- Hey YouTube world, it's me Evelyn.
Coming to you with no eyebrows on.
(Crickets chirping)
Because I have something very important to discuss,
and we can't waste no time.
Okay?
Time is of the utmost importance of the essence if you will.
I don't have no hobbies.
Okay?
I ain't got no hobbies anymore.
The dictionary defines a hobby as
"an activity done regularly
"in one's leisure time for pleasure."
I ain't got that.
I don't have one of those.
I ain't got that.
To me, a hobby is something you do, with no expectations.
You don't expect to get better necessarily.
You don't expect to get paid.
You're not trying.
This is not a side hustle.
Hobby and a side hustle are different.
What had happened was, is, I turned the biggest hobbies
that I had as a child,
I turned that into my job.
It's my job now.
I used to write stories, you know what I'm saying?
Look at all, I used to write, for fun.
And now, I write scripts.
I used to love dressing up as like different characters.
I used to make videos, and burn them on DVD's,
before YouTube ever existed.
Do I have a, do I have a DVD player?
Look at me, on Christmas morning,
opening my first Barbie camera, it was a real camera,
with real film.
Look at me, mentoring my brother in the ways of photography.
I'm an influencer of the original sort.
And now I still dress up as different characters.
And now we both make videos, and use cameras.
The only problem, is when you turn your hobby into your job,
you no longer have anything you did strictly for fun.
Now it's for deadlines.
Now it's for a paycheck.
There's a contract.
You can't break the contract.
The fact that a crew has already been hired,
you can't tell them all to go home
'cause you're not into it anymore.
It can be a downer sometimes, you know what I'm saying?
(package rustling)
You know what I mean?
You know what's happening?
I'ma tell you what's happening
I don't feel very well rounded.
There's a sort of magic that happens,
when you do things that interest you, for no reason.
That is by definition what play is.
And I've talked about play before,
in a previous video, and how important it is,
not only in children, but in adults.
Otherwise, we feel, like we on a hamster wheel.
You know what I'm saying?
Like we in the matrix, or whatever.
I don't wanna be in the matrix.
I don't.
Although I do have a creative job,
and the things that I do are creative,
and they involve play and they're playful.
Not the same.
It's just not the same.
So, I need to get back to basics.
I need to get back to that feeling, that flow.
You know what I'm saying?
Where you tinker with things.
Fiddle, fiddle with them?
Is that a word?
It's an instrument.
It's a lovely feeling.
So, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel,
and think of new hobbies,
I'm just going to go back to baby Evelyn From The Internets,
and see what she used to do.
I'm gonna revisit my childhood hobbies.
Let's go!
Only the old, only the old internet cousins gonna remember
"Let's go!"
(Blues music)
I used to play piano.
It's a thing I learned how to do.
I got my first keyboard, when I was, I think five,
on Christmas, and I played piano for fun.
I did recitals, I played.
There's a picture of me playing in Dillard's.
Why not?
They got a piano!
I played, all the way until I was maybe 15,
and then I stopped.
Stopped.
I went home to my parents' house,
and got some of my old sheet music.
To see if I can still play it.
Nursery Songs At The Piano, we got "Hickory Dickory Dock",
we got, who we got, "Hey Diddle Diddle" (chuckles).
"Little Boy Blue", mess with the kid.
And I was just doing this for years and years.
I played, I played, girl!
Look at me, look at her.
Hold up, hold up, a headless Black man.
Yas, give us jazz.
Yas!
And then I graduated, to picking a song
from like the movies or something,
and just trying to play that.
We got "Never Felt This Way" by Brian McKnight.
Please, you don't even know who I am.
"The Walk To Remember" sound track, Mandy Moore, all right?
So yeah, let's see if I can get back into it.
I don't have a piano though.
So let's see if we can, if we can acquire one.
Facebook Marketplace,
to see if there are any keyboards I can purchase in my area.
Ooh, those tables are cute.
(beeping)
(upbeat music)
"Estás en muy buenas condiciones"
(mumbling)
Okay, so I see this listing for a keyboard,
that's 80 bucks, it's a Casio CTK-2500.
So I just looked it up on YouTube.
And it seems legit.
(piano music)
I'm at the spot.
Finna meet the lady.
Hi!
Good, how are you?
(plays single notes)
("Mary had a Little Lamb")
Great Big Dogs Fight Animals,
that's what Great Big Dogs, D.
D, is something a sharp?
(piano playing)
Can't do, I can't do it, can't do it.
Okay,
(drum beating)
oh yeah, uh-huh.
One, two, three, four!
♪ Raspberry beret (chuckles) ♪
(upbeat music)
Stop, stop.
("Fur Elise")
Okay,
(piano music)
Ain't nothin' a little practicizing won't fix.
I think once I have my set up, set up.
You know what I'm saying?
Need to get a stand, for the actual keyboard.
Need to get the sheet music stands, so the music props up.
I think once I'm set up,
it'll be a nice little playground for me,
to like figure out music again, remember how to read.
'Cause like, it was touch and go there for a second,
it was touch and go.
(upbeat music)
Another thing I used to do as a youth, was read.
Stay with me, stay with me, I still read,
but I rarely read physical books, maybe a couple a year.
For the most part, I listen to audiobooks,
and I'm listening to them, while I'm doing something else.
Right?
It's my way of fitting in reading something,
while still, like maximizing my productivity.
When I was little, I didn't have anything else to do.
Wasn't nothin' else to do but read a book.
I'm not trying to multitask, or be efficient,
or anything like that, I would just sit, and I would read.
Sometimes all day, sometimes just an afternoon,
sometimes until somebody told me
to go sprinkle Comet in the bath tub.
You know what I'm saying? Like...
I'm inspired by...
Yeah??
I used to read these.
In the American Girl series, there was one black girl,
I don't know if that's changed now,
but back in my day, there was one black girl,
and her name was Addy,
and that's what my parents bought me to read.
And then as a teenager, my mom made me give some
of my Addy books to my cousins.
I'm missing book number, this is one, this is two,
all right, this is five, where's three and four?
Hmmm?
Uh, Kay Kay and Jasmine, Kay Kay and Jasmine,
I'm texting you after this.
Remember that keyboard,
remember that keyboard that I had, as a five year old,
and I had it all the way until I was a teenager,
all right?
My parents made me give it.
So Tony, cousin Tony, where you at?
I think you all wrecked my keyboard.
Is it in your house?
Bet not.
(beeping)
(upbeat music)
I've been reading for the longest time,
"How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe"
by Charles Yu.
I'm going to read, until I don't want to anymore?
Oh okay.
All right, well...
here I go.
(peaceful music)
Reading, I'm reading.
'Kay, uh.
(pop music)
Another hobby I've had,
and I've kind of had to dig for this one.
I've always been fascinated with making books,
like every art class, any chance I could,
at home, I would staple papers together,
to make my own book.
I've always been interested in binding,
how books are bound together.
I never really got that far into it.
Here I have one of my earliest books.
No staples, just folds.
"Evelyn and Heidi's Note Book".
If you're wondering, this is Evelyn, and that is Heidi.
Heidi was Asian.
So that's a lovely cover with a nice drawling if you will.
And if you open it, oh it is stapled!
Oh it's glued, oh...
We put our names in there.
That might be both my handwriting, not sure.
Our secrets, Evelyn is my best friend.
Ummm...
Did I get played?
Why is our friendship a secret?
"Favorit", "favorit" "animl" is a tiger.
There you go.
Rour!
(laughs)
And then this final page, friends "foreor", m'kay.
And then we wrote the initials of all our friends,
I'm guessing stars are you're more important
than the other ones.
By Evelyn.
Just for Cory, David, and Heidi's secrets.
I also asked my mom, what she remembered,
about any of the hobbies I had.
And she said I used to like drawing and doodling,
and things like that,
so I'm gonna combine these two into one hobby.
Make a zine.
So.
Let me, let me try it?
(jazzy music)
All right, coming to you from the floor.
Let's set the mood, shall we?
Shhh, not while I'm bubbling.
Listen, listen.
(bubbles popping)
That's good stuff.
It's uneven, all right.
And then from here,
you cut in the middle so that you can fold it.
Okay.
It's been a while.
So I've made my little booklet.
We're gonna draw, we're gonna draw some drawings.
What am I gonna draw.
Whatever I want.
(chuckles) What?
(upbeat music)
Oh we doing something, we doing something.
Oop!
We still doing something, we still doing something.
(laughs)
I think he needs a nice, whatever this is.
Bronze yellow, let's do that.
(pens rattling)
(shaker clacking)
Let's try.
Presenting to you, my zine called Random People.
That's the cover, it's called Random People.
This is Roger, all right.
And it's just me like doodling, you know what I'm saying?
Um, created by, Me!
I don't know how to draw myself, but I'ma try.
That's my next little hobby.
Then there's just other pages, that I can fill
for fun.
This is nice, y'all ain't gonna lie
and tell me this not nice, this nice.
We've come a long way.
From this, right?
Heidi, wherever you are,
I'm mad it was a secret, we was friends.
(beeping)
(upbeat music)
This was good, this was really, really good.
So I dived into my childhood hobbies today,
dibbled and dabbled, and I enjoyed the process.
It was a walk down memory lane,
to remember what my life was like,
and the things I was doing.
It was an exercise in like prioritizing yourself in a way.
And I'm going to continue it.
I'm goin', yeah I'm going to continue it.
I'm feeling energized,
and like the world is full of possibilities.
You know what I'm saying?
And even though, I feel a way
I feel a way about having to schedule in my hobbies.
But, if I don't, like it feels corny.
If I don't schedule it in.
Nobody else cares about your life the way you do.
You know what I'm saying?
Everyone's gonna be like, oh she got a couple free hours,
and it's like, yeah, they're free.
Free hours, for me.
You know it's a thing that you do as a child,
but as an adult it gets a little tougher.
And just like you know,
my parents would reserve time for me to go practice piano,
so I can be up in Dillard's, not shaming nobody.
Um, I have to set aside time,
for the things that I want to do and pursue.
I'm feeling good!
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So I was going
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All I'm saying is that if you're self employed,
um, that counts as an expense.
Okay?
Development is an expense, write it off.
Shout out to Skillshare for sponsoring this video,
and encouraging me to go on this adventure.
In the comments below,
I wanna know what your hobbies were as a kid.
I was also a kid that like,
collected sticks and rocks and stuff.
We didn't have time for that in this video.
So let me know what your hobbies were,
if you still have them now,
or what do you do now as a hobby?
Do you need one?
Did this help?
Did this encourage you?
I hope so.
Thanks so much for watching,
and I'll see y'all on the Internet somewhere.
Bye.
(upbeat music)
