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This is me (and my badly in need of a fresh pedicure feet) out on the Hudson River, facing New Jersey. To my left was a Coast Guard guy, watching me with binoculars. I was taking pictures while probably drifting in a little too closely to the wind tunnel for the Holland Tunnel. (Such is life in post 9/11 New York City.) Not on purpose or to taunt the guy, more a matter of I don’t really have a lot of control, this being only my second time out.

Kayaking is an incredibly invigorating thing to do, I love it. A volunteer organization called The Downtown Boathouse gives free lessons and provide kayaks, for FREE, so you can kayak on the Hudson River. I’m going to try to practice so I can go on a trip to Governor’s Island in a couple of weeks. There’s a race next week between 56th and 72nd Streets. The guys who showed me how to kayak suggested entering the race, just to see if I can finish it, not win. If I can finish it, I can probably deal with the trip to Governor’s Island.

But it feels great. It just feels great. It’s energizing, even when you’re just floating. I researched kayaking trips on the east coast. Most emphasize white water, which I’m sure is fun, and I want to try it, but what I really want is a nice weekend trip, more of a leisurely kayaking, enjoying the scenery and being out on the water thing. Maybe something with white water and stretches of calm.

The Delaware River looks like it fits the bill perfectly. It looks like it offers exactly that. And there’s a few places in West Virginia.

The caption for this photo is, I love you, but I must bite you. Finney does that a lot with me. My little biter boo. Also, please note all the scratch marks on the coffee table. Walking, purring, destruct-o-meters they are.

I feel like I spent most of yesterday in Big Brother chat. I get the 24 hour feeds, and it’s really addictive fun, I must say. I usually go to the same channel every day, but I can’t always get in so I’m often talking to a random selection of people from around the country. I almost never agree with anyone about what’s going on in the show and there’s an uncomfortable period where I need to convince people not to hate me because I don’t hate Dustin and Eric and am ambivalent about Dick.

But today I have to go in the other direction. Since the weather is so great, I think a nice long walk, luxuriating in the non-hotness of the day.

Here’s a picture of Buddy sleeping. Doesn’t it look like he’s trying to hide? I can relate little fur-dude. I’m feeling a little blue today. Perhaps I should practice the banjo for a little while. That will make me feel better.

A little while later … it did. A little, at least. But now my fingers hurt. I think the action is too high on my banjo. I have to push hard to make a chord, and I know that will get better in time, but I really don’t think it should be cutting into my fingers as much as it does.

Anyway, I’m still blue. What to do? What do do? What to do so that I’m not blue? Writing a best-selling book would do it. Or, God appearing to us all and saying, “Death? DEATH?? What was I thinking?? Sorry. My bad. No more death. Okay, okay. I said I was sorry.”

Also that berry pie from the Little Pie Company. Flowers. A mineola orange. Cooler weather. Finding some new music for my ipod. Oh, and I’ve got a couple of good books on the way to me, thanks to my sister-in-law Karen. I ordered American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer and The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family. So, there’s that. What am I complaining about? Sob.

This is my great grandfather, Claudius Corke. If it weren’t for Claude, I’d be sure I’m adopted. I don’t think I look like anyone in my family except him. People say I look like my mother, but I don’t see it other than we both have brown hair and brown eyes. But I totally see my face in his. Perhaps the resemblence is less now that I’m older, although I can still see it. I scanned it in because I heard from someone who believes she might be descended from a sister of Claudius’s and she asked to see a picture.

Claudius came to the United States from the Isle of Wight in England, but I don’t know when. I don’t know much of anything about Claudius except he worked as a printer at a magazine, everyone liked him, and he liked to recite poetry. He lived and died in Sheepshead Bay. (Could there be a better town name than Sheepshead Bay??) Oh, and his wife was twice the size of him. He was very thin his whole life.

I think he looks like someone who would have gotten beaten up a lot on the playground when he was a kid. Maybe that’s he why he honed the likability skill, as a means of self-preservation.

Is it common knowledge that they pack people together in single graves? I didn’t didn’t know this until I started researching my family history. As part of my sorta-vacation I went back to work a little on my family tree. I noticed something I had overlooked in email from my cousin Debbie, an Andreas Horn who was buried in Queens in 1883. I called the cemetery and found out that there are 10 people total in his grave. Who are they?? I wrote away for a burial list and now I can’t wait to see who’s in there. I love this kind of thing. Love it. Buried bodies=buried treasure.

Why do I love this research so? People I’ve never met, never heard of, and I love finding them. A young Horn mother and her baby died in childbirth not far from here on 17th Street and I keep meaning to walk by the house. Why?? Why on earth?? Is it because I never had children, it’s a different sort of continuing the family line? I didn’t go forward so instead I go backward?

Perhaps it’s just a different way of trying to establish permanence, and continuity, and thereby defeating death. (Ha. Death always wins.)

The picture is of my mother’s childhood home in Sheepshead Bay. My mother must have gone up and down those steps a thousand billion times in her life and there isn’t a trace of her left. I have a picture of her as a little girl on that block. It hasn’t changed even a little bit. Except everyone living on that block at the time are now likely dead or close to it. (Oh god. Morbid much?)