When someone meets Dawnise and asks her “what she does,” she often responds “I go to the theater!” This usually elicits a chuckle from the person asking. That’s intentional, but the the answer isn’t entirely a joke. Supporting live performance (sounds better than “going to the theater,” right?) is one of Dawnise’s (many) hobbies – she’s seen hundreds of shows since we moved to London in 2019, and because she’s innately frugal the average price paid for a ticket is surprisingly low. She also sews, paints, reads, and has become the primary user of our Steam account, playing odd and interesting games involving lots of puzzles and exploration and fairly few bullets.
When it looked like I’d be taking some time off work, Dawnise and I would chat on and off about what I might do while I wasn’t working. I had precious few specifics to offer, but I wasn’t worried – I figured I’d have plenty of things to do and wouldn’t get bored – at least for a fair while.
I ended up postponing taking time off, but that nagging question – “what will you do?” – won’t quite leave me alone.
Trying to answer has made me realize I don’t really have what you might call “a hobby.” Computers were an early hobby that turned into my field of study and subsequently into my profession. That a hobby turned into over three decades of gainful employment has meant that for most of my working life what I do hasn’t generally felt like “work.”
All these years later, however, and it’s fair to say that some of the shine has come off. I no longer think of computers as a hobby.
Why? Well, I have a truly marvelous explanation that this margin is too narrow to contain…
At any rate, I’ve been thinking about hobbies. And I’ve decided that “I need to find a few.”
So I’m building a list of possibilities. Well, really, I’m building a list of evaluation criteria.
I’m open to things with moderate startup costs, and reasonable (low) recurring costs. Whatever it is needs to be space efficient, ’cause we don’t have a bunch of spare room knocking about. If it’s outdoors, it has to be “London weather compatible” (turns out, it rains here, and the winter is chilly), and it needs to be “reasonably flexible” to schedule.
I have a guitar – two in fact – I should find a teacher and learn to play. It requires some scheduling, and lessons are an ongoing expense, but supporting a teacher and learning something feels like a totally worthy investment of time and money.
I also have a camera. I take it with me when we travel, but I shouldn’t only take it out when we’re getting on a plane or a train. London is huge and much of it – not just the touristy bits – are stupidly photogenic.
I also have a car, and there are plenty of things to see (and photograph) beyond London proper.
I don’t have a motorcycle here – the lack of a good (read: reasonably secure and out of the weather) place to park one has kept me from seriously considering “fixing” that – but I love the idea of taking the camera with me on motorcycle rides around the country (and the contingent). So maybe I take another tilt and figuring out where I can park a bike that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg or make it so inconvenient to access that I never do.
Finally I think I’d like to find a TTRPG group. I’ve played and run games on and off since I was nine or ten but haven’t regularly played in over a decade. I expect this will be tricky, as it involves finding other people whose priorities (schedules) and play styles align with mine.
So I have the start of a list. I’m sure there are other things I should consider, and, if I’m lucky, maybe someone reading this will drop me a note and make a suggestion.
Maybe even you.