Stacy Horn

I live a block away from where they used to shoot the outside shots for Carrie’s apartment. There’s a regular tour and people line up to take pictures of themselves and their friends sitting on Carrie’s stoop. I just passed these people a few minutes ago. There were a couple of cute outfits in the crowd, I noticed.

Did I ever tell my Sex and the City story? I probably did. Well, here it is AGAIN. When the show was on the air they filmed many times in my neighborhood. Unlike most film crews, they were always very nice. A friend said that was because they knew they’d have to keep coming back to the same neighborhood. Film crews can be incredibly rude. I would guess they’d say people on the street can be incredibly rude, and that’s probably true, too.

Once, when they were filming a scene with Carrie and Big, the crowd started interacting with the characters. “Don’t do it, Carrie!” “You can do better than this guy!” They had just wrecked the scene, but instead of yelling at them, Chris Noth turned around and started argung with them, in character. I couldn’t hear him myself, or I don’t remember what he said, but he was cracking the crowd up. The crowd and him went back and forth for a minute or two, it was a lot of fun for those of us watching. There was a wonderful spirit on the street afterwards. It was a lovely warm night and I walked home happy.

I was so glad to read that the Sex and the City movie is finally going to happen!! It will be so nice to see all the girls again.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think this puppy is the cutest animal of all time. Finney? Buddy? I still love you most of course. And should you learn to do something this painfully adorable I will reconsider my position.

[Video removed because the link no longer works.]

I can’t believe I forgot to mention this. I heard back from my editor about my first draft. As far as I can tell she loves it, wants changes, and I love her changes. Aside from saying, “Stacy, the book is perfect, you are perfect,” this is as good as it gets. The changes are not huge, structural, re-do changes, which would have been a less happy thing to hear. But more along the lines of, “more of this, less of that” type changes, and a request for one more paranormal story, which means more research which I love. I figure I have two to three more months of work to do and then I will have a book! So, I’m happy. I have a meeting tomorrow with her and her assistant, and then it’s back to work. I’m considering today the last day of my vacation.

This picture is of a sign above a school playground. It reminded me of the playground at St. Philip Neri’s, where boys are girls were also segregated. I had a nice memory of the time I leaned over the painted white line which separated us and while the nuns weren’t looking snuck a kiss with a boy I liked.

It turns out the fire at the Deutsche Bank was sadder than I knew. Two firefighters died there yesterday. It seems horrible that two people died for an empty building that was going to be pulled down anyway. Although I guess the thinking was, the fire could spread to non-empty buildings that are not going to be pulled down. How awful though. How on earth could that happen? They ran out of oxygen. How does that happen?? Did they get lost? Seriously. It wasn’t an out of control raging inferno, and people were all around. How did it happen? Not a criticism of them, by the way.

The two men came from a firehouse that lost 11 guys on 9/11. (The photograph came from Gothamist.)

I entered my first kayak race, the Harrison Street Regatta, (sponsored by The Downtown Boathouse) and came in last. Dead last. That is the actual kayak I raced in to the left. I was ten minutes behind everyone else, maybe more, maybe a lot more, but at least I finished!! I’m quite proud to tell you the truth. In my defense: I went out on a kayak for the first time, what? Two weeks ago? Or was it last week? Plus, my oar was messed up (seriously). And the wind was against me. Okay, it was against everyone, but I’m a weakling to begin with, so, ah, yeah. I feel great. It was a beautiful day and a perfect thing to do. I’m going to pay tomorrow. But maybe all my gym work will save me and I won’t ache too badly.

One sad note, I was walking home and there was a big fire downtown, and it looked like it was in the exact same spot as the Trade Center. Of course it brought it all back to see the smoke, and I swear I could smell that smell. Sure enough, I just looked it up and it’s the Deustche Bank. That was one of the buildings surrounding the site. It was coming down anyway, but still.

Anyway, the race was a mile, and I practically collapsed at the end of if and then I learned we had to row BACK. I almost burst into tears. But they gave me a narrower and faster boat to row back with and an oar that wasn’t messed up and I was fine.

Volunteers rowed on the sidelines, making sure everyone was okay, and this poor guy got stuck with me, because I was so far behind everyone else. He was very nice about it.

Pretty kayaks.

And a bouquet of oars.