Stacy Horn

Although I can’t help feeling they’ve been shamed into it, rather than doing it because it’s the right thing, (same with the 9/11 Health Bill which I believe is finally getting support among the GOP because Jon Stewart shamed them into it) but YAY to repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell!! And I’m sure some of them did it because it was the right thing.

Matt and Marianne at their panel yesterday. I didn’t fix Matt’s red-eye because whenever I try to people come out looking even scarier.

Bryant Park, behind the library, is set up for ice skating! I remember when I first moved back to New York, Bryant Park was an awful place, and my mother’s friend’s son oversaw the restoration. What was his name?? Dan Biederman!! Ah memory.

He was a very nice guy, and I believe he helped me when I first started Echo, and I wanted to set up computers in Grand Central Terminal to connect people all over the world on New Years Eve. He was (is?) running something called The Grand Central Partnership. This was in the early 90’s so most people hadn’t heard of the internet yet. Oh, I wish I had pictures of this. We set up along the balcony, and while people waltzed down below us, (something they did every New Years) we rang in the New Year over and over as midnight hit each country. Good times. We got people to come up and try it out and it was very exciting, it was all so new then (and strictly text-y). Sigh. I wish we had pictures of this!!

The whole Biederman family was nice. His father has since died, but his mother is still around, and there are sisters … one worked in television news, and she was kind enough to meet with me and give me advice and why can’t I remember her name?? I’m sorry!

I’m walking uptown to see a panel two of my friends are participating in at the library today. Christ! I went to get the link for their event and there are 103 events today at all the various branches of the New York Public Library.

Every once in a while I think about the scale of the place where I live. If you take any one day, and look at all the millions and millions and millions of events, gatherings, parties, whatever, going on all around the city, all the restaurants and shops, and there are enough people to go to all these things, eat in all these places, AND there are so many people that most of them are not aware of or will ever meet each other and know what everyone else is up to. It blows my mind. While I’m at my panel today millions of people will be at a million other things.

Dogs. There are also lots of dogs.

Ah, it would be nice to be educated. Because then I would know what this is. There’s something very bright in the sky right now, in a spot where I’ve never seen anything like that. Or rather, not this time of day. It’s probably a planet. OR, a planet eater! Orrrrrrrr my ride home.

I have to run! I’ve taken a freelance job fact-checking a friend’s book (yay!) but that means I only have a couple of hours a day to work on my own, which will be the first few hours of the morning, always my best writing time.

In the meantime, a reprise of a post from two years ago where I listed some of my favorite Christmas episodes. I’m going to add to it tomorrow, but if you have favorites, let me know! Maybe there are good ones I’ve forgotten, or even better, good ones I’ve never seen.

Northern Exposure: The episode called Seoul Mates. It’s the one where Holling sings Ave Maria to Shelley.

West Wing: Noel. This is the best of them all, my personal favorite, it’s the one where Leo tells the story to Josh that begins, “A man falls into a hole …”

West Wing: In Excelsis Deo, the one where Toby arranges for the burial of a homeless vet. (Aaron Sorkin can really do Christmas, apparently.)

Bones: The Man in the Fallout Shelter, this is the one where they are all quarantined in the lab over Christmas.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Amends. The one where it snows at the end.

Roswell: A Roswell Christmas Carol. This is the one where Max heals all the children at the hospital.

I had to stop reading this article about the treatment of Bradley Manning. I know there are people who don’t agree that this information should have been released, but surely we shouldn’t be doing what we’re doing to him.

I’m pretty sure I posted a picture of this building last year. They always do such a nice job decorating for the holidays.