Stacy Horn

That’s how many laps I swim, except this week I forced myself to stop counting. Everything is a competition with me and if there’s no one to compete with I compete with myself. This can be a very good thing, but in this case it was wrecking something perfect. Swimming is not only great exercise, I love it. But I was turning it into something grueling.

As long as I keep swimming the whole time, I realized, I was getting the great exercise part, and I should just relax and enjoy it. So now I do. When I’m doing the back stroke I look at the sky and the gingko trees. During freestyle and breast stroke I look for the diamonds the jewelry store robbers lost underwater (it could happen) or perhaps a new undiscovered species that only lives in the Carmine Street pool.

Workers down at the World Trade Center leaving work at the end of the day.

During the earthquake yesterday, I looked over at one of the cats and realized immediately I had no way to get two cats out of the apartment quickly.

If they were near each other, maybe I could throw a blanket over the two of them and wrap them up and run, but they they almost always flee in opposite directions. (Unless I’m feeding them, their default position is to foil my plans.)

What is the best solution?? Is there a good solution? I’d feel better if I could come up with something.

I’d need something to fit two cats, something that I can lift, and carry down four flights of stairs, and it should probably be on wheels for when I get downstairs. Ugh. Maybe a big thing and a wagon. I wish I could store the wagon under the stairs on the first floor, and then my only issue would be getting them downstairs.

Oh, I am SO getting a chihuahua next.

Things that went through my mind when my chair first began to shake.

– What the hell?
– Oh, God. It’s a ghost. And it’s mad at me.
– Maybe it’s psychokinesis. (I just wrote a book about the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory so I have these things on the brain.)

It gets worse and I run to the back of the apartment to where the woman who comes once a month to clean my apartment is (it’s my one indulgence, don’t hate me). The building is swaying and shaking now and I’m terrified. We think they must be doing some construction work next door. I yell out the windows, “STOP IT,” three times. Those neighbors now think of me as the crazy lady next door.

– Should I grab the cats and leave?
– Maybe we should go to the roof and jump over to the building next door. (My building is an old tenement, which tilts as it is and is in bad shape.)

I pick up the phone to dial 911 to complain about my neighbors when my cleaning woman says “earthquake,” and I realize she’s right. Her husband calls and he says he felt it in Queens. I see tweets are flying by and they’re feeling it in Maryland. I finally turn on the news.

VERY freaking scary. I was just thinking the other night about 9/11 and what those people felt in the last moments, when the floor gave way beneath them and there was nothing they could do to save themselves. I swear my building is tilting more. Or maybe my tilt-detector is out of wack.

A beautiful bird I saw yesterday when I looked out the window for my pigeon. Something I do all the time now. The Wild Bird Fund called to follow up about my pigeon release, to make sure it went okay. They are great people and run a great organization.

At a certain point the City built a ramp running along the cemetery in the back of St. Paul’s Chapel so people would be able to look into the pit at ground zero. I absolutely understood the need to look, so I’m not judging, but it was very weird for those of us working at St. Paul’s, and it must have been even weirder for the people working in the pit itself, to see this parade of spectators looking down at you.

A lot of people hated it, but I knew if I wasn’t working at the site I would have been one of the people on that ramp. I took this shot from the back door at St. Paul’s. (I didn’t own a decent camera at the time.) I just remembered, people would smile and pose for pictures when they got the end. Okay, that was a little messed up. But people are so oblivious (myself included).

I got a call yesterday from the Wild Bird Fund to come get the pigeon I rescued. His leg and wing had healed and he was ready to be released in the wild. The wild in this case being New York City. The wildest. “But, but, didn’t you say professional bird handlers were going to do this??” “You’ll be fine.” They told me what to do and said to let him go in the same place I found him.

As per their instructions, I set him down in front of my building in the carrier (a cat carrier) and spread bird seed around. The idea was to let him just sit there for a few minutes before opening the carrier to allow him to get used to the idea, to hear familiar sounds, smell familiar smells. They also hoped other pigeons would gather and eat the seed, which wasn’t happening. I found two pigeons a half a block away and slowly lured them down using a trail of seed.

Then the moment of truth came. I opened the carrier. It took him about a minute before he ventured out and headed straight for the middle of the street. Right at that precise moment a guy in a motorcycle came gunning down the street, not slowing down a single bit, and I got ready to jump out but my pigeon immediately flew to the top of the door across the street …

… then it started pouring rain. Thankfully, the doorway he chose was one that had an awning so he was safe. For the next twenty minutes I stood on the other side of street watching him. I didn’t want to let go. Of course it rained all night. Of all days to release him, it was such bad timing. He was cold and alone. The Wild Bird Fund said his parents would have nothing to do with him at this point, but he had been part of a flock so hopefully he’d hook back up with them again. That was why they wanted me to release him in the same spot.

Eventually I had to go upstairs. I’d done what I could for him. I put out a couple of piles of seed by the doorway and went up to my apartment. Bye little guy. Girl, actually. They told me she was a girl. Bye little girl. (Sniff.) I hope you have a wonderful pigeon life. But I miss you.