Stacy Horn

Yesterday I passed by a protest organized by a group called The Stop Mass Incarceration Network. From their website:

“The Stop Mass Incarceration Network is building a movement to stop the injustice of mass incarceration and police brutality; and the racially biased policies and practices of the police, the courts and the U.S. legal system; and to support the rights of prisoners and the formerly incarcerated. We call on all to join us.”

These movements are so necessary. The system is unfair. As far as I know, and there must be statistics, whites do as much drugs as blacks, why aren’t they jailed to the same extent? The repercussions from white collar crime are certainly more far reaching and devastating, why don’t the police throw them against cars or the street, and drag them off to jail?

There were a lot of names on this poster that these women were carrying.

I didn’t see whether or not this soldier took the card this woman was offering.

In case you don’t know, our news channels (and Twitter and everywhere else) are all focused on the shootings that took place today. I just saw the picture of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, the soldier killed while guarding the National War Memorial in Ottawa. Oh man. Heart breaking. Now I’m reading that this is the second attack on soldiers in the past few days. Why Canada, for the love of God. What countries has Canada invaded?? Fucking insane people. This guy?? This guy was your enemy??

They should start showing up all over the place now, except not today, we’re having a monsoon. Halloween is a week from Friday! I passed this window by on my way home from choir practice last night. I love the hands. Let me out!

Nothing makes me happier than to spend a day with archives and collections. I was exploring the Manuscripts and Archives Division of the New York Public Library this summer. (Thank you very much, Thomas Lannon and Tal Nadan.) Among other things, I went through some of the Francis J. Schneider records of marriages, who “was known as the ‘marrying parson’ for the nearly 20,000 marriages he performed from 1869 to 1906.”

Apparently he’d marry anyone, no questions asked, so I was looking to see who’d pop up, like an interracial marriage perhaps. I’ve only looked at a few volumes so far, but I saw that it was pretty rare for a man to marry someone older in those days, and maybe the only reason this guy did was because his profession (undertaker) may have made it harder to attract a spouse? But of course he could have been marrying for love! Notice how they have a space to list the profession for the man but not the woman.

The shot below is of the diary of Elizabeth DeHart Bleecker, aka Mrs. Alexander L. McDonald, and the entries go from January 1, 1799 to January 11, 1806. There’s a description of the shooting and subsequent funeral of Alexander Hamilton. “Thursday, July 12th, A Fine day — General Hamilton is still alive, but no hope of his recovery … about 2 o’clock the great Hamilton died.” There’s more but I’m having a hard time with her handwriting (always a problem with these things).

(The collections at the New York Public Library are IMMENSE, you might start here. I always like to to look at the list of what they’ve recently added.)

First, I understand being attracted to people within a specific age group. We don’t chose who we are attracted to. I prefer men around my age, I love the shared history/popular culture. Here’s what I don’t get. On the dating site I use, something like 90% of the men (or more) say they are interested in women 20 years younger than themselves, but will only go as high as a year or two older, if that. A 60 year old will typically say he’s looking for women 40 – 60.

So they’re saying a woman should give a guy 20 years older than herself a shot, when a woman a year or two older is out of the question for them, never mind someone 20 years older. She should date someone they wouldn’t consider dating, basically.

Oh wait. I just realized women do this to men regarding height. I have to out myself in fact, I don’t want to pretend I’m a better person than I am, I have similar, unfair height preferences. I want to date people my height or a little less, but they can be much taller. It’s a similar bias, isn’t it, so who am I to talk??

PS: Another dating profile pet peeve. Don’t say you look young or your friends say you look young. Either you do and we’ll see that in your pictures, or you don’t (and you’re don’t know that you don’t) and then you just look sad. Besides, it’s okay to look your age. Unless you’re hoping to date someone 20 years younger, I guess, but my advice still stands.

I bought these stairs to help my poor arthritic Finney (who doesn’t prefer the younger generations) climb up on the couch. The other day I saw Bleecker in this odd sleeping position, draped down the stairs. So cute. That’s Finney in the lower left, looking up and thinking, “WTF?”