Stacy Horn

I read ugly comments on Facebook from people who are not happy that Barack Obama is our president, and from gun owners, many of them likely completely reasonable people, who won’t agree to perfectly reasonable responses to all the gun death in our country — even last night, on the live chat between people watching Eldad Hagar and Shaggy, people were fighting about how to care for Shaggy. Not simply disagreeing, but getting nasty and personal.

People are insane. It’s not enough to have a big heart, or a big brain. I mean, look at freaking Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote that we all have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He was not only a slave owner, he was apparently not a kind slave owner, completely unable to have any compassion for his slaves who were desperately seeking a little life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness themselves (see the new biography, Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves).

Jefferson wrote this in a letter to Samuel Kercheval:

“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”

Such mind-blowingly visionary words! What hope is there for all of us when the man who wrote them is the same man who put his child slaves to punishing work, allowing them to be beaten and mistreated? How hard was is it to see that was wrong?

I’m watching the series on PBS now about abolition. When I see how horribly the first people to call for the abolition of slavery were treated, something so clearly and obviously wrong, it’s less surprising to see people, many of whom are completely decent people and not idiots, fighting over reasonable gun control, gay marriage, or how to care for a frightened dog.

The tearing up of Perry Street continues. They were working last night, and they started up again at least as early as 7am this morning.

I’ve posted before about the wonderful dog rescuer Eldad Hagar and Hope for Paws. He went down to South Carolina to rescue a dog and for the past two days I’ve been watching a live stream of him and the dog in a hotel room. (I spent yesterday on the couch with the inaugural on the tv and Eldad and Shaggy on my computer.)

You can read more about Shaggy’s backstory on Eldad’s Facebook page. He’ll make a video of the rescue eventually. Now if you will excuse me, I’m going back to not getting any work done.

4:15: I’m transfixed! I’m watching every second. I love Michelle Obama’s coat and the belt, but my favorite touch is the purple gloves. Now I must have purple gloves. The next surprise will be her gown tonight. Apparently she commissioned 12 designers and she will pick one, but she hasn’t told anyone (outside her family presumably) which one she’ll wear. Can’t wait!!

I’ll be back later, during the parade, to talk about Michelle’s outfits and other things, but for now, my favorite parts of Barack Obama’s speech. There are so many I should probably just post the whole thing, but here are the standouts for me.

“For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they’ve never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth. The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob …”

“Through blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword, we learned that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free …”

“We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths –- that all of us are created equal –- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth …”

“It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law –- for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote. Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity — until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country. Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia, to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm …”

“We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate …”

“We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations …”

“The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition, we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries, we must claim its promise …”

“We understand that outworn programs are inadequate to the needs of our time. So we must harness new ideas and technology to remake our government, revamp our tax code, reform our schools, and empower our citizens with the skills they need to work harder, learn more, reach higher …”

“The commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, these things do not sap our initiative, they strengthen us …”

“We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American; she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own …”

The view from my window, of workman tearing up Perry Street. Take that Perry Street.

Whenever a show I love ends it’s a reminder of how insane I am, sobbing away for people who don’t exist. I know they’re not real, and yet here I am again, mourning the loss of fictional characters I have come to love.

It pained me to watch the season finale of Fringe, knowing at every moment that this was our last time together, the way Walter knew he would never see Peter or Olivia or Etta again.

I enjoyed having to look up the white tulip, because I’d totally forgotten the significance of the white tulip. But that’s it. No more things to look up and figure out. No more new adventures, no new tears, no new laughs. It’s over. Done. I can watch reruns the way I look at old photographs or home movies; artifacts with lovely memories that are all in the past. There will never be a new picture or new episode again.

Thank you creators, producers, writers, directors, actors, and everyone else who made Fringe what it was. Thank you especially, Walter/John Noble. I didn’t even like your character at first! Walter felt too goofy, too cartoon-y for me in the beginning. But it the end, you were the one who broke my heart the most, you LSD/licorice/music-loving … actually you loved a lot of things, didn’t you? But most of all you loved Peter. You portrayed love at its most genuine, perfect and imperfect, selfish and selfless. And this was echoed so beautifully by every character in the show, by Peter for Walter, between Peter and Olivia, I could go on and on, because every character at one point or another had to embody love. Damnit. Sobbing again. Thank you for making me feel crazy, tv people. No really, thank you.

Waiting for choir practice to begin. We’re working on Bach’s Mass in B Minor. A piece of music I love. I love a lot of things too, it turns out. I guess we all do.

I didn’t swell to no-longer-looks-human proportions, the pain was, well, thank god for pain-killers is all I’m saying. Right now I’m home and resting comfortably and using this an excuse to eat what I want and not move around a lot. I do long to look myself again though, and something they said about “gum placement” (ew, ew, ew) made me hope that when the swelling goes down my mouth might go a little back to normal. I’ve been slightly funny looking for so long and it gets depressing after a while.

I’m looking forward to the inauguration on Monday. The balls! The outfits! I love Michelle Obama’s new hair (of course I would since it’s similar to mine).

Someone set up this table on the street, next to an entrance to a subway. Not sure why. Maybe just to give smokers a nice place to have a cigarette?