Stacy Horn

A fun night from my past. I was the moderator for a panel at the 92nd Street Y about the paranormal. I asked and fielded questions for Dan Aykroyd and his father Peter, who had just written “History of Ghosts: The true story of seances, mediums, ghosts and ghostbusters.”

Okay, not my best camera work, but still!! Ghostbusters!!

Honestly, it’s not something I normally feel. The last time I felt jealousy in a serious way, that I can remember, was when I was thirty years old, and someone I went to high school with had just published her first novel. That got me. Then I read it and things got so much worse. It was this wonderful, evocative, luscious, brilliant work. I felt just sick.

But I spent a week or so meditating on it, and I came to terms with what I felt, and I was able to both neutralize the feelings, and turn them into inspiration. I didn’t deny my feelings, sometimes people have something you want, or achieve something you’d like to achieve. It’s hard to explain, but I embraced them in a friendlier way. I looked at what I had and what I’d done, compared it realistically to the rest of the world, and then I took steps toward achieving what I wanted to achieve. Slowly, over time, I stopped feeling jealousy for the most part. It was very liberating.

Last night an NYPD helicopter was circling right over my block, coming closer than I’d ever seen a helicopter come before. People on Facebook reminded me that Obama was in my neighborhood having dinner at Sarah Jessica Parker’s house. I have to be honest, I felt a wave of envy. As that helicopter circled overhead, shining lights over the roofs (looking for snipers?) I desperately wanted to have a fabulous apartment and Sarah Jessica Parker’s wardrobe, and to not have to think about things like how much all this medication for my cat is costing me. I wanted the kind of fairytale life where a Barack Obama would come to my apartment for dinner, and all these magical whirlwinds of activity would start spinning around me as I was just going about, living my life.

I will feel much better when I finish the edits of this book, and if I can get it to a place where I love it. Because, in truth, I am leading exactly the life I have always wanted. I haven’t always been successful at all the things I’ve tried (hence the cat-medical-bills worry) but at least I’m trying, and the game isn’t over yet! I also realize how good I have it in so many ways, like living in the neighborhood I do, even if Barack Obama isn’t coming to my house for dinner. (And what would I feed him anyway? I don’t cook. Amy’s frozen pizza, my favorite dinner? Oh wait, do you think Sarah Jessica Parker is doing the cooking?)

I will also feel a lot better when my freaking camera is repaired and I can go out and photograph things like the president coming to my neighborhood for dinner! I’m not going to get over missing that opportunity for a while, I can tell you. (That’s Buddy giving me head butts above.)

It was one of those days, but I pulled myself together and I was going to head out to The Big Sing and then Buddy didn’t eat dinner. This was followed by other bad signs that I won’t go into, but that was that for me. I couldn’t even watch The Bachelorette.

Buddy had a better day today, but he’s been up and down for weeks. It just unavoidably feels like the beginning of the end. Slowly there will be more downs then ups, then all downs, and then that will be that.

I’m sorry to be so depressing. Finney has been making out like a bandit! In my effort to feed Buddy more, Finney has been able to subsequently sneak more, and so he’s happy. There’s that. And I’m going to try to take the goods days with Buddy while I have them.

I’m going to something called The Big Sing later, and I need my camera, damnit. This event must be documented. I know there are those who say if you’re photographing what you’re doing you’re not really experiencing what you’re doing, but for those of us who love photography, capturing the moment in this way is part of living it.

This is Buddy asking for food (always a good thing these days). It’s an ichat screen grab, all I have these days.

Oh god. They just called this second. They can’t repair my camera and they have to send it to Canon and it will take a few weeks. Alright, that was a hard blow, in the realm of blows that are not really hard blows at all. (A diagnosis of a terminal illness is a real hard blow.) I had planned to do my author photo on Wednesday. At this point my camera won’t even be back before my author photo is due. Damnit, damnit, damnit.

The conductors from the big sing last year:

I’ve known about the Prelinger Archives for many years, but I wasn’t aware of just how much of their collection was available online! It’s a treasure trove! I just watched the Coney Island one and caught a glimpse of Pip and Flip, who I always thought were Zip and Pip. From the Coney Island website:

“Pip and Flip were twins who were often advertised as coming from the Yucatan of Mexico (although sometimes also from Australia). They were actually born in New York and the sisters ‘real’ names were Elvira and Jenny Lee Snow. They suffered from the birth defect of microcephaly which contributed to their “pinhead” physicality. They often worked in Coney Island side shows during the 1930’s. They appeared in the 1933 MGM movie Freaks, directed by Tod Browning.”

There’s a film defending the WWII internment of Japanese Americans, another called Symptoms in Schizophrenia, which “Shows masked mental patients enacting various schizophrenic symptoms as they were understood at the time. A disturbing film that raises questions about the condition and treatment of its subjects.”

Seriously, you need to explore what they offer. My post doesn’t even begin to cover what they have there. Yikes! I have to leave for swimming!