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Hipstercrite Life

How to Have a Hipster Thanksgiving 2011

Last year I wrote a guide on how to have a Hipster Thanksgiving. Reading over that guide, I kind of wish I could copy and paste it for this year’s post, but alas, I had to come up with something new. Last year’s guide talked about Amy Sedaris’ hosting book ‘I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence‘ and I pretty much just want to only write about that. That woman is the shit.

So it’s Thanksgiving. You’re young, you’re hip, you like making cool DIY projects and even though you’re not vegetarian you’d like to think of yourself as one in select conversations with select individuals that are vegetarian. This is a special time of year for you and you need to know how to prepare for it responsibly. Here are some hipsters tips and products that will enable you to do this.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

source

Make Tin Can Lights for the Turkey Table-
I came across this idea one day on one of those DIY pictorial porn sites- you know, the ones where you look at beautiful pictures of things (more…)

November 23, 2011 by hipstercrite

20-Something, Hipstercrite Life

I Believe in a Thing Called Love, Just Listen to the Rhythm of My Heart

Yesterday I took a big chance. I wrote an article about my boyfriend on CultureMap- which gets way more traffic than my blog does. I often find it difficult to write long posts, but I found myself able to nearly write a book about my boyfriend. The post, titled “Do You Believe in All the Cliches? A Sappy Relationship Story”, is about how I used to date douchebags and then one day I stopped. I met the most wonderful person and it made me believe that all those cheesy cliches about love might be true. I nervously watched as my boyfriend read the piece once it was posted. The more he read the more my stomach twisted in knots. He loved the piece and when he was done reading I went and gave him a tear-filled hug.

Enjoy the sap…

________

I used to date douchebags, then one day I stopped.

I’m not sure what made me stop acting this way. Maybe I finally grew up. Maybe I became more confident in who I was. Maybe I met the right person.

Or maybe it was all of those things combined.

Before (more…)

November 19, 2011 by hipstercrite

20-Something, Hipstercrite Life, Writing

When Good is Never Enough: A Dilemma for the Twenty-Something Blogger

I switched my blog over to WordPress a little over a month ago and I love it. Well, actually my wonderful web designer did because I couldn’t figure out how to do it. I mean, I could have maybe figured it out but I resorted back to that illogical fear that I’ll somehow make my blog implode by pushing the wrong button.

I love the options, the freedom I feel in writing multiple posts and the ability to respond to individual comments that the new blog brings. I still need to add some design work, but all-in-all, I’m very happy with the change.

One thing that stinks is that my traffic took a plummet. I’m still trying to figure out why and trying to correct the problem- if that’s possible. It kind of stressed me out. More than I care to admit. A lot of aspects of my writing have stressed me out lately and I hate to say it, but they’re for fairly superficial reasons.

Writing online is both extremely rewarding and mind-f’ing. One post you get a bunch of feedback or shares or likes (more…)

November 10, 2011 by hipstercrite

Hipstercrite Life

I Am Simply Not There

Last night I woke up at 4:30AM and could not go back to sleep. I was wide awake, my brain working a mile a minute. When I used to do this earlier in the year, it was because I was afraid masked men were creeping outside my window, ready to break in. I no longer fear this though oddly enough this happened to my friend last week. Now, now I worry about if I made the right choice. If going freelance is something I can handle without going insane.

The money situation is fine. I have enough steady work to pay the bills. I’m a little concerned that I’m not able to set aside for self-employed taxes yet, but considering I paid taxes for most of the year, I don’t think I’ll have too high of an IRS bill. I’m still adjusting to not getting a paycheck every other Friday, but rather one check here, another check three weeks later, a small check a week later etc. The fear of running out of dough has definitely made me a lot stingier- which I don’t necessarily like to be.

I love everyone that I (more…)

November 9, 2011 by hipstercrite

Fashion/Design, Hipstercrite Life

85 Year-Old Fashion

My grandmother is the most fashionable lady I know. To this day, through all the aches and pains, she still makes sure to be completely polished and presentable. She owned a woman’s clothing store for 35 years so she is no stranger to women’s fashion. Her closet and basement is filled with wonderful articles from the past the six decades. Her house is equally stylized, almost museum-like. While I was home I took the liberty to shoot some photos of her home and of her. She will be 85 years old at the end of November. She speaks about how she is disgusted with herself: how she could let her body get old? She feels ugly. I wish I could make her not feel this way. How can she not see how beautiful she is? If only we could all look this good at 85. As for her secret? This woman eats like a bird, worries so much she barely sleeps and smoked for many years. She uses cold cream to remove her foundation and Vaseline to remove her eye make-up. I’m guessing it’s just good Eastern European genes.

November 7, 2011 by hipstercrite

Hipstercrite Life

The Road Stays the Same

This stretch of road never changes, only I do. Every twist and turn and is the same and will be for hundreds of years. Only I will go away.

All the times I made this drive, I never could have guessed what the future held for me. Now I’m here and all I can think about is the past. The future is now and and it’s better than it was back then. Cold, monotonous journeys back and forth through towns that I would run away from, seeing a young boy that I will never see again, and a lifestyle that was not for me.

We had no idea what would happen over the past ten years.

We had no idea that Josh would get into a car accident 12 months ago and die and come back. The months of being in a coma, rehabilitation. I was mentally preparing myself on the drive to his house yesterday, preparing for the changes I would see. The new Josh. Telling myself not to cry. When I saw him, there was no reason to mourn. Though life is more challenging for him now he only has optimism. He’s so far ahead than (more…)

November 3, 2011 by hipstercrite

Hipstercrite Life

Silver Leaf Wallpaper

Visiting home is always…always…

I’m not sure what the word is.

Every time I visit home I feel different. Like the arm of a clock on a different time. When I was 22, I was 3AM, when I was 25, I was 4PM and now the clock rests on noon.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve mellowed out. Initially their dutiful daughter who always did what she was told suddenly did not like it. She snapped back. She was trying to figure out who she was and the last thing she needed was someone infringing on her time alone in her head.

Now, now she knows who she is. Now she doesn’t have a guttural reaction when one of them does nothing more than simply be the overly-concerned mother or grandmother that they are.

But coming home brings a new emotion. It’s no longer youthful angst, but rather seeing something I don’t want to see.

Something I’ll pretend is not happening.

As I hung in the doorway of my grandmother’s bedroom watching her get ready to go out, I noticed how small she looked. The weight (more…)

November 1, 2011 by hipstercrite

Hipstercrite Life, Pop Culture

Halloween Costumes Were Better When Moms Made Them

Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year because growing up my mother made it so damn special. My Mom is a really creative and imaginative woman and in the confines of her small town life, Halloween was the one time of year she could really let loose. Our house was always decorated with DIY spiders, witches, ghosts, paper-mache dead trees, orange twinkle lights wrapped in cobwebs and carved-out jack o’lanterns. The best part of Halloween was my mother’s amazing gift at constructing costumes. Everything was always made from scratch. She went balls to the wall when it came to my Halloween costume. She made sure that I beat every child’s tiny ass when it came to costume contests. Every Halloween I looked forward to what my mother would dream up for me and walk through the halls of my elementary school feeling like one sassy bitch.

Then I turned 13 and was on my way to junior high. Mom told me I was too old to have her make me Halloween costumes and I became depressed. I wasn’t mentally (more…)

October 26, 2011 by hipstercrite

Hipstercrite Life

The Lonely Child

I’ve written about being an only child before, but I mostly focused on the humorous aspect, like how we’re all a bunch of loveable narcissistic boobs. We’re a complex bunch, we only children, but outside of the attention-loving and the non-sharing, the most complicated part of our anatomy is the abandonment issues. We’re typically fearful of everyone dying and leaving us alone forever. It’s a subject I investigated more clearly in my recent post on Culture Map, “Growing Up Solo: The Habits and Hardships of Being an Only Child“. This one was definitely difficult to write. Sat their staring at the computer screen with that scrunched-up silent crying face for a good five minutes.

____

The other day I picked up an anthology of short stories about only children at Book People. That’s the sort of thing we only children do—try to find books that explain why the hell we are the way that we are. You see, being an only child is not easy. It doesn’t come with instructions.

Sure, you get tons (more…)

October 24, 2011 by hipstercrite

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