Author: Stacy Horn

I am continually horrified by the amount of things I don’t know. I’m not talking about not being able to pass a basic physics test (something I couldn’t do) but things like “name ten presidents.” Again and again when they’re doing that thing they do on TV, where they ask a group of people some truly common knowledge type thing, something any child would know, invariably I don’t know the answer.

This happened last night while watching my recording of America’s Princess (a reality TV show where a bunch of girls compete to become a “princess”). They gave the girls a pop culture quiz and I couldn’t answer some of the questions. Yes, I do appreciate the irony here. Maybe I should stop watching shows like America’s Princess, but that isn’t going to happen. They are too much fun! Oh, and I’m probably using the word irony incorrectly.

I never know the answers on Jeopardy. Okay, I do know some of them, but not as many as I should. I do worse on the new show Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader. Really worse. Horrifyingly worse.

The thing is, I read a lot. If something is interesting to me I make an effort to learn about it, and as it happens, pretty much everything is interesting to me. I am always looking up something. Seriously, always. If I meet someone who knows about something I don’t, I ask them about it. When channel surfing I stop on Nova and shows like it as much as reality TV. I’ve been absorbing information like this for I’m not saying how many years. Not as much as some people I know, it’s true. I have friends who just go at it harder than I do, and are extremely knowledgeable about a vast array of subjects. But I should at least be able to get through Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader and I can’t.

The only explanation I can think of is, I retain little. Sadly. For instance, I remember a couple of years ago I realized it was important to understand how our economy is tied to China, and how we’ve been borrowing and are now in a vulnerable position. I read up on it, asked questions, argued with my brother Douglas about it at a backyard party (he works for Merrill Lynch, economics is his thing) and I came to understand it somewhat. Since then I have forgotten every single thing I picked up. Oh god, the stuff I don’t know or don’t remember about basic American history, world history, ugh.

Sigh. What are you going to do? I read this blog called 3 Quarks Daily. I don’t read every entry, I scroll through and read one here and there, but man. These people are not only members of the “go at it harder” club, but they are phenomenal retainers. Heavy sigh. Maybe I should just read the Times more thoroughly each day. Maybe keeping up with current events is the only recourse with my retension issues.

(The picture is of my friend Marianne, somewhere in Massachusetts, taking her dog Schlomo for a therapeutic swim. I find pictures of Marianne taking care of her dog incredibly touching.)

I’m backing up my computer before taking it to Apple to hear the bad news. As that cliche goes, I can buy a better computer for less money than it may cost me to fix this one. A new computer would cost $1,099. A new motherboard for this one $1,200.

This is me at the Brazilan festival on 46th Street yesterday. My arm is almost completely back to normal. I drummed for hours and I was fine. Walking home I had a thrilling moment (for a musician). Someone saw my tshirt and yelled out, “Manhattan Samba! You guys playing the festival?” We’re known! What can I say, it was a pleasure. Someone wanted to hear us.

Ugh. Can’t stop thinking about the computer. On the one hand, a new computer is always fun, but on the other hand, I can’t really afford the expense. I’m not wealthy, you know. Universe? I posted that for your benefit. In case you’re listening. Or reading, I guess.

Further evidence of my distress: I bought Smarties to eat for dessert. After breakfast.

I’ve been thrown into the past! I spilled orange juice on my laptop and now I’m on an old Mac, with an ancient version of Instant Messenger running in the background, hearing sounds I haven’t heard since I was in love with this guy and my heart would pound whenever I heard that door-opening sound effect it made every time he appeared.

I remember how terrified I was to switch from this operating system to my new computer and OS X, it was so completely different. But it was wonderfully, unendingly better. I don’t like being back here. I’ve just been saying on Echo how I want to pick a subject for my next book that puts me in a whole new world for a while. Living in Durham for a few months showed me that I would like that (although I did get terribly homesick, I love New York so much).

Change change change change change. Love it, hate it. That guy will never again come through that tiny IM door, even though my heart still pounds.

Maybe the problem isn’t change so much, it’s that we are not in charge of when or how it comes about.

What should I write about next? If I get the chance to write again? I’m saying that to appease the gods of change, knowing how they like to mess with me. The bastards.

Please behold the lovely, long magnificence that is Finney. Don’t you want to curl up beside heem??

Okay. Gray hair. There’s this article in the Times about not dying your hair and just letting it go gray. It’s in response to a recent book about the subject. (How is it possible that there is enough to say about this subject to fill a book?) The author argues that we dye our hair thinking it looks better, but it really doesn’t, you can always tell, it looks artificial and like you’re trying too hard. The author also argues that you don’t have to be preternaturally gorgeous like Anderson Cooper or Meryl Streep to look good going gray.

I agree that if you get a bad dye job, and go too dark (or too light) you do end up looking older, and even a little pathetic and sad. I recently had to fix my hair after someone colored my bangs my actual natural brown, because it looked weird and fake and aging.

I went back to what I normally do. I had the colorist do highlights instead, which leaves some gray, which looks more natural, and the highlights were a mix of a brown that’s lighter than my natural color and caramel. So, between the gray, the lighter brown and the caramel, it looks really nice. No one is going to tell me that all gray looks better than this. Actually, I’m not all gray, not even close. I just have three patches. And letting those three isolated patches remain is not more flattering than this arrangement of highlights.

That was probably more than anyone would ever want to know about my thoughts about going gray and my hair.

I live a block away from where they used to shoot the outside shots for Carrie’s apartment. There’s a regular tour and people line up to take pictures of themselves and their friends sitting on Carrie’s stoop. I just passed these people a few minutes ago. There were a couple of cute outfits in the crowd, I noticed.

Did I ever tell my Sex and the City story? I probably did. Well, here it is AGAIN. When the show was on the air they filmed many times in my neighborhood. Unlike most film crews, they were always very nice. A friend said that was because they knew they’d have to keep coming back to the same neighborhood. Film crews can be incredibly rude. I would guess they’d say people on the street can be incredibly rude, and that’s probably true, too.

Once, when they were filming a scene with Carrie and Big, the crowd started interacting with the characters. “Don’t do it, Carrie!” “You can do better than this guy!” They had just wrecked the scene, but instead of yelling at them, Chris Noth turned around and started argung with them, in character. I couldn’t hear him myself, or I don’t remember what he said, but he was cracking the crowd up. The crowd and him went back and forth for a minute or two, it was a lot of fun for those of us watching. There was a wonderful spirit on the street afterwards. It was a lovely warm night and I walked home happy.

I was so glad to read that the Sex and the City movie is finally going to happen!! It will be so nice to see all the girls again.