Letsee...
Chemistry, Astronomy, Languages, Vedic Spirituality (Fascinating metaphors), Culture, Traveling, Fabrication, Functional Cognitive Typology, Cooking, Tractors, Cars, Bush Crafting (new), Photography, Birds, Sex, Computers, History, Egalitarianism, Philosophy, Politics, Psychedelics and more.
I am sure I am forgetting about 50 percent or so.
original
Joke
person: why do pursue such nerdy hobbies?
me: because I want to be popular and win lots and lots of friends... lol
At community college I am loner. At high school I wasn't a loner. In junior high I wasn't a loner. In home school I was a loner cloaked in a faux state of extroversion from untreated ADHD (until I received dietary treatment).
I recall grasping the art of buddyship around 7th grade year. Upon readmittance to brick and mortor school I was intent on deploying my beginner social skills. The plan was to make at least one connection amongst my cohorts. Then I met Waldo. He was smart but an underachiever, a neurotypical from an abusive home pathologized by acholism. Waldo left by freshman year so I buddied up with one gal and two guys. Both smart and fascinated me by their athleticism and academic capabilities. I enjoyed taking the girl twice to an annual banquet. I did a few outings for sports with the others. Those were my bc years, before curiosity.
Book hobbying first emerged in the form of an encyclopedia set Mom convinced Dad to purchase before they divorced. I recall how those neat and narrow stacks of text would trigger brief shifts into a fugue-like state of pure curiosity. Boyhood was mostly errands to and from school to observe jaw japping old folks fetching student homework and assigning new ones. My mind was eager for escape and now I had a reason. Prior to book reading was basketball jump shot mechanics, car washing, yard work, eavesdropping on neighbors with a walky talky amplified by a tether ball pole attenae, duct tape strands and strands of it, nudey mags, cigarettes, and TV. Jerry Springer and Steve Wilco were my evening mentors for a time. Eventually Mom arrived early from work then decided those fellas guts weren't age appropriate and/or didn't want their random viewings spoiling episodes for later heh.That is to say, the network was primarily trash shows in cyndication.
Jerry and Steve taught me
everything: deficient english/ebonics, how to curse like a charming hoodlum, smoke cigarettes, defy anyone whose age contained a Y in it, subvert perfectly healthy church fourier chat with all kinds of obscene derangements. Btw church people
loved gossip, and by loved I mean vicariously
craved it. I wasn't dennis the mennis or nothing, but in my most shameful moments the filth oozed past my filter and then it was all bossomy black female pimps. Bickering mexican baby momma harlots. Biracial white lesbians french kissing and groping. A real filth festy hoot n holler! Everytime time my audience was entranced - that meant something ya know. I was a natural story teller lol. Maybe I had future in the journalism, like the tabloids, or the Onion (my dream job that or librarian).
The Masters and John's report was all to blame. It opened a portal to the land of debauchery that would've claimed my little boy mind if not for Mom. She however slammed that one violently shut. No one ever suspected the encyclopedia set was to blame. I'm mature and civil today but I've had a transgressive streak ever since.