Stacy Horn

They were shooting right in front of my building this afternoon. This is looking down from my 5th floor apartment. I couldn’t spot any stars, hence the picture of the camera and camera man, followed by a picture of a woman with a microphone, standing out of camera range. I heard a lot of “quiet on the set!” (my block) and “we’re rolling,” and “action!”

I’ve been absent because I’ve been preparing and obsessing and terrifying myself about a Tedx talk I did yesterday at Tedx Montclair.

Friday night I was a mess. We did a dress rehearsal and I blanked out twice and dropped four small sections in my talk. ‘It will be okay,’ I thought. ‘I’ll work on those sections when I get home.’ Except I got home and I practiced and practiced and each time I got a little worse. I was blanking out more and dropping more. Finally, I realized I was psyching myself out bigtime and I stopped. ‘I’ll be better in the morning, when I’m rested.’ I was even worse.

I briefly considered calling in sick. “I have a 103 degree temperature!” Of course I couldn’t seriously consider doing that. So I left for my certain doom. We shall see how I did in a few weeks, when the videos come out, but I didn’t blank out! No dropped sections! And the feedback I got seemed genuinely enthusiastic!

Thank you Sue Grady for surprising me and being there. And thank you Amy Gash, my editor, who was also there. It was so great to have friendly faces in the audience.

Thank you Suzy Kass for inviting me to speak, and fellow organizers Kathy Smith and Robin Seidon, for all their help and support. And a BIG thank you to Kathy’s husband Steve, for picking me up and taking me home after the event. I would have been a thousand times more stressed out if I had to get up at some ungodly hour to take a train-bus-bus to get there and back. Instead I had wonderful company (and a pep talk) and here was our other companion for the trips, Joe, the Dance Walk Guru from Brooklyn who was endlessly charming.

Note: Here is more of Joe’s story.

I’m watching a live cam of great dane puppies, who are going to be trained as service dogs. I never see anyone petting them and playing with them, which makes me feel bad. But so far, there’s been a lot of peeing this morning. Their sleeping area is surrounded by pee pads. Cats are a lot easier to toilet train.

Update: A very nice lady in red is loving on the puppies now!

I’m very nervous about my dental appointment this afternoon. I’ve got my Tedx talk this weekend so I can’t look or talk funny. Maybe we won’t actually do any work. We shall see.

Bleecker has taken over the tv spot that Finney used to covet. In fact, that is where Finney is sitting in the banner shot. Come on, Finney. You must assert your tv spot rights.

I felt terrible. He crashed into my window and I’m sure it’s my fault for loving clean windows. He hung out here for a while before flying away, so I’m telling myself he’s fine. He was just stunned.

I tried to look up what kind of bird he is, and he looks kinda vireo (never heard of that) and kinda warbler, but I couldn’t find a bird with that yellow stripe on his head. Oh, I think I found him—maybe he’s a Golden-crowned kinglet!