Stacy Horn

I had the most awful feeling yesterday. A friend was talking about something he’s going to called NewsFoo. A group of journalists are getting together to discuss the future of journalism. I didn’t get the sense that it would be some boring conference, but a group of really interesting people genuinely brainstorming and about something that needs thinking about. This friend is always doing stuff like this.

And I had the same kind of feeling I’ve gotten whenever people talk about new music and I’m the old person who has stood still while others are moving forward in whatever direction music is going.

Except now I feel like I’m stuck in a more overall way, in life. Others are moving into the future and I’ve stopped. I’ve disengaged. The world is moving on, and I’m receding further and further into the past.

It felt terrible. And I’m not even convinced I should be feeling this way. Whenever something new comes along that resonates with my life I adopt it. Maybe it’s because I’m spending my days researching 16th century composers. Or that I used to be more of an innovator. Or that I used to be the first among my friends to try something (I always found new music first).

Ugh. I took this walking up to the Apple Store yesterday. The Beatles pictures all over the place where of them at their cutest junctures. Okay, maybe not that one of John at the right. That was not his best look.

I have to write a chapter a month, so I must finish the chapter I’m currently working on … NOW. Except I can’t, technically. I have one interview to go and that isn’t taking place until tomorrow. But I can still finish everything else except that one part.

It’s bugging me that I cut off the top of that tree on the left. Now it’s bugging you, isn’t it?

I was going to have a Christmas shelf. I was going to have a vase of white flowers (representing snow) and then some sort of nice holiday arrangement around the flowers, some sort of creative thing that would demonstrate that the expensive BFA I got was not a total waste, but nothing I tried looked good.

So I slapped up some garland, lights, and bulbs and called it a day. This is what I do every year, nothing new. But it is cheery. So for everyone who said it would be cheery, you were right.

Plus, now I have a vase of lovely white flowers on my desk so there’s that.

I loved walking around last night taking pictures. I think I might start a list of: Things I Wish I Could Get Paid For. And at the top would be walking around taking pictures.

Wait. I get paid to write. I am officially in the category of Can’t Complain (or someone will smack me, and I’d deserve it).

I got a late start due to computer problems, and I won’t be getting to a number of things I’d planned to get to, and I have to be at the Apple Genius Bar at 1 and I’ve got so much I have to do and and and … starting to freak out. Deep breath.

The Barnes & Noble where I had a reading for The Restless Sleep is now a Trader Joe’s. I stopped in to look around and when I pulled out my camera someone immediately stopped me.

“You can’t take pictures.”
“Why not?”
“It’s policy.”
“Why?”

I forget what she said exactly, but she didn’t know. I said okay and put my camera away.

I tried to look around and give the store a fair shake, but being welcomed in that way kinda killed it for me. It just made me feel bad.

Then I saw the horribly huge line to check out, it was insane, it went all the way down the aisle. I figured I wouldn’t want to shop in a place with lines like that and left.