Author: Stacy Horn

Although you can’t tell by this picture, every book and every item on these shelves is thoroughly dusted. I’m tired. I’m almost done with my holiday cleaning. I’ve got one tiny drawer that needs cleaning out and organizing.

After that I go through all my clothes and try once more to pare down to only things that I actually wear AND look good. Is anyone watching Tim Gunn’s new show? Because he says we really only need about a dozen items in our closets. Or something like that. I agree. A few basics, and then extras for variety’s sake. That reminds me, I found the perfect jeans at J. Crew. I keep meaning to upload a picture.

The last thing I do is put up decorations, including the desk sized tree which Finney and Buddy treat like a fancy cat toy holder. Every year they get a few bulbs and break them. When everything is done I do something pampering. This year it will be a pedicure.

Except I’m also getting a haircut on Saturday. I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for a new haircut ever since I got that disastrous cut in May. The new person I’m going to said I had to grow it out first, it was so horrendous she couldn’t do anything with it. I hope there’s enough for her to work with. Maybe I will take a picture and wear the jeans and kill two birds with one stone (terrible expression, and I just used it).

I was reading about somebody’s post 9/11 idiosyncrasies, and one of mine is hoarding catfood. Finney has to get special catfood for his urinary issues, and when we were attacked I thought, ‘What if I can’t get Finney’s catfood?? How long can he last with what I’ve got on hand?’

So ever since then, along with my “go bag,” I try to always have plenty of catfood in the house, just in case.

Buddy gets the same food. They go back and forth between each other’s bowls and I couldn’t figure out how to make them stop, aside from separating them, which didn’t seem realistic since they take time to eat, and since my vet assures me it’s fine to feed Buddy the same food, this is my expensive practice.

I was in New Jersey yesterday with Art, my NPR producer. We’re working on a piece, and normally I talk about whatever I’m working on, I don’t worry about anyone stealing my ideas, but for the first time I feel a little nervous because I just can’t believe we’re getting to do this piece and that it hasn’t already been done. I’ve seen one or two little things, but nothing major. And it’s absolutely, totally fascinating. I emailed my agent saying I think this should be the topic for my next book and she agreed. I will say that we visited the archives for Bell Labs as part of the piece.

Next week I do my big holiday cleaning. I just love holiday cleaning. I could use some advice about something though. My apartment has had an odd smell for more than a month and it’s driving me insane. I thought it was gas, but the Con Ed guy came measured everything and said no. He thought it kinda smelled like gas but kinda not. Maybe something died in the walls, he suggested, except it’s not that bad. I don’t like the smell, but it’s just not a bad smell exactly. But maybe a small dead thing wouldn’t smell too bad? The smell has changed slightly for me, and smells less like gas now. It hasn’t faded, just changed. I don’t know what to do. I have sniffed every inch of my apartment and I absolutely cannot tell the source.

Should I just wait and hope for the best, that it fades??

The picture is of a few new Christmas ornaments I bought myself in preparation for my holiday cleaning next week. I will put them up when I’m done. I broke the green one already.

I went to the library today and ran into the Veteran’s Day Parade. I didn’t even know it was Veteran’s Day. This small clip does not give a sense of the never ending sea of soliders there were. They went on for miles up 5th Avenue, but my view was blocked, so turned I back and focused on the guys in front of me. Made me want to cry. The world is a mess and still I do nothing. Some pictures follow the video.

This shot was from the library (which was closed, duh, how do I get through my life).

This is looking up 5th. That must be St. Patrick’s a few blocks up on the right.

– My friend Jonathan is in Florida, beginning his book tour. His first novel, Precious Blood, just came out.

– Ruby is also in Florida, on my dream vacation. I’m very jealous. She’s kayaking on some swampy river somewhere.

– Rachel just had a baby boy named Ezra.

– Marisa and I want to a sample sale yesterday.

– Howard is finishing up a million books, and not one of them will have a monkey on the cover, thank God.

– Marianne’s birthday is tomorrow. She is 1,202 years old. And teeny.

– Charles was in West Virginia, but I’m not sure where he is now. Connecticut, maybe?

– Chris has a teenage son living with her.

– Oh. I got an invite to an ITP event that looks fun. ITP is the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU where I went to grad school.

– That’s my mother and a friend, taken on East 28th Street in Brooklyn, sometime in the early 40’s, I’m guessing.