Author: Stacy Horn

I’m reading a book called The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain and it’s good news for us middle-agers. I just finished a section about one of the biggest and longest studies of the brain.

“In four of the six categories tested–vocabulary, verbal memory, spatial orientation and … inductive reasoning–people performed best, on average, between the ages of forty to sixty-five.”

Of course one big one that young people did the best on, and it is a big one, was processing speed. But speed isn’t everything. Needless to say, the results are causing science to take a new look at the midlife brain. This and that study that says we start to get happier at 50.

This is a fountain you walk through. Water is cascading around that glass circle. I tried to take a shot from within, but it didn’t really convey it. It was pretty nice.

My choir is having an all-day retreat today to work intensely on the pieces we’re going to perform this season. I’m a little nervous because I’ve asked our director to let everyone know I’m writing a book about the choir and that I want to talk to anyone who wants to talk to me about singing.

I don’t know why I’m nervous. It’s not like they’re going to stone me. I think I’m scared because there’s a nine year old kid inside of me who is afraid someone is going to say, “Oh yeah? What makes you think you’re the best person to write this book??”

This guy was across the street when I was at the bank yesterday.

Glasses Update: When I brought back my new progressives to have them adjusted, I also brought along a music score to illustrate the problem, and an old pair of frames in case I decided to go with old-fashioned bifocals. The result?

$235 for new glasses with progressive frames.
$80 to have FT-35 lenses put in my old frames.
$?? when I decide to replace the progressive lenses with regular distance lenses.
———
$315 +

Bottom line: I could have spent only $80. But I love the new frames, and I absolutely adore the people who work at Optical 88, 116 Mott Street. They didn’t try to talk me into anything, by the way. I wanted those new frames, and it was all my friends told me to try the progressives. This place was a steal, and the people were wonderful.

This is walking down Broadway, always a mixed-bag for me. I love how over the top it is and I enjoy looking around, but I’m a terror on the sidewalk.

People simply will not progress down the sidewalk the way I would like to them to.

A line. I just remembered I wanted to a series of photographs of people on lines. This was a really incredible one. Long and un-moving.

There was another photo shoot on my block yesterday. (The model is the one on the right.) They should have gone one more block west. One block east is the Sex and the City block, which is gorgeous, but one block west has some interesting details. It has an almost gothic/Edward Gorey feel in spots and nature has gone a little wild over there.

I picked up my progressive lenses yesterday and I have to take them back to fix something. AND, in addition, I think I need to get a pair of the old fashioned bifocals where you can see the line. I bought these specifically for choir, and the area for reading in these is too small—I have to read a lot of music quickly during rehearsals and performances. The old fashioned bifocals have a larger reading area.

Sigh. I think I’m going to start having a regular feature called: You Can’t Win.

Having forced me to move my laptop off the desk and onto my lap, and to put my coffee way off the left, making it difficult to reach but safe from being knocked over, Finney can rest and clean himself, the sunlight spot now safely secured. A most evil job well done.