In this post, I shall present to you two different (but also the same) representations of my brain.  Because you see, I have a lot of hobbies.  I’m pretty sure my husband has more – and neither of us is also including the fact that we have kids into the tally – but I do think it’s fair to say that I have a lot.

Once, when I was younger and complaining to my mom that there were so many things I wanted to do, she said that eventually I’d settle on my main things.  That…really hasn’t happened.  Because my brain is like a porcupine…or something.  And porcupines don’t just have a couple spikes.  And if they did have only just a couple spikes, they just wouldn’t be porcupines any more.  I have been on this Earth for four decades, and as far as I can tell, I’m still adding hobbies.

Here is representation #1 of My Brain the Porcupine.  (Which I commissioned from my awesome daughter.  She is too young yet to have spawned too many hobbies, but is really awesome at the ones she’s got so far.)

I am a writer, but also of course a reader.  And I will note that on occasion, I feel annoyed to hear about the non-writing hobbies of writers (especially of writers of books that I want to read).  I think, ‘Stop hobbying and get back to writing!’  But, yeah, that is just not how it works.  I am a terribly slow writer, but abandoning my hobbies would not make me write faster, it would just make me go crazy.  (Thereby removing all ability to write at all.)  The largest piece of visual art I have produced to date, a 2 foot by 5 foot collage composed of nearly a thousand individual elements, was put together whilst I was in the midst of also wrangling a toddler and striving to organize my Ph.D. dissertation.  I can’t not make things.  I have to make things.  And I have to have things to work on that are different from the other big things that are taking up my time – like having a job, or taking care of my kids, or writing.

As hinted at above, collages are one of the types of things I like to make.  So here is representation #2 of My Brain the Porcupine: Top-down View.

To go with this collage, here’s the current list of descriptions (vaguely arranged from newest to oldest):

• VIOLA – It feels like singing with my hands.  If I’m lucky, one day it will consistently sound like nice singing.
• KNIFE THROWING – I am really not any good at this.  But you know what?  It’s fun.  (::whispers::  Also note: this is the stand-in hobby for the revolving door of random somethings I’m dabbling in at any given time.)
• WOOD-WORKING – It’s like art, that’s useful nearly every time!  Also, is there actually anything more beautiful than wood-grain?
• BEADING – The value of my beading stash rivals the value of my fabric stash…I still can’t decide if this is a problem…
• GARDENING – I talk to my plants.  A lot.
• SEWING – I don’t love sewing (especially not the long tedium of cutting things out), but I quite love the results of sewing.  Primary theme: patch-work.
• COOKING – I hate cooking.  But I’m not actually bad at it, and I am the cook of my family (so far at least).  I’ve even managed to come up with a couple of my own recipes.  My best triumph to date is my cranberry-apple pie.
• TAE-KWON-DO – I never thought of myself as athletic.  Then I found myself, slowly but surely, earning rank in TaeKwonDo.  Life can be sneaky like that.
• WRITING – I write slowly, and I have a penchant for really freaking big and/or multi-part projects…but I like spending lots of time in my own head, so…
• LANGUAGES – I love languages.  Though I should note that my skills in this area are not impressive.  I can count to 10 and/or say ‘Hello, my name is Anna’ in seven (not English) languages…aaaand that’s about it.  But I love them.
• DANCING – Meeting your future husband at tango is simply the way to go!
• CROSS-STITCH – Sewing by hand is super soothing, especially with pretty colors.  But I only ever finish large cross-stitch projects, and then what the heck am I supposed to do with them?  Yet I can’t resist them…
• ART – Various.  I could branch out several sub-hobbies from here, but…nah, the lines are too blurred.  Primary theme: collage.
• TRAVEL – Not as much as I would wish, but still, new places feel like delicious nourishment for my brain.
• BOOKS & MOVIES – I’m a little bit obsessed with stories, and probably always have been.  My sister and I used to walk home from school having conversations in movie quotes.  And decorating our dorm-room door with movie quotes was one of the first things my room-mate and I did after we first met.  Interesting experience to open your door and find someone staring, blankly rapt.
• HIKING – I grew up in Montana, specifically the Bitterroot.  If you can grow up in the Bitterroot and not love hiking, I just don’t know what to do with you.

Happy hobbying!