The Once and Future Hobbyist

Wherein Mr. Nichols does dither and vacillate about upon the acquisition of an engaging new divertissement.

Thank you to all of you that suggested a new hobby for me last week. There were a few that I had already considered, like knitting or crochet (many folks suggested these), and many excellent ones like geocaching, organizing scavenger hunts, birdwatching via bird feeder, jigsaw puzzles, cooking from kits, paint by numbers, genealogy, and tarot cards that I had not thought of.

Lord knows I’ve played this part often enough.

Thank you for all of your great suggestions. Sincerely. Everyone of these has the potential to be so much fun. I will be choosing within the next few days what hobby I wish to pursue. Any of y’all that did not email me or comment yet, are invited to do so. The more the merrier. Overload my executive function. Do it now!

C’mon. . .

Jennifer—whose birthday is today—everyone say Happy Birthday to Jen!—also came up with an excellent hobby idea. Needlepoint. Unbeknownst to her when she suggested it—I am already an accomplished needlepointilist. In fourth or fifth grade, I needlepointed an owl from a simple kit. This is not the exact one, but it sure is close to my owl’s early eighties aesthetic.

Don’t you see why I would want to leave only this perfection behind?

I am really bummed out about losing that owl. I am not even sure if it made it into adulthood. It probably got lost in the purge that my terrible junior high best friend initiated on all of my stuff that was from my childhood that he didn’t think was “cool”. Back then I was a very malleable and people-pleasing person who cared a lot about what was cool, which is why I am a stubborn and curmudgeonly person who is very malleable and people-pleasing, and who cares a lot about what is cool today. I never change. I never change for the better. Thank you for this little stroll down Self Loathing Lane aka The Path to the Dark Side.

I know, technically this is cross stitch.

New hobby coming next week!

I want to talk about a message that I got last week that really encouraged me and kind of shook me up.

The person who wrote this is an old friend and friend of the blog that I am making nameless only because I am in a hurry to finish the post today, and I didn’t have time to get his permission to use his name and likeness. If you know me at all or have read the blog for some time, you can see why I am alternately chuffed to have a friend that believes in my ability to write, but also buffeted by the fact that he is not taking no for an answer—I must sit down and write “. . . until the gibberish resolves into something that catches your interest, and then pursue it like Ahab.” He all but commands it. “I am convinced Paul McCartney’s genius is in just diligently fucking around until genius happens.” A lot to chew on. We’ll have to talk about abandoning my Lennon allegiance at a later date.

Not today, John. Not today.

Please keep Maa in your thoughts and prayers. She is still in the hospital. She is doing better, but she does have pneumonia, which is never a holiday. We are not sure how long she will be in hospital and where she will be released to. Hopefully to home, but it is hard to say. There is a variety of red tape and other administrative and capitalism hurdles that are kind of keeping her in stasis in the hospital. Please keep Mom and my sisters who are trying to untangle all of this for you in your thoughts and prayers.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

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