Stacy Horn

I’m either tensing up too much, or it’s singing-cancer (sorry, that’s the way my mind works). I’m sure it’s something I’m doing because it started when I was in a rush to warm up a few weeks ago and I went straight to the high notes. I pushed too hard and too fast and hurt myself. Ever since, after singing for a while I feel pain in my throat whenever I hit the high notes. So, I’m going to start by seeing a vocal coach.

If anyone has gone through this, I’d love to hear about your experiences. I know I have a lifetime of bad singing habits to un-do.

More #20Acts and #26Acts. Some people do 27 to include Lanza’s mother and some people are even doing 28 to include the shooter because he was a damaged soul as well. Ann Curry who started it all said it was an individual decision. Honestly, I don’t see how one or two more kind acts is a bad thing.

A high school teacher told her students: “Go up to the quiet kid at lunch. Be the loners lab partner. Offer a kind word.”

“Went to ToyRUS and paid off someone’s layaway.” (I just read that someone paid off all the layaways at a Walmart.)

“Just paid the school fees for 25 children with AIDS in Mombasa, Kenya.”

“Gave a red dress and $ for shoes to a sweet 8yo in mem of Charlotte Bacon who wore her new dress&boots on Fri.”

“Got bumped upgraded to business class on my flight to London from US, gave it to a crying woman by herself.”

Christmas tree shopping on Jane Street in New York City. I love the what looks to be a cowboy with the iphone.

The other day, someone tweeted that perhaps an atheist could speak about the shootings in Newton. I didn’t give the suggestion any thought then someone named Michael B. Dougherty, tweeted, “there isn’t an atheist view on loss, or the meaning of life.” It was so ugly and stupid and I felt a wave of despair about humanity. How do people get this damaged? I decided instead to focus on Ann Curry’s tweet:

“Imagine if all of us committed to 20 mitvahs/acts of kindness for each child lost in Newtown. I’m in.” (It was later upgraded to 26 acts.) Since then I’ve been reading people tweet about their acts of kindness. If you search on #20Acts or #26Acts you can read them, too. A sample:

“I started with helping an elderly gentlemen with his groceries.”

“I bought 26 pairs of socks and am leaving for the patients being treated for radiation tomorrow.”

“Just visited a nursing home with my boy, my dogs, and some pies.”

“I fed a homeless man in Hollywood this morning.”

“Made donation for 6 year old girl in Indonesia to help get the heart surgery she needs.”

“I can’t help anyone financially, but took my sweet dog with me to visit with my blind next door neighbor.”

“Donating 26 toys to the active solders kids Christmas drive.”

I’ve been doing an act of kindness every day for the past seven years. It began as a way to get out of a very sad period, and I kept it up, well, for obvious reasons. You feel good and hopefully the other person does too, at least a little. My acts are more modest, generally, but now I’m feeling inspired to make more of an effort.

This is the view from The Writer’s Room. I was there for their annual Christmas party. If this were my view you’d find me at the window every night, hypnotized.

“A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves obscure men whose timidity prevented them from making a first effort.” — Sydney Smith (British writer and cleric)

How tragically true. But easy to say. How do you summon the courage? For that I love the following quote. The answer is, it doesn’t take much.

From the movie, We Bought a Zoo: “You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”

Take a deep breath, dive in, and then hang in there for twenty seconds. Twenty measly seconds. I look back on every time I’ve had to face my fears to do something and the scary part is over so quickly. Then you are on your way, acting, doing. You don’t always succeed but failure feels a lot better than not trying at all. (By the way, I believe I got that first quote from Criminal Minds which I am still watching. Apparently I am not ready to let go of the characters.)

A Christmas tree on Charles Street. Every year they do something beautiful on those steps.

Before you read my post go here. This is proof that we can do this. We can put our differences aside and fix this problem.

The last time I posted about gun control was on July 20th, and I went to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence website and learned that 54,455 had been shot so far in America. It’s up to 94,313 now, with 83 so far today and it’s only 7:30 in the morning.

To recap: this year we’ve had shootings at a movie theatre in Colorado, a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, and now at a children’s school in Connecticut. Actually, I just looked and according to The Nation we’ve had 16 mass shootings this year.

In one year, guns murdered 17 people in Finland, 35 in Australia, 39 in England and Wales, 60 in Spain, 194 in Germany, 200 in Canada, and 9,484 in the United States. [The year for those figures is 2008.]

Come on everyone, put your politics aside. Let’s work together on this. 87% of Americans actually want more gun control. I know it’s a complicated issue, and we also have to address how this country manages mental health, but for the love of God.

I was going to post a lovely Christmas-y picture, but it doesn’t seem appropriate. Here is a sad Christmas picture of some wreaths on the fence overlooking the park next to the City recreation center where I used to swim before Hurricane Sandy. It’s been closed ever since and they are still cleaning up and repairing.

Note: In the time it took me to write this post six more people have been shot in America.

Update: I’ve been reading some great tweets but I had to post this one from the editor of The Nation. I’ve been mad at Bloomberg for being so critical of Obama about gun control, but this is the perfect response to his criticism. “Obama should announce now he will appoint Mayor Bloomberg as head of Commission to craft & push Congress to enact common sense gun control.” By the way, three more people have been shot in America. It’s still only 8:15 in the morning.

Update: I found out the figures from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence website are estimates based on the statistics from previous years. That’s very misleading and annoying.

As I said the other day, I only just heard that they’re making a movie of one of my favorite books, A Winter’s Tale, by Mark Helprin. They were even filming nearby a day or two ago and I missed it. (Damnit to the infinity power. Proof that I live in an indifferent universe.) I was considering using a quote from A Winter’s Tale in my book about unsolved murders. It basically summons up my mission in life, certainly my mission whenever I write:

“Remember, what we are trying to do in this life is to shatter time and bring back the dead.”

My only fear is that they will make the movie too comic book-like, which even the book itself veers into from time to time. But in the end the book was magnificent regardless, and I can’t help hoping the movie will be as well. In any case, I highly recommend the book. It has a shaky start. At the time I thought it was just too over-the-top flowery and poetic, way over-written. But I made myself hang in there because the person who recommended it to me was so adamant and convincing. And then, at a certain point, it just works. It starts to soar and it never stops.

If you love New York City you must read it. All the history and Helprin’s descriptions of what New York looked like in the 19th century, the culture and so on, are factually correct. For instance, there’s a gang called the Dead Rabbits in the book and there really was a gang called the Dead Rabbits at the time. A Winter’s Tale is packed with details like this. It’s just this wonderful banging, clanking, steam and machine-filled world, with this epic tale of the struggle and balance between love and good and evil going on over centuries and well, terrible sentence, I know, I better stop it now, but great book.

An alley off Hudson Street where a restaurant always sets up tables and chairs. And now they’ve decorated it for Christmas.