Holly Northrop Blog

Ah yes, week four of our home renovations starts out with the siding people still here. The creamy yellow siding is all up; gone is the flapping foil and chunks of demonic wasp nests. That's right, I'm not just fucked-in-the-head over wasps, there really was an infantry of horror behind the old aluminum siding. The boys, (as we now call them), pulled out big slabs of nests all along the back of the house. Some still had wasps in them, but because it was cold, they died upon exposure. If only it were that easy. I can think of a few people that if all I had to do was to rip them out the house onto the front lawn where they would die from exposure, well then Martha, fill up the Prius 'cause we are going on a road-trip.

So what did we learn here? Sometimes, I am not as zany as I may appear to be. I am kind of like that warning on the side view mirrors; objects may be closer than they appear. Just because I'm freaking out about something does not mean that it isn't real.

Anyway, now all that is left to do on the house is the window treatments and all the other little details, which if I remember correctly, is where the Devil lives; in the details.

On cloudy days, the house looks (no doubt about it), yellow. On sunny days, it blends in more with all that damn sunlight and seems to be more cream.

Every part of the outside of the house has been hammered to death. What that means is that all over the inside of the house is dust and little one hundred year old dirt particles. Mostly the dirt crumbs are all around the edges, window frames, outside wall baseboards and any furniture that is against any outside wall. So pretty much everything. I've been trying to keep up with it but it's just useless. So once they leave, (hopefully by Tuesday) I have a immense whole-house cleaning to look forward to.

On the other side of torment, somehow, I ended up on a peculiar mailing list at work. Roughly twice a month I receive a package with a God book in it. I'm on a Christian mailing list. Of all the things that could come to the Voice it is hardly one for the record books. The fact that this package is addressed to me is odd. Someone out there decided that I needed to get my God on.

So far, Thomas Nelson, Inc. from Nashville, TN has sent me:
The Trouble with Paris: Following Jesus in a World of Plastic Promises
Jesus Brand Spirituality: He Wants His Religion back
Finding Our Way Again: The Return of Ancient Practices
And, from the Ancient Practices Series: In Constant Prayer

I've made a little shrine for all these books over my desk. Seeing how I really don't have much personal stuff there anymore. I have been putting up 'my flair' with either weird things I find around the office from past employees cubicles, or things that come to me, like the god books. Up until a few days ago, I still had hanging there my 20 x 13 photo of dead Pope John Paul II that Gianni Giansanti took and that I personally think is one of the top ten amazing shots of 2005, but I brought that home because I didn't want anyone else to snag it.

In addition to all the Jesus crap, I have a Sexual Harassment pamphlet thumb tacked to my cube wall, a webby award that the old web team won back in the 'tail end of the days' when we did shit that was cool, and a copy of a TPS Report.

Walking by my desk one would think that I am some kind of crazy religious dyke with the conflicting protestant and catholic concerns.

While poking around the Thomas Nelson's, Inc. from Nashville, TN website, I noticed a few interesting things. I particularly liked the menu on their homepage for the first three sections; Fiction, Non-fiction and Bibles. It is interesting to me that they find a difference between them. Upon closer look, the line between them all is pretty fuzzy but when you start using the term Non-fiction in reference to anything having to do with Christ aren't you already blurring the lines of reputable classification?

The reference section is more like self-help on how to read The Bible, which furthers my belief that all self-help books are bullshit. In all of the reference section this book: Captivating Heart to Heart Study Guide: An Invitation Into the Beauty and Depth of the Feminine Soul, bothers me the most.

Here is the first paragraph of the books description:

"Every little girl has dreams of being swept up into a great adventure and of being the beautiful princess. Sadly, when women grow up, they are often swept up into a life filled merely with duty and demands. Many Christian women are tired and struggling under the weight of the pressure to be a "good servant," a nurturing caregiver, or a capable home manager."

Eww, eww and yuck.

It's like Haiku:

little princess girl
capable home manager:
tired woman's dream

What the hell is a capable home manager? Is that what they are calling housewives these days? Well, by that classification, my mom was an incapable home manager with a "slight" prescription drug problem, but hey, maybe she just needed a little more GOD in her life or to be dragged out on the front lawn.

In the video section, I found out that James Brolin stared in a A Dramatic Presentation of the Birth of Christianity.

James, (Marcus Welby; Amityville Horror; Barbara Streisand's husband), Brolin plays Peter. The guy who put the Reagan in The Reagans. I hated Reagan so much (still do) that I just wanted to punch the TV anytime he was on the screen. Judy Davis was awesome as Nancy and the reason that I watched it in the first place. I remember thinking at the time that her version of 'Just Say No Nancy' reminded me of my nightmare of growing up in a house of republicans.

This is that movie that the Republican Party got all pissy about and threatened to boycott. But I'm confused here, it's network TV. Who the hell cares if a political party decides to boycott anything that is broadcast on network television? What is the larger message here; does the Republican Party own Nielsen TV Ratings?

Anyway, CBS caved to this threat and moved it on over the Showtime. Showtime, the channel that has always excelled in stupid programming and will run the sloppy seconds of HBO in a heartbeat. This explains to me not only why The L Word ever made it on the air, but why it is in its (gag me) fifth season.

Right, okay, let us see I've covered God and the Devil, home renovations, politics, mom issues, lesbian sex and drug use. Is there anything else I'm not supposed to write about? Why yes there is, but for now I'm good. So I guess I'll go flip back and forth between a little mind numbing girl-on-girl no sex/stupid sex, and the Nielsen TV Rated Oscars, while abusing a just a little bit'o prescription drugs.

It's good to know that the writers strike has had no effect what's so ever on the new season of The L Word. That show is the only thing worse then a reality show. Any reality show. Within a span of two-hours I went from laughing my ass off at Stephen Colbert spinning around to Prince's When Doves Cry to then sliding on over to the no laugh zone of Rachel Shelley's weepy performance as Helena; the heiress who having been cut off from her wealth by her mother, is now recently jailed for stealing her ex-lover's money. That's right, there is going to be a woman's prison storyline. I swear to god this show is written by men.

Another breakthrough plot line is the 'movie within a movie' idea. It's so cutting edge that I'm bleeding. This fucking mess of a plot now has us, the viewer, reliving the whole suck-ass first season via Jenny, the dipshit writer whose book, "Lez Girls" was optioned into a movie. Oh and she gets to be the director and have a "career-challenging on-set relationship with one of her stars". It's like a buttered shit sandwich.

Can we just have a shred of believability here? I mean come on, just a shred. I know those pesky word things get in the way but does everything have to sound like a setup scene for porno?

After it was over, I realize that I had been grinding my teeth for 45 minutes and now had a splitting headache. Not just any old headache either. It was more like a back of the head, occipital lobe kind of thing. As if I'd witnessed something that had reactivated a brain tumor.

In earth shattering news, Kelly McGillis is scheduled to join the cast this season. More proof that it sucks so bad to come out in Hollywood, it is just easier to seize lesbian roles and keep your mouth shut. Or open, depending upon your point of view.

I'm amazed that Sarah Shahi made it outta there and landed as a regular on one of my favorite shows from last season, Life. I guess it helps if you are disturbingly beautiful therefore enabling casting directors to look past that hideous L Word spot on your Filmography list and to give you a fair shot.

The L Word is a kiss of death on good acting. I'm sure I've said this before, and it is worth pointing out again, that show has managed to take an actress that I consider to be fantastic, (Jane Lynch) and make her look like a terrible actor. No matter what she's in, she's incredible, except for The L Word. This season she's Cybill Shepherd's girlfriend. There's a joke there but I'm just going to move on.

I know what you are thinking, so turn the fucking channel and watch something else. Or better yet, read a book. My answer is not that simple. I am compelled to watch this crap because, again, it is the only game in town and they just might have a hot sex scene. That's it. That is all I can expect from them. No one is pregnant this season so we have a shot at not seeing pregnant sex, which was so disturbing last year that I'm still not really over it. Wait, I just realized it wasn't last season that the blonde chick was pregnant, it was the season before. See, it scarred me so much that it only feels like yesterday. Ten years from now, it will still feel like yesterday.

I want this show to be better. I really do. I want them to stop dipping into the well of clichés and really push the boundaries of plot. This is Season 5 for these 'tards and they have done nothing, absolutely nothing to be proud of. They have frittered away cable hours and viewers intelligence all the while patting themselves on the back in their vacuum world of formula bullshit. The L Word's character bios speaks for itself.

I'm done, I'm done. Its' January and we all know what that means. It's a new season of The L Word! Hurry, mute that fucking theme song!

My favorite show to hate is back for its fourth season, The L Word has returned with all of its zany lesbian tête-à-tête and wacky hairstyles.

Just the sentence "Bette is on the run from authorities" that was taken from the episode synopsis makes me giddy like a schoolgirl and revs up my snark-o-meter. And then there is this: "After binging on drugs and alcohol, Shane spirals out of control as she takes off in Cherie's Jaguar and crashes it on the Santa Ana Freeway." Again there are only two things that are fun about this show, Rosanna Arquette (the person), and Shane (the character).

Jenny, who should be forced to live in a box with her own writing being read back to her on a continuous stereophonic loop played at half-speed, sees this thing again. The only interesting part of all that behavior was that it set the bar on just how stupid this show was going to get right out of the gate in the first season. Marina was only in the first season (smart girl) and she aggressively pursued Jenny to the point of embarrassment - I was embarrassed for my TV. But then again this is also the only show that can make Jane Lynch look like a bad actor, completely misuse the talents of Kelly Lynch and pull out an awkward performance from Sandra Bernhard. Cybill Shepherd is on board this season but I really don't have much hope for that either. The only guest actress that has ever appeared on The L Word and remained completely unaffected by the script was Holland Taylor. She rocks but her character is the mother of quite possibly the dumbest rich girl I've ever seen on TV.

The fact that Showtime canceled Huff but this shit lives on, is truly amazing. At least Huff only had one annoying main character. The L Word has twelve. My only hope and I really do mean this, I hope to fuck that the writing does not suck this year. Really, I don't want the Emmy stuff, (not really a worry here) or the difficult but fascinating plot lines —which they have tried and have failed miserably at, I just want this show to NOT SUCK for one whole season. Okay, okay, maybe that is too hard. How about not sucking for one whole episode?

Update: I just finished the season opener, never mind, this show is totally hopeless, although I couldn't stop laughing. Who throws moldy food on the kitchen floor and then rolls around in it? Or what supposedly well informed, hip and happening fifty-year-old pregnant woman ends up at a Right to Life clinic for an abortion instead of Planned Parenthood? Who has an all-out, coked-out bender for days-on-end but only in the bright light of the (supposed) Cali sun? Who goes to a liquor store, hell bent on destruction and buys mini-bar sized bottles of liquor and beer?

What's Your Name, What's Your Number?
The American Community Survey, a division of The U.S. Census Bureau had been after us for weeks now to fill out their survey. First, they sent the questioner, which we filled out, then Martha carried it around in her purse for a few weeks before thinking to herself, "fuck it", and then shredded it. After the deadline passed, the Survey people started calling, which, we all too easily ignored seeing how we never, ever just answer the phone. Then finally, while we were at work on Friday and Jazz was home alone, they rang the doorbell. The only reason Jasmine opened the door was because she thought it was a mail delivery. Instead, there stood an elderly woman with a computer, sounding all-official and wanting to come inside and ask her a bunch of questions. Jasmine only let her in to the entryway because it was raining and she was elderly. Jasmine refused to give her our names, phone numbers and just about any other fleck of information that might identify us no matter how much paperwork or even laminated badges this woman showed her.

Nicely done Peanut, although I would have never let her in the house because I would have never answered the door in the first place but I am much further along in my neurosis then you. But remember before you open that door, give the space the once over, you never know what might be on the coffee table just sitting there waiting to be noticed by the wrong people.

After a few moments of Stone Wall Jasmine, the woman gave up and left her name and number asking if we could please call her, which we did, but she was out in the neighborhood hounding down other paranoid freaks in the broad daylight of an unnaturally warm Saturday afternoon. Finally, late Saturday night she called back and Martha had a nice little statistical chat around commute times and annual salary.

Jasmine ending up staying two extra days last week, not because she loves us and wants to spend time with us but more because no one could pick her up at the airport until Saturday. Why she didn't have this all planned out before the eleventh hour I'll never know.

The house is disgusting and I have zero time to deal with it. Between work, a total nightmare, and my own photography that I am trying to pull together for two different submissions, my commute time and then the general nausea that rolls over me like a blanket, I can't get near the filth.

What is up with the snow? We have NONE. It is the oddest thing. Almost like we moved to North Carolina instead of 30 miles south of Albany. It was so warm Saturday that there was a wasp on my side door. A fucking wasp. Do you know how crazy that makes me to think that the wasps are all ready out and about? WTF? I've been a little afraid of the winters up here and it still could get nutty but this is too much. A few more days of warm temperatures and we'll have to cut our grass.

It's the end of the world.

I think I need to start having the same expectations for The L Word that I used to have when I was in high school and watched General Hospital everyday after school with my best friend Sherry. The only thing that was expected from that soap opera was for it to be on. Plot was not an issue and believability was never a consideration. If we skipped school, then the whole run from All My Children, One Life to Live and on into General Hospital was room ambiance to our pathetic southern Ohio lives. That and Lynard Skynard [Leh'-nerd Skin'-nerd].

But the point is, nothing groundbreaking was expected from these shows and we were never mentally challenged, except for when Luke raped Laura on the floor of a disco and then they ran away together to Ice Princess Island. While on the run, Luke and Laura fell in love but she was already married to a guy named Scotty, who went nuts when she ran away. Somehow, Scotty and Laura divorced and she then turned around and married Luke, (the guy who had just months before raped her on the floor of a disco) but not before he managed to save the town of Port Charles from being frozen from Cassadine's weather machine.

As far as I can tell it's every woman's fantasy, to not only fall in love with your rapist but to run away to exotic locations with him. While "on location" together, you can help save the planet. Then, with nobody in the way of a complete 180, nothing else says submissive-punching-bag better than "I do". I mean, if he rapes you before you marry him, just what is to be expected when you lay down the "till death do us part" line?

Anyway, The L Word isn't even as believable as anything that was ever on General Hospital. I now realize that I extremely dislike just about every character on the program because every single cliché within the lesbian community is in use. I can almost see the conference room white board with the all the characters names across the top and little boxes below, each one filled in with a predictable behavior or affliction. Some characters have several clichés running in rotation so all that they do is hop from one superficial event to the next. The writers of The L Word are really bad soap opera writers. This shit would never fly in the straight daytime land of soaps and that stuff is total crap. I expect at least the same level of hogwash as General Hospital. Come on girls the bar is already low enough.

WOMAN'S WORK
More health scares with Jasmine this week. For the moment, things seem to be in a small holding pattern. I can't tell if it is just Jasmine's natural hypochondriac abilities at work or if there is something more sinister below the surface. Telling me to relax is really something that just doesn't work much anymore.

She is coming home for spring break to meet with her main doctor here about a new thing. Heredity might be at play, so we aren't as concerned but then some days we are. It flips every other day and I am slowly losing what is left of fucking senses. This Friday Martha and I will be in Pennsylvania. I hope we can get there in time for her appointment with the eye guy. This is all for the second opinion about the spinal tap. Her doctor here wants to make sure she needs a tap and not drugs first.

I, true to form, buried my head in my photography. Green-wood Cemetery is up. It took me five days to scan all the negatives. Not five solid days, I did have to work and talk endlessly on the phone with Jasmine about health issues. Anyway, the gallery here is up and I will be putting a smaller one on Toycamera later on in the week. I'm also going to see if the Voice will run it. They were interested a few weeks ago but now, things might be different. Everything else about work is.

Regardless, it is good work and I am very proud of it. I think I managed to catch the feeling that was with me on the one rainy day. It is a strange sensation to walk alone among the dead with nothing but a camera. I've always enjoyed it, but I'm funny like that. Martha went with me but we would separate the minute we left the car. She traveled over one hill and I over the other. She managed to shoot a pretty funny little video clip of the two of us but outside of warming up and drying off in the car the shoot was a solitary event. She shot some very good photos as well.

SUNBEAMS ON GOLD CARPET
Lately, I have had to think about my mother more than I normally would and more then I am comfortable with. All this aging stuff has me trying to guess about her health issues so as to gauge my own demise. Heredity is a funny thing. I can't remember how old my mom was when she went through the change but if I had to guess, it probably started before the age of fifty but really hit peek levels by the time she was fifty-three, and those where some good ole days I'll tell you. I was thirteen and she was fucking crazy as a loon. It was somewhere around the age of fifty-eight that she developed uterine cancer and had a hysterectomy. She then went on to live another twenty-two years with varying degrees of health problems. I have yet to find out what she actually did die from although I know she had just undergone her first round of chemotherapy when she died two years ago. But what kind of cancer is a mystery to me. All of my doctors are interested in my family's, (particularly the females) medical history but that is so hard to give when everyone is dead. Yes, I could find out if I really wanted to and I will probably have to but not just yet.

So for now they'll get this list. Breast and Uterine cancers; extremely high blood pressure; hypertension; mental illness, specifically manic depression with panic attacks and high anxiety; alcoholism combined with prescription drug abuse; cigarette smoker for fifty years, osteoporosis and cataracts. Yep, that was my mom as defined by illness. The sum of all that's wrong, well at least what I knew about.

I think that I just might be stronger then my mother ever was. Now that is a bold sentence and I'm still working on processing that thought but if I line up both of our lives, well... I'm thinking that an idea of that caliber just might have some weight to it. I mean honestly, once she married my dad she had thirteen years of VP bank wife, country club loving, republican voting living before I came along and created half of what was wrong with her. By the 70's all she had in her life was a fucked up teenager who did normal fucked up 1970s type stuff. There was only ONE of me so other than that, she pretty much had the run of her life if she wanted it. Instead, she cleaned the house, grew zucchini in the backyard, sat at the kitchen table, and stared out the window for hours on end while drinking Black Label beer and chain-smoking Salem cigarettes. Maybe, that's the way she wanted it. The only probe into my mother's brain during those dark years was kept on a pad of paper by the phone. In that pad of Provident Bank notepaper, my mom would write these wacky sentences; nothing that I can recall now and not anything I could have begun to understand then. I left home a seventeen and while she did seem to calm down a tad bit, that woman was as high-strung as they come. And why yes, the apple didn't fall very far from that tree.

I don't think my mom could have handled working full-time in the fantastic mans' world of publishing, or faired well with any kind of artistic talent, moonlighting the self-indulgent process of creation. Or nurtured a shaky child through college, with the constant health scares and the ever looming fear of the cancer coming back. She could have never walked away from a marriage, even though I know that for many years she was painfully unhappy with my father. She could have never ever handled moving to Denver, DC or NYC and none of this could she have done before the age of forty.

I have no real point here other then I've been thinking about my mother and as I mentioned before, I'm thinking about her a little bit more then I am comfortable with.

I knew going in that it would end badly and there would be crying. Lots and lots of crying. That's why I brought plenty of pocket tissue and gum. After all, what gay themed mainstream movie can any of us name where the main characters live happily ever after? I said mainstream, not underground but suburban mall mainstream. So, I openly bawled in a crowed New Jersey theater as I watched Heath Ledger channel Gary Cooper. He is awesome and the movie, Brokeback Mountain, is beyond epic. I haven't been that moved in a theater in years.

My only bitch is with Hollywood, not the movie. It is with the way Hollywood handles gay/lesbian characters. Yes, one could make the argument that this world is full of ignorance and hate, but you know, I am more than a little annoyed at watching gay people be murdered, suffer with horrible cancers or addictions, "accidents" or when all else fails, throw in a suicide. Sometimes it's all of the above.

A character is, oh lets say; a former alcoholic/drug user, who has been clean for five years and living a single, well-off disposable income lifestyle, develops breast cancer. Upon learning of the news, she becomes severely depressed realizing she has nothing to show for her life except pricey art and endless shallow anonymous sex. Her family has disowned her because of her lifestyle and her pride has kept close friends at bay. She relapses, going on a bender and while stoned and out of her mind, she causes a major car accident, where miraculously no one is hurt. At this point, she has hit bottom and tries suicide by attempting to overdose on Valium.

Finally, hospitalized and under some serious psychiatric care, the character slowly pulls her life together. After months of chemo and hair loss, she survives breast cancer and realizes she is powerless over whatever it was that she was addicted to. She starts her life over, having a new appreciation for living. Months go by, when one day she meets a wonderful lesbian who has two kids from a previous abusive marriage. Years go by, the couple is living a normal suburban lifestyle in an oversized McMansion in Vermont, when suddenly, the ex-husband of the wonderful lesbian with two kids, is released from prison, hunts them down and shoots cancer survivor in the head, right there in the yard in front the kids and the dog. She is as dead, dead, and dead.

I am a little sick of watching love punished by over dramatized incidents but Hollywood can't seem to get enough of it.

And then you have the other end of the spectrum when something like The L Word floats into the living room. I have no idea what reality that show is grounded in.

This is the type of lesbian show where unnaturally skinny over-produced pretend lesbians sit in roundtable at the local lesbian coffee house and compare pet names for their pussy. The show I love to hate is back for a third attempt at entertainment and by the looks of the season premiere the writers have managed to fuck up the one funny character by making her a pathetic ex-lover turned stalker. The truly fun couple to watch will be Tina and Bettie who are so far beyond the realm of ridiculous all-female parenting that they are giving Lesbian Motherhood more of bad name than the Christian Right ever could. No wonder they are having difficulty making a sexual connection, (i.e. Lesbian Deathbed) I wouldn't fuck either one of their self-absorbed brains, not even drunk and on a bet. But the one character that not only makes my eyes rolls every time she's in a scene but is the main reason I swear at the TV, the fucked up writer known as Jenny, has Margot Kidder cast as her mom. What a coo. This is both believable "in character" and in real life. I can't tell if this chick (Jenny) can't act or if the scripts are that bad. Maybe it's both because it is sooooo painful to sit through.

This show has so many different stereotypes wrapped in similar hair and makeup it is like looking inside a carton of eggs. At least you can make something with eggs. Like a good omelet or something. These people don't even play well off of each other. But they are the only game in town and I am obviously expecting way too much from the show. But couldn't they have at least changed to opening theme song/visual nightmare that starts each and every show? Betty is bad enough, okay fine use them if you have to but that video montage is embarrassing to us all, gay or straight.

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.

Jasmine laid on the big fat red lesbian couch for three solid days last week before she finally got off her ass and ventured outside. It took the lure of Sushi but at least she moved. Even in my most impressive stoner days of high school, I still think I moved around more than that. Oh sure, my best friends and I spent many fine quality hours bong hitting to Tom and Jerry and General Hospital but not for days on end. The bong hits thing, well, yeah. That was pretty much an everyday thing but not the coma on the couch thing. We did have a travel bong that work quite nicely in the car.

I heard from somewhere that Jasmine's generation is called the "Whatever Generation". I think it is more like the "Doomed to be Stupid Generation". Even she has admitted that most of her peers are of questionable intelligence. Hardly any are filled with enough common sense to save their own lives. But hey, one look at their parents, (my peers), although not so much my age group, her friends parents tend to be older, more selfish and totally full of shit. That chunk of the baby boomer age range sucks and almost all of them are detached (in that bad way) from their college kids. Shit in breeds shit out - a theory that keeps proving itself repeatedly. Oh, I am full of shit too but at least I will be the first to admit that to Jazz instead of insisting otherwise.

Most of the folks in my age group have kids from an age range of 0-12 and appear to be exhausted. And rightly so. I cannot imagine having anything other than what I have, a disgruntled twenty-year old. Anything else would simply have to go somewhere else.

I think Jasmine's whole demographic of 18-24 has been badgered to the point of total lethargy. Persistent bitching and the over scheduling of crap-ass activities has never worked for anyone. Oh sure, every group has a few that excel under bizarre conditions but the rest of the non-overachievers are sick to death of all of our shit, having tuned out in middle school. Coddled like china dolls, most are completely unprepared for the mountain of pure bullshit that they will have to navigate through in order to survive because nearly everything was watered down and spoon-fed back to them in nice easy to understand pieces. When they actually have to think for themselves, it is like a not so funny game of stump the band.

ANOTHER SCENARIO PLEASE
Late in the day last Friday, I was killing time and following my obsessions by Googling my dead parents names. It is something I like to do every now and then just because I am strange like that. Here are a few of the tidbits:

What are the odds that there is another O. Wayne Schneider who is a banker? From what I can gather, he is not a VP and Senior Trust Officer but I wonder what his first name is. My dad hated his first name and always went by Wayne.

My mothers name is very bizarre. One Dorothy Schneider is a writer and not just any writer mind you but she writes about the history of women and slavery. Titles like; First Ladies: A Biographical Dictionary (Facts on File Library of American History) and An Eyewitness History of Slavery in America: From Colonial Times to the Civil War.

Right. Oh the hilarity of it all.

Another Dorothy Schneider was murdered in 1928 while walking home from school. She was five years old at the time and, more strangeness here; she was the exact same age as my mother was at that time. My mom was in Pittsburgh and this little girl was in Michigan.

Google sure is fun!

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Jasmine was on the cell phone using the hands free earpiece so she could play Grand Theft Auto and talk to one of her friends back at school. This is the definition of multi-tasking for her. Martha and I were in bed watching TV and we could hear Jazz out in the living room chatting and laughing. Subliminally, feeling the need to squelch that, Martha turned to me and asked if Jasmine was using up all of our minutes. Apparently, we are on a family plan and only have 400 minutes a month to share between each other but how the hell would I know about the status of our phones. I barely acknowledge that I have a cell phone.

As I pondered Martha's question, I picked up my own cell phone, which just happened to be on the bed in front of me, and speed dialed Jasmine. When she answered, I told her to come into the bedroom. Hey, I tried calling out to her but between Grand Theft Auto and her own loud mouth there was no way she was going to hear me and there was no way I was getting up out of bed. It is a whole cycle of lazy that we follow around here, okay. Anyway, Jazz came stomping into the bedroom, cell phone in one hand with earpiece sticking out of her head, still talking to her friend back at school.

"Hold, on, hold on" she said into the mouthpiece.
"Are you using up all our minutes?" Martha asked.
"It's 10:30 at night! Free nights and weekends, right?" Jasmine shot back.
"Oh." Martha said.
There was a small pause and then Jasmine busts out with, "Okay, wait. Did you just seriously call me on the fucking cell phone and make me come in here so you could ask me if I was using up all of our minutes? Oh my God. Mom!" She stood in the doorway of the bedroom and stared at me with her mouth open in total disbelief.

I laughed so hard through all of it that I almost swallowed my tongue.

ICE FISHING
It is almost the end of Pisces and Jesus Christ I can feel it. The world is nuts and all the last little bits of crazy that is leftover has started falling off the trees and dancing the loony dance in the streets. Neptune rules that nutty mutable water sign and their season makes the rest of us nuts too.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I love them to death. Some of the best people I know are Pisces. So are some of the worst.

Growing up, two of my three closest friends are Pisces. Sherry, (the other one) was more of an Aries but she had the crazy eyes every now and then. Lani was a nervous nut who I adored but could only hangout with in short doses. My other dear friend Sheila was a Scorpio. Yet another water sign with a completely different deal going on there.

Miss Simon is a Pisces and her big ole birthday is this Friday. I think she and Keri are coming up here to celebrate. Martha's mother is one too. She was eighty-five last week and we sent her a box of Godiva Dark chocolates. That woman has a sweet tooth and hides candy all over the house. But she hides the crap sugar balls. I like it when we buy her the real good stuff. If I live to be eighty-five, I am going to eat candy every day too.

On the other side of the freaky fish is the more, inattentive to the present trait. My mother was a Pisces and so is Jasmine's stepmother. There was also a chick in high school that I got into a fistfight with who had the same birthday as my mom. That about sums that up, eh? All that water in my life (Jasmine is a Cancer) and I am a fire sign.

WHO WRITES THIS SHIT?
I love Sunday night TV. I go from 60 minutes to The L Word in just a few short hours and it is awesome. The L Word is not the dumbest show ever in its ridiculous depiction of lesbian life. Oh no that honor goes to Queer as Folk. I hate that fucking show for oh so many reasons but I particularly loathe the depiction of the lesbian thing. To begin with, there is only one lesbian couple and they broke up the first season. They never fucked when they were a couple and all they did was bicker and bitch at each other. Whenever they show to women in the same room together, inevitably it turns into a bitch fest. Meanwhile, all the gay men are getting off like crazy.

I mentioned to Martha that I might want to take a writing class, (insert snarky comment here) and she responded that instead of non-fiction I might want to look into memoir writing. "Didn't someone tell you that you write more like that?" she asked me. I thought about it and realized that she was remembering the scene in The L Word where Sandra Bernhardt told the stupid writer chick that she was "journaling" and "hadn't changed her story into fiction". Martha keeps confusing me with the writer character, Jenny. She has mentioned before that Jenny reminds her of me, mostly having to do with some of the stupid shit that comes out of her mouth. While I think that this women is beautiful, her character is a melodramatic moody bitch that I do not particularly care for. Hmm.

Let's see, Martha's flight out of New York was Friday morning and I ended up taking the day off and playing with my music. I made a mix-tape and thank God, I did because Saturday I actually did leave the apartment to go to far away places that required my head to be filled with something other than just my thoughts. Incase anyone is interested it takes exactly ninety-minutes to go from Jersey City to Forest Hills, Queens via the Path and the super-duper F Train. Like I said thank God, I had a new tape. Ninety-minutes alone on a Subway without any distractions would have made me nuts.

I ate sushi every day and outside of my morning blueberry yogurt and it was the only thing I ate for three days. I did the laundry all by myself much to everyone's astonishment and I even checked the mail. I did not take any photos outside of the photo shoot that I did, even though it was a spectacular weekend. I walked all over Manhattan on Saturday but I was more interested in participating than documenting. It happens every now and then but not too often.

But it was on Sunday that I began to show my true weird colors. After three days alone I found myself watching almost 5 hours of The L Word reruns, On Demand no less, I fucking asked for it - Jesus. Anyway, I was fast-forwarding to the parts with Rosanna Arquette and that Shane chick. For whatever reason now I think she is hot. (The Shane girl, Rosanna has always had a very special place.)

Martha called in the middle of my L Word Marathon to inform me that she was stuck at the airport in North Carolina on stand-by and to read to me a list of pre-menopausal symptoms from a book that she bought at the bookstore. With the amount of self-diagnosing that goes on in this house you would think that one of us might have at least a year of med-school under our belts instead of an art school degree and a psychology major.

If I am pre-menopausal then I am so feeling the love. This might explain why I now cry while watching this stupid lesbian drama when a few short, hive ridden months ago I smirked and had my own little running commentary to go right along beside it. I still hate the Jenny girl even though her life is a little too close to how mine was about thirteen years ago. But I hated myself then so it all comes around I suppose.

I got bored with this or had a moment of sanity (hard to tell) and decided that I needed another way to fuck off. I whipped out my bitch-red-nail-polish and change the channel to VH1's I love the 80s' Strikes Back and fuck if there wasn't Rosanna Arquette talking about Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation and how she "loves that album". I managed to catch the tail end of 1988 (both when it happened and the sum up on TV) but my fascination with this women continues and I so know why. Sonic Youth indeed.