Knitting.

For a few years now, I have regressed into knitting. Regressed, you ask? My Great-grandmother Jean McGee thought I might enjoy knitting up some wool when I was about 7. I did not. But for what ever reason, and I really can't remember what the catalyst was for lighting my must-knit spark, I am young again, and now fumble with needles for fun, albeit these are now shorter and connected with a long plastic string. I think knitting in the round was invented for absent knitters like me, who allow stiches to slide of into oblivion and I'm grateful for its continuity. 

Thinking I was an old hand for remembering how to cast on and do some garter stitch, gave me the courage to go and knit a giant sweater with cable stitching etc. What an education - every new project requires hours of learning, knitting, frogging (a nice way of saying I have to rip out my work), more knitting, more frogging, still more knitting and inevitably accepting my mistakes in homage to wabi sabi, the concept of the imperfect but still beautiful. Thank God for ancient concepts.

I have knit baby blankets, baby sweaters, chunky zipper sweaters, socks, socks and more socks, my husband being a man who still wears the red socks his mother knit him. Of course, I started with dish clothes, mug cozies, tea cozies, scarves and cabled headbands and have progressed to my current project, a lacey sweater. If I make a mistake, it stays, as with lace knitting, there is no back tracking the myriad of yarn overs and twisted knit-two-together-from-behind-and-shout-eureka-if-it-works. If I make a big mistake, I drink a fifth of bourbon and frog the whole damn thing. Thank God for bourbon.

Anyhoo, knitting is a colossal consumer of my time that ensures I get absolutely zero exercise, save for my grey matter and fingers, and oh yes, also my vocal chords that get a constant workout forcefully expelling words like, oh-for-fucks-sake.

Excellent hobby. You should try it.