Author: Stacy Horn

My friends Liz and Jim had a party. I am posting pictures to prove that I have friends. This first shot features Cricket and the famous lost but happily found Bean. Seriously, the cutest dog in the world, right? That’s Sue to the right petting Bean.

The second shot is of me and Lianne, who is a great singer. Trust me, go to that link and listen. You will thank me. Plus, it features animations by our friend Marianne Petit. Lianne doesn’t look too thrilled, but I swear we had a good time chatting. I am beyond belief tired, which is why I am posed that way. But I had a great time. And Howard brought me very bizarre, fractal-ly looking broccoli (which tasted much better than regular broccoli) and bok choy. Oh, and that’s Ruby in the top photograph, copying my outfit.

Update! More pictures from Charles. After me and Lianne, that’s Max holding Franny, Howard and Cricket, then Margaret and Lianne, then Ruby, (the copycat) Ellen and me, and the last one is Liz and Jim.

Missing Photo! A photograph was here! Don’t know where it went!

You guys are the best. I said I was feeling miserable, and you said nice things here and then sent all this great email (with songs and videos). There was a piece in the Times the other day about people who have friends and lots of networks of support living longer, so I just want to say: Thank you for helping me live longer!!

I fantasize about buying some cool building somewhere as a retirement home for me and my friends. (I am poor, so this is a total fantasy.) Ideally, it should be on a river somewhere or here in the city. This abandoned hotel was one of my dream retirement homes. It’s on the West Side Highway and Barrow Street. Okay, highway, not so ideal, but the river is right there, and there’s something very romantic about it. But I read that someone bought it and all the windows have since been replaced. I’m going to try to think positively. I’m sure there’s an even better building left that I can’t afford! Ha!

Anyway, thank you everyone for the incredibly nice email. It genuinely made me feel better.

I have been just so plain miserable lately I hardly recognize myself. I went to the library today, because I love going to the library and I thought it would cheer me up. But I got motion sickness from the microfilm machines. It happens sometimes. I had to go home.

So, I’m back at home on a rainy day, trying to amuse myself. This is the tiny piano I bought to help find the trickier notes in the more difficult pieces my choir performs. It’s too small to play like a piano and there aren’t enough keys, but here is a tiny part of the piece that was always my favorite to play, Beethoven’s Sonata Pathetique. Normally, it should be played like a bat out of hell, but I haven’t played in many, many, MANY years so my bat-out-of-hell tempo playing abilities are rusty.

Someone posted in an Amazon review of my book, Waiting for My Cats to Die, that by the time they got to the end of the book they wanted me to die. Okay, okay. DON’T RUSH ME. Meanwhile, here is yet another short video of Finney, who is trying to help the process along. (Sorry. I keep meaning to make videos of something other than my cats.)

Someone I know married a military guy and wrote, “I can identify a Blackhawk, Apache or Chinook helicopter by the sound of the blades slicing the air overhead.” (Lily Burana, great writer, that was in an op-ed she wrote.)

I’m so jealous! I want to be able to do that. What a cool skill. No fair. In the circles I travel, it’s very unusual for someone to marry into the military, so everything is very exotic to me. Especially being able to do stuff like that. Except now I’m remembering that New Yorker piece I read, about all the research since WWI into the effects of war upon soldiers. I wish I had saved that. Our soliders are paying a steep price. We need to be taking better care of them when they come home. Damnit. I have to get a hold of that piece so people know what I’m talking about.