Pastimes

Pastimes and Playtoys

Books

If you know whose page you're looking at, you already know something about serious bibliomania! I've started thinning down lately - my packrattiness seems to be eroding - but there are still a great many I cherish. I didn't own but three books of my own before I was 10, so perhaps I've been overcompensating.

Tools

I like to create things, and every new tool is a new door of imagination. Even looking at or handling a good tool can launch me into a right-brain reverie; and each good tool I own is part of my competence, i.e. part of myself.

Thinking

Eternity is more fun when you juggle ideas. It may seem odd to list this as a pastime, but I don't seem to stop - and I never get bored.

Tree-Climbing

Cliffs don't sway in the wind, nor need you to help them avoid accidents. I used to climb high to hide out when I was very young, and it's still a nice escape.

Woodworking

I've made a lot of makeshift bookshelves for necessity - but the older I get, the better I want to build. Wood is a wonderful combination of intrinsic texture and obedience - sometimes it seems like the women I meet have either too much or too little texture!

Scribbling

I have a hard time finishing pieces, but once you get the habit it's hard to stop.

Music-Making

Singing, sax, saxhorns and silliness!

Chess

After several decades off, I started playing again in 1999, incompetently but enthusiastically. I'm not very good at all, but it's such a beautiful game! Even when troubles are thick, I can at least tell why I've lost a chess game.

Golf

Can't play worth a damn, but I sure have fun - and so do the people I play with.

Heavy Iron

You might think a grown man would have outgrown any interest in trains, cranes, and dozing the plains - but why waste daylight being sensible?

Driving

Cars, bikes, trucks, bulldozers, horses, whatever!
There are no boring roads: if you're bored you're going too slowly.
My first sports car was a 1965 Corvair Corsa, which was perfect for drifting the curves on rural roads in Connecticut; but I didn't know what acceleration was until I bought
a 1969 Olds Cutlass which had been worked over with some W31 parts - it would break the tires loose at 30mph on dry concrete, and go above 60mph in first gear!
My first new car was a 1984 5-speed Z28, and was great fun on the rare occasions when it worked. However, little details like finding a foot of water in the back (yes, 12 inches) from rain coming in around the hatchback's weatherstripping, and having the standard transmission transmission seize up while driving a steady 70 mph on a flat interstate, gradually dampened my enthusiasm - as did getting screwed up, down, and sideways by two Dallas Chevrolet dealers.
My 1996 mystic Cobra was a nicely balanced GT, with quarter-mile times in the 13s and excellent street handling.
Currently I'm driving a Suzuki Bandit 1200S, which is my fastest ride yet!
One of the more fun vehicles I've driven was a four-axle 30-ton truck crane - another was a fire truck, and another a John Deere 450 bulldozer - I like being irresistable!!

Juggling

I'm no expert - still can't do five balls - but it's a rhythmic activity that I love. I especially like club-passing with a partner.

Dancing

I love touch dancing - one of the easiest forms of heterosexual partnership, and one of the nicest. I would like to dance to Scarlatti sonatas, but I don't think a human body could!

Women

I actually like women - isn't that silly of me??
"as moths into the lamp their lesser lights
pour in, and fly no more, but flutter still
to closer kiss the clarity that kills; ..."

Yet whatever my regrets, I can't even wish to repent of this affection.