Stacy Horn

This is me, Miriam, Mary, Alessandra (who is having a baby in June!!) and Dimitra!

And this is Alessandra with Rebecca, who just finished this program in neo-natal nursing, and I’m thinking I’ve got the name/description wrong. God help me. Memory-abilities completely shot. Anyway, I had a great time, just love the choir girls, and for the millionth time, I wish I had a pretty little apartment in Brooklyn Heights. Man, that place is enchanting. I’ve got a couple of pictures of my fantasy Brooklyn Heights home, which I might post later.

The Mobil building is not a success. I can see why the designers thought it was a good idea at the time. The metal work in and of itself is pretty.

But the overall building is not. (I didn’t take a shot of the whole building.) It doesn’t help that it’s across the street from the Chrysler Building. A detail (actually, the Chrysler Building is such perfection, if you look closely, there are gorgeous details within details even in this close-up):

Yesterday felt very productive. I went to the library after my meeting, except I found a lot and have to go back. Bottomline, that’s a good thing, but it just means MORE WORK. I’m meeting some friends for brunch in lovely, lovely, Brooklyn Heights, so I’ll have a nice meal with friends and then head back. A nice life, overall. Can’t complain. Except I will. But I have to say, I do get to walk around in a city where people come from all over the world in order to build what they hope will be the most gorgeous buildings in the world, and even when the results are not a complete success, there’s good bits.

I took this picture last weekend when Marisa and I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Before I forget, I don’t know if everyone reads the comments section of this blog, but Molly posted the following in response to the cat comic. She was demonstrating how cat people talk and I just laughed at (and love) how universal it is. She’s really captured it:

“You are the BABY! You. Are. The. Baby. You are the teeny, tiny baby kitteh. Yes you are! Yes you are! Can I kiss your belly?”

Perfect, right? So, I’m going up to Court TV this afternoon to talk about cold cases. Every once in a while they want to talk to me about cold cases and this time I totally brainstormed two new ideas, neither of which involve me, but they are good ideas! I’m excited, but given how these things go, NOTHING WILL COME OF IT. But they’re at 42nd and 3rd, so I will take a nice, nostalgic walk back home. I will pass by where Horn & Hardart no longer is, and next to that, where Woolworth no longer is, and next to that, where Mobil no longer is. I worked for Mobil for five years and I will always be grateful to Mobil because they led me to my life now. They paid to send me to graduate school which led to me starting Echo which led to someone actually freaking paying me to write a book.

Thank you, you great big oil company, you! Oh! My one good Mobil story. Actually, I have two, but here’s one. Mobil’s inter-office mail was sent using the initial of your first name and then your last name. When I worked there someone high up in disaster recovery was named Stu Horn. So occasionally I’d get his mail and, as a result, the inside story on disasters around the world. I remember one from the Exxon Valdez oil tanker crash in 1989 (my last year at Mobil). I don’t remember many details now, actually, just that Exxon was not accepting all the help that was being offered, which I remember being amazed at at the time. There could have been a perfectly valid reason, I just remember being surprised. It was a terrible, terrible crash (of course I remember all the birds coated in oil) and you don’t need every bit of help you can get?

Oh wait. Maybe they already had enough, or too much, of whatever was being offered. I remember down at the Trade Center, everyone wanted to help, and there was only so much room and so thousands and thousands and thousands of people were turned away, and they had to find other ways to help.

In any case, I will take a nice long walk home, contemplating all the things that are no longer, and probably the fact that soon, I will be one of those things. I can’t help it! Who can avoid noting that?? I won’t dwell on it too much, but there it is!

American Idol Thoughts. What the hell?? Haley and Michael-Jackson-Level-Weird Sanjaya, and not Sabrina and Sundance (both of whom had problems, but still)??

Another photograph is missing! I don’t know where it went!

This is the enduring image of the sixties for me. I think I had a lighter with this picture on it (it’s from a Robert Indiana painting). It makes me happy, just looking at, although the time period was not all that great for me.

But I’m up to the sixties now with this book, and I’m researching LSD. Apparently all the parapsychologists were doing it! Okay, not all, but the people I’m writing about experimented with it a little, and really, who knew? It’s just bizarre, to me anyway, this cross-over in cultures. I’ve got letters from Huxley and other early experimenters, talking about all the other early experimenters, and mediums comparing their trance states to tripping! Can you believe it?

My American Idol thoughts for the day. I just do not like Antonella. Not only can she not sing, but she has this off-putting, entitled attitude. Last week it was comparing herself to Jennifer Hudson, and this week, when Simon tried to tell her the truth as graciously as possible, she was just prissy and dismissive in return. She’s pretty clueless, but unaware that she is clueless, and is unpleasant about it. Melinda is the best, but I want her to start owning her talent. I appreciate that we can’t change our self-image over night, if at all really, but I want her to stop acting amazed and grateful that someone hasn’t kicked her or something when she faces the judges.

Cats have incredibly accurate inner clocks. I knew it must be four o’clock because here are Finney and Buddy, hovering, as they always do every day when it gets close to 4 p.m., their feeding time. Look at those faces.

Finney: “Food, food, food, food, food, food. Hello? Are you still sitting there?? Do you not see what time it is? Food, damnit.”
Buddy: “What he said.”

And here is a cartoon, from the always fabulous and charming xkcd, which nicely explains this blog.

Oh God I love that. I’ve cracked up everytime I get to, “You’re a kitty!” Because every cat owner knows that we totally get that idiotic. It’s true.