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First Person: For my first trick, a hobby

March 24, 2013

The question will come. Maybe not tomorrow or the next day, but it will come. And it’s a question so hurtful, vile and unmerciful that only friends dare ask it.

“So, what’d you do this weekend?”

I will be seized by rapid memory loss. I will stall for time. My concession speech will be three words.

“I don’t remember.”

Later, I do remember. I did laundry, loaded the dishwasher with my signature cramming, and watched re-runs of “Pawn Stars” because Chumlee is the greatest. On Sunday I dealt with my sock drawer, where I unearthed an old cigar cutter. I don’t smoke cigars, but maybe I should.

I need manly hobbies to tell anyone daring to pry into my understated lifestyle.

“My weekend? The usual. I finished my ballroom dancing lessons on Saturday morning. In the afternoon, I whittled an armoire for the little lady, who requested I cease and desist whittling and calling her “little lady.” Sunday morning, I opened a chain of quality soup kitchens, rebuilt a ‘58 Chevy engine (it wasn’t my Chevy but the puzzled guy’s next door). Later, while renovating the second bathroom, I accidentally spackled the dog. We had a good laugh over that, as we smoked cigars and played chess. My dog is lousy at chess, but he cuts a mean cigar.”

Somewhere there’s a healthy, fulfilling medium on the Male Hobby Spectrum.

Somewhere.

As of Spring 2013, my list of perceptible hobbies features:

 Checking the doors at night to see if they’re locked.

 SDM: Seasonal Disorder Moping.

 Trespassing in a nearby cornfield with my dog Earle, where he chases low-flying Canada Geese (unlike people, dogs know when to give up the chase), and where he eats deer hooves.

Deer-munching—now that’s a manly hobby. Why don’t I roam tilled cornfields and forage for downed mammals? Imagine the savings from never eating out again. Oh, but I can hear the naysayers: Man is not meant to devour festering, raw deer hooves.

Which leads me to a site called “The Art of Manliness,” which lists 45 more traditional hobbies for my consideration:

1 Ham radio (and its less popular sister hobby, Head Cheese radio).

2 Wood working. “When you’re taking a chisel to a piece of wood, it’s easy to enter a zen-like state” or a zen-like emergency room.

3 Reading. I’ve heard of this.

4 Backpacking. No, no.

5 Cooking. (See: Backpacking.)

6 Fly fishing. I know a lot of men fly fish and wade in lovely streams and wear long-sleeved, pricey clothes and tie flies. (How do they get the little fellas to sit still?) But fly fishing seems like a little something I like to call “work.”

7 Paintball. I don’t know what this means.

8 Magic. “Every man,” the site says, “should know at least a couple of good magic tricks to impress friends, woo ladies, and delight children.”

For my first trick, I will make the dishwasher load itself, as I roam cornfields and never give up the chase.