Unusual Hobbies and Interests

I don't know that any of my hobbies and interests are all that unusual. Minority, yes. 

What might be unusual are the things that don't interest me. Most people are interested in television. I find it soporific. Masses of people read books about money. I don't. Maybe it's because I went to college when I should have been in high school, where talking about "boyfriends" was cringe-inducing...all the other girls in college were interested in having "boyfriends" and talking about them, sometimes constantly, to the exclusion of other topics. I'm interested in people and in personal relationships, who isn't, but I'm not interested in chattering about the people you or I know best--especially not the little details of family life that those people don't particularly want to have chattered about. 

I think all of my hobbies and interests have been discussed on this blog if you dig back:

Textile crafts; the one I practice regularly is knitting. 

Animals. The main ones who share my home are cats. I learned as an adult that my mother started out not only sharing the revulsion I felt toward most insects but feeling revulsion toward snakes, but she managed to teach me to feel more curiosity and empathy than revulsion. I became interested in the paper wasps, which Mother always persisted in seeing as enemies, after learning that they could just as easily be made friends. Later on I became interested in showing people what the little creepy-crawly animals are really like after learning how many people still think an earthworm is trying to bite them, a butterfly is going to eat their fabrics, or a toad wants to be kissed. 

Books. I'll read almost any book once. I like selling books, playing matchmaker between books and people, finding a mix of books for all tastes. I like the idea of a library or bookstore, not as the clunky kind of "community center" that excites extroverts, but as a place where people can look for what they want, as individuals, whether that's only relaxation or education or psychological transformation. 

Politics--the practical kind--what some people might call law and government more than the "our man rules, your man drools" blather. You can't take all the Washington out of a person. Washingtonians aren't usually interested in shrinking government but they see enough elected officials come and go that they cultivate the skill of being able to work with all of them, D, R, G, L, or I. 

Music; especially music that goes back further than the modern music industry, but I listen to new music too. I've not kept up any skills in playing any instrument. I'd like to find a way to make more time for that, but I'm so far out of practice, it's embarrassing.

Houses. I'm not as wild about building or remodelling houses as many of my extended family have been, and are; never considered architecture as a major or construction as a career, but I do like improving a house. From plumbing to decorating. I'm not keen on two-storey-high rooms, a way some contractors used to deal with burnt-out floors; that look was distinctive once, but no more, and those rooms aren't fun to use in winter. I like wheelchair ramps, all-around porches, and creative shelving. 

"Environment" is probably a better word than "gardening" because I'm more likely to be interested in appreciating what grows in a place than in putting a lot of effort into making something grow where it doesn't grow easily and naturally. I do introduce plants, prepare soil, weed, and prune, but the iris is my favorite flower not only because it has pretty colors and a lovely scent. The iris likes to be plopped down in what others consider "dry, thin, poor" soil and left alone. 

The science of not only preserving the simple pleasures of my life, but keeping them sustainable for future generations, interests me. When I was a kid, "going back to the land" stereotypically meant buying a place in the Appalachian Mountains and, usually, although the mountains are a very human-friendly environment, not having the clue one about how to live on the land, not doing very well at it, and crawling back to the city in a few years. I was blessed with actual roots here. My parents had clues; they even had elders. So had I. Now the challenge is weeding out truly sustainable ideas from ideas that only bring urban sprawl further up the mountains. Possibly my most serious interest is biomass. 

Possibly my most frivolous interest is dolls. Not the oldfashioned collector dolls, either. I'm not particular about the brand but I always have liked making models at a scale of two inches to one foot, which fits Barbie and Ken and similar dolls.