Let's Talk January: Some Favorite Non-Fandom Things!
queen0fcups asked me to name some of my favorite non-fandom things! I went with five, and pretty much the first five things I could think of that make me happy:
Favorite Historical Figure: Robert F. Kennedy. I have a mad history crush on the middle Kennedy brother, the most thoughtful and philosophical of the three, who pushed his brother to commit to civil rights legislation. When Martin Luthor King was assassinated, Kennedy found out about it just before he was scheduled to speak to a largely black audience in Indianapolis. With riots breaking out in cities across the US, his advisers told him it was too dangerous to speak. But he went out and addressed the audience, breaking the news to most of them. The speech is a brief, but incredibly moving call to reflective mourning. The crowd--which reacts to the news of King's death with a heartbreaking wail of grief and rage--dispersed quietly after the speech, and Indianapolis didn't suffer the riots that other American cities endured that night.
You can see the video of the speech below--it's only 4 minutes long.
Favorite Breed of Cat: Maine Coon Cat. I had one of these for about 15 years and they are giant fluffbeasts of adorableness. They have teeny tiny chirpy kitten-voices, they love playing with water, and they are supposed to be very intelligent. My Malcolm, however, was dumb as a box of rocks. But he was the sweetest and friendliest cat ever.
Favorite flower: Lilacs. I loved springtime in Maine growing up because everyone had a lilac bush in their yard. The beautiful pale purple or white flowers, the sweet clean smell of them, especially after a rain...I wanted to be married with a bunch of fresh lilacs in my arms, but the wedding was in August and lilacs are too fragile and wilt too fast to make good bouquets anyway, alas.
Favorite hobby besides writing: I love baking bread! I have a bread machine, which is good for someone who loves fresh bread but has a job, but it does lose some of the satisfaction of kneading and punching down the dough. Still, there's something viscerally pleasurable about taking a bunch of things that aren't particularly edible on their own, mixing them together, and producing something lovely and brown and life-sustaining.
Favorite Recent Purchase: My husband's new winter coat. Generally for our anniversaries, my husband and I don't buy each other presents, we buy ourselves one nice thing we both will enjoy. This year we decided to get my husband a nice, tailor-made winter wool coat. We found a place online that looked good and wrote them, explaining what we wanted: the length, the cut, the look of it. The tailor wrote back and said "You can just say you want a Sherlock coat, you know. We get a lot of requests for that." @_@ Busted. But after much very fun consultation (we didn't want something like looked like a Sherlock cosplay, we wanted it to be my husband's own coat, just...the same feel to it) we ended up with this beauty:
He even asked if we wanted the buttonhole picked out in bright thread! Well, DUH. :)
I suppose it might seem odd that "our" anniversary present was a coat for my husband. But believe me, when I get to see him striding down the sidewalk in it...the pleasure is very much mine.
Happy 2014 and may it be full of your favorite things, both fannish and not!
Favorite Historical Figure: Robert F. Kennedy. I have a mad history crush on the middle Kennedy brother, the most thoughtful and philosophical of the three, who pushed his brother to commit to civil rights legislation. When Martin Luthor King was assassinated, Kennedy found out about it just before he was scheduled to speak to a largely black audience in Indianapolis. With riots breaking out in cities across the US, his advisers told him it was too dangerous to speak. But he went out and addressed the audience, breaking the news to most of them. The speech is a brief, but incredibly moving call to reflective mourning. The crowd--which reacts to the news of King's death with a heartbreaking wail of grief and rage--dispersed quietly after the speech, and Indianapolis didn't suffer the riots that other American cities endured that night.
You can see the video of the speech below--it's only 4 minutes long.
Click to viewFavorite Breed of Cat: Maine Coon Cat. I had one of these for about 15 years and they are giant fluffbeasts of adorableness. They have teeny tiny chirpy kitten-voices, they love playing with water, and they are supposed to be very intelligent. My Malcolm, however, was dumb as a box of rocks. But he was the sweetest and friendliest cat ever.
Favorite flower: Lilacs. I loved springtime in Maine growing up because everyone had a lilac bush in their yard. The beautiful pale purple or white flowers, the sweet clean smell of them, especially after a rain...I wanted to be married with a bunch of fresh lilacs in my arms, but the wedding was in August and lilacs are too fragile and wilt too fast to make good bouquets anyway, alas.
Favorite hobby besides writing: I love baking bread! I have a bread machine, which is good for someone who loves fresh bread but has a job, but it does lose some of the satisfaction of kneading and punching down the dough. Still, there's something viscerally pleasurable about taking a bunch of things that aren't particularly edible on their own, mixing them together, and producing something lovely and brown and life-sustaining.
Favorite Recent Purchase: My husband's new winter coat. Generally for our anniversaries, my husband and I don't buy each other presents, we buy ourselves one nice thing we both will enjoy. This year we decided to get my husband a nice, tailor-made winter wool coat. We found a place online that looked good and wrote them, explaining what we wanted: the length, the cut, the look of it. The tailor wrote back and said "You can just say you want a Sherlock coat, you know. We get a lot of requests for that." @_@ Busted. But after much very fun consultation (we didn't want something like looked like a Sherlock cosplay, we wanted it to be my husband's own coat, just...the same feel to it) we ended up with this beauty:
He even asked if we wanted the buttonhole picked out in bright thread! Well, DUH. :)
I suppose it might seem odd that "our" anniversary present was a coat for my husband. But believe me, when I get to see him striding down the sidewalk in it...the pleasure is very much mine.
Happy 2014 and may it be full of your favorite things, both fannish and not!