Stacy Horn

Someone just posted the meanest of mean-mean-mean reviews about The Restless Sleep on Amazon.  Worse, it’s kinda funny, I have to admit.  Funny is convincing. Ugh. In my next life I hope I chose a profession where people are not invited to publicly take shots at you.

Adding to the beginning of my not-fun day, I heard from a relative of someone in the book—I think she was hurt by what I wrote. This is why I decided not to write about crime anymore. There’s just too much potential to cause people pain. It’s the kind of subject where you’re pretty much guaranteed to distress someone.

Anyway, I helped give a tour of the WTC this morning and took this on the way home.  It’s one of the bars around the site where the recovery workers and volunteers hung out.  It’s a nice memory.  Here’s hoping the rest of my day is better.

I have to shower and go back out there!  I don’t want to!  Except it’s to do something kinda fun. I’m being considered to be used as a talking head for a cold case thing, so I’m going uptown to be filmed talking on camera.  Chances are nothing will come of it, I’m a writer not a tv personality, but it will be fun regardless.

This is looking west on 14th Street.  I love how the Donut Pub is next door to Flannery’s Bar.  A donut and a scotch.  What more does one need?

I love the air shaft views in my bedroom. They just say “New York” to me. I imagine the view might get depressing on the lower floors, but on the top floor I have the combination of dark and sky.  The best of both worlds.

So, I’m writing a proposal for my next book, about making up for the science education I lack. What stops me every time I start to work on this proposal is the realization that I will actually have to learn science.

I’m still scared I can’t.  I’m trying to tell myself it will be an absorbing way to spend the next few years, and when I’m done I will have a better understanding of so many things.

I will be better off than I was before.

AND, they say that learning staves off dementia and Alzheimers.  HEY.  Maybe I should pick a new career and write about learning how to do whatever it is I chose.

I started a Things I Want to Do list the other day, which included things I might write about:

– embed with military in Afghanistan and write about it.
– write about science.
– live in a different city for a while.
– See:  Alaska, India, Scotland, and take a tour of obscure, barely inhabited islands.
– Places I’d like to work: the Medical Examiners Office, New York Public Library, Municipal Archives, National Archives.

Oh, I just remembered another idea I was toying with, when I realized I didn’t want to do anything that meant leaving the cats behind, something to do with exploring New York, but it’s not very full formed yet, so I want to wait before posting about it.

I took this picture of a friend of a friend, it was sometime in the early 80’s.  She was an actress and needed head shots. She wasn’t happy with the photograph because it came out ever-so-slightly out of focus.  Turns out I needed glasses, but I wouldn’t discover that for a couple of more years.  I’ll tell you though, looking at this years later, I was okay!  Except for that needing glasses thing.  And the under-exposing thing.  But I remember thinking, “I have to find another way to make a living,” and I was better than I thought.  Ah yes, being young and stupid. Those were the days.  

I signed up for a podcasting class that’s being held at the Apple store in Soho today. I did this in a flurry of “ohmygod, how am I going to promote my book” angst. I also signed up for an imovie class, but I didn’t make it to that one.

I figured I’ll just film some interviews, or go places with a haunted history and make a short movie, nothing fancy. And that I already know how to do.

Except why am I making more of an effort with podcasting?  More people look at YouTube videos than listen to podcasts, right?  Or do they?  I don’t know.

In this picture Finney’s going, “What’s that?  Get it, get it, get it, get it, get it, get it, get it.”