Stacy Horn

I am driving myself completely insane trying to pick a paint color for my apartment. I’ve been putting it off re-painting because I dread the upheaval and expense. But the paint is coming off the walls in strips in the bedroom though, and it’s just time.

I’m trying to pick a yellow because I never liked the yellow I chose last time and I want to live in a pretty yellow room, damnit. The previous yellow was always too mustard-y and dreary. I want a happy yellow.

It’s down to Benjamin Moore’s Golden Honey and Squish Squash, except now I’m reading about someone who was seriously considering Squish Squash and who went with Sundress, a color I was considering but I decided it wasn’t yellow enough.

Oh god. The workman just came over. They are starting tomorrow. I have to decide NOW. Here’s a picture, and of course it’s not accurate, but it’s not bad. That color on the left is called Lemon Drop and it’s too cartoonish. The middle is Golden Honey and the right is Squish Squash. The Golden Honey does seem to be just a tad mustard, but it has a warmth I like that the Squish Squash lacks. I’m leaning towards Golden Honey.

You can see why I never loved the existing color, which has darkened over time and only gotten more depressing. I’m thinking of going Benjamin Moore Flamenco for the trim. It’s a scarlet-like red and I love how my scarlet red couch looks against the yellow wall. But it might be a little too dramatic.

Update: To see how it finally turned out, click here.

I just read some early reviews of Imperfect Harmony and they were mostly positive, and some people really really loved it. Even the people who didn’t love it didn’t think it sucked or anything, and they were also incredibly civil in their reviews, for which I am forever grateful. Because I’ve developed a thin skin, god help me. I’ve become so terribly vulnerable to negative comments. I think this time around if I see one or two stars I have to force myself to not read the review.

Anyway things are looking up! To celebrate that, here are some shots I took while looking up. I like how in both of these a flying thing made it into the frame. This first one was taken at the corner of 13th Street and Greenwich Avenue. It doesn’t look like Manhattan, does it?

And this was 43rd and … something far east, I forget, but I was just walking out of Tudor City. I should have focused on that gargoyle in the upper left hand corner.

I prefer Maya Angelou’s take, she says you can never leave. On Sunday, while I walked from my friend’s apartment near the UN to Carnegie Hall I kept coming in contact with my past. There was the old Mobil Corporation building where I used to work, the Chinese restaurant nearby, where I got food to go for my mother when she dying, (she had pancreatic cancer and she wasn’t eating well, so I always brought her some treat from the city, trying to tempt her with food from her favorite restaurants, or from some great ones she never got to try) there was the place where a former fiance worked, MPI (another place I used to work) which was right next door to the place in the picture below, PJ Clarke’s, where I used to have drinks, sometimes too many. On the other side used to be Michael’s Pub, where Woody Allen played every week and where I once went with my stepfather to hear Mel Torme sing.

I could name a lot more spots, the point is, whether the memory was good or bad, they all made me sad. It was a lot of piled up reminders that some things are irretrievably over, and of course that leads to to unavoidable fact that eventually I will be over too. I worry that I’m not creating enough new memories.

Thank you, Dimitra! Dimitra contributed to the Virtual Choir 4 Kickstarter campaign and she generously gave me her pass to last night’s dress rehearsal when she couldn’t make it. A short video follows after this picture.

My only goal yesterday was to buy a Willa Cather novel. I’ve read My Antonia and O Pioneers, both of which I loved, so I was looking for another to try. First I went to the Strand and then to Barnes & Noble in Union Square. This is inside the Petco which sits at the north end of Union Square. I have never once been able to resist to allure of Petco because it always has animals for adoption. That siamese cat never turned around to face the people. Doesn’t it look sad? If I were going to adopt that would be the cat I’d pick.

Come to think of it, my cat Bleeck looked so sad when I found him at the Humane Society. Sad because they wouldn’t let him torture the other cats, probably.

I get to Washington Square Park and it’s filled with cops. I think, “Occupy Wall Street event, perhaps?” This is what caused the police presence. A bunch of doctors giving away free medical advice. That’s it. Maybe they arrived there on bikes. (For reasons that are beyond me, the NYPD hates people who ride bikes. I do not get it. I’ve asked them, and they can’t explain it either.)

These were laying in front of the building where 146 garment workers died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire on March 25, 1911. Every flower was tagged with the name of someone who had died. Why does this fire haunt me and so many others as much as it does?

I’ve been researching the 1909/1910 garment workers strike. Their demands were fair and reasonable, like safer working conditions, but the strikers were treated terribly and young girls were arrested and thrown into prison. One year later, the fire.

Every time I look up at One World Trade Center I think, “Finish that point, already!!” I can’t wait to see that triangle shape completed. Cather novel quest conclusion: I didn’t get one. But I’ve pretty much decided I’ll get Death Comes to the Archbishop. Maybe. Probably. Oh, I can’t decide. Opinions welcome.