Hmm, interests come and go. I am in a period where some old hobbies have come back into view after benign neglect, and other beloved activities have been set aside for child-rearing duties.
I have a 2006 Ural Retro in jet black with pin-striping. No imagined vehicle handles worse...no rolling vehicle is more fun.
I threw pottery for 7 years, but nothing in the last four. Too busy to finish converting a shed. I did the wiring for my kiln, but plumbing the outdoor line is insane and still need to weatherize the space as well, ugh. But our table ware is all by yours truly, from plates to pitchers.
Voice lessons once a week. Mostly show tunes, but some opera and musical miscellanies with occasional pop or rock.
Interesting wine, by which I mean juice with some barn yard funk, minerality or maybe some transverse winds working their magic on a pinot.
Cooking whatever moves slower than me, especially a lot of fresh produce from our garden., where the artichokes happily over-wintered and look large and threatening—in the good sense of the word. The Traeger is well-loved, as is my high-powered range.
Speaking of which—antique copper vessels, retinned and returned to service. It’s a kick to cook out of 200 year old pots, knowing some future soul will use these when I’ve gone back to dust. I can rip through an antique store in about 5 minutes, looking only for some exceptional piece, planished, perhaps by an illiterate master craftsman from Norway or a wine-sotted Norman.
Poetry—reading and writing.
Peet-laden single malts. Ardbeg, Lagavulin and Talisker, arranged here alphabetically and not according to preference.
Rummaging through record bins and discovering another gem of a vinyl shop in my town.
Museums, concerts, travel.
An occasional trip to the Sea of Cortez where an old Mexican captain knows just where the yellow tail hunker down. His wife filets out the white meat and vacuum packs it for me. Got a freezer full of hamachi to last me till the next trip.
Some prayers to my Maker, and chatting up the neighbors.
Bedding down my wife, who a couple decades in can still bear me in the bare.
Movies and Netflix. I hop on the treadmill and watch till my legs say no.
And music, glorious music, salve of life, balm of existence, pouring magically out of a few capacitors, voice coils, and spinning black wax. Because the world remains a place of mystery.
