Stacy Horn

Buddy is like the Heather from America’s Next Top Model of cats. Hard to get a shot of him looking at the camera. But he’s gorgeous, right? By the way, I so wanted Heather to win.

I’ve been working day and night on this final draft, I have barely left the house in two days, so I really really really must leave the house today. But to do what? Here are my choices:

– Go to the gym.
– See the movies I Am Legend and Enchanted.
– Go to the library.

What to do, what to do? In other Heather news, (not America’s Next Top Model Heather) her current post on Dooce is amazing. Important, even.

Finney watches Buddy from my lap. It’s all about the food. I wish weight wasn’t an issue and I could just feed and feed and feed them. Knock yourselves out, guys. Food all the time forever.

I just turned on itunes. Time for a list! Some of my Christmas music favorites:

Amahl and the Night Visitors
Snoopy and the Red Baron Christmas
The Bing Crosby/David Bowie Duet
Handel’s Messiah
Bach’s Magnificat
Vivaldi’s Gloria
Anything by Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland
Il Est Ne, Le Devin Enfant

Actually, I’m bored with this list! What’s a better list? I pulled out some Christmas books to read.

Silent Night by Mary Higgins Clark
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The Cat Who Came for Christmas by Cleveland Amory
A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote (short story)

I should explore more stories in this collection that has the Capote story. It’s called A New Christmas Treasury. The Capote story is lovely, but sad. The Cat Who Came for Christmas is hysterical. A Christmas Carol, well, everyone knows the story, but the book itself, if you haven’t read it, is edgier than most movie versions, and Silent Night, I don’t remember if it’s any good, but hopefully it will be fun.

The bells belonged to my mother who used them to wake me up to help her when she was dying. Apparently I can sleep through anything, including a dying mother calling for help. When she was dying of pancreatic cancer I would stay out at her house on Long Island a couple of times of week to help take care of her. We were all taking turns, but in my memory it was mostly my brother Douglas, who was the best at negotiating the healthcare system, and my sister-in-law Karen, who was the best at taking care of my mother personally. Karen just has this way of being so caring, but at the same time acting natural and not freaked out, that was so crucial and comforting to my mother those last few weeks. (Thank you, Karen. I will always be grateful.) Which is not to slight anyone else who was there, and everyone was there more than me, it’s just that we all have different skillsets and I noticed Doug and Karen’s in this situation. But given that I was not there as much as everyone else I probably missed a lot.

Anyway, I was out there one night and my mother had to call and call and call before I finally woke up. It was awful. She was so weak and helpless. She pulled out those Christmas bells and used them to wake me up after that. Ugh.

To the right of those bells is a cross made from the metal of the World Trade Center, and to the right of that is a piece of World Trade Center glass. Oh and that madonna and child triptych is from my dead Grandmother’s house. (That’s not actually a triptych, is it?)

Oh good lord, I am morbid. But I couldn’t help noticing! I swear I’m actually mostly a happy, upbeat person! I see myself that way anyway. I’ve been singing that Snoopy and the Red Baron Christmas song and everything. Ho ho ho! Deck the halls! I’d have a tree if the cats weren’t so bent on its destruction. I’m afraid they’ll hurt themselves with it somehow when I’m not here.

I didn’t get any great pictures at the Echo holiday party last night, but this is Brett and Erin who just got married the day before!! Congratulations Brett and Erin!! That is not their child, by the way. I don’t know where they got her, maybe out front? (That’s Ivy, daughter of the fabulous Ava and Grave.)

And now, because my people shots sucked so bad, I give you FOOD. Ava brought these kosher fruit-flavored tootsie-roll-like candies that were absolutely delicious. I googled them last night so I get more, and couldn’t find them. Turns out they give them away at B&H Camera. I guess I have to go there and look like I might buy something.

As you can see from the photo, we like to eat crappy food, mostly, although someone brought hummus, which is very good for you. I brought sugar cookies, those Christmas colored sprinkles covered sugar cookies. Because they are pretty. I like that pack of matches that says, “OK.” They make the shot.

Or I used to anyway. So many things made me happy I used to make lists. This is a picture of something that hangs in my bathroom. Scotty, a former boyfriend of mine, found this type-drawer and painted it for me and gave it to me as a place to store toys.

These days, if I want to do something nice for Finney I pick him up so he can bat one of the toys out of its slot. It’s part of a ritual of ours. I’ll pick him up and we’ll take a tour of the house, where he will alternately sniff and mush his head against things normally out of his reach, or knock them over, his absolute favorite thing. He loves this ritual. He purrs the minute I pick him up and cranes his neck out immediately to start sniffing and knocking things over. He just can’t wait. If I miss something he wants to knock over he will squirm and reach for it. “No, no. You missed something!” And we go back.

Anyway, it used to be that the number of things that made me happy far outnumbered the things that didn’t. For a while it’s been neck and neck, with the sad outnumbering the happy from time to time, I have to admit. I’m not complaining, life isn’t always great, what are you going to do? But for the past couple of days I’ve been feeling a little bit how I used to feel, and the only way to describe it is, “I take pleasure in a great many things.”