don't think I have ever been so worried about the future of our country.

Ah, haw, haw, haw.

The cruise talk is running amok in the house and my vote is for Bermuda. Yes sir, I am thinking that the three of us should soooo be in the Bermuda triangle. Just might shake some of this strange juju off us. As Jasmine said to me straight faced and kitty cat eyed..."Maybe, we could be one of those missing ships. I so want to be missing."

You got that right peanut.

Martha, however, is not so convinced. She is taunting me with new speakers instead of a cruise. Suddenly she has turned into Monty Hall and I have to decide between curtain number 1, 2 or 3 while the audience screams at me to keep the cash or to go for it. The audience being Jasmine and the two cats, of course.

Speaking of game shows, the Little Things That Make Me Hate Bush Game is quite fun. Oh sure there are plenty of big reasons like the war, economy and the whole gay marriage/health insurance thing that piss me off to no end, but how often can any of us say that those "little proclamations" that monkey-boy has made directly effect your life. Because he did this now I have to do that, kind of thing.

Roughly every three months I have oral surgery and the latest occasion was last Thursday - the day we lost the apartment. Ta-fucking-da. Anyway, while it is always a good time and I have even named it as 'my quarterly mouth gouging', all shits and giggles aside, one of the procedures that I have done involves the use of knowledge that was gained through human stem cell research. This makes it possible for me to keep my teeth and grow bone. Like bone that I need in my jaw. Now, scientists, in a work around to Bush's ban on stem cell research of human embryos (a fetus is an embryo and a fetus can feel, right? RIGHT?) are now instead using pig embryos. I have pig in my jaw in three separate places and I'm feeling sexy. I am now part of the Pig Borg Collective.

Miss Simon and the Fabulous Keri are coming to town over the weekend. I cannot wait to see them and I think it has been over a year since they have been here. Not sure, but all I know is that I am sick to death of missing folks that I can't seem to see anymore for whatever screwed-up logistical reason.