Stacy Horn

Okay, there were a few moments I’d rather not re-live, (the crunch, crunch as the tooth separated from the bone, and I couldn’t look at myself until the temps were put in, the open space in my mouth was so huge) but I’m fine. I’m swollen, but if you didn’t know what I looked like normally you wouldn’t even notice. Even better, they clearly worked very hard to make the temps look good and they do, absolutely fine. I will get even better temps in a few months, but I’m just so glad I won’t look monstrous in the meantime.

I can sing! I’m not in pain (Advil and Tylenol every 4 – 6 hours)! And everything is fine. Right now I’m very glad I bit the bullet and did this. I was going to have to do this eventually, and now it is no longer looming in my future, soon enough it will be behind me. (Plus, the one tooth was infected for a long time, and that is not good for your heart, it can lead to arteriosclerosis.)

But I am so so tired. I’m going to curl up on the couch and not leave for the rest of the day. I took this in Chelsea Market, where I went to buy a vat of soup. It was another “walking through Christmas lights and feeling like a Christmas princess” moment.

Again, I promise I won’t make this blog all-implant, all-the-time, but I am going to track the major events. In a few hours I will my minus two front teeth. I’m going out for a nice breakfast and then I’m heading over to the NYU Dental School.

Luckily, last night at my monthly MBSR meeting there were two people there who use the NYU Dental School as well. One of them also had a friend who recently completed the implant process there. Everyone was raving about how good the care is, and the person who had the implant is thrilled with the result. So, there’s that.

I’m sorry I didn’t get more practice of the Verdi Requiem in (the piece the Choral Society is doing in the spring), because I don’t know what shape I’ll be in for the new few days. But here goes. If I’m not a sobbing mess I’ll post an update later today.

I don’t have a new picture for today, so this is from New Year’s Eve. I’m going to pretend those are good luck balloons for me. That just gave me a nice movie scene idea! I tend to walk the same routes for various places. In a movie, if one character wanted to do something nice for another, they could lines the streets that they know the person is going to walk down with balloons. For instance, it would have felt fantastic if all the way to the Dental School, there were balloons tied here and there along my route.

Maybe they’d have signs. Like one could say, “Don’t worry, you won’t look like a toothless old hag!” And then the next one would say, “Okay, someday you will, but NOT TODAY, is the thing.” “Alright, you will look rather swollen, but you can hide behind a scarf or something. We won’t be hiding in the bushes taking pictures.”

Would that make a sweet movie scene?

The other day I couldn’t focus on anything so I just starting googling my street address. Among the people I came across who lived in my building were: a soviet spy, a movie actress, a holocaust survivor and a jilted lover.

Lydia Altschuler. From the FBI’s website: “Another tantalizing set of clues to Soviet intelligence emerged in the ALTO Case, where the Bureau intercepted coded messages passed from Soviet agents in Mexico to a mail drop in the United States run by a Lydia Altschuler for whom the case was named … the Bureau learned that these messages concerned Soviet attempts to free Trotsky’s assassin.”

The mail drop was my building!! I couldn’t find a picture of Lydia Altschuler, or anything about her later life. I’m guessing she changed her name.

Lynne Carver. This is Lynne playing the wife of Scrooge’s nephew in the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol, the one with Reginald Owen. Her career kinda stalled in the 1940’s and she moved to New York. Sadly, she died on August 12, 1955, a month before her 39th birthday. So young. Her husband at the time was William J. Mullhaney, so he must have lived here too, but I haven’t found much out about him yet. He was a former stage director who worked for Pitney-Bowes.

Max Krolik. From the New York Times obituary. “Max Krolik, an assistant professor of at St. John’s University, Jamaica, Queens, died Sunday after a short illness at his home … He was 42 years old.” Another one who died too young! He died on February 7, 1971. He’d published some papers on graph theory, but he was working on his doctorate and was still at the beginning of his career.

Update: A former student of Max Krolik’s, Dr. Robert O. Stanton, wrote a lovely tribute to him. It’s quite moving even if you didn’t know him!

When I googled his name to learn more about him I found this picture of him and his sister Rosa at the Chateau de la Hille on the website for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

“Both were brought to the USA in 1941 through the efforts of Mme. Lilly Felddegen as part of a group of 100 children rescued by the US Committee on European Children, chaired by Marshall Field.” The complete story is here.

Finally, I found this short piece in the September 5, 1895 New York Times. I haven’t learned anything about Alberte Danes or Ferdinand Schueter/Sehueter yet, but that’s going to take a trip to the library, I think. The next time I’m there I’ll look them up. I’d really like to learn just which apartment each of these people lived in.

Before reading my post I strongly recommend watching Eric Whitacre’s Ted talk about his Virtual Choir. It’s only 14 minutes, and it’s probably the first time I’ve ever seen someone effectively communicate the sheer joy and beauty of singing in a choir. Just click on the link. You won’t regret it. After watching it I had to be a part of the next Virtual Choir, whenever that was.

I joined the mailing list and last month we all got our instructions about which piece we were doing and details about how to record and upload your entry. My plan was to practice right up until the January 31st deadline, and record my part the day before or some such. Then I remembered I was going to have a mouth full of ugly teeth as of January 12th.

So last Thursday I swam, blow dried my hair, and submitted my part. It was absolutely terrifying. I’m going to work very hard to describe it for my book, but the bottom line is: fear. Exposed to the world, “everyone is going to know how badly I sing” fear. Then euphoria. There is nothing like confronting something that terrifies you and doing it. Nothing.

Watch the video. If you want to do this too, go here.

I’m getting my teeth pulled Thursday and it’s over-shadowing everything. Tomorrow for instance, is the start of the new choir semester, and we’re singing the Verdi Requiem. I’ve never sung it before, but we sang a little of it at the holiday caroling party in December, and you could tell by just those few snippets how gorgeous it is.

But all I can think about is after this week I’ll be going to choir rehearsals with a mouth of ugly teeth. Oh! I have to explain. My top teeth are capped, four of them, and they are pulling those when they pull the teeth. So I will have two fake teeth and two ugly temporary caps on the other teeth. To recap: a mouth of ugly teeth.

Okay, now I want to cry. I promise it won’t be all-teeth, all the time here. Except this week it kinda might be. By next week I will be resigned to it and hopefully moving on. With my mouth of ugly teeth.

Christmas lights on Perry Street. I love walking through these. I feel like a Christmas princess.