Stacy Horn's Blog, page 12

St. Luke’s Place

St. Luke’s Place is one of my favorite blocks in the Village. I almost moved here when I first moved back to the city after college (but the available apartment was not ideal, alas). With these pictures I tried to capture how lush and green it is.

It’s simply magical. I’d love so see all of these apartments inside. On the other side of the street it a ball field, a branch of the New York Public Library, and the outdoor pool for the city gym where I swim. It seems like it might be too loud with all that, but it never feels loud when I walk down the street.

It’s official. My wrist is broken.

I can return to work on June 21st. After a year of free time I get … more free time. And pain! I’m fine actually. It only hurts here and there. I need to come up with a good plan for how I will spend this time.

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I Broke My Wrist!

Ugh. It happened Monday afternoon, and was the result of doing something very stupid while exercising. The ER found one minor fracture, but they wanted me to followup with an orthopedist to check an area they couldn’t see. Since that was where it hurt the most I was pretty sure the orthopedist would find another break. I’ll know later today, but it started feeling a lot better yesterday, and even better today, so maybe there isn’t another break!

I’ve been taking it easy with exercising though. Yesterday I took a long walk, and today I’ll probably do some low impact something. Or nothing at all! What do you think about that, poor-judgement-while-exercising self?

A photo shoot I passed by on my walk.

Singing in Central Park

My choir occasionally gets together to sing under one of the arches on Central Park (for the resonance). We spread out in a circle, wearing our masks, and we do our best. It’s very nice and I appreciate that these are organized by our director (that’s him on the right in the first shot). That said, I cannot wait to get back to regular rehearsals, where we practice week after week, and where we can really hear each other, and truly feel that sensation of harmony, as we perfect whatever it is we’re working on.

Spring Cleaning 2021

I am about to start my yearly Spring Cleaning. As riders of my blog know, I make a very big deal about spring (and holiday) cleaning. It’s exhausting, but there’s nothing more peaceful than a thoroughly—and I mean thoroughly—clean house.

Bodhi relaxing on my desk, arms extended.

Welcome to the World Inside My Head

Every once in a while I have this conversation in my head:

Me: Everything’s going to be okay.
Me: Well, probably. It usually is, but …
Me: Yeah, there is most definitely going come a day when it won’t be okay.
Me: Forever.
Me: Jesus. And there’s just no fucking way around it.
Me: Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
Me: Maybe the people who believe in ghosts are right.
Me:
Me: Yeah.
Me: Don’t think about it.
Me: It’s all we have.

A storm was brewing while I ran my errands this morning.

Spring in the West Village, New York City

Walking home from work last week I came upon a forsythia bush and a dogwood tree. Instant wash of nostalgia. The good nostalgia. The only thing that could have made it better would have been spurts of wild violets, grape hyacinths, tiger lilies, and rocks with salamanders underneath. Okay, and ponds and rivers and stars at night.

Music at Muse

There was music at a pop up jewelry store called Muse on Hudson Street just now. I passed it by on the way back from the laundry. There were bags of flowers on the table, beautiful flowers I would have loved to have! The woman sitting on the bench in the fur coat seem to be a celebrity of sorts, or maybe the owner of the store. She was being treated with deference The singer had a very nice voice. I should have stayed longer. But I was lugging laundry.

Odell Lachney and Derek Chauvin

I’m afraid to watch the trial of Derek Chauvin, but it made me remember a tweet I’d read recently. It was about a New York soldier named Edward Green who was shot to death by a bus driver named Odell Lachney in Louisiana in 1944. Lachney had demanded that Green move to the back of the bus and Green refused. Lachney stopped the bus and walked towards Green. “A white passenger sitting directly behind the drivers’ seat, cautioned Mr. Lachney: ‘Don’t shoot him on the bus.’ Apparently heeding this advice, Mr. Lachney forced Private Green onto the street as he pleaded, “Don’t kill me, I’ll get off.” Lachney killed him anyway. Criminal charges were never filed.

So whatever became of the murderer Odell Lachney? I found a 1951 article in the Atlanta Daily World which indicated that Lachney went right on harassing and abusing people of color. The year before he’d told two African American couples on the bus to be quiet. One of the women refused, and Lachney once again stopped the bus. He went up to the woman and slapped her.

Just picture that. Picture your bus driver coming back and slapping a woman sitting near you. When her husband tried to protect her Lachney attacked him. The only people arrested, of course, were the two African American men defending their wives and themselves. The judge gave them a suspended sentence because they were provoked, he said. “I have also taken into consideration the person who made this complaint and it appears that on several occasions complaints have been filed against him in the city court.” The paper also mentioned Lachney’s murder of Private Green and that “various civic and business groups have petitioned for his removal from his job.”

It’s heart-breaking that horrible people like this can go on, murdering and assaulting people, and there are never any consequences. I’d hoped to find one shred of evidence that justice finally came for Odell Lachney. But I haven’t found much else about him except in the 1930 Census there’s an Odell Lachney who was married at 17 and living with his 17 year old wife Tammie, and a newborn daughter Dorothy Mae. (I think Dorothy Mae was living with an uncle in the next census, and was later married twice.)

The story did make the New York Amsterdam News, an African American-owned newspaper here in New York.

Kazuo Ishiguro

I just finished Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest novel Klara and the Sun. Loved it, haunted by it. Ishiguro is now officially my current favorite author. I’ve also read Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go.

I’m trying to decide which of his books to read next, but all his fans are incredibly divided about his remaining novels. Everyone mostly agrees that Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go are great, but his readers don’t mostly agree about the rest. I’ve gone through the reviews of his other novels and people love them, people hate them, it’s impossible to try to figure out which I might like. There’s no consensus.

Any opinions out there?

Bodhi sitting on Revenge by Yoko Ogawa and A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson. I’m trying to decide which to take to work today to read on my lunch/dinner hour.