In a new Q&A with the New York Times, former South Carolina governor and recent New York City subway passenger Mark Sanford talks about some of his favorite pastimes, aside from hiking through Appalachia with his Argentinean soulmate.

When he hasn't been writing or hugging all of the "heavyset black" women who randomly approach him on the street, the man who allegedly turned digging holes into a therapeutic exercise has been busy:

  • Building barns
  • Building bridges—not cultural ones, but actual bridges. One bridge he describes as "significant," partly because "each one of the beams was 18,000 pounds." Did Sanford pick up the beams by himself? He does not elaborate.
  • Pulling out stumps "with a big excavator"
  • Stacking the stumps "so I could eventually burn them"
  • Thinking about the limitations of hierarchies (i.e., dabbling in anarchism)
  • Burying a dead raccoon
  • Thinking about where he'd like to be buried some day (next to the raccoon)

If you've been looking for ways to spend the rest of your summer, perhaps you'll find this list useful.

[NYT, Image via AP]