I used to write poetry years ago, but somehow I lost the inspiration. I also used to belly dance, and hope to get back into it someday. I tried to join a belly dancing class at the Y a couple years ago, but the Shakira-level instructor was going way too fast for me, so I quit.
Right now I’m into cosplay, and enjoy going to cosplay gatherings with my daughter. We’ve never done a mother-daughter cosplay, though. I also enjoy making my own soaps at home with pre-made glycerin soap mix and various colorings and scents, and sometimes I add glitter or essential oils. I have several molds, and I enjoy making scented and/or colorful soaps to give as gifts or just to have around the house.
I make string. I use a local indigenous method and produce everything from nearly rope to thin enough to sew with. I use found natural materials, man-made materials and home produced fibre. At some point I plan to build a lap loom and then weave some sort of cloth.
I like to grow weird and unusual edibles.
I collect colouring in pictures - and colour them
I am planning on teaching myself how to make cheese.
I don’t know - I just know I’m not safe to own such a thing - maybe I’d have tried to mount it in a jig for use like a bandsaw, or maybe I’d have tried carving watermelons with it, or converting it to an outboard motor.
I do genealogy research. It’s not an uncommon hobby, but there are legions of people who either don’t give a damn (including relatives) or just don’t have the time.
I’ve started guitar lessons at the age of 66. I farted around with it back in my yute, but it’s been over 20 years since I picked one up. So far, I’ve learned some blues riffs, the intro to LZ’s Over the Hills and Far Away, the basic pentatonic scale, and the intro to The Beatles Help. The guitar is the most-played instrument on the planet, so it’s certainly not an unusual hobby, but taking it up this late in the game took some courage on my part.
I collect a specific magazine, the National Geographic magazine, also the maps that go in them.
Anyone have NG’s from before 1914 they want to part with? I have them all back to then, and a few from before. My dream is to own one magazine from before 1900. I do have a map from 1896.
I collect Crayola crayons. I have 694 of the 823 known individual colors. The colors I do need are either very old or were made in limited quanities. The holy grail is the crayon labeled The Color Purple. About 200 were made and were given to the guests of one Oprah Winfrey show taping. Oprah herself was given a 30 inch custom crayon. I have known of only one to be available for sale and it sold for over $400. $400 for one purple crayon.
I also have a large Fiestawware collection, over 400 pieces at this time. About half of the contemporary stuff is used, the rest and all the vintage is not used. Unfortunately at this time most of it is in storage till my wife and I can find a bigger house. I also have a scale pedal car collection in storage too.
In the past I also collected NASCAR diescast, Monopoly tokens, knives, skunks, and shot glasses. I sold off much of these to support my current addictions.
I read or heard or even saw on TV about a house that had the floor (may have been the attic) collapse from the weight of stacks and stacks of Net Geo dating way far back. My dad had some going back before WWII.
I was collecting World Almanacs from 1966 until maybe 2011 and then just quit. Too much of that stuff is just too easy to get off the web.
I rescue and restore old hot-metal typesetting equipment. Linotypes, Ludlow Typographs and the like. My garage is packed with the equipment needed to cast type from molten lead under pressure. No chance for a disfiguring burn, no.
Solo back country camping. It’s great because you can plan the trip based on your abilities and limitations. This more or less came out of necessity. The friends I camp with aren’t fans of breaking a sweat I guess. They’d be content with sitting in one spot for five days, which is such a bore to me when your in a park the size of Algonquin 8000 km2 where you have all that to explore. Eventually I got tired of it and started solo camping, it’s my preferred way of camping now. Mom and dad ain’t fans of it though.
It’s normal in my circle of friends, but the rest of the world considers Renaissance performance and reenactment to be a bit odd.
I also collect the practical industrial art of Western Electric and AT&T. My oldest phone is a roughly 100 year old wood wall phone, and my home phone system is a Merlin Legend. Remember the cool black and silverish phones with the funky angular receivers from LA Law? That’s what I’ve got, plus a handful of rotary dial phones that work remarkably well on the PBX.
I make braided bread loaves. Some just have three strands, the challah I bake has four. Sometimes I make a loaf that has six strands. If you do three of them, and braid the right and left strands to the next loaf, you end up with a “Snowflake”
I have a pattern book with loaves up to ten or eleven strands. I copied it in 1986 from some Japanese students at the American Institute of Baking. I can’t read the captions on the pictures, but the intructional photos number the strands and step by step show how to do any given braid.
I also used to belly dance, and hope to get back into it someday. I tried to join a belly dancing class at the Y a couple years ago, but the Shakira-level instructor was going way too fast for me, so I quit.
I have them all back to then, and a few from before. My dream is to own one magazine from before 1900. I do have a map from 1896.