So let me just point out something. This guy, the jackass on the left, is a total (and I mead TOTAL) tool.

Moving on, or is it backwards? Not sure.

When you write about Ohio, Ohio writes back. Although not in direct response to what I wrote last week but more like some cosmic black hole of southern Ohio strangeness.

I got an email from an old friend from a long fucking time ago. What do you say to someone to whom you haven't had a conversation with (almost to the day) in twenty-four years?

"Hey, what's up?" Seems way too open-ended but in a way we all kind of want a sum up. A fifty-point events outline of our lives, minus all the heartache, long-winded explanations and balls out exaggerations.

Like this:

1. Graduated College
2. Moved to Ohio
3. Got Married
4. Got a Cat
5. Moved to Denver
6. Had a Baby
7. Got a Job
8. Laid Off
9. Stopped Driving
10. Got Another Job
11. Quit Job
12. Moved back to Pittsburgh
13. Got Another Job
14. Started a Magazine
15. Cat Died
16. Started Showing Photography
17. Laid Off
18. Got Another Cat
19. Moved in With Martha
20. Got Another Cat
21. Moved to DC
22. Got a Divorce
23. Got Another Job
24. Lived in Misery
25. Quit Job
26. Moved back to Pittsburgh
27. Got Another Job
28. Bought First Car
29. Started Driving
30. Moved to Butler
31. Got Another Cat
32. Got Another Job
33. Bought a House
34. Moved back to Pittsburgh
35. Father Died
36. Transferred to New York City
37. Stopped Driving
38. Sold House
39. Moved to New Jersey
40. Laid Off
41. Got Another Job
42. First Car Stolen
43. Daughter Got Cancer
44. Daughter Sent to College
45. Cat Died
46. Mother Died
47. Got Real Sick
48. Bought another House
49. Moved to Upstate New York
50. Laid Off

See then one can weave in-between the numbers all the emotional reactions that one would assume happened but not necessarily what did happen. Example, #44. Daughter Sent to College, does not mean that there was that sadness, empty nest thing. Hardly. But if I just put it on a list, anybody can assume anything they want and most people, would think the nicer things.

Another example is that I was more upset when my cat died then when my mother died. Odd? Why yes. Not normal at all, but you know, that is just the way it was. And five years later that's still kind of the way it is. What upsets me about my mother has more to do with what life was like with her, instead of actual death. My cat's death was just wretchedly sad.

But #43 Daughter Got Cancer is exactly as fucked up as sounds.

The nuts and bolts of a list like that is without knowing who we are; which after a twenty-four year absence how could you possibly know anything about anyone; our lives are nothing more than a series of events. I was here at this time and did this. Period.

It means nothing, it's not ever going to mean anything and when I'm dead, it will just be some weird chick's list.

Don't get me wrong. It was very cool to hear from him and for several days I found myself lost in memories. It's just that when something like that happens it really brings this whole time flies thing home. I guess you could say I'm in a creepy mood but I'm good. Seriously, it's all good. Or at least I'm comfortable with it all.

But how can you even explain the happiness that something like this can bring to a list.

Or this, which is downright awesome. Where do I put that on the list. Maybe between, #12 & 13 I suppose.

So for now, I don't want to think about my list. I'd rather be forcibly diverted given that we are all witnessing the end of the economic world. I think we could all use some evaporation into a healthy dose of Cosmic Slop, where things are not so fucking wicked.

My father was a racist. Not just any old racist but an equal opportunity bigot. One-half Scotch-Irish and one-half German, (a heredity bastardation worth noting) he was raised in deplorable poverty. He grew into a hateful man that used every racial slur imaginable for anyone different then himself. Odd for someone who was a college graduate.

I grew up in a primarily white suburban middle class neighborhood in the southwestern tip of Ohio, on the Kentucky and Indiana borders. My father wasn't the only racist I knew, not by a long shot, but he was the one racist I had an everyday interaction with. Every national incident from 1966 to 1980 I witnessed living in the house of a racist.

Every local event from 1970 to 1980 was open for criticism; our Jewish neighbors to the right who then became our Japanese neighbors proved to my father that the house was cursed. Our backyard neighbors from India bothered him for unknown reasons. Then in what was the final straw, a black family moved into the neighborhood two doors down, 'lowering the property value'.

My one and only black friend (with whom I used smoke shit loads of pot, skip school, and go to the art museum with), was never allowed to drive in my neighborhood. He would have been pulled over by a white cop friend of my fathers. He had to drop me off two streets over from my house because the one time my mother saw me get out of his car she physically attacked me the second I walked in the door. As she hit me, she screamed "nigger lover" repeatedly. When my father came home, he said I was filthy and didn't talk to me for a week. I was 15.

My high school was mixed in a very different way. Half the kids were from rich upper middle class families and the other half came from severely poor white homes. I had one friend whose family was so poor that they lived in a motel room down the street from the school.

But my parents had found a neck of the United States where they could have it all; racism and southern white elitists. My father made a great living in Cincinnati as a senior vice president and trust officer of a national bank. He never, not once associated with anyone other than those like himself. All he ever saw was a true mirror reflection of his core values.

Ignorance is taught, no doubt, but it also takes a belief in yourself and a willingness to walk away from all that you know in order to rise above the cesspool of hate. It's easy to be a bigot. It's real easy. It's harder to walk away. Why I am not a product of that environment is because it fundamentally freaked me out. I left Ohio in the spring of 1980. I've been back only a handful of times. At first, it was to see a few friends and then in the past fifteen years it has been only twice. Once when my father died and once when my mother died. There are many reasons I've never wanted to go back and they didn't all have to do with my parents.

When I was growing up, the "black folk" lived on the Westside of town in an area call 'Over-the-Rhine' a once thriving German part of town. But much like what happened to The Bronx, someone had a great idea to build a major highway through it, cutting the area off from downtown. The rich Germans moved out, white poverty moved in. When the blue-collar jobs left, black poverty rummaged through what remained and made a home.

By the mid 70's life in 'Over-the-Rhine' was much like any African-American part of a racist city. Fucking horrible.

Over the years, clearly Cincinnati grew into a racial ball of hate. The first nationally recognized bigotry came from a gal named Marge Schott. I'm sure you've heard the name, now here's the highlight reel.

In the late 90's Marge Schott was the former owner of The Reds, who much like my father, was an equal opportunity bigot. African-Americans, Jews, the Japanese and gay people were always on her hate list. It wasn't even a hatred, so much as a totally lack of understanding as to why these people even existed. The only break from my dad's creed was that Marge sympathized with Adolf Hitler. My father was a WWII vet, so that ruled out the Nazi party.

The best sum up of Marge comes from Wikipedia, (citations included)

Charles "Cal" Levy a Jew, and former marketing director for the Reds, stated that he'd heard Schott refer to then-Reds outfielders Eric Davis and Dave Parker as "million-dollar niggers." [2]

...Levy also alleged that Schott kept an old Nazi swastika armband at her home and claims he overheard her say "sneaky goddamn Jews are all alike."[3] The next day, Schott issued a statement saying the claims of racism levied against her were overstated and that she didn't mean to offend anyone with her statement or her ownership of the armband. On November 29, Schott said the "million dollar niggers" comment was made in jest, but then stated that she felt that Adolf Hitler was initially good for Germany and didn't understand how the epithet "Jap" could be offensive.

During the same season, a former Oakland Athletics executive assistant, Sharon Jones, is quoted in the New York Times as having overheard Schott state: "I would never hire another nigger. I'd rather have a trained monkey working for me than a nigger," before the start of an owners' conference call.[4]

[2] Bookkeeper' started it all
[3] http://reds.enquirer.com/1998/10/102598sabo.html
[4] topics.nytimes.com

Stepping back from that, lets move forward, shall we?

After decades of racial profiling African-Americans, false arrests, suspicious police activities and a general good old boy civil servant network of corruption, finally in 2001 the city erupted into a race riot after a white cop shot an unarmed black man as he ran from the police. For three days, the city went nuts and it was all televised for the nation to see.

I hate telling people I grew up there.

Now, as I attempt to get my head around this, Cincinnati has helped elect an African-American for president. 52% of the people in Hamilton county voted for Obama. 52%! I NEVER thought I would see this day. Never, ever, never ever, ever. Ever.

Physically one would have to drive almost an hour north to find another county in Ohio that voted Democrat (Montgomery county in Dayton) or two-hours east (Athens county in god-awful-nowhere), where Ohio University is located near the West Virginia border.

Ohio voted blue in all the major metropolitan areas; Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, Akron, Cleveland and Toledo. The rest of the cornfields are red and my guess probably pretty pissed.

In a state where one out of every ten homes has a black lawn jockey and small town fire halls still fly the confederate flag along side Old Glory, racism in Ohio is far, far from over. BUT for this one moment in time, the state that fucked up the election in 2004, turned blue.

When Obama was giving his acceptance speech, I thought of my father. It would be easy for me to shrug it off and assume that he would have snorted out some racial slur about the country is going to hell in a hand basket, but I wonder. Since we are influenced by those around us, and given the obvious evidence that something has changed in Hamilton county, maybe my dad would have lightened up and inch or so.

But then I remember that I never did. I have never lightened up, and in fact, I have become more intolerant of narrow-mindedness as the years pass by. I'm a forty-five-year-old lesbian and I would like to be able to marry my partner in the state that I live in. I demand partner benefits, social security benefits, inheritance and any and all 'perks' that straight folks get.

I am a liberal who has had one massive headache for eight years. I am an American who watched the towers fall and then proceeded to be repeatedly embarrassed of my country and for my country.

I am a woman who on average makes less money then my male counterparts. Sometimes, a lot less. I've watched Republicans 'tolerate' me and have kept my mouth shut to avoid physical altercations. I cried when the towers fell, I cried when we went to war, I cried when Bush won in 2004. I've been basically upset for eight years.

But on November 4th 2008 as I sat on the couch hovering Oreos with Martha, I watched through tears as this country elected a Democratic African-American as their President. I'll be damned.

Three shots of morphine later I asked for the Percocet well before any of the morphine had even begun to wear off. All I said was that I was crampy and they offered it up. Who am I to refuse? It was such an automatic response. Do you want a Percocet? Why yes, thank you. Do you want some air to breathe? But of course. In my head, it's that easy no matter how wasted I already am.

It didn't matter that I couldn't feel the leg things they put on you after surgery. I didn't even know they were there until an hour later when I noticed that my legs were sweating and I pulled back the sheets to see why.

"Wow, what's on my legs?" I managed to slur out of my mouth.
"Those are those compression stockings they put on you so you don't get blood clots." Martha sighed.
"I'm hot, take them off." I said sounding like a fussy five year old.
"You're a junkie, I swear to god. Why don't you sit up, you look ashen. Let's TRY to get it together so we can go. I want to go home." Martha pressed.

Even though I was moving at a snails pace, I did understand her point. We had been at the hospital for four hours, the last three of which I had been happily fucked up, Martha, not so much. I just had trouble getting my body to work. I barely remember her dragging me down the hall. I sort of remember waving at the nurses station. I have a vague memory of waiting in front of the hospital for her to pull the car around and I think it was raining but after that...

Some clarification is needed here. I am not a junkie, nor am I a drug seeker, as they are sometimes called. I do not loiter around the hospital waiting for a chance to be fucked up. I look at it this way. I am not going to pass up the opportunity for a good buzz and I mean really, if someone is going to scrape my uterus then the least they can do is fuck me up for the day. Right? I didn't get a drug doggie bag so really, all I had was what I could eat there.

The new calendar is here!!! It's supercool, on different glossy stock and $50.00 bucks a pop BUT here is the deal. If you break it down, wait let me get the Sharp Solar Powered Calculator...

Okay, if you break it down $50.00 ÷ 13 (that is right folks 13 months not just 12 but 13!). Where was I? Right $50.00 ÷ 13 = $3.85 a photo, a month. What a deal! I know it is like the death of our evil consumer ways but you gotta have something to look at all year long. You need somewhere to write down all those interview dates and doctors appointments. Think of the spooky black and white pleasure my little calendar could bring you for over a whole year. That is 395 days (remember, 13 months) of happiness, or 0.13 cents a day people!

So Tuesday, right, voting. Jesus Christ, I'm scared.

On Tuesday, I'll be over at the American Legion Hall, (a stronghold of the republican party for sure), working the polls;

(No Jasmine slow down and reread the sentence. I did not write that I was working the pole.)

Side note: That reminds me of a moment at my fathers weirdo funeral when the creepy Mason's were standing in front of his open coffin reciting their weirdo Masonic Funeral Service, specifically the part where the 'Master reads the Sacred Roll'. He said, "Wayne Schneider was a Master Mason." Jasmine thought he said Wayne Schneider was a Masturbator.

Only an advanced stage of Alzheimer's is going to make me forget that.

Good lord, anyway.

I volunteered to work the polling place for three hours on Tuesday. I am a poll watcher. I have to write down the name and party of each registered voter. I'm not supposed to talk to anyone, chat with voters or use my cell phone. Sounds perfect.

I must say I'd feel a tad better about our political process if there weren't four typos on the instruction sheet. Oh sure, I have typos out the ass but I'm not trying to make sure the presidential election voting process works seamlessly.

Later on election evening, we are having (gasp) friends over to hang out (bigger gasp) to watch the results. We are all going to be either very happy or very sad. One way will be joy and happiness and the other, according to Martha, will end with her sobbing uncontrollably in the fetal position in a dark closet.

I'd rather the neighbors not see that, but hey, that's part of the charm in getting to know us.

The Masterpiece

Cloud Walking

With the fall colors in full bloom all around upstate New York, even the blackest hearted, black and white photographer feels the pull to break out the Ektachrome 200 color slide film and go shoot a tree with some water around it. Nature is just screaming at you to look at it.

So this Saturday I have two openings. Both are within the same block of each other in Hudson. One is A Show of Heads at the Limner and the other is a Hidden Hudson show at The Deffebach Gallery. At The Limner, I'm showing a photo of a floating head and at The Deffebach Gallery I'm showing three Polaroid's.

I have one more medical thing to get through this week and hopefully, (for fucks sake) I'll be done. Pretty much every week for about two and a half months I've had some doctor up my ass for various things. It's awesome. It's so extreme that even my therapist interjected last week that in all fairness this is too much and it is no wonder I'm a jumpy mess. Everyone thinks I'm overly dramatic until they hang out with me for a year or so.

Since the end of July when I ended up in the ER, I've had an X-Ray of my lungs; a CT scan of my lungs; several freckles burned off my arms and face; a pap smear; an internal sonogram (super fun); a mammogram and massive amounts of blood and urine work. The icing on the fuck-with-me-cake is a D&C this week. Fantastic. Thank GOD I have insurance.

In my head, I've had every known cancer that corresponds to whatever organ they are testing. Not only am I driving myself nuts, (that's a given) just imagine what I'm doing to Martha and Jasmine, when they'll listen to me.

It's all I can really think about, well that and the election and the deep dark cloud of doom that will cover the globe if McPain wins; our nation's/world's economy; thousands of layoffs in New York/world, and the weekly hemorrhaging of money from our nation's/world's existence and our own personal lives.

It's like we're racing our GMC Yukon down a highway that dead ends in 1000 yards. We can't seem to stop flicking Benjamin's and lit cigarettes out the window every two seconds and laughing our asses off while ACDC blasts from our iPod car integration systems.

So disappointing.

Right, so to spare "all ya all", this weeks post is short.

The Guts of the Cheyenne

Roadblock

Woman with Purse

Girl with Cell Phone

Woman with Fur Hat

Two Business Men in Times Square

Aside from trying everyday not to freak out about something, things are...well now, who am I kidding, things around here are a little jumpy. I wake up jumpy and so the fuck what. So what if I have too much anxiety, who the hell doesn't at his point in the game? These are frightening times. As I've been saying to Martha, "I'm sick to death of seeing horrible shit happen that has never happened before."

At least my unemployment benefits have been extended. Extended until I get another job? Probably not. The good thing about being unemployed, (aside from the obvious) is that by this year's end I will have been in ten shows. That is the most ever and I think. Too bad it's a crap time to buy art, let alone an unknown artist but still. I did manage to sell one print! It's not like I've been sitting on my ass. I actually think that is impossible for me to do. I'm too squirrely and my project list is endless.

I am almost finished with next year's calendar. Every year around this time, I notice that the calendar I'm working on is way better than the last one. I suppose that is good; that whole thing about my work evolving and all. The idea that whatever I am working on is much more interesting than what I've done, keeps the fires burning, I guess is what they say.

Martha was in San Diego California all last week for a solar convention and I was home alone, avoiding the sun and waiting for dark. It didn't take but a day before I reverted back to my old weird self by staying up until after 2:00 and then waking up at 7am. I thought the meds were going to stop that but much like a runaway truck, sometimes only a sand ramp will stop me.

The show that I'm in during November is going to be awesome. I love showing at this gallery because Tim is not only a great artist, but he is a great curator. The show is called; A Show of Heads and the link is here.

Sometime over the past two weeks or so, our next-door neighbor has taken the air conditioner out of her window and now, she is leaving her magenta curtains open. The problem with this new, fuchsia view of her life is that she has a medical bed, complete with metal side rails up against the window. I know she is taking care of her father-in-law and yes, he deserves to see the outside world but in the two years we have lived up here, I do not remember this window being open. The man is mobile and does not spend the day in bed. I have to say that it is a little bothersome every time I walk out of our house and smack right there is a medical bed. It makes me think of two things that, much like bookends, are very related.

The immediate memory I have is when I was a kid, my little twin-sized bed had rails on the sides so that I wouldn't fall out of bed. I was a roller and I used to fall out all the time, almost every night. After about two weeks of middle-of-the-night incidents, my parents put up rails so they could get some sleep and, in an added bonus, I wouldn't break my neck.

The second thought I have is how I am probably going to end my final days in a bed with side rails. The whole inevitability of it all is a sobering way to start the outside part of any day.

She needs to move him back to the other room he was in, or maybe a nice room with a view of the meadow behind all of our houses. I'm sure he doesn't want to stare at the side of our house all damn day. All summer long, he used to sit on the porch every day, all day and watch the people go by. He always let us know if someone dropped a package off at our house and one time, he told us that he noticed a 'dark man walking around in our yard.' (It was a delivery guy looking for the side entrance.)

My guess is that neither one of us are happy about this. It's not like I can go over there and say to her, "Hey neighbor! So yeah, I'm a self-centered asshole and your father-in-law's medical bed bothers me, can you move it?" I'm sure her father-in-law's medical bed bothers her too.

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Morning on the Hudson

Fingers

Her Hands

10 Minute Break (Work Series)

Travel (Work Series)