Holly Northrop Blog

It took eleven hours for us to drive to Pittsburgh due to rain, fog, traffic and one highway closing accident. PA threw everything but snow and flying baby monkey asses at us. Well, at least with the detour I was able to see Altoona again. Woo Hoo! The day we arrived Jasmine was sick as a dog and we didn't see her for three days. The last time I got sick, I ended up in the emergency room so fuck that.

Martha and I ended spent five nights in a row at one person's house, instead of the original agreed upon three. We will be forever in debt. Thank god, she did not have to spend any of her daytime with us. Just the exhausting nighttime, where the only break she got from us was the one night she went to Seven Springs to see Ted Nugent, or 'Sweaty Teddy' as he is referred to.

This was a total cat visit. I met Jezebel, the most beautiful longhaired puff of a cat who is the closest thing to Mona that I've met since Mona died. I visited with roughly four or five (I cannot remember due to volume) of Amy's cats and one sweet aging greyhound. I saw a photo of Dee's two babies and of course, our grandson Oscar, Jasmine's new one-year-old part Main Coon boy kitty.

Martha and I went totally nuts at PetSmart. We bought him a new kitty tower, with scratching post. He is a big time scratcher. We bought a round plastic circle thing with a ball in it that spins round and round, hours upon hours of entertainment. (If I could only be so exhausted by shear joy without being chemically altered.) He played with that thing so much that he fell asleep on it.

We got him a gratuitous string toy, a big bucket of litter, a big bag of food, a case of wet food, three bags of Greenies, and three cans of the special Fancy Feast® Elegant Medleys®.

Man did he hit the jackpot or what. He was just days away from being abandoned or put down and now, he is living the good life.

While Jasmine new apartment is totally adorable, she didn't really have anything in it. She had a bed, Martha's old desk, which used to be my old desk, our old coffee table and a TV. It was kind of barren to the point the even the cat was bored. Yes, yes I know, most of us had sheets on our windows until we were 30, but still.

The next time we visit Pittsburgh we want to stay with her so we bought a futon couch. She needed something else to sit on so we bought her a chair. We went a little thrifting and found an old school desk that will make a great end table. Stuff like that that turned into a day of me wondering around a PetSmart, The Salvation Army, some weird discount furniture store on McNightmare road, Target (for fucks sake) and a Big Lots, all over a two day period.

I got a heat headache and cottonmouth from walking around slack jawed at the whole presentation of consumerism. Martha, amazingly, remained calm and up to the challenge of spending WAY too much money. Of course every morning I gave her a little "cocktail" consisting of a Tylenol® Arthritis, a prescription anti-inflammatory and just a touch of Xanax so the day would go just a little smoother.

Basically, we bought Jasmine a new apartment and Oscar a new life.

Jazz and I struggled (to the point of absurdity) to put the futon frame together. We put it together in every wrong way imaginable before it was finally right. Well sort of, the one piece in the back is supposed to be in front but after Jazz unscrewed the rails for the third time, she refused to do it again. After about an hour of fucking around with the futon, Jazz looked over at the new chair and there was Oscar lying on the ottoman with every fan pointed at him. He looked most comfortable while Jazz had sweat dripping down her cheeks and a runny nose from bending over for minutes on end.

Outside of the whole Jasmine money pit thing, Martha and I drove all around Pittsburgh, which isn't that big of a deal really. A person can go from Squirrel Hill to Mt. Lebanon in fifteen minutes. It was awesome to see people. Well, I only have two people but two very cool people.

We did try to find my dead grandparents. We drove around to several cemeteries that I thought might be the ones. We even went into the offices of two of them. At one point, Martha and I sat across from each other in a cemetery conference room lined with headstones, while the woman made a few calls to other places. Every time I looked at Martha, all I saw was the wall of gravestones behind her.

Thanks to Amy and Nellie King, we were able to not only go to a Pirates game but also sit behind home plate. With the idea that dinner was going to be at the ballpark Amy turned to me and asked me what I would like to eat.

'Well, I'm a vegetarian and I don't eat carbs."
She brought me back a huge kosher dill pickle.

Oddly, I realized that I do miss Pittsburgh. I've not been back in eight years but it is a place that I've moved back to three times in my life. I'm from Ohio, but Pittsburgh is most certainly a second or third home. Even stranger, I could see myself living there again.

However, I cannot believe what they have done to the South Side. What a fucking nightmare.

And clearly The Beehive people have totally lost their minds and have bestowed upon the obnoxiously carb heavy city of Pittsburgh, The Double Wide Grill. All I can say is WOW.

I mean the South Side was kind of a dead zone with the old J&L plant being leveled and yes the whole toxic waste fields thing needed to be dealt with but they made it a yuppie paradise. (Seriously, Forever 21?) I'm not so sure I'd want to eat one bite of a GODIVA® CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKE from the Cheesecake Factory on the former ground of a Superfund site, now labeled a nice and tidy word like Brownfield. Dirt is brown right, so Brownfield makes complete sense. It's just dirt.

I suppose a little plastic materials (which never biodegrades) and resin particles here and there is what we're all made of, right? Never really hurt anyone.

I remember sitting in my fifth floor dorm room window at Duquesne University watching the J&L furnaces lighting up the night sky. The glow was surreal. The furnaces operated 24-hours a day and on certain nights when the fog came in the silhouette looked like a large demon climbing out of the ground. Even in the daylight, the damn thing was frightening with its coal furnaces glowing from deep within and years of caked on black soot covering everything. It looked like they were burning a hole to the center of the earth.

I don't really have a solid answer to what should be there. On the other side of the river, where the other half of the plant was, they built the Technology Center so that area was repurposed for job growth. Maybe continuing with the theme of advancing technologies by dragging that shit across the 'Hot Metal Bridge' would be interesting.

One could argue that retail jobs are job growth but, not really. $7.00 an hour does not a career make no matter what city you live in. Relying on consumer shopping to boost the local economy is foolish in that if we are all working for Ann Taylor then we cannot afford to shop at Ann Taylor. So Ann Taylor will leave.

Ah yes, but now we are back. We came home to a weird smelling house and an orange cat puke stain on the carpet. It took us over ten hours to get home but that was because we had to pull over at a rest stop and sleep for two hours. At least we had our pillows with us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHAT?

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

Right.

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

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

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

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

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

This event was truly unfortunate for all of us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An abundance of workmen are currently plaguing me, adding to the overall persecution issue that I have. First off, there is the ongoing gas line replacement that Hudson is undergoing. They went away for a few weeks and I thought they were done but no, now they are back. Not only are they back they want to come inside and dick around in our basement for three hours on Monday morning. Then, we are having our driveway dug up and repaved. The thing is a mess and will not make it through another winter. And the same goes for the gutters, something Martha has been avoiding talking about. The siding people are coming back to rework all the trim around the windows and a few other things that they should have done right in the first place.

All this and a few other distractions have left me flustered, with my ADD working overtime. I'm so unfocused that while on the phone with Martha last week, I threw money in the trash and put receipts in my wallet.

Anyway, Jasmine took her 'final' final last week and now we wait. Tick, tick, tick. She said it was hard but she's sure she passed. Wasting no time at all, her health insurance sent us a letter informing us that if she is no longer a full-time student that they will no longer cover her. We or rather Martha, is going to have to start paying COBRA until Jasmine gets her shit together. Not only are we (Martha) going to have to pay COBRA but also her rent, and anything else that she can't cover. Martha said she wants to start claiming Jazz as a dependant, checking the box on the COBRA form for: Continuously incapable of self-sustaining employment as a result of a mental or physical handicap.

On the cool and exciting side of things, it looks like Jazz is going to be moving into her new apartment this coming weekend. How thrilling for her. Martha, who is living vicariously through her, is planning our trip to the 'Purgh' at the end of the month. We are going to spend five nights and four days in the lovely city of Pittsburgh. I haven't been back since September of 2000 so I'm looking forward to it. Martha wants to visit friends, go out to dinner and maybe a Baseball game. She also wants to drive around Mt Lebanon looking at her old house, various schools and general memory lane type stuff.

She also wants to go buy this two-bedroom condominium and move there, with or without the rest of us.

Aside from spending time with Jasmine, I want to visit my dead grandparents and go to the record store. Somehow that seems perfect. What the hell else am I going to do there? I have like one friend there, whom I will visit and of course I will be shooting photos but with some of the best records stores in the country located there, um yeah, I'm going to the record store. That and the fantastic Red, White and Blue.

Still shooting with the Horizon 202 and I've got about another week before I should 'respectively' give it back. Seeing how I have to go into Manhattan twice this week I should be good. Going from the solid square format of my Holga to shooting in panoramic is a refreshing change. Suddenly the world has opened up. Not all shots can be pans, although it could be fun to do a series.

Martha and I went to see Batman over the weekend. We originally had tickets to the IMAX in Nyack but we decided against making Martha basically drive to work on a Saturday. After driving all week long from Hudson to Mahwah and then back, by Friday she's pretty bat shit crazy so adding another day, is nothing short of cruel. At the time we ordered tickets it sounded like a fun idea but on the day of the event we changed our minds and went up to the local crap theater, here in Hudson.

There were maybe fifteen people there but the truly stand out bunch was a family that sat in the last row up to our right. There were four of them, mom, dad, and two sons and all so very, very overweight that together they could have made three more people. They sat in the last row with an empty seat between each one of them and proceeded to wrinkle paper and chew food for a solid two hours of the two and a half hour movie. They would eat and eat and then every fifteen minutes of so they would send one of the kids down to the concession stand to stock up on candy and free refills on popcorn and soda. They only stopped eating when the food trough closed. Finally, the last thirty minutes of the movie were quiet.

The movie was long and Heath was awesome. I found the nurse outfit more disturbing then anything else. Free refills and processed foods should be eliminated.

I think I might be reaching the end of my ability to go to a theater. Martha and I have large TV so honestly what the fuck are we doing? At home we can get fucked up, pause for bathroom and water breaks and the occasional 'I need a moment break' without any trouble at all. I can touch and lay on anything I want without fear and stickiness. The only things that are sticky in my house are the things that are supposed to be sticky, like tape and spray mount. Ok so we don't have surround sound and for the moment we have to wait until things are released on DVD but still.

Jasmine's apartment saga continues. She's found a place that she loves, and is in the high range of her price range. That's funny, it's not really her price range it's more like ours now isn't it. Martha spoke with the landlord, she being the more responsible sounding out of the two of Jasmine's mothers. Technically, Jazz has three mothers, but none of us considers that beer-drinking bitch in PA to be anything more than a pain in the ass.

Speaking of asses, Jasmine's father has yet to pony up any money to help his daughter out. He gave her 100 bucks for her birthday, which she proceeded to spend on gas money to go see him, visit a friend in Pittsburgh and then back home to school. Nice. You know, I could get over shit faster if he would stop doing shit.

Anyway, the plan is to go to Pittsburgh once Jazz is a little settled. I think we are going to stay a few days and hang out with her. I want to visit my grandparents' graves and Martha wants to see actual living people. It will be hard to resist the urge to drive that extra hour up Route 8 and burn down a certain brick house with a recently landscaped yard, but I'll try.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What can I say about a week that started with a grand wedding in Manhattan with a deluxe suite at the Waldorf=Astoria, and then ended up with a 4am visit to the Emergency Room of Columbia Memorial Hospital?

Talk about a slide.

Thursday, Martha came home from work early complaining of some serious stomach pain and body aches. By 3am, things had deteriorated so horribly that we went over to the hospital. Ok, here is where I will admit that I suck; she drove herself but, but, but, I DID DRIVE BACK.

I know, I'm horrible but if it's anything, I think I'm getting it. My glands are swollen and I feel like ass.

Once at the hospital they took a bunch of her blood, hooked her up to an IV and gave her three shots. Blood work came back with nothing out of the ordinary and after three hours, they sent us home. Friday sucked, Saturday pretty much sucked but by Sunday she was on the couch, surfing the web and waiting for me to make her breakfast, seeing how she hadn't eaten anything outside of Gatorade, toast and rice since Thursday night she was pretty hungry. I think she just might make it.

In the 'I can't stop laughing at you' department, the last man standing on Survivor Island: Voice Edition, quit last week and who could blame him. The Voice is such a sinking ship that I'm amazed he found a life raft. The department has now shrunk to one person who hasn't even been there a year. In two years, there have been fifteen people who have left the web department.

It's funny after the wedding last week and seeing a good chunk of everyone I used to work with, I realized just how horrible the last two years my life at the Voice were. I used to work with some truly awesome people. Somehow by the end, I had to deal with a know-it-all from Boston who really didn't know too much at all; a total (and I do mean total) jackass who was never really able to make it in New York but seems to be flourishing in Phoenix; and the final entry in the trifecta of shame, a backstabbing two-faced son-of-a-bitch.

Anyway the wedding and a weekend in Manhattan were both fantastic. It was Martha's birthday and we decided to live a little and get a room at the Waldorf for two nights. But alas, the Waldorf did not impress Miss Harvey. She started making a list almost immediately.

Right out of the gate the big screen LCD Samsung TV didn't work. Only one channel came in but at least it was golf. While waiting for the TV guy, we lost our minds, eating $14.00 cashews from the mini-bar and $8.00 mini sized Evian. After that, if I even went near the mini-bar, Martha yelled at me.

In room internet was not free but $10.00 a day. The Waldorf is part of the Hilton Honors Program, which is what The Hampton Inn in Winston-Salem is and where they have FREE in room internet.

We could get free internet in the lobby with all the other travelers hogging up all the plush seating and electrical outlets. This idea sucked and we only checked email once over a three-day period. Kind of freeing actually. We squirreled away around a corner and sat on an eighty-year-old marble step that leads up to the Grand Ballroom, right before we left on Monday morning.

We ordered room service only once and after $30.00 for a pot of coffee and a bakery basket for breakfast, that too went on Martha's list.

But the real unpleasant thing was that our air conditioner did not work. The first night there was rather stuffy. Upon leaving in the morning to run errands and walk around Manhattan, we stopped off at the concierge to ask if someone would look at it.

"Which room? The living room, one of the bedrooms?" he asked.

We just looked at him. Martha laughed and said. "THE ROOM. There's just one room."

We walked out of the hotel into the beautifully sunny, cool and breezy day of midtown and not even twenty feet from the doormen a homeless guy walks up to Martha and asks her for money.

"No, sorry." she said.
"Hey, I went to Kindergarten with you." he replied laughing.
I laughed too, because it was kind of funny. He then looked at me and we both laughed.
"That's just great." Martha said.

We ran errands, picked up film, stopped at Blick, had a little Mudd Truck coffee, and walked up to A.I Friedman, before returning to our stuffy hotel room.

"That's it; we are going to open the window." I sighed. It had the suicide locks on the sides so we could only pry it open the allotted seven inches. The fucking thing was so heavy and awkward that it took both of us pushing up while clamping down on the locks.

"Jesus Christ, the only way anyone could jump out that window is if they were anorexic." I mumbled.
"...and if you're anorexic you're not strong enough to open the window." replied Martha. We both busted out laughing as the breeze and sounds from Lexington Avenue filled the room.

The Waldorf is ridiculous in all the wrong places. Clusters of tourists, (some fat as fuck and some just rich as fuck), wandered around the roped off area of the Famed Sunday Brunch in the lobby. A brunch we only walked by, tickets were $100.00, but strolling by I did manage to see a tiered liquid chocolate fountain. Sliced fruit was displayed around it like a living fondue alter. There was an enormous leg of a lamb the size of my own leg, resting on a wooded slab, nicely lit by the heat lamp. Unidentifiable pastries, some sprinkled gold flecks, filled three large tables and there was something that I'm considering to be a wall of bread. Various bread products stacked in such a manner that when combined they formed a three foot high wall that separated the vegetables from the meats. So much food, so much of it was bagged and tossed out.

From the minute we got off the elevator on our low-level floor I was reminded of the Overlook Hotel; the hotel from The Shining. The long halls with rooms on either sides, the red carpets, the Deco interiors. Our room was three long hallways and two blind turns from the elevator. At every turn, I expect to see The Twins or a door ajar with some weird woman in the bathtub.

Before we went to the wedding, we had some time to kill so we took a ride up to the 18th floor to the Starlight Roof. The 18th is a maze of hallways and various size rooms. Some rather large for meetings and presentations and some smaller for well, smaller things. Let me tell you, the walls up on 18 are pillow-paneled with a pastel tan and mauve pattern.

When we were wondering around up there, we were alone. Totally alone. We walked into the Starlight Roof and my jaw hit the floor. This room is a Deco Dream and the view from the windows is breathtaking.

"We have to come back up here tonight after the wedding!" I said.

And we did. Somewhere after midnight, we rode the elevator back up to 18 and immediately walked over to the mirrored French doors of the Starlight Roof. The room was dark, the only light in the room came from lights of Manhattan through the floor to ceiling windows. The Manhattan skyline from inside Manhattan is stunning.

We shot a bunch of photos and after a few minutes, we walked out of the room and we were instantly twisted around. Things has changed since we had been up there in the daylight. A few doors to darkened rooms that had been closed were now open. The path back to the other set of elevators, the ones that go to our floor, was different, or at least looked different. Combine this with the fact that most of the lights were off, so if you looked over to the right or left, all you saw was darkness it started to get a little spooky. We knew we were the only one's up there and that made it worse.

This is when I started shit.

I stared talking about how spooky this whole place was, with its hundreds and hundreds of black and white photos from the 30's, 40', 50's and 60's lining the walls. The downright disturbing ones were the photos of the Starlight Roof taken around 1934 during certain galas, such as New Years Eve, society dinners, etc. All shot with a long exposure so some of the folks faces are blurred and some are looking right at the camera. When you stop and think about how everyone in the photo is now dead, well then in your head, the ghosts appear.

"Shut the fuck up." Martha said as she started to walk faster and faster away from me down a long twisted hallway.

"I'm telling you all I can see are those twins. Come play with us... forever and ever and ever."

"Holly, fucking stop it!"

I was doing the thing with the finger but she didn't look back at me. Honestly, I even scared myself.

The last roll of film I dropped off was free and if I would have know that I would have brought more then one roll. But as it was, they all had just found out that January 4th would be their last day. As we hugged goodbye, there were tears in everyone's eyes. After thirty years in the neighborhood the photo lab that I use for all my custom print work and color developing is closing. No more Spectra. They are the only photo lab I have ever used in New York. I feel slightly untethered from the earth, and no, that is not an exaggeration. The folks at Spectra KNOW me. They KNOW my daughter. They KNOW my work. The same people have worked there forever. The one woman I hand over all my unprocessed color film, negatives for custom work, instructions for custom print work and special requests like, don't cut the film, cross-process, and an occasional fast deadline I have know for seven and a half years. She has worked for Spectra for twenty-two years.

In my studio, I have binders full of negatives that Spectra has processed for me over the years, roughly 400 give or take a hundred, if one is counting.

Oh sure I'll find another place, probably C Lab but that is not the point. Handing someone a roll of film is a trust issue. I trust them not to fuck up by stuff. All the rolls of film I have moved through Spectra, they have only screwed up one print, which was reprinted immediately; two rolls of film that was lost for a day and then found in a different drawer; and once they overcharged me for a contact sheet and that was corrected the every next day. That's it and that is why I would walk out of my way to drop off film and pick up contact sheets no matter where I happened to be in Manhattan.

This comes on the heels of a lot of change in the neighborhood. Little places are gone, lost their leases, or pushed out by bigger fish. What's weird is even the big fish leave. Barnes & Noble is closing, which is kind of like when the Tower Records on Broadway closed. There are mixed feelings about it all. I could buy super cheap books and records at both of those stores, even though I should and do support Other Music, Shakespeare & Co. Booksellers and my personal favorite, St. Mark's Bookshop. But when a big tree falls, it makes everyone wonder what hell will crop up in its place. Astor Wines & Spirits moved from its location and a Walgreens crawled up from the sewer lines, even incorporating the old corner sign.

Yes, yes I know change is good but at what price? Is a Toys R Us better then a Tower Records? That is a tough call isn't it. How about this; is that place that I used to buy vintage purses at of more value then a Fusion Sushi restaurant? Is a used record store better then a candle shop? Does a Chase Bank bring more ethnicity to the neighborhood than the Second Avenue Deli did?

I know I sound like one of those 'old New Yorkers' but deep down I think in my heart I wish that the East Village would, at the very least, try and 'fail better'.

Tripping Out With The Money
I had to take the train home the other day solely because I am out of my goddamn mind.

I was so freaked out about a pending snowstorm that I convinced Martha to let me take the train home instead of riding in the car with her. Yep. My mind is a terrible thing.

See I just cannot seem to behave in the car when there is snowy weather. I know, I know, we live upstate what the fuck did I expect but see, there are different kinds of snowy weather and it is the ice combined with the 'two inches and hour' storms that freak me out.

When the roads start piling up with ice and snow, I become as a wild animal might behave while trapped in a car. Open-mouth hyperventilation and chewing at the windows makes for a stressful drive, to say the least. I could jump from the car.

Knowing all this and unable to talk me down at 7:30 in the morning about a snowstorm that isn't supposed to start for twelve hours, Martha agreed to letting me take the train home. She, the more rational of the two of us, would drive parallel to me on the other side of the Hudson River, meeting me at the train station in Hudson. I'm not quite sure why this woman loves me.

The good thing about the train is that I managed to snag a window seat in business Class while only paying for a coach ticket. Business Class is where the folks who take the two-hour train every day get to hang out. These people can afford to pay $126.00 a day, five days a week, every month all year long. That is roughly $57,960 a year in train costs, allowing for 6-weeks vacation and miscellaneous days of not riding the train. As I sat there among the prime rib of New York's Business Class, I wondered just how much one would have to make in a year for almost 60k not to concern your bottom line. You know, my gross yearly salary is what these suits spend on train travel in the same amount of calendar time. So what I make in a year is of no real concern to them. I am a travel expense, that is probably somehow expensed back to the company they work for.

I noticed that much like in the Coach Class travel these folks have the 'both of these seats are mine' mentality. The guy directly across the isle from me set up his very own travel office. Headquartered in the window seat, with the stunning views of the sun setting over the Hudson River out of his un-smudged with city crap/hair gel window he was in command of his domain. In 'his' adjoining passenger seat, he had pulled down the tray table where he had placed his laptop, (opened to some very important Excel Spreadsheet), and his cell phone which was blinking signals to the Blue Borg earpiece sticking out of his head.

On the front of 'his' passenger seat, and behind the tray table he had hung his suit jacket with a special suit jacket hook, (probably from Sharper Image) and on the floor, he had placed his shoes. I noticed the shoes and strained to look at his feet, (because there is no way I would let my socks touch the floor of an Amtrak train) and I noticed that he had slippers on.

On the passenger seat, he had a large blank yellow legal pad, a few pens, what appeared to be a voice recorder and a stress ball. I think I also saw a stapler but I'm not so sure.

I was able stare at this guy for so long because he had pushed his seat all the way back, his head nestled in a travel pillow; he was reading a small used paperback book. I tried desperately to see what he was reading but was never able to get a good look at it. Plus, I got bored with him once the sun went down and then I became fascinated by the woman in front of him. Wearing the female version of the upper crust business suit she too had her own little thing going on. Complete with opened laptop, various electronic devices and instead of a legal pad, she had The New York Times; she was ready for the all-important workload that might come screaming at her. I watched her inhale a medium size cheese pizza and two chocolate glazed Krispy Kreme Doughnuts before I found myself too sleepy to pay attention anymore.

The drive down and over to see Jasmine now takes about an hour longer since we've moved upstate. What took six hours now takes around seven, depending upon mood levels, traffic and bladder issues. There is that big stretch through the Pocono Mountains where there is not one thing to stop at, and no cell phone service for that matter, so you best have gas and an empty bladder.

Of those seven hours, Martha let me listen to Zeppelin for roughly three and a half of them. Not too bad at all. For me it went by fast, for her, I'm sure that part of the trip was a drag, although she did appreciate listening to the live version of Moby Dick that I have. It's twenty minutes long, so you can see how three hours can go by without too much notice. Hell, you add in a twenty-five minute version of Dazed and Confused with nothing to look at but the endless leaf stripped Pocono Mountains, and well, there you go. I guess I should consider myself lucky that she didn't just veer off a cliff or something.

Big excitement along the way when we were caught in a rainstorm and an orange leaf the color of my hair became stuck in the windshield wiper on Martha's side. This was right after I had put Zeppelin away.

"Oh why does this leaf torment me so?" she articulated.
"It's either me or an orange colored leaf, right?" I laughed.

On this trip, I brought five cameras with me. I know that sounds like I'm preparing for a massive photo shoot, but what I wanted to do was actually use different cameras for each roll of film. So I brought three different speeds of Polaroid, 600 Polaroid for the One-Shot, 400 black and white for the Lubital, 127 film for the Brownie, and 200 slide film for the Holga. I spent more time packing the camera bag then I did for all the other shit that you are supposed to bring on a trip. I even brought the tripod, both of them, the small one and the big professional one. But I forgot the ball, and a bunch of other little things that we could have thrown in the car.

I'm glad I brought the tripod. The thing is always a drag to lug around and I'm trying to force myself to shoot different things. Martha and I did a little night shooting with some slow speed film. Nothing like standing in front of a church in the middle of nowhere for five minutes, with nothing but the full moon and the light of an giant glowing cross illuminating the frozen ground around you.

Five minutes is a really long time to loiter on God's land and when you factor in that the preacher lived next to the church in a trailer, it was only a matter of time before I saw him in there looking out at me through his hunter motif curtains.

I did have someone in a truck drive up next to me and ask me what I was doing. When I told him that I was taking a picture of the church, he spun out on the gravel road around me. Dick.

I think that I did more shooting then spending time with Jasmine. Thursday was fun, but we didn't get to her apartment until almost three, and by six o'clock we were all dead tired after a big dinner and all that Guitar Hero activity. Jasmine and Martha have started a new band called The KittiLitta. They rock.

Friday, Jasmine had to work, yes that is right, she had to work on Black Friday. She said that when she got to work a 5am there was a line all around her building. When they opened the doors, people came streaming in like sand. All five registers were open and never stopped ringing shit up throughout her nine-hour shift. By 11:00am, the store had made $80,000. More proof that everyone is out of their goddamn minds. In a town of roughly 15,000 people, where the largest employer is the University, (the second being an oil and gas drilling company) that is literally a twelve pack of yellow Stickie™ Notes for every man, woman and child who lives there.

So by the time I saw Jasmine that afternoon she was delirious. Poor thing, she does look cute in her Staples uniform however. We were supposed to have dinner with some friends of hers at 6:30 but she didn't think she could stay awake that long. So we went to Eat'n Park and had dinner with the blue-haired crowd.

As we were eating our dinner Jasmine was telling a few work stories. She said that every Sunday morning at Staples it is like Dawn of the Dead out in the parking lot. People just stand out there and wait for the white logo light to come on, letting them know the store is open. She said she can see them waiting out there, every now and then someone will walk up to the glass door and look in.

As she was telling us this story, I thought about how brainless we all must seem to her generation. I mean really, what is so fucking important in our lives that we need to wait for the Staples store to open on a Sunday morning? Just what the hell are we working on and more importantly, why? Sure I may say that all of her friends are a bunch of 'tards, but upon hearing her talk about people my age acting like PowerPoint idiots, well I think it might be a draw as to who is the most ridiculous.

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream
To kill time on Friday until Jasmine was off work, Martha and I drove around the backwoods of Pennsyltucky taking photos. Our destination was the Torrance State Mental Hospital outside of Blairsville. Jazz had recommended that it might be an interesting place to shoot because one of the buildings was abandoned. Finally after driving around every little god fearing, meth lab town in the area we found the hospital.

Once on the grounds of Torrance's extremely large campus, no one asked us what we were doing, were we were going or why we had cameras, which after driving around for about 30 minutes, getting out if the car and setting up the small tripod you would think some security would have come around.

Built in 1919, the campus is quite large, almost Ivy League large as it does have a university feel to it. School or nuthouse, it's all the same thing really. Anyway, in the hospitals heyday the buildings housed between 3,000 - 4,000 patients. That's a whole lot of crazy locked up there on that mountain.

At the edge of the campus stood a large building that was in the process of being gutted. The windows had all been pulled out and one could see clearly into the empty rooms with cream-colored wall tiles. Easy, wipe-down walls, Martha called them. The building had fencing around it and was obviously the one Jazz had been talking about. I can see how the kids would sneak up the back and crawl in at night to scare the shit out of each other.

As we drove around the campus, we noticed that the majority of the buildings were abandon. Something Jasmine had not mentioned. It appeared as though the current working part of the hospital is only using about 30% of the buildings. Driving around gave us a bigger sense of just how frightening the whole thing was.

We saw four massive U-shaped buildings that were totally vacant. This is where the general population was probably housed. We could see inside the windows and it appeared to be the standard open psychiatric ward layout. One big warehouse type room on either side with the main door to the building in the lower part of the U.

Around the back is where we found the building where the current residents are housed. About three hundred or so patients currently live behind a razor wired electric fence at Torrance. Out of their windows, they have a view of the four larger abandon buildings and not much else. This is where you go if you are criminally insane, committed rape or have a major drug problem. As if any of these things are even related or should coexist with each other. Each one of these 'batshit crazy problems' should have their own building. Not all shoved into one space together where they could trade stories. Granted they probably are not in one room together, but I'm sure there is some small group interaction going on.

In the timeline of mental illnesses' there certainly were worse times to be locked up in a nuthouse but given that stuff like what John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner of John Hopkins University were doing with a baby named Albert B in 1920 and a little piece of magic called Behavior Modification, I can only imagine what the hell was going on in the psychiatric wards up at Torrance in 1919.

John and Rosalie (those wacky adulterous scientists) made an 11-month-old child terrified of a pet rat (and all things with fur) by clanging a steel bar behind him every time he saw the animal. Great stuff and a truly fascinating clinical read. But the John Hopkins 2000 magazine article is even better.

XM Radio has a new channel called XM LED. It's an all Led Zeppelin station. Seeing how I only go into work one day a week now, the odds of me knowing about this station were pretty slim. I'm hardly ever in the car and it's not like Martha listens to things like guitar-driven heavy metal sludge, unless of course, I'm forcing her to.

So last Thursday, while waiting on Martha, who was in CVS buying a battery for her business calculator, I was in the car stumbling along through the XM radio offerings when I hit upon a channel that said XM LED on the top. They were playing Good Times Bad Times. 'I wonder if this is a Zeppelin channel?' I said aloud to no one but the Prius.

Another Zeppelin song came on and I clapped my hands together like the true idiotic fourteen-year-old girl that I am. Now I had to figure out how to convince Martha to let me play the station for a little while on the way home. She likes to listen to tinny talk radio so this might be a rough sell.

She comes out of CVS and opens the car door as I am blasting The Crunge.

"So check this out! It's an all Led Zeppelin station!" I had obviously decided to just go for it.
Martha turned the volume down just a tad and said nothing as she fidgeted with her coat, the seat and her knee pillow.

"How about we just listen to it for a little while and if they play Stairway we're out." I negotiated.
She smiled and said, "What ever you want, poo."
Translated means, I'm not happy but this makes you happy, however do not make me any unhappier. If I develop into unhappier, you're out.

Despite pulling straight out into gridlock traffic on the highway, once we got moving we ended up listening to it the whole way home. They never played Stairway to Heaven, (nor any bootleg stuff either, but that is my issue) and as I pointed out to Martha, Zeppelin is great driving music, especially on a cold and clear star filled night.

The next day at work, Martha and I were IM'ing each other when Martha wrote that she could go another twenty-years without hearing Zeppelin again. Well, I guess twenty-years is really only a nine-hour work day long because that night on the ride home, she called me from the road just to let me hear that she is blasting Celebration Day.

Whatever Gives You Hope
Martha and I will be making the seven-hour drive to Jasmine's hippy den for Thanksgiving. Hmm, I wonder if we can listen to a little Zeppelin along the way?

Anyway, Jasmine doesn't like turkey or ham so I have to make filet mignon. She's been this way for years and I blame her step-mom. It has to be that woman's dried out birds that made Jasmine revolt. The child always hoovered my turkey, stuffing, gravy, biscuits and beans but that all changed once she got a few holidays in her with the other family. I never made ham so the ham thing is totally coming from them. An odd note here is that she will eat ham sandwiches. At any rate, now she won't eat anything resembling holiday food so we usually have a nice filet, spinach soufflé, salad and homemade pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pie seems to have made it though the emotional wreckage of it all.

Another great email from Jasmine follows. They are pretty priceless, and I would go so far to say that they are her generations version of the pretty picture drawing. Totally refrigerator material. While this one is not as good as the "Can I have a $1,000 for my birthday?", that one is pure gold but the one below is still fun.

You know the drill, this is a cut and paste job here, so spelling, lack of punctuation and general sentence structure are all signature Jazz.

From: jasmine northrop
Date: Nov 15, 2007 2:25 AM
Subject: hi there
To: martha

so i was going over my check book and my account and things dont add up. i am going to need you to help me when you come. i think i figured it out, but i would still like to sit down with you and see what i am doing wrong.

second, i had to get gas today because i was sucking fumes. i had to dip into the reserve money, so i was wondering with this weekend trip to pgh, if you could put in $150 for me. i am getting paid this friday, but i have a hair appointment and with all of the bs with my bank account, all of the money i saved was eanten up. plus i had to get birth control and it was $35, which i didnt expect. with all of that, i am going to have no money for pgh or the up coming week. I wouldnt go to pgh, but weber's family invited me down to celebrate weber's bday with them. i wouldnt get my hair fixed, but it is in desperate need for something to happen to it. it would be greatly appreciated. i havent gotten that many more hours at work, but since it is the holidays, they are going to bump me up because everyone is going on vacation. so things will be better in a week or two.

i am in class from 1230 to 2pm, so if you want to yell at me, dont call then.

thank you soooooo much.
love you, jasmine

Yep. Well at least she's on birth control.

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

'I'm going to put you in the puffer." He said.
"The what? A puffer? No." I pulled away.
"Yes. You're going in 'The Puffer'." He demanded. Honestly, he could have been just a tad nicer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jasmine and her friend Weber rode for over thirteen hours on an overcrowded Greyhound bus across the state of Pennsylvania, through the bowels of Jersey and directly into NYC's Port Authority on Friday night. They arrived at the edge of Times Square after ten o'clock, hailed a cab and made it to Brooklyn by 11:00, where they were staying with a co-worker and friend of mine in his semi-roach invested (he tries relentlessly to deal but it's the whole building) one-bedroom apartment in the bad part of Brooklyn. You know that area where the trust funded yuppie pups are afraid to live in because it is more Bushwick instead of Williamsburg. It's the part of Brooklyn where his own neighbors call him "white boy" as a term of street endearment, with a slight hint of menace just for shits and giggles.

Saturday morning, Jazz and Weber got up early and headed out for their big day of NYC and the Siren Music Festival. This is one of the main reasons they came here. But first, they had to get on a bus to the subway, MTA is forever fucking with the subway over there and the L Train shuts down on the weekends, so you have to take a bus to the subway.

Once back in Manhattan, Jazz and Weber had lunch at the super model café;, where indeed the people are beyond beautiful. After a few more errands and a quick trip to Times Square and then a stop on Prince Street for a knock-off designer purse, they hopped on the good old F Train to Coney Island. In the five hours that they were at Coney Island, they saw some great music; (Detroit Cobras and M.I.A) from the comfort of the VIP area; road the Wonder Wheel; drank at the backstage open bar; and of course, got a little too much sun. They left before the New York Dolls came on and I completely understand this decision. If you end up staying at Siren to see the last band then you end up waiting for hours to get on a subway. Add that to the hour subway ride back to Manhattan and well, even Jasmine understands that is just too much to put up with.

Jazz and Weber, rode the train back to Union Square where they bought dinner at Whole Foods and ate in the park. After dinner, they jumped back on the L Train, rode that for five or six stops, got off the train and then got on a city bus with everyone else from the subway, and rode that for six or seven stops until finally, they were back at my friends apartment. She called me just before midnight to let me know she was safe. Jasmine had had a fifteen-hour day.

Sunday morning, she and Weber packed up their bags and were waiting for the subway bus by 7:30 am. She took the bus to the L Train, transferred to the E Train and got off at Penn Station where they boarded an Amtrak train for a two-hour train ride to Hudson.

To hang in Jasmines other world must seem like a visit to a foreign country to her friends in PA. This trip alone was the first time her friend Weber had ever been on a Greyhound bus; been to NYC without field trip supervision; been backstage at anything, let alone a massive rock festival or the first time she had ever been on an Amtrak train. Then there is the whole, hanging with Martha and me and all of our well-established middle-age lesbian lifestyle with talks of cats, yoga, the new Prius and chronic back pain.

Martha is having a few issues around letting go. I need to remind her that she managed to sell my Jeep Wrangler, a vehicle I actually really liked until it was stolen and left stripped and foul in an abandon lot in south Newark. Once they fixed it, it did look just like new, the thing just never felt right and the love was gone. Anyway, Martha managed to sell my car, without my signature and buy the Jeep Liberty. She went to work one day in my Jeep and came home with the Liberty. So now, she has to give it up and sometimes, Ms Harvey is only five.

After a long lesson in the Jeep ownership and the newly installed Satellite radio, all four of us went to the Diamond Street Diner for some lunch.

Lots of hugs and photos later there was a ceremonial passing of the keys to Jasmine that looked similar to a knighthood. We went for a test drive to the store for road munchies, then a lesson in gas fill up. Maps and directions, the 'do not drink and drive' talk, oil changes, gas prices, thoughts on keeping it clean and the wearing of seatbelts. I gave Jazz all of my cash and a small drug supply to be used in case of future mental breakdown, magazines, a book, Siren swag and a sleeping bag.

Stories upon stories unfolded and laughter was everywhere but then before I knew it we were driving to the Park-N-Ride for hugs and kisses. Jasmine got back in the Jeep and drove away while I hugged Martha telling her how proud I was of her for letting go of her Jeep.

"That was hard. I deserve a cookie." She said.

I miss Jasmine and four hours is not even close to being long enough time to spend with her. Yes, that was hard, I thought. Happy Birthday, Peanut.

Oh and yeah, one more thing, Jasmine Rai Northrop has a nose ring.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ah man, fuck this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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