Snowblading, sailing, ultimate frisbee, guitar, now drums as well. I guess hoseriding (...or even horseriding. hmmm, maybe I've stumbled on a great idea for a new sport - someone call the fire dept...), although I could never claim to be any good at it. Mind you, I'm signed up for a week's ranch holiday in August, so I guess I'd better somehow *get* good at it before then!
Pretty much anyone who can make me laugh. As for those well-known folks, there are a handful of people who really impress me with their incredible achievements, and who I think are awesome, but I'd be far too shy to meet them! (yea, I realise my friends are all now killing themselves laughing at the thought of me being shy, but seriously - I got all tongue-tied meeting Ian Botham for pete's sake, and I don't even care about cricket!!).
Anything new and interesting. Melissa Ferrick hasn't left my CD player for long in the last few months, although Missy Higgins has jumped to second place on my ipod 'most played' list. Funnily enough I haven't listened to Ani DiFranco for ages, although she was a huge influence on my listening tastes for a while. Other than that, Ernie C. Ernst, Rachel Yamagata, KT Tunstall (although her album is a bit hit-and-miss), Jim Bianco, Sara Bareilles (ok, so basically everyone who plays at the Hotel Cafe!!) Elton John's early years (how one man can go from the genius of Madman Across the Water to the shocking dross of The Lion King never ceases to amaze me!) Dire Straits (listen before you mock!) Fleetwood Mac, The White Stripes, Scissor Sisters, Imogen Heap, Franz Ferdinand, and bizarrely enough, The Black Keys. Gotta thank Kevin for introducing me to them!
I haven't really watched TV since I got here - thank god for DVD box sets. ER; West Wing; Battlestar Galactica; Six Feet Under; Desperate Housewives; The L Word.
A bit of a range of stuff really. I recently got hooked on Augusten Burroughs' stuff - Magical Thinking and Running With Scissors. I'm officially addicted to Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters (there should be a rehab clinic or something). I'm a big fan of Toby Litt (corpsing, deadkidsongs, Finding Myself) and I loved the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. Pretty much anything by Richard Morgan, Iain Banks, Angela Carter (I owe the A level English examinations board a big thank you for introducing me to her stuff!) and of course J. K Rowling. Sad but true.
My childhood hero was Tracey Edwards - a sailor who skippered an all-woman crew in the 1990 Whitbread Round the World race. My adulthood hero is Ellen MacArthur - a sailor who's busy doing similar things single-handed!! Last year she beat the record for the non-stop circumnavigation of the world in her trimaran, setting a time of just over 71 days, which is just an awesome achievement. Makes me wonder what I've been doing with my life!!