Stacy Horn

But please read his article about this month’s Rio+20 summit, which I have just heard about for the first time, which is a problem right there. From the piece:

Among the report’s “low-lights” are:

– air pollution indoors and outdoors is probably causing more than six million premature deaths each year.

– greenhouse gas emissions are on track to warm the world by at least 3C on average by 2100.

– most river basins contain places where drinking water standards are below World Health Organization standards.

It’s a short article. It takes a minute to read.

Another thing that is freaking me out now—gamma ray bursts. These are the result of explosions in space. Neil deGrasse Tyson’s comment about gamma ray bursts possibly happening nearby:

“I don’t want to be around for that day.”

I was watching a show called Last Days on Earth, and according to how it was depicted on the program, the worst part was that death from a nearby gamma ray burst would not necessarily be instantaneous. It looked like we’d all be slowly cooked to death, and I actually spent time trying to figure out how I would kill the cats and myself to end our suffering more quickly. I could jump off the roof, but the cats could survive that.

So yeah. Have a nice weekend!

I first noticed it, I think, when people started saying “I’m going to prom,” or “what about prom, Blaine??” (from Pretty in Pink). Not the prom, just prom. The other day people were saying Prince Philip is in hospital. Not the hospital, or a hospital, just hospital.

Why is this okay?

I am still without a working camera. These are a couple of old pictures. First up a house finch on my fire escape. I fell in love with him, but he never even looked my way. He just flew off and I haven’t seen him since.

These are pigeons in a nearby park, which has since been totally redone, it doesn’t look like this anymore. They probably wouldn’t stand for this mass of pigeons in the sparkly new park.

I thought I would have my camera back by today, at the latest. But the parts that came in didn’t work and so now I have to wait for replacement parts for the replacement parts. Then, my cellphone broke. I’m going broke fixing broken things.

Wait a minute. What the hell is going on with my arm in this photograph?? I have stick arms, I swear. That’s Finney, by the way. Monster-cat of Perry Street. This is a screenshot from ichat.

Has anyone tried Airtime yet? It’s a video chat service started by the Napster guys. I signed up for it on Facebook, but then I was too afraid to hit “Talk to Someone.”

I invited a friend to do it with me, someone I don’t mind seeing me … not at my best. But it doesn’t work in Safari. I had to switch to Google Chrome, and he only had Safari. I’m trying to think of fun things I can do to promote my singing book and Airtime is one of the things I’m exploring.

Here I am, offering proof that I have stick arms, in spite of all the swimming. Notice the closed mouth smile in my pictures? I don’t like how my smile looks now. I hope when all my dental work is done I have a pretty smile again.

And boy did you know how to say goodbye. I just read his essay, Take Me Home, which appeared in this week’s New Yorker. Be prepared to cry.

I may have my camera back tomorrow. I took this last year, but didn’t post it because it’s not really a picture of anything. Barack Obama was in town and he drove through my neighborhood, except I missed him. This is just the aftermath, a sad picture of what I didn’t see, of barricades that someone had already started to put away.

In Grace Church, in the southwest corner of the church, right below the organ gallery where a professional choir used to sing, there’s a statue of St. Cecilia, the patron saint of musicians and church music. Underneath the statue is a plaque which reads: “Her children place this statue in devout memory of Julia Northall Bodstein, who in this church through nine and twenty years sang the praises of God.” Julia was the soprano soloist for the professional choir and she sang in Grace Church from 1846 (when the church opened) to 1875.

I didn’t end up including her in the book, but I did research her a little. She was married to Frederick William Bodstein, and she had four daughter although one daughter, Flora, died when she was only three years old. Her other daughters were Clara, Lucy and Emily. Emily Bodstein Proctor and her husband, William Proctor, were the ones to install the plague, in 1920. The sculptor was John Massey Rhind.

Julia died on June 28, 1896, when she was 72. My picture of the statue didn’t come out well, I need to go back and try again, but this is the plaque. If by any chance any of her descendants come across this post, I’d love to learn more about her. And see a picture of her!