Author: Stacy Horn

You know, I don’t really have a lot of demands, I don’t have children, but I’m starting to accept that no one is immune, holidays are just plain stressful. Period.  

The Holidays to Us: We’re here, we’re going to make you jumpy and worried and occasionally depressed, get used to it. Oh, and mwah-ha-ha.

I’m home working, and getting things done. I sent a couple of chapters from my book to someone I want to interview, and he liked them! I should be in a great mood.  And I am, but my mood can and does change, like that, with very little prompting.

I meditated, went to the gym, ate healthy food.  Now I’m listening to holiday music, which I love.    Vivaldi’s Gloria is playing right now, before that the Snoopy Christmas song—what better holiday song is there than that?Palestrina is on now!!

So are those struts (is that the right word) the only thing holding that building up?  That can’t be, right? Maybe the bricks are unstable or something.  Where was that? Broadway maybe, downtown definitely.  Pretty building.  I want those floor to ceiling arched windows.

Tuesday night is choir rehearsal, Thursday night is the dress rehearsal, Friday night is a concert and Saturday afternoon is a concert.  Music heaven!  I love the music John Maclay (our director) picks. I mark my favorite parts in all the pieces with asterisks so I know where they are and I can be fully ready to savor them. I’m so glad I thought of joining a choir all those years ago.

I took this picture outside the restaurant Chanterelle, on my way down to the Municipal Archives.  I liked how they hung chandeliers out front, amidst all the construction.

At the Archives, I found the marriage certificate of my great grandparents, Peter Horn and Annie Prince.  They got married in Brooklyn on Christmas Eve in 1893.  Isn’t that sweet?  I also noticed that she lied about her age. She was three years older than her husband, but on the certificate she says they’re the same age.  I find that a lot.

I also found nothing but mystery trying to find out more about my maternal grandfather, Walter Armstrong, who was adopted. He was 15 years old when his adoptive parents were married, so he had to have been at least that old when he was adopted, presuming they didn’t adopt him before they were married.  His brother, also adopted, was 8 when they married.  I know nothing about that brother, even though he was alive until 1993 and living in Queens.  I never met him.  

I found all sorts of other weirdness, but this is probably boring unless it’s your ancestors too. Families are weird.  I’m guessing there was all sorts of cheating going on, maybe a Romeo and Juliet kind of thing with either interracial or interfaith elements.  Who knows?  Unfortunately, that line of my family is one big black hole.

Should I plan a book party? There was a time when the book publisher threw a book party for you, and I’m guessing for some authors they still do, but for the most part this is a thing of the past. If you want a party you have to throw it yourself, which means you have to spend the $$$. I’m planning a few events to launch the book, but not a party per se, although I was thinking I might have a cocktail party after whichever event ends up happening. (I don’t want to say what the events are until I know which one is happening.)

It’s just that planning such a party is so anxiety producing for me.  Finding a place.  What will I wear?  I hate shopping and finding the right dress might mean going to a billion places over weeks.  It took forever to find the Agnes B. dress I wore to my last book party above.  And that’s the dress that is now at the St. Luke’s Thrift Shop. Will anyone come? Always a big fear of mine.

Oh it’s just endless.  I’d love to skip it.  It’s also my fourth book.  For my friends it might be kinda like going to someone’s fourth wedding.  Enough already.  Do we have to make a big deal about this every time it happens?

(The picture of me giving a speech at my last book party was taken by Ben Rosengart.  The speech!  Another thing to get all anxious about.)

A friend of mine posted on Echo about helping clear out a relatives apartment.  She mentioned finding a bunch of those envelopes of buttons.  I have a baggie full of those envelopes containing buttons. During one of my spring cleanings I gathered them all up and put them in a baggie.  I was kind of proud of that, getting them all into one place instead of scattered in the drawer. Whenever I lose a button, I’ll know right where to find the replacement!  Easily! 

But I’m sure I no longer own most of the clothes that went with these buttons that I hold onto so proudly.

Right now!  Or is that hail? Just the thought of snow puts me into an automatic good mood. Yeah, there’s snow in there, but it’s mixed with rain. Which way will it ultimately turn? Oh please let it be to snow!!

I took this picture last night, it’s the arch at Washington Square Park, which is mostly closed while they completely renovate it. Lots of people are unhappy about the renovation, because it won’t be what it was.   I can relate, I didn’t want them to overhaul the river, but what can you do?  I miss things about what it was, but there certainly is a lot to love about the new version.

But the thing about Washington Square Park is, it hasn’t been what it was for a long time. Union Square is now what it was, and it’s been like that for a while.  That’s where people go for protest, performance, or to gather whenever something important happens.  Washington Square was ripe for reinvention. I think the changes will be mostly good, as long as there’s a place for the chess players.

For the record, a broken record I know, I miss the grittier, more diverse New York, like most of us who are old enough to remember it. And I know people have been saying this for the history of New York, and that it is always changing, and someone is always missing something, I know.

I won’t go on about it, it’s boring, but seriously, you should have seen it.  It feels like a theme park of what it was now.