Stacy Horn's Blog, page 188

Bleeck Update

It’s been fun watching Bleeck try to get closer and closer to Finney in the exact way I am trying to get closer and closer to him. Yesterday I was miserable because Bleeck wouldn’t let me anywhere near him. He was all, put down the food and be gone. But today I’m allowed to pet him.

Finney, who couldn’t be in the same apartment with Bleeck, then room, has allowed him to get steadily closer. Actually, this is how he and Buddy used to sleep together. They never curled up, but they’d have to be on the couch or bed or floor together.

The difference is, Buddy and Finney would play and fight without hissing or any real damage. Finney still won’t let Bleeck get near enough to play. OH! But today, Bleeck went up and started eating out of Finney’s food bowl and Finney didn’t kill him. I was in shock. He just let him.

One World Trade Center on 9/11/12

Back from the World Trade Center site. Got a few decent shots of the building I will one day marry, and one of a woman in front of the fence around St. Paul’s Chapel.

There were all sorts of people standing in front of the fence that surrounds St. Paul’s Chapel, truthers, various religious groups, etc. This woman was my favorite, although there were singers that were kinda nice. They were from that religious group, the one where the women wear the Little House on the Prairie dresses. I forget who they are. Oh hell, I’ll include a picture of them below. Someone will surely identify them.

His Name Might be Bug

Which would mean that I’m unable to think past names beginning with “Bu.” But that’s what I’ve been calling him so far. Bug. Poor guy. I tried to think of musical names for him, like Dolce for sweet, or Piano for quiet, which I kinda like, but his nickname would most assuredly become Pi, pronounced Pee, and that wouldn’t do.

He hid yesterday, so even though he doesn’t want me to come near him, being out in the same room with me while I took this photograph is progress.

I’ve still got him closed off in the bedroom. Finney hisses at the door, so he knows the intruder is in there. The little guy squeaked back though, so it seems he wants to go out there and check the hissing monster out.

New Cat Day … Probably

I called and left a message that I wanted the cat. Also, in my memory he was 5 or 7 months old, but it looks like I wrote down 2 years old. I have to straighten that out. It won’t affect my decision, but I wanted as young a cat as possible so the day I have to face the end is as far off as possible. It will affect what catfood I pick up today.

At one point during my cat search I was walking behind a bride on her way to City Hall to get married. Most people getting married at City Hill wear something nice, but they usually don’t go all out with gowns and tuxes. (My friends Howard and Sandy got married there in their regular, every day clothes.) I love the brides who say, “Fuck it. It’s my wedding day and I’m wearing a wedding gown.” I took a couple of shots.

My future heartbreak?

I’m thinking of adopting this cat. I have to make up my mind, like now, and call. He’s wonderful, but I’m torn. Am I doing the right thing for Finney? Will I love the new cat as much as I did Buddy? He’s not vocal they said, and I kinda like cats that talk. Buddy squeaked every time he jumped on the desk to be with me, and meowed when he wanted attention. But I shouldn’t be looking for Buddy. If I get another cat I should open up to what is lovable about this cat. I didn’t much like Buddy at first, he hid for days, and wouldn’t let me pick him up (and never liked being picked up). Then he became the most lovable cat I believe I have ever owned, with endless quirks that made me love him even more.

The picture isn’t sharp because I didn’t want to turn on the flash and he wasn’t being completely still.

Update Below!

This cat had just come into one of the places where I was looking. I started to say I’d foster him, but the woman I was working with (at KittyKind at the Petco at Union Square) didn’t think that was a good idea. They didn’t know anything about him yet and it might be too stressful for Finney and me. But he looks just like Buddy, so my heart leapt.

Another update below!

Buddy when he was first rescued. This was weeks or maybe a month before I got him. Buddy’s adult face was not unlike this grey cat’s.

Walk About

Today I’m going on a walk about. Well, it may turn out to be the first half of a walk about. I’d planned to walk around to all the animal shelters, but I have to go downtown first to scout out a location for a 9/11 lunch and I may not make it to them all.

The other day I was talking to a friend about the phenomena where you see someone you recognize and you can’t quite place them. Your first thought is that it’s someone you’ve met and you’re forgetting them and then you realize, oh. No, I don’t know them. I saw them on TV.

Yesterday, I saw this person and I almost said hello and then I realized, no, I saw them on TV. Her name is Kara Laricks and she was the winner of a reality tv competition show called Fashion Star.

Fashion’s Night Out

There were so many amazing outfits, and I didn’t get the best of them for one reason or another; people whipped by too quickly, my jaw was dropping, etc. Some of the best were going in and out of Alexander McQueen’s. Oh, this is not a comment on the outfits of the people in these photographs! And I got free stuff! Two pairs of gloves, a really nice notebook, and Pantene samples.

Anyway, it was fun to walk around. If I wasn’t feeling so weary I would have tried more neighborhoods. But now I’m home, in my pajamas, watching the DNC. Clinton and Sandra Fluke killed it last night (that girl is going places). Kerry was surprisingly good tonight, and Biden is coming up next!

Tomorrow is Fashion’s Night Out

For some reason, over the years my neighborhood has become one of the places for high fashion. So when the fashion industry holds its yearly Fashion’s Night Out, my neighborhood and the Meatpacking District, which is one neighborhood over, becomes one big party.

It’s wall to wall people dressed to the nines, and all the stores that I can’t afford to shop in open their doors and serve drinks, food, there’s music, sometimes fun things to do (besides buying things). Sometimes free stuff. Little things usually, like last year all I got was a bag of potato chips, but they were actually really seriously good chips.

It’s very festive and fun. I just love to walk around taking pictures. (Looking dowdy in comparison to all the people descending on my neighborhood.) There’s this energy that just feels so completely frivolous, but in a good way, a sparkly, bubbly, effervescent party way. At some point I know I’ll be thinking that as fun as this is, the world would be so much better if Buddy was still in it, but what are you going to do? Eventually I’ll stop thinking things like that.

A pigeon who has been hanging around on my fire escape.

Lena Dunham at Perry Street Girls Shoot

I dragged myself out of the apartment to run errands and was rewarded by coming upon a shoot for the HBO show Girls. This is Lena Dunham, the show’s creator and the star. FYI, they’re shooting a half a block away from Carrie’s Sex and the City apartment.

The actress on the right is Allison Williams, daughter of news anchor Brian Williams. Thanks to Jon Stewart, whenever I think of Brian Williams I will always think and see “the giant head of Brian Williams”.

Lacrimosa (Tearful)

Here is a wonderful article about a man who is able to hear music for the first time. The song to reach his ears before any other was, apparently, the Lacrimosa from Mozart’s Requiem. Mozart died when he was nine bars into the Lacrimosa section of the Requiem, and it was completed by his friend Franz Xaver Süssmayr. Those nine bars were crucial and informative however, and Süssmayr’s completion feels pretty seamless (to me).

Given the text, the Lacrimosa sections of Requiems frequently bring out the most tender work a composer can muster. It’s a call for mercy on judgement day. The latin translates to:

Full of tears shall be that day

On which from ashes shall arise

The guilty man to be judged;

Therefore, O God, have mercy on him.

Gentle Lord Jesus,

grant them eternal rest. Amen.

Here is what Austin Chapman, the young man in the article, has to say about hearing it (and music) for the first time:

“When Mozart’s Lacrimosa came on, I was blown away by the beauty of it. At one point of the song, it sounded like angels singing and I suddenly realized that this was the first time I was able to appreciate music. Tears rolled down my face and I tried to hide it. But when I looked over I saw that there wasn’t a dry eye in the car.”

The picture below is of the beginning of the Highline (abandoned elevated railroad tracks that were turned into a public park). I went out to read, because I needed to get out of the house, and I needed to do something other than drown in my missing-Buddy-sorrow.

I started what is turning out to be a perfect, magical book. It’s called Jim the Boy and it’s the coming of age story of a ten year old boy in North Carolina during the depression. Seriously, it’s a treasure. Lucky me to have Howard hand this book to me at this particular point in time. It is soothing my heart. I’m going back to curl up on the couch and finish it now.