Stacy Horn

Some people are probably going to get sick of my Christmas shots. This is the library at 42nd Street. I was there on Saturday doing research. By the way, as I was heading up there I was thinking I was insane to go there on a Saturday, and it was insanely packed, but with people looking around, not with people doing research. I was actually in and out faster than usual. Found almost everything I needed. It was a good day.

I got email about a cat boarding place in Connecticut called Captain Kitt’s. Good lord, I’m looking at their website now. If you live in Connecticut this is the place to board your cat. They have aquariums for entertainment, they give them shrimp and tuna for snacks (I’m sure if you ask them not to, they won’t, I know some cats are not supposed to have fish) and catnip cocktails at night! This is kitty vacation heaven.

Once again …
just filling up lines …
in order to line up the pictures …
nicely.

As you can see, Finney is foregoing ornament destroyage and going straight for the branches. Here he is, chomping on a branch. Chomp, chomp, chomp. Well, you can’t kill it evil little fur-dude, because IT NEVER LIVED.

I was going to write this morning, but Howard so nicely downloaded some music for me (which I love) but the CD got stuck in my Powerbook (I think because of spilled orange juice a few days ago) and I have to go to the Apple Store to get it fixed.

Then caroling in gorgeous, gorgeous Brooklyn Heights with some friends. So, ah, no work today, I don’t think!

The streets all around my block (but not MY block) have been decorated. It looks really pretty. Who did this?? This is Waverly something. (I’ve lived here 30 years and I still don’t have the streets straight.)

Lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky (every once in a while I must chant to show the universe that I recognize my luck in living here and having a rent stabilized apartment that supports my writing, blogging, cat-loving life-style).

I’ve just started working on one of the chapters I’ve been looking forward to writing most. It’s going to focus on EVP (electronic voice phenomena, audio recordings of the dead). The Duke guys didn’t actually work on EVP, in fact they disdained it, but it fits in the story and I don’t want to say how or why. It’s a surprise! Anyway, I just can’t get enough of EVP. I’m not convinced these are actual recordings of the dead, (sorry). I’m one of those people who believes this is it, but if those voices are not dead people, what are they? Those answers could be even more interesting, no? I just re-read the chapter about sound in Diane Ackerman’s book, A Natural History of the Senses, which is so good by the way I must BEG you to read it. Please read it. I BEG YOU.

Weirdly, my beliefs don’t make the recordings any less scary. And I could be wrong, is the thing. Speak to me, Jacob Marley! I need to find the best audio experts in the country and see if they will help me understand the issues.

Lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, (that I get to write this chapter).

I put up my little, desk-sized Christmas tree. We’ll see how long those ornaments last. The cats broke their first within seconds. There was a little kitty high-fiving action, but they stopped when they saw me looking.

Meanwhile, I’ve been splurging somewhat lately in the beauty area. I have to recommend this new place I went to to get my brows done. Christine Chin. Christine read me the riot act about my brows, then went to work and I love the results. I have to go back in a month, because she’s changed the line and I need to grow out certain spots. She also made promises about what she could do for me with a facial and I believe her. So when I go back to get my brows done I’m going for the facial, too. Yes, this is why the terrorists hate us, I know. And, I just realized that with this paragraph I probably lost any male readers I might have had left.

Had a lovely dinner out last night with Hadley, Angus and Jonathan. They are the people who help Echo out with technical stuff. I almost never get to see them in person. Our exchanges are mostly like this:

ME: [X] is BROKEN. Help!!
Hadley or Jonathan or Angus: Oh yes, I see what’s wrong. No problem, we’ll fix it!!
ME: My heroes!! (Okay, I don’t say that but I think it.)

I just noticed that you can see the book, “Life After Death” on my shelf. I just finished “Phone Calls From the Dead,” yesterday. Death, death, death. (It’s research for my book!) And, speaking of terrorists, there was a time when you would have seen the World Trade Center in the distance in this view from my window. Oh God. Remember the smell? I just remembered that you could smell the fires burning downtown for months. Months. I had forgotten that.

The roses crashed, and I didn’t have the heart to just throw them away so I put the petals in a bowl. I just realized that this picture, next to ones I took when I first got them, is like this sad cycle of life and death. Isn’t this bowl of petals urn-like?

Yesterday I had one of those days. One thing after another went wrong, among them, Echo’s web server crashing. I had to go down to where we have the server co-located to manually fsck (showing off one of the few unix commands I remember after all these years). I get there and can’t get the keyboard to work. I don’t know what to do. There’s a couple of guys working there on their servers so I go over and ask them if they have a keyboard I can borrow. One guy says “yes,” before I even finish asking the question. He finds a keyboard, brings it over and plugs it in for me, then he gives me a bunch of cables that will make my life easier in the future, tells me what they are for and how to use them, and finally he tells me to keep the keyboard. Because of him I was able to bring the web server that this blog runs on (among other things) back up.

The guy’s name is George Sukkarieh. A happy ending thanks to George Sukkarieh. Thank you, George!! That was way beyond nice of you.