Stacy Horn

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?)

We accomplished the move in three hours. That’s a record. I was so sick with worry and it went fine. Thank you Howard, Jonathan and Hadley!! We’re now at Digital Providers, which is faster, and I was not expecting that. Very nice side benefit.

So now I really feel like Miller/Disneyworld time. I handed in my book, got Echo moved, life is good. I’m going to get a little more work done today, catch up on my email, and then relax. Sigh, sigh, sigh. I really do feel good. I was just so anxious. Life upheaval does that to one.

I think I will grocery shop and run a few errands and then come home and practice the banjo and cook. It would be cool if I actually learn a song and then I can have a before/after movie thing. The before would be the one I already posted, of me strumming a G chord totally wrong, and then maybe an after with me doing it right and singing some great folk song. This guy who I’m learning from on YouTube, Patrick Costello–who is a saint, and who has a wonderful father, I’m going to write him today–puts up a Folksong a Day on YouTube. I can try to learn one of those.

That’s my little Finn-Monster, reaching around to prevent me from looking at any cute animal that is not him. I was posting about dogs at the time and he just knew.

Today I’m moving Echo’s machines from one co-location provider to another. I woke up and the machines were inaccessible, I still don’t know what the problem was. I was able to reboot one and get them both up again. That’s why I can do this blog post now! But there’s still a problem with email.

It’s shaping up to be one of those days. I did my MBSR meditation. I’m trying to be calm and less panicky. Moves are stressful, and this is a big one. It affects many people besides myself. People can’t send or receive email right now, and they may not be able to until this afternoon, and you know what that’s like, not getting your email when you need it. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

This move to a new host is a good thing though, and I should have done it a long time ago.

Oh God, they are pound pound pounding away at the roof again. I’m on the top floor so it’s my ceiling. Given how the universe works, today is the day they will come crashing through my ceiling.

“What you’ve done right, and what you’ve done wrong can come out in the music.” – Patrick Costello. Isn’t that a great quote? Anyway, this is me learning frailing … (more below).

I hauled out my banjo last night, and found a banjo lesson on YouTube made by a very nice banjo player named Patrick Costello. I love this style. When I first bought my banjo I started by learning bluegrass picking, and it just wasn’t fun. Weirdly. Bluegrass is fun to listen to, but I just didn’t enjoy playing it. Frailling is more fun. It has an old-time, O Brother sense to it. I could see coming upon some old guy with a beautiful voice playing this style down by a river in the middle of nowhere in the south, singing folk songs most people have forgotten.

Plus the beginner stuff is easier. (Although I am doing it totally wrong. Your thumb is supposed to rest on the 5th string until you pluck it.) I also love that you don’t need to wear picks to play this style. I hated the picks. It separated you from the instrument in a way that also contributed to making it less fun.

The banjo I have is not really right for it, although it will do. But it occurred to me that I might be able to modify it to make it work better. I could remove the resonater (on the back) and the armrest which gets in the way of the arm movement that goes with this style. I emailed the place I bought it from to see if this could be done.

I picked up my banjo again after checking out a hip hop class and then taking an African drumming class at a place called Djoniba yesterday. I saw a show about aging and brain elasticity on channel 13 the night before and was moved to learn something new. The key is finding something you actually love and therefore might continue.