Stacy Horn

I gave this image the title of “Paraboys.” It’s a picture of Charlie Stuart, J. B. Rhine and Gaither Pratt, the main guys on the staff of the Duke Parapsychology Lab when they began.

It was a discussion of the relative insignificance of ESP now, compared to other abilities and knowledge, that sent me into a bit of a downward spiral the other night. Who knows if we will manage to come up with any kind of significant contribution to humanity, history, the world, in the very short time we’re given. We don’t always get to know that in our lifetime. You do your best, but who knows if you are making the right choices at the time that you are making them?? You could find yourself at the end of your life going, “Uh-oh. It seemed like a good idea at the time.” We don’t know now where the work at the Parapsychology Lab might eventually lead, or if ends up being all for nothing. That’s the kind of thinking that freaked me out the other night. Everything I do might end up being all for nothing. Just one bad choice after another.

I guess that’s why people say love is the only thing that matters. Although it seems I am not the good choice maker in that arena, either. (There’s still time, there’s still time, holy mother of God, tell me there’s still time.) But if you have love, it’s something to point to that’s very satisying, even if you manage nothing else in life.

Speaking of choices, here’s a short video taken at the party I missed because I went to the Loser’s Lounge. That is Anne at the end of the table. Anne is fun.

I just realized, looking at the title on this entry, that according to the Duke guys, I can influence the flip of the coins. So, I may think I’m surrenduring to chance, but maybe there’s no such thing. You don’t get out of the responsibility of choosing. You can’t palm it off on fate.

Coffee, reading and posting on Echo, and a cat on me. This is Finney, stretching out on my lap. He waits for me to wrap myself in this fleece blanket, then jumps up. I think he just wants to curl up on the blanket and figures, “If the only way I’m going to get to be on this blanket is to sit on you, so be it.”

My agent’s holiday party was a lot of fun. I met Heather and Jon from www.dooce.com. I MET HEATHER AND JON. I read her blog every day, and the two of them were just so charming and attractive, and very tall, it turns out. But I think I’m in love. I want to marry them.

Then, I met the husband of one of the partners and I forget the name of his company, if he ever even told me, but he was explaining what he does, and then he was telling me about this program the military uses, which sounded scarily brilliant, in fact, it was all so utterly fascinating, I was riveted. But it gave me one of those moments where you are reminded of just how small you are in the universe. If you think about what everyone does every day, to keep the world going, to keep producing food, transportation, keeping people alive, safe, you know, as I am writing this I realize there is no way in a blog post that I am going to be able to convey what I want to convey. There is a huge, massive, amount of effort being expended each day, some of it incredibly interesting, we all have our part, but sometimes you are reminded of how small one’s part is, how little the contribution. Someone comes up with ideas for programs like this, implements them, there is a war in Iraq and there are people making decisions about things like wars, who are not necessarily the same as the people who design ways to fight them. Worlds away from me important decisions are being made. Which is not to say I agree with them, by the way, Iraq war bad. I’m just saying. There is just all this massive smartness churning all over the place and I’m just this spec, a sub-atomic spec, in fact, physics is centuries away from discovering the small thing that more adequately describes my place in the universe (and in time, oh God, if you throw in the perspective of time, forget it) and I am making the future-tiny-thing-to-describe-it contribution.

And that reminded me that there are all sorts of things that motivate me and one of them is self-loathing. I was very happy to learn years ago that I’m not the only one who sometime thinks to myself, “I hate myself, I hate myself,” and then, to break up the monotony, “God, I’m such an idiot.” Thank the fucking lord it’s not the only thing that motivates me, but man. I do hate myself sometimes. I feel better having gotten that off my chest, though.

I should pack it in today and go to a movie. Oh! But the Loser’s Lounge is tonight. That should be fun.

The store with the great windows which I failed to capture changed their windows to yet another wonderful display.

I love the “party dress” arrangement of this one. I remember what it was like! Getting dressed up for my grandmother’s or some holiday event, wearing my new party dress, and shiny black patent leather shoes, tights, a new purse, and a bow in my hair. I still experience the party dress thing, but it’s not the same.

I’m going to my agent’s office holiday party later. I will not be wearing anything like this red dress. But I think I will go get a pedicure to put myself into the partygirl mood. Yes, good idea. That is what I will do.

Just
using
up lines.

As I posted earlier, before working on the EVP section of my book, I re-read A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman for inspiration. Great, great, book. She has a section for each of the five senses, but the best section by far is the one about the sense of smell. It’s just such a poweful thing.

And this memory popped into my head, of a toy from my childhood. Super Elastic Bubble Plastic. You’d put this gooky stuff on the end of a small, plastic tube and blow up very fragile balloon bubble things. Except I could never quite get it to work. Maybe I blew up a few delicate balloons. But the smell. It’s the smell of childhood. I remember our house, our porch, the lawn, our dog, everything.

So, I bought this cheap, knock-off in a drugstore. It was very satisfying. It still doesn’t really work, but the smell is exactly the same. I love smelling things from my childhood. Like playdough. They are comfort smells.

(The picture is from a website called http://www.bigredtoybox.com)

This doesn’t even begin to capture the ethereal beauty of this window. It’s for a children’s clothes store on Bleeker between Perry and 11th Street. It’s stunning in person.

That reminds me (walking around and finding things of beauty reminds me) that I also love walking around and finding the forgotten, and I am not the only one. Kevin Walsh, who does the website Forgotten New York has a book!

Oh! I just got email from a statistician saying the paragraph I wrote summing up the Duke statistical work was okay! YAY! I was feeling very nervous that I had made some stupid mistake in logic.

Need to write lines …
so the picture and body of the post …
line up nicely.