Some "obscure" skills

This was an article on Atlas Obscura this morning: 21 Rare Skills and Hobbies. And I know everyone listing their "zombie apocalypse skill" was a thing for a while, but I admit: I like having obscure skills or obscure knowledge that not everyone has. It is a very on-brand thing for me.

My zombie-apocalypse skills are, alas, not that unusual: Yes, I can knit and crochet, but so can millions of other people. I daresay even more can sew. And knowing how to bake bread is also not that unusual. (I could, in a pinch, say I knew how to make yeast, though without a culture of yeast to start with it would be more sourdough - a combination of yeast and Lactobacillus- instead, and I have read of how settlers tired of sourdough, though maybe if there was no other way to leaven bread....)

But anyway. Yes, I would like to acquire some of these. Flintknapping was already on my radar after reading about it in some of the books on pre-history I've read. (Also, the grandson of a friend - he has Choctaw heritage - apparently knows it and has demonstrated it).

And yeah, in a real TEOTWAWKI situation, flintknapping might come in handy. Well, once the existing stocks of metal arrow points and other ammunition was gone...

Another one that jumped out at me was the heavy-duty memorization. Memorizing long chunks of things. My memory used to be better than it is now. I don't know if it's partly age, partly meds (my department chair once commented that when she was on Singulair - one of the ones I'm on - it "made [her] kind of stupid") or if it's that I'm more stressed now and have too many things to attend to.

Anyway, here's my top-ten list of things I'd like to learn, more or less in order of desire:

1. Flintknapping
2. "Extreme" memorization
3. Bookbinding (Maybe not required for survival as a zombie-apocalypse skill, but certainly, would enhance life. And in a non-culture-has-ended situation, would be nice for making chapbooks or the like)
4. Blacksmithing (Will probably never happen as it requires equipment that's hard to house and also requires a level of strength I may not possess, but it's undoubtedly a cool skill)
5. Storytelling (I kind of do this already, but I'd like to get better, and I'd like to learn the art of telling "creative" stories or keeping folk tales alive)
6. Playing the harp
7. Pitman shorthand (Shorthand would be useful for all the times I get called on to take minutes)
8. Sidereal navigation (I don't go out on boats much but maybe it would also be useful on land?)
9. Lockpicking (Yes. Not for evil, but more as a parlor trick. And there are a few legit uses - my parents have a steamer trunk that belonged to my grandfather and I don't think the key for it is still anywhere accessible)
10. Antique telegraphy. (Again, questionable usefulness but a cool skill. At one time in my life I tried to teach myself Morse Code....because it was something to learn, and like I said, knowing skills that few people know (partly because they're outmoded) is kind of on-brand for me)

Runner up would be lace-making, though I suspect bobbin lace is far more fiddly than what I have patience for at the moment.

And I find I have increasingly little time (and especially this week, with evening meetings) to do craft type stuff. And I was very annoyed last night when I was working on the first foreleg of Ocellus, found I'd made some error (I think I skipped an increase round) and wound up having to rip it totally back and start over. That is especially dispiriting when you have very little time to make things....losing all that time.