Adam and I were discussing what constitutes a hobby, with Adam arguing that reading was not a hobby. His argument boiled down to two points: If the activity in question is a commonly listed question on an online dating profile (favorite book / favorite movie / favorite tv show)* and if it doesn’t require gear, it’s not a hobby. Though I agree that tv watching, is not, in general, a hobby, I was like, c’mon, reading! It’s a hobby!
*I think his theory was that if it was common enough to be a category in an online dating profile, then it meant it was practiced by most people, and thus, not a hobby.
Anyway. Gear. Gear is the favorite element of a hobby for many people, I think, and I finally bought some exciting gear for my hobby, knitting. Yup, I now own a swift and a ball winder! The purchase was somewhat expensive, but look what it makes:
Yarn cakes!
And I was so excited by my yarn cake that I started knitting these socks right away:
I am calling them the Queens Center Mall socks, because they seem kind of like the thing an eleven-year old outer borough* girl would buy after reading The Official Preppy Handbook, but getting it wrong, by buying the socks in a poly-blend at the Queens Center Mall. They’re pink and green, total ’80s prep colors, but also strangely garish, and kind of tacky. I totally love them. As you can see by my coat, which I had customized with the addition of pink ribbon (by my Queens dry cleaner), I think I just might be this girl.
*If you’re not from New York, the “outer boroughs” are Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island, with the main borough being Manhattan. I think New York dominates the media enough that the rest of the country gets that each outer borough has its own sterotype. Queens, home of the Mets, Archie Bunker, The Nanny, The King of Queens, and George Constanza’s parents. I can’t think of any literature set in Queens. Apparently, we are an illiterate borough of tv-watching yahoos.