Hobbies and Stuff

Continuing in the "question and answer" mode:

ZarahPDX wrote: 

After a couple of years of reading this blog (I'll admit, I've only glanced at the others), I feel like though I know quite a bit about the trials and tribulations that you've gone through, I know very little about you. I know you teach, I know a little about your family, certainly about your BDSM interests and polyamory, but what else? What are your hobbies? What would you do with an entire day all to yourself, without any household stuff to do, with our without Tom? Is there anywhere you would like to go in your remaining years?

This made me laugh ... especially that phrase, "in your remaining years."  I come from some long lived stock. My mother is 85 and still just as mean as ever.  Her mother, when she died, was 98.  She lived on her own until her very last days.  And, if my own mother is mean (and she is), my grandmother was just wicked.  Somehow, I think (I hope), I managed to duck that inheritance.  The point, however, is that I hope my "remaining years" are still likely to be fairly extensive.  I acknowledge that there are fewer years ahead than there are behind, but I imagine I might still have some number of good days (and years) ahead...

But then, there was more to this question beyond the assumption of my imminent demise.  Right.  Let me see:

1. What are your hobbies?
2. What would you do with an entire day all to yourself, without any household stuff to do, with or without Tom?
3. Is there anywhere you would like to go?

Hobbies?  Hmmmm...  I am really not a person who has cultivated hobbies.  I am a passable cook, but I cook to eat.  I really don't get into cooking as entertainment.  I have never developed any real skill with sewing or knitting or the like.  I can sew on a button, repair a seam, and make some crude and simple garments with my old, crotchety sewing machine.  I do not do embroidery or cross stitch or weaving or...  I like to read, but find that I have limited time for it.  During the school year, I read mostly so that I can prepare for my classes.  In the summer, I tend to immerse myself in reading non-fiction, and that tends to depend on what I am currently interested in.  Over the last few years, much of my reading has been related to brain science and addiction research (for obvious reasons).  I sing for myself, and it is probably pretty dreadful, but I don't usually inflict it on other people, so no harm done.  I don't play any instruments.  I'm no artist, and I take pictures of stuff with a point and shoot camera.  I have no urge to hone that into some sort of skill that would rise to the level of "photography."  I like to hike.  We don't hike much.  We walk.  Round and round and round the path we have walked a thousand times (so that He can calculate time and distance).  Walking is not hiking.  It is exercise, and exercise is not a hobby.

What would I do with a day to myself?  What would I do with days to myself?  I can imagine a life that is other than the one I am living.  Inside of THIS life, that I've chosen, and that I have no desire to give up, there is no such thing as a day to myself.  I have a family and a demanding career.  Myself and my life are all tangled up together.  That is fine.  But the question posits some entirely different life.  So, imagining that hypothetical, left to myself, I would likely redecorate my home.  I'd paint and organize and rearrange and generally create a space that was "mine."  I might take a long drive out to visit in Colorado.  I'd see the kids and the grandkids, but I'd also just wander and see the places that I remember from my youth and young adulthood. I'd probably haunt my public library, browsing the shelves, randomly, picking up this and that to just read as I felt drawn to things.  I'd hunt down interesting and quirky little restaurants to try.  I might go off with an old fashioned road map and follow the little roads...  Just going with no destination in mind.  I don't know.  Does that answer the question?

Finally, are there places I'd like to go?  Well, yes, of course!  I like to travel.  I do not like to fly, however, so there are places I'll likely never see without the help of a huge inheritance and plenty of sedative medication.  I guess that leaves the dreams of seeing Australia and Victoria Falls and the Great Wall in the realm of dreams.  If I can drive to it, I'd love to see it.  Favorite places that I'd like to revisit over and over and over:  Valley View Hot Springs, Glacier National Park, The Hoh Rainforest.  I've always wanted to travel to the northeast of the US, and am hoping to be able to do that this summer (there is a teacher grant that I have applied for that may make that possible).  I want to see the Everglades.  I'd love time to spend in Washington D.C.  Lots of time, so that I could wander and look and study and go back again and again and again.  I'd love to spend a season in New York city, seeing plays on and off Broadway.  I'd love to visit the Getty Museum...  Is that enough?

swan