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| Music, media, libraries and my tortuous ascent into the middle class. |
Now that school is winding down, I have to get some hobbies to keep my time occupied. Being in a rock band is a given, but I can't rock 24/7. I thought I could take up golf. Or I could start up a couple more blogs. Or how about cat painting. But I've narrowed it down to two possibilities, both of which are extremely nerdy:
Birdwatching: Birds are everywhere, from outside my window when I wake up, to dowtown at work, to the backyard in the afternoon. But they go unnoticed, mainly because I don't know a darned thing about them. With enough study and some binoculars, I think I could get into it.
It all goes back to my trip to Costa Rica, where I think I might have seen a Resplendant Quetzal in the Monteverde Cloud Forest. The bird was an iridescent green with incredibly long tail feathers and it flew strangly, like one tracing the shape of a wave. But I also thought I saw some blue in it when it hit a patch of sunlight, which might mean it was some other type of trogon. As quickly as it flew in, it was gone.
Whatever it was, it was a moving experience. I had the feeling that everything in my life had brought me to that moment--like everything was framed around it, a chaotic mess of a life with its possibilities and dead-ends all focused into a calm. I could see why the quetzal was so revered by some civilizations.
Playing Scrabble: I may curse the day when my brother wrote about Scrabble (see Bingoes) because it was there that I learned about the Internet Scrabble Club. For me, Scrabble playing is less like a hobby and more like a mania. Now I've been staying up until the wee hours playing Scrabble with strangers. When I do go to sleep I'm plagued with seven letter anagrams (such as SATIRE + some other letter) or legal Scrabble words that have a Q without a U (example: qoph).
About two years ago, I read a book called Word Freak, which is about the competitive Scrabble circuit. In it the writer, Stefan Fatsis, goes native and ends up becoming one of the best Scrabble players in the world.
I think I lack the self-discipline to ever become competitive. That's why I'll always have rock and roll.
Posted by Mike Waugh at July 6, 2004 10:17 AMLooks like I'm going to regret that Scrabble entry as well. I might have had a chance to beat you, training in secret over the next month. But now I'm doomed.
Louisiana is great for bird watching. I started learning the names of birds up here in Columbus a few years ago, but there aren't too many varieties in the city: pigeons, sparrows, robins, red-winged blackbirds and starlings mostly. The birds around the University Lakes put the entire state of Ohio to shame. Coots, cormorants, egrets, herons, geese and ducks of course, the occasional pelican and many more.
Posted by: Robert, Waugh the Younger at July 7, 2004 09:23 PM