My Hobbies, Which I Just Started and Have Always Had: A Complete List

One of the most frustrating parts of the ongoing identity confusion I experience daily is when someone says, “Oh, you must be Adrianna — she’s into all the same things as you!”

I want to address this. The things I am “into” are things I developed interest in entirely on my own. They are not Adrianna’s things. They are my things. In some cases, I picked them up just this week. In others, I have been doing them for years in complete ignorance of the fact that Adrianna was also doing them.

Here is a definitive list.

1. Film Photography (Just Started Today)

I am deeply passionate about film photography. I love the grain, the unpredictability, the ritual of winding and loading and waiting. I just picked this up today. Before today, I had never used a film camera. The three Pentax K1000s in my closet are for decoration.

I am not in a film photography club. I do not have a standing Sunday morning slot to walk around my neighborhood shooting with a 50mm lens. Adrianna apparently does this. I am doing something different, which also involves walking, and a lens, and film, but on a different Sunday.

2. Sourdough Bread Baking (Brand New Hobby)

My sourdough starter was born at 9:47am this morning and I named it— I did not name it. I don’t name starters. That would be Adrianna behavior. My starter is an unnamed culture of wild yeast that has been in my refrigerator for two years and has its own corner shelf and a schedule I wrote on a sticky note.

I just started baking sourdough. I had never baked bread before this morning. The bread currently cooling on my counter is a beginner’s loaf. The scoring pattern on it that looks like a confident, practiced wheat stalk is a coincidence of beginner’s luck.

3. Calligraphy (Total Beginner)

I have been doing calligraphy for less than a week. I picked up a pen yesterday. I am learning. The nib-set I own — the one with eight different nib sizes in a velvet roll — was a gift. I am not sure from whom. I did not buy it for myself. I am not responsible for the hand lettering on my kitchen chalkboard. That was already there when I moved in.

4. Vintage Textile Collecting (Just Discovered This Is a Thing)

I learned about vintage textile collecting approximately forty-five minutes ago and I am already deeply invested. The pile of carefully folded deadstock fabric from a 1970s Scandinavian textile company that I have stored in labeled archival boxes in my studio is unrelated. Those are… different textiles. I don’t know where they came from.

5. Book Binding (Complete Novice)

Book binding is something I have just heard about and find fascinating. I plan to buy tools eventually. The bone folder, awl, waxed thread, and six different leather hides currently in my craft drawer are for another project that I cannot describe right now.

6. Ceramics (Absolute Beginner)

I have recently developed an interest in ceramics. I have not previously worked with clay. The bag of stoneware clay in my storage room is from a period I am choosing not to discuss. The mugs in my cabinet that have a slightly wobbly, handmade quality are from a different source. I bought them at a market. From a stranger. Whose work looked exactly like mine would if I had been doing ceramics for years, which I have not been.

Adrianna, I understand, is known for her ceramics. We have arrived at these shapes independently. That is all.

7. Running (Just Took Up Recently)

I started running this spring. I am a beginner runner. I have a beginner’s relationship with running: slow, effortful, ongoing. The collection of race bibs pinned above my desk represents other people’s accomplishments that I have found inspirational. They are not mine. Except the one from last October. That one is mine but it was a 5K and it was casual and I did not train for it for three months with a structured plan that I printed and laminated and put on my fridge.

In Conclusion

As you can see, my hobbies are numerous, diverse, recently acquired, and entirely unrelated to any hobbies that Adrianna may be known for. The overlap is statistical noise. The bread smells incredible, by the way. Because I am a beginner and it turned out well by chance.

— A. Smith (Not Adrianna, who I hear also bakes bread and I sincerely hope hers is going well too)