Stacy Horn

I just read this Times article about a six year old girl in Afghanistan who is being given in marriage to another family in order to clear her father’s debt. (The Times just updated their website to say that a group led by an American lawyer has paid the debt.)

The article brought me back to an afternoon in the 1980’s, when I was working as a telecommunications analyst in the corporate telecommunications department of the Mobil Corporation. I was the only female in the department.

One afternoon a woman was brought to my office. She was my age and I forget what country she came from, but it was some country in the Arab world that Mobil was doing business with. She must have been the wife of one of the oil executives who had come to New York for a meeting.

I am sure that her husband and the head of corporate telecommunications had no idea of what would happen when they dropped her off with me. In terms of women’s rights, the men at Mobil (my immediate supervisor aside, who was great) were kinda stuck in the 1950’s. They probably thought, “She’s a woman, Stacy’s a woman, they have lots in common. Because, you know, like, they’re women.”

Within seconds of their closing the door behind them, we went at each other and we didn’t stop until they came to get her an hour or so later. I barely said hello before she started challenging my feminist ways. I was gentler with her than I normally would have been, mostly because she was terribly defensive and it seemed to me that deep down, she didn’t believe what she was saying. She wasn’t wearing a burka, and she was clearly educated. Also, I was aware that I had been asked to play host and I was in a very awkward position. I didn’t want to offend her.

Her main argument was that she had a nice life and she was always taken care of and protected and didn’t want for anything. To her I was this sad, untaken-care-of woman, fending for herself. I said, you’re not a child, and fine if this is what you want, but you should have a choice and you’d be surprised how great it feels to take care of yourself, to make your own money and to be in charge of everything in your life. Bottom line, each of us saw the other’s life as sad.

After reading this article though, I realize it never occurred to me to make the argument that she was the wife of a wealthy oil executive, and that the wives and daughters of the poor were not faring as well. (Not that we’ve conquered gender discrimination, or that the women in poor families here don’t have troubles too.)

I’d love to see this woman now, to see if we’d have any better luck communicating, instead of just pitying each other. We were both very young. My position, however, is unchanged.

This is a banjo player that I came across in Union Square.

My apartment looks like a war zone. When George, the workman, started chipping away at the peeling paint he revealed gaping holes, all over the place. It looks like a room in an abandoned building. Oh god. I can’t live like this. Must. Focus. On. Endgame. A bright and shining, freshly painted apartment.

Happily I realized I’m getting a makeover along with my apartment. My final oral surgery is scheduled for next Thursday and just as soon as I start healing we get to work on the bridge. When that is done I plan to cut and color my hair, buy myself one new outfit because I have a book coming out in July and hopefully I’ll need something to wear for something or other.

The timing couldn’t be more perfect. All these things will be coming together one right after the other. First, a freshly painted, sparkling and clean apartment, then all my dental work will be completed and I won’t be funny-looking as funny-looking, and last, the very best thing, a book I worked so hard on and feel ridiculously proud of will be on the shelves.

A tiny gaping hole under the window. Well, at least killer spiders didn’t start pouring out.

A larger gaping hole in the ceiling, which leads straight to the roof. Don’t you expect to see a tiny mouse or rat face peering down? Or killer spiders?

The bigger picture. Doesn’t look so bad when you look at it this way.

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.