Are there things you love that no one else seems to get? Do your friends tease you because you are obsessed with classical music or gardening or stock car racing? Do you shrug them off, or do they sometimes hurt your feelings?

-- Anonymous, November 15, 1999

Answers

I don't really have have any hobbies no one understands. I just saw that no-one else had posted, and wanted to be first.

Great entry today, Beth. I did indeed laugh and cry.

-Sara

-- Anonymous, November 15, 1999

For long years I collected comics, and thought no one else really did. Then comic book shops opened, and comic book conventions, and we found there were a great many people who shared our interests.

The odd thing was---comic book fans en masse are pretty disgusting. Geek city.

So I went back to collecting it alone, with the exception that I met my wife through a Superman comics lettercol. And she looks ANYTHING but like a geek. (Rrrrrwwwrrr!)

Al of Nova Notes.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 1999

I play the guitar and sing loud. I am not a real great guitar player. I strum chords and don't hardly do any picking. I play in local music circles. I rarely perform on stage.

I was in a band in my mid thirties and it was fun. One time my ex- wife brought all my neighbors and their kids down to where I was practicing and they were all wearing scarf headbands.

Nevertheless, for the most part, she resented my music even though she thought I had a great singing voice. She wanted me to be more ambitious making money from non-artistic endeavors. I was very happy though. I was deeply in love with her despite our differences. I loved my kids (as I do now) and it was a pure joy for me to help raise them. We had built a house, and my steady, good job in the grocery business, allowed her to attend and graduate from nursing school.

But she was unhappy with who I am. And I had told her I had these strong artistic leanings when we first fell in love. There's more to our divorce then this of course, but I already have gotten way too personal here.

Back then for the most part, I liked who I was, as I like myself today. I did all I could to save my marriage, but I am grateful now I am not tied to someone who doesn't love me just as I am right this moment. I have great ambition, despite what she thinks, and if I ever do find someone I loved as much as my ex-wife, if it is a good love, that love will help nurture that ambition. I believe with good love, including good self love, a person can rise to impossible heights.

One thing though, I will NEVER be involved again with someone who resents my artistist leanings. This is who I am. My art is my life. My life is my art.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 1999

The internet, and HTML, have been my hobby for over three years. And as little as two years ago, several friends and family members seriously thought I spent all my time in sex chat rooms and were convinced I had at least one "boyfriend" online (luckily my husband didn't share their convictions). Now that the net is more "mainstream", all these suspicious folks have their own computers and email addresses and they know, now, that there is much more to the net than cybersex (or, maybe they have their own favorite chat rooms, who knows?) and I think, AHA!

-- Anonymous, November 15, 1999

::snerk!::

Both M and I, separately and together, are complete and utter doofs. We love cheesy stuff. This is our hobby. :> Because of it, people think we're weird. This makes us proud. :D

For example: making ourselves stay awake to catch those all-important, early-morning "Davy and Goliath" reruns. ("Gee, Daaavyy!") Channel surfing, and catching this really awful Telemundo special on Luis Miguel. Watching it for 15 minutes in horrified fascination, made even funnier 'cause neither of us speak Spanish. Deciding this was too good (read: bad) not to document so we *taped* it to watch again later ("look, hon, he's doing the *shoulder move!*").

My lurid fascination with bad 70's music. ("Sometimes when we touch...the honesty's too much...") M's fascination with *really bad* late 70's/early 80's metal...

Driving around upstate New York, coming back from Saratoga, so we could find the "Bottle Museum." (Why? Hell, could *you* resist the Bottle Museum?) My obsession with visiting Long Island's "Big Duck," and all of the "Duck" memoribilia I brought home. Our secret shared yearning to see the big concrete dinasours like Pee-Wee did.

:> Get the picture?

People do think we're weird, and that's fine. :) I'd rather be weird than boring. And if they get mean, I'll just make them listen to "Afternoon Delight" until their ears bleed...

-- Anonymous, November 15, 1999

I am totally into sewing. People assume that I do it because I want to save money on clothes, with the assumption that you have no creativity of your own. You can save money, if you regularly shop at Macy's or something, but frankly, I do it because I can combine aspects of multiple patterns to make really interesting and comfy clothes. I have two dresses I've made, which I created from a couple of patterns and I always get comments on how different and beautiful they are. My clothes can fit my body perfectly, so I don't have to bother to rip out the shoulder pads or worry about popping buttons on the top. The clothes I make myself are my favorites because they are exactly the right color, with exactly the right buttons and details and they lay exactly the way they should when I put them on and I invariably have a piece of jewelry they'll go with.

I also have made some adorable toddler pants from my own pattern which gives you the same kinds of latitude. A lot of kids' clothes don't adequately take into account: diaper butt. When I sew them myself, I can make room for diaper butt. In my case, I don't have diaper butt, but have big-ass farm girl shoulders. ;)

-- Anonymous, November 15, 1999

Oh, it is hard to imagine the joy I feel when I am told that I am terribly boring and have no life because of what I enjoy. Yep indeedy, it gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling all over.

But seriously, everybody else here is learning to program, speak Gaelic and Latin, knit, copy vintage dresses, make corsets, spin, make wine and root beer, and build a small hydroponic system. Right?? Oh well, if people think I'm boring for spending an evening in front of the tv with a spinning wheel instead of going out and drinking enough cheap booze to level a small horse, I think I can deal with that. Even if it does sometimes hurt that nobody understands.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 1999

Not hobbies per se, but sometimes I get into little obsessive things like sorting out all my beads or scraping all the paint off of a chair, and nobody understands.

Anyway, that was a nice entry. We had a similarly pleasant weekend together, just meshing in every way, which was kind of a miracle because I'm laid up from foot surgery and had to ask him to fetch me everything I wanted and to entertain me and even to help me wash my hair in the sink. It worked out great, though.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 1999

Let's see... so far the eccentric loners have contributed such non-comprehensible hobbies as listening to classical music gardening, car racing, comic books, playing the guitar, surfing the Web, listening to bad 70's music, and SEWING.

I am going to go out on a limb here and posit that the above are all fairly normal, and supported by multi-million dollar industries. There are magazines, hobby shops, shows and collector guides for you... but not for me. I collect generic, store-brand macaroni and cheese boxes. I may be the only one. And I have a LOT. h collects the small patches of glue that stick the mailing covers onto magazines.

I bet there are several other readers out there with hobbies that are also beyond the pale. I have thrown down my gauntlet: let's hear from trainspotters, Soviet calculator collectors, naked mole rat trainers and people who eat clay.

Ian (p.s. I am not insane) www.wenet.net/~iandg/mac&chse .htm

-- Anonymous, November 15, 1999

My hobby is not all that wierd. I collect Depression glass. Both the elegant (crystal color) and plain. Elegant is usually in Fostoria, on the Baroque Blank (Chintz, Meadow Rose etc.) Plain is in amethyst, usually Morroccan. I also collect old silver. I do however know a psycho nut case total yuck bitch (my soon to be ex-sister-in-law) who has a "shrine to the great almighty god of gum". This consists of a pile of gum containing every piece of gum she has chewed for the past 15 years. Ew.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 1999

This in no way counts as a hobby, I hope, but I seem to get a lot of weird looks for knowing or wanting to know the names of the majority of the people doing the voice-overs for cartoons.

Not many people seem to know or care who the hell Frank Welker is. Many of those that do know only know because I have told them. Multiple times. I'm sorry, Ashley.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 1999

I play air guitar.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 1999

Ian, you are correct....I'm laughing out loud at your posting, remembering years ago arguing with this guy who was insisting that he was such a unique individual because he was a science fiction fan (this during the height of Star Wars) and liked cats and stuffed toys. Boy are those ever obscure. Uh huh.

However I will throw down my gauntlet to say that I collect plumb bobs and my spouse has a huge ashtray collection, all with advertising. Neither of us smoke.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 1999

I collect Beer Cans.......REALLY! bcca.com rules!

-- Anonymous, November 16, 1999

My life is a hobby that no one understands, least of all my family.

-- Anonymous, November 17, 1999