Author: Stacy Horn

Or I used to anyway. So many things made me happy I used to make lists. This is a picture of something that hangs in my bathroom. Scotty, a former boyfriend of mine, found this type-drawer and painted it for me and gave it to me as a place to store toys.

These days, if I want to do something nice for Finney I pick him up so he can bat one of the toys out of its slot. It’s part of a ritual of ours. I’ll pick him up and we’ll take a tour of the house, where he will alternately sniff and mush his head against things normally out of his reach, or knock them over, his absolute favorite thing. He loves this ritual. He purrs the minute I pick him up and cranes his neck out immediately to start sniffing and knocking things over. He just can’t wait. If I miss something he wants to knock over he will squirm and reach for it. “No, no. You missed something!” And we go back.

Anyway, it used to be that the number of things that made me happy far outnumbered the things that didn’t. For a while it’s been neck and neck, with the sad outnumbering the happy from time to time, I have to admit. I’m not complaining, life isn’t always great, what are you going to do? But for the past couple of days I’ve been feeling a little bit how I used to feel, and the only way to describe it is, “I take pleasure in a great many things.”

I just want to remind people if you find you can’t make a comment in one of my posts it’s because someone spammed the comment section and I had to turn the comments off for that post. Once one spam appears, soon a ton follow, so I delete the spam and turn comments off.

If I had newer software there would be other ways to deal with it, but I have yet to upgrade. Sorry. I have this fear that I will lose all my history if I upgrade. Must get past that. And I will, after the holidays and after I hand in this book, and finish the NPR piece.

Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this holiday Charles Addams cartoon. And please, do not try this at home. Or Brooklyn, where I will be caroling in a week or so for a good cause with friends.

Okay, must get back to work. And TV. What’s on TV tonight? Anything? Oh, there’s a new Hallmark TV movie on tonight. Yes, I am a sucker for those Hallmark movies. I cry every year at the Hallmark card commercials, especially the retiring teacher one. And the one with the guy in the nursing home.

I didn’t get out to photograph decorations today. I meant to take a picture of a dress that I long for that’s hanging in a window nearby, taunting me. Man oh man do I want that dress, even though I have no place to wear it.

You cannot destroy what you cannot reach! I don’t think I’m going to be able to get to it today, but I’m going to walk uptown and take pictures of the Christmas decorations. I just love what they’re doing up there, particularly the decorations at Harry Winston’s. Maybe I’ll just walk all around the city taking pictures of the decorations? We can compare how different parts of town do it.

Except it’s the afternoon now. No coughing fits at either performance. I came close once, when the soprano began her solo with the flutes and oboe. It was the worst possible place because it would have been not only the most noticeable, but it would have also killed a particularly pretty part. But I popped a lozenge into my mouth and I was fine. Oh Mozart. What would we have done without you? I cannot imagine life without singing and being surrounded by your music. Sucks how young you were when you died.

My family came and brought flowers and took me out to dinner. That’s them in the picture. Them meaning the flowers. Because I totally didn’t think to take pictures of my family. What is wrong with me?? I love hanging out with my brothers Douglas and Peter and my sisters-in-law Robin and Karen. They’re so nice and happy and relatively sane. Not a closet serial killer among them. No seriously, I am SO lucky in this respect.

God, I’m tired. I went to the gym, inspired by Karen and Doug who are more physically active than I am. Except now I am going counter that by laying on the couch for the rest of the day and night.

Snow!! Bring it on! More snow, please!

I had a coughing fit last night at the beginning of the dress rehearsal. Today, my cough is even worse. Maybe I should change seats with the person at the end of my row so I can leave without disturbing anyone if it gets bad.

The soprano soloist was SO good last night that during the rehearsal I was thinking Mozart would have adored her if he were alive to hear her. Afterwards another person in the choir said she was thinking the same thing. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a better soprano in person in my life. Her name is Yulia Van Doren. They were all great, she just stood out for me at the time.

Oh God, I keep hacking away. If I can’t sing tonight I think my heart will break. I called my doctor about it yesterday and they prescribed these pills, but they work by numbing your lungs and I’m too scared to take them. Can you believe me?? They’re called benzonatate.