Are you ever too old to play with action figures?
Mt action figures started with Charles Dickens. As a joke, I bought a Charles Dickens action figure for a friend, but it turned out she already had Mr. Dickens. Of course, she did. She’s his biggest fan. (Other than the Doctor–for you Whovians.)
Then I got Shakespeare. Then Captain Jack Harkness.
One afternoon I thought about posing them in front of an image from a coffee table book. I posted it on facebook, and my friends liked it. Nothing gets you to repeat something as much as approval. At least, usually. I’ve written tons of stories and several novels, but few things get as quick approval as something visual. That’s why we have memes, isn’t it? It’s much easier to pass a meme around than a novel.
Well, I’ve been collecting Doctor Who action figures and taking pictures ever since. Sometimes someone asks me, “Why? What’s the point?”
Because it’s fun. Isn’t that an okay answer?
What possibly silly thing do you do just because it’s fun (and maybe a few people think you’re strange for doing so)?
Marta Pelrine-Bacon 
I think your action figures are great.I don’t know what silly things I do except for being silly most of the time when I play with my granddaughter.
Playing with children is a great time to be silly!
I’ve always loved seeing what you do with the action figures. Somehow you keep it all from getting too, uh, well, I guess “twee” would be the word. Which it could very well, in less capable hands.
I’m not sure if I do anything “silly” like that, unfortunately. Wait — does neurotic obsessing count? (Weak “ha.”)
I’m about to embark on a long-term blogging project, starting in a couple of weeks, which people may think is rather odd: when I was a kid, my parents gave me for Christmas one year what was quite possibly my favorite book anyone ever gave me. Somewhere along the line I lost that book and was convinced I’d never see it again. It was an illustrated science-related book, whose first edition (not the one I owned, I think!) was in 1952. The text was written by a woman who, as it happened, wrote a lot of science books for children. I have just — as of today — bought from an online source a copy of that book. A few months ago, after some long library and online searches, I dug up a lengthy journal article about the author and her career (both as an author and as a teacher). What I want to do is devote (over a long time) a series of dozens, even hundreds of posts to the book and the author. Most of them would be scans of illustrations from the book, with some of the text accompanying them. I have no reason really for doing this; I’m not related to the author or anything, and of course I can’t claim that the book set me on a lifelong path toward a career in science. But the book DID contribute to a lifelong fascination with science. It feels a little like paying both the author (surely long deceased: she began teaching in the 1910s) and the book back for the hours and hours of pleasure I got from just turning the pages and reading, reading, reading…
That doesn’t sound silly. That sounds awesome. Or maybe it is silly and awesome. But still. Devotion to a book and putting that out into the world is a good thing. I’ll look forward to seeing it.
And a big congratulations on finding the book. I remember when I finally found a long searched for book from my youth. It was a wonderful moment and jumping up and down in happiness was involved.
That was just a couple years ago, wasn’t it? The one something about a unicorn?
P.S. And thanks for the congratulations. I’m usually nervous telling people about this sort of plan because while it’s goal-directed, it’s not a conventional goal. No money in it. No self-promotion involved. Not really doing anyone a favor, or showing mercy (certainly not in a back-a-Kickstarter-project sense, with the expectation of getting something back later on). Not even anything which really looks like self-gratification to most people, including me most of the time. It’s a sort of thing between the book and me.