Stacy Horn

Ha! My friend Ruby (whose real name is Gail) pointed out that it was Phil in the mirror of the shot below, but she couldn’t tell who he was speaking to. It turns out it was her!!  That’s Ruby in the shot, making a point to Phil.

I so want to be a detective, except I want to be a geek-like detective, like the CSI people.  Except I’m working on my audio forensics piece (still) and there’s definitely an upsetting side, like there always is, to this kind of work.

But not at the moment!  It’s you, Ruby!! Ha!!

I was sitting on the couch with Lianne at my friend Ruby’s New Year’s Day party when I took this shot of Howard and Sandy. I just thought it was a cute boyfriend/girlfriend shot.

A few minutes before that Lianne’s husband, writer/historian Phil Dray and I were going over our favorite Barack Obama moments.  We’re all still just so happy about the election.  Phil’s most recent book, Capitol Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen couldn’t have been timed more perfectly. I was trying to remember the piece he recently wrote where I learned a lot and I think it was this one in the Post.

So no New Year’s resolutions for me.  Who makes those anymore?  We all know better by now.  I saw there was an article in the Times about how people don’t keep New Year’s resolutions.  I didn’t read it.  I don’t need to.  I know.

I’m just going to hope I do or say fewer assholish things this year than last year.  That’s the most realistic wish I think I can make.  

Okay, who am I kidding?  I’m hoping this next book does really well. Do you want me to beg universe, because I can beg.  Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please.

I’ve been having trouble sleeping for the past couple of nights, but last night I get to sleep and what happens? Someone rings my door buzzer at 3 or 4 in the morning and wakes me up. People always ring us on the top floor when they forget their keys.  I guess because we’re the farthest away and they can run up the stairs and into their apartments before we can reach them to strangle them. As much as I hate it I always get up and let people in and never yell at them.  I was young and stupid once, too.  (Now just older and stupid.) But I didn’t last night.

I’m going to hell for that.  (I was sleep deprived!)

Then, an hour later I hear someone screaming in the street. There’s a fire in the building on the corner. First, no one was hurt. No ambulances.  But I take a movie, not knowing if it’s going to come out, but it does, except I turned the camera on its side, which screws up the format so it’s not usable.  

I learned this the last time there was a fire across the street, but I guess I was so tired I didn’t realize I was repeating the same mistake.

Yesterday, while doing the WTC tour I noticed a bunch of paintings on the walls in the American Express building and I wondered if these were Craig McPherson’s, the guy I posted about earlier in the year (he did some drawings of me in my younger days). Sure enough, they were! “I know this guy! I know this guy!” I start saying to everyone there.  They all smiled and admired his work.

This is just small detail, it was hard to get a good shot.  The colors are probably only approximations.

I’m in for the night.  I’m going to curl up with this really fun young adult book my friend Kevin sent me—The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.

This is how to win a war—ruin the sleep of an entire country for a full week straight.  No one will be able to function. They will surrender immediately rather than suffer another week like that. I slept last night but that’s because I had a few nights of barely sleeping and I was like a dead woman. 

Signs like this one to the left keep relentlessly going up in my neighborhood. I’m sure this business will be replaced by yet another place I can’t afford to shop in (or eat at). At least this one is moving and not closing altogether. As someone who started a business I can tell you that you lovingly put everything you have into them, it becomes the beating heart of your daily life. Whenever someone criticized Echo, it was like they had criticized my child, and I always wanted to dress them down for it.  It was insane. I always get choked up at the part in A Christmas Carol when Fezziwig watches from a carriage as they take down the sign for his business and replace it with the Scrooge and Marley’s.  I know exactly how his heart is breaking.