When people ask of you, "what are your hobbies?" and you say, "umm, work?" Then they say, "No, I mean, what do you do in your free time?" and you say, "sleep," you come to realize you are boring. Really. Mind-numbingly. Boring.
It's not like we don't have any free time...okay, I have A LOT of free time now, but just a few months ago I did not; and Matthew has approximately one day per week that he doesn't work from dawn to dusk - Saturday. The point is, what we do in our free time is terribly uninteresting.
We both like to read.
Which reminds me of a scene from one of my favorite movies, "Best in Show"
So anyway, we both love soup and we like to read. We are the exciting couple who go to the bookstore on a weekend and wander off to our preferred sections to select a book, then reunite to come home and sit on the couch together and read. Now we each have a Kindle, so we go to the bookstore, pick out books we think look good, write down the names and go home to buy it through the Kindle. We are party animals.
We also watch a lot of movies (as you may notice, given the frequent references to movies). I am connoisseur of comedy, while Matthew is a fan of action and we both like sci fi (and soup). We go to movies and/or rent movies on a pretty regular basis. This hobby is really only interesting if you appreciate the ability to relate nearly every moment of regular life to a scene or line in a movie. Not an ambi-turner? We've got a movie reference for that.
We also enjoy eating. Not that you would know this by looking at us, but we really enjoy good food. And by good, I don't mean 'plentiful,' I mean tasty. See, also, my sheer joy on day one in Detroit when we had sushi at 10pm. I believe sushi is soul-sustaining, not just in the way that it provides necessary calories for sustaining bodily functions, I mean spiritually sustaining. Maybe one of these days I'll give you a full review of the sumptuous food we have had since moving here. Big cities = many, many restaurants = better chance of really incredible life-changing food.
Case in point: Vietnamese food. Love it. I have what may be considered a clinically significant addiction to Pho, which if you've never had it (and I mean, had it at a REAL Vietnamese restaurant, the kind where you are the only non-Vietnamese person in the whole place), then you haven't LIVED. Pho is typically a beef-broth-based noodle soup with thin slices of beef, spices, Thai basil, bean sprouts and other added yummies for desired spiciness. I am so obsessed with good Pho that I will go to great lengths to find it (I used to drive two hours to Philadelphia for it - Pho in Harrisburg was watered down with poor quality ingredients; Pho in Portland is best at the restaurants you're not sure could pass the health inspection).
Let me show you what my heaven looks like.
Yes, I actually took a picture of my Pho and the avocado milkshake (seriously, it's really good, I promise...and somewhere around 7,000 calories, but every now and then it's worth it for the extra 75 miles I would have to run to burn that off) from my new favorite restaurant. And guess what? It is ONE mile from my house and that bowl of deliciosity (making up new words) is only SIX DOLLARS! Yes. $6.
(okay, I'm going to have to take a break mid-post and go get some Pho for lunch. Clinically significant addiction is not an understatement people...I'm jonesin')
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And I'm back. And, yes, I really did go get me some $6 Pho and an avocado milkshake and can now bask in the post-Pho glow (I am, in fact, "Pho-drunk" as my friend Lauren used to call it).
Where was I? Oh, yeah, I was explaining that we don't have 'hobbies,' so to speak. When you move to a new place and meet people (or are interviewing for jobs, which I hope to be soon) they tend to ask: do you have any hobbies? What they're really asking is: Are you interesting in any way?
Answer: No. Categorically, no.
The most interesting thing I do is CrossFit, a strength and conditioning program used by military/law enforcement/tactical operations teams/martial artists and other athletes. But, honestly, unless you're into fitness, exercise and weight lifting yourself, you're not going to be interested in my one rep max snatch or clean and jerk, let alone what my "Murph" time is (very long, it took me an hour the last time and I don't even wear a weighted vest). When I try to explain it to people I can tell how well-versed they are in exercise just by the glazed look that comes over their face.
I find it more instructive to have someone try one of the benchmark workouts, like "Angie" (some workouts are named after original Crossfitters, like Angie, and some are named after fallen soldiers or law enforcement, like Murph). Angie is 100 pull ups, 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, 100 squats in a row, no breaks, as fast as you can (i.e. "for time"). Try it, you'll understand CrossFit.
Unfortunately, if I'm in a job interview I can't exactly say, "well, I do this strength and endurance training program, it's hard to really explain it, so let's just do this workout called Linda, or '3 bars of death' - we'll just be doing 10 deadlifts at 1.5x's your body weight, 10 bench presses of your body weight, and 10 cleans of 3/4 of your body weight...then we'll do 9 reps of each, then 8 of each, then 7 of each, then 6 of each, then 5 of each and so on until we get to 1 rep of each. And we're going to do it as fast as we can without resting between sets. You might want to take off your high heels and your pantyhose for this."
See, your eyes just glazed over READING that, imagine how boring it is talking about. Unless that person is also a CrossFitter or a masochist, then there could be some common ground to work with. Even Matthew gets his fill of CrossFit (it makes him nauseous and sometimes throw up, which might be the reason) and refuses to do anything but run, which I personally find horrific.
Here is a fun video of an incredibly fit guy doing "Angie" - Click here.
I love how the dog keeps coming up do him and checking him out, like, 'what is wrong with my hoomin? He acting very weird?...Hoomin? Are you okay?" Then, gets bored and lays down next to him. If I lay on the floor to stretch or do crunches Bandit climbs on top of my chest and lays down. Once I held on to him and did a couple sit ups (I figured it would be a little extra weight to make it harder), but that pissed him off and he rolled and tried to lick my face the rest of the time.
What else do we do in our spare time? Umm. I cook, indulge my OCD with deep cleaning, dabble in health foods and supplements (see, also, Chia Seeds)...
Matthew is in even worse shape than me. With more work, longer hours, more years of residency the sum total of his hobbies include "used too's." As in, he used to be a competitive kick boxer (as in, real fights, not like the classes my mom and I used to take when she kicked that guy next to her because she was going the wrong way), he used to run, he used to downhill ski, he used to water ski and wakeboard... okay, we both did that recently on our trip home to see the family, but once a year is hard to call a hobby.
But now he has time for an occasional hour of pleasure reading or trolling the internet for interesting stuff, which is what led him to our new hobby. And, I might add, our first 'Couples Hobby.'
We're brewing our own beer.
Stay tuned for more Adventures in Brewing with the Budges







