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Fashion/Design

How To Stay Stylish in Clothing Melting Heat

While cataclysm of Waterworld-esque proportions keeps happening in other parts of the country, here in Austin, Texas we’ve been as bone dry as two teenagers humping after marching band practice. It’s also been a cool 104 degrees with a steady 90% humidity AT ALL TIMES. These two facts combined together make day-to-day living extremely difficult. Being from New York, my body can’t handle such zenith. Our bodies are predestined to be weak, capable of only handling such weather-related hardship as translucent skin and Eddie Bauer fashion. When my native New Yorker father visited me in Austin this weekend and ran across the molten blacktop barefooted, I saw his feet explode into an awesome ray of light while native Texans idly strolled by. I’m convinced that Texans are part of their own tribe, capable of withstanding extreme temperatures and skinning squirrels with their eyesight.

I am three years into living in Texas and I’m still sufficiently stunned when the summer approaches. I cry (more…)

June 23, 2011 by
Hipstercrite Life

Last Minute Father’s Day Gift Ideas for the Lazy Child

I’m not really sure what men like.

According to every Father’s Day gift guide out there they only like five things: tools, meat, TV remotes, wine, and iPhones. This sounds like the makings of a really big asshole right there. A Dad who enjoys spending more time a.) watching TV, b.) drinking c.) playing on his phone than spending time with you.

I didn’t grow up with a man in the house so when I date someone or visit a male friend’s house, I’m utterly fascinated by the things they own. After using the restroom, I’ll sometimes linger just to look at all the man oddities in their bathroom cupboards. Things like aftershave and nose hair trimmers are foreign objects to me. Sometimes I’ll play around with these things. Sometimes I’ll get caught and asked what the hell I’m doing. I then explain that my father abandoned me as a child and that they should leave me alone. The ol’ “abandoned by the father card” works every time.

Speaking of which….my Dad is visiting me tomorrow and I’m not (more…)

June 17, 2011 by
20-Something, Hipstercrite Life

The End of the Quarter-Life Crisis

your standard moody twenty two year-old self-portrait

Yesterday I turned 28.

Because of this, I’ve been finding myself hurling unwanted advice at young people lately.

When you’ve almost made it through your 20’s in one piece, you feel that you’re obligated to let younger people know that it will all be ok. That all the questioning and confusion and bad decision-making will get better.

That is assuming that everyone was an early twenty-something messbag like I was.

That they spent the better part of their 21st and 22nd year drinking alone in their West Hollywood apartment taking pictures of themselves drunk in the mirror and typing horribly structured journal entries that started with phrases like, “Why won’t someone hold me?!” or “The right side of my face feels numb, but I’m ok with that.”

That they would randomly break out into a cascade of tears at dinner with friends for no reason. Then excuse themselves from the table and disappear for three days.

That (more…)

June 13, 2011 by
Pop Culture

Is Infidelity the New Black?

When news broke in 2008 that John Edwards had been having extramartial fun times and subsequent child with Rielle Hunter, I was working for the anti-war organization CodePink in Venice Beach, California. I worked directly under one of the co-founders of the group, a hard-working and passionate activist who acted as Jerry Brown’s right-hand woman during his first term as governor of California. Like many Americans, having had the pants charmed off of me by Edwards’s Kennedy-esque looks, humble beginnings, adorable family, and ambitious political goals, I was crestfallen when word got out about his infidelity. After all that he and his wife Elizabeth had been through- losing a son, her cancer, his political career- how could he boink some Jay McInerney character and cheat on his sweet and supportive spouse of 30 years?

Due to her time in California politics, I assumed that my boss was privy to the inner thoughts of politicians. As we sat there watching the news of Edwards unfold on the (more…)

June 10, 2011 by
Austin, Pop Culture

Bobofication

source

I’m currently reading David Byrne’s Bicycle Diaries– a 30 year hodge-podge of his observations, diary entries, and blog posts about urbanization, gentrification and transportation taken from the perspective of a bicycle. Byrne often has a child-like approach to observing the world. Everything about us fascinates him. One can see this curiosity in his songs, “Once in a Lifetime“, “The Big Country“, “Neighborhood“, and “Strange Overtones“, or his 1986 cinematic love letter to Texas, True Stories. Though he’s by no means an expert on anything other than dancing like a mentally challenged person, I’ve always valued Byrne’s commentary. He looks for the deeper meaning behind the obvious and makes us think differently about how we view the mundane and the taken for granted.

In Bicycle Diaries, Byrne takes us on his adventures through major international cities such as Istanbul, Manila, Buenos Aires and American cities like San Francisco, New Orleans, and his current (more…)

June 9, 2011 by
Hipstercrite Life

My G-ma the G-Dawg

Hey Everyone!
Just want to send a quick message and THANK YOU because….MY GRANDMA WON THE GOOD MAGAZINE PEOPLE TO ADMIRE CONTEST! I am so f’ing excited. So is my grandma. When I called her she squealed like a little girl! Then she proceeded to tell me that she’s been mailing with a psychic and the psychic told her she was going to become a millionaire. Then I was like “What the fuck…?”

Anyways, she’s super stoked and I’m so tickled that she’s going to be featured in a national magazine! That woman deserves it. She’s such a classy and beautiful lady who has worked hard her entire life. I used to dream of making it big in Hollywood solely because I wanted to treat her (and my mom) to all the finer things in the world.

Thank you so so so much again for all who supported. You seriously have no idea how much this means to me.

You can read more about the post HERE.
If you don’t read Good Magazine, you should. It’s one of the best magazines out there.

June 8, 2011 by
Hipstercrite Life

The Absoluteness of Alzheimer’s

Grandma and Lionel ate Burger King kids meals tonight. They bought Lucy the Jack Russell Terrier one too.

“I don’t cook anymore because Lionel can’t chew!” Grandma explains to me.

“I thought he just got new teeth, Grandma?”

“Yeahhh, but they hurt. They don’t fit him right.”

She had already changed the subject three times. Grandma didn’t want to talk about the elephant in the room.

I don’t even particularly want to write about it.

“What did Lionel’s son say, Grandma?”

A pause, then my grandmother’s familiar shielded acknowledgement and dismissal of my question due to Lionel’s close proximity to her.

“Mom said he wants to put Lionel in a home?” I ask quietly.

I hear Lionel’s booming voice in the background, asking for mock help as Lucy tongue whips his face.

“Hold on a second,” my grandma says as I hear her small footsteps walk towards the bedroom.

She gets really quiet. “They want to put him in Walden Oaks. We went over there today to take a look, ” her (more…)

June 7, 2011 by
Hipstercrite Life

A Woman to be Admired

I found out yesterday that my wonderful grandmother was selected as one of Good Magazine’s People to Admire. If you’re not familiar with Good Magazine, it’s quite possibly the best magazine ever created. It’s a magazine about people and businesses who do good things in the world. Simple as that. The magazine is inspiring, encouraging, and innovative. They print on recycled paper and 100% of the subscription fee goes to a charity of your choice. You can get a feel for the magazine here. The website has an amazing interactive community which is where I discovered their “People to Admire” contest. I submitted my grandmother and she was one of sixteen chosen over hundreds. The contest is user-driven and if she wins, she will be featured in the magazine. I can’t imagine a more wonderful honor my grandmother could receive in her later years. To be featured in a magazine! Wow! Though every person nominated is inspiring, I wish more than anything that she could have something this exciting happen (more…)

June 1, 2011 by
Austin, Hipstercrite Life

Memorial Day Crime Spree

“This is how people become alcoholics,” I said to my boyfriend as he handed me a bottle of the only liquor he had in the house. The liquor I so hastily requested as we sat listening to the helicopters circling our neighborhood. Even though it tasted like cough syrup that had been sitting in someone’s medicine chest for decades and had begun the fermentation process, I couldn’t drink what was left of that Barcardi Razz fast enough. It was 3AM and I needed to drown out all the thoughts of whatever manhunt was currently going down on the eastside, the reports of gunshots downtown, and the fact that once again my car was broken into less than 24 hours prior.

I can’t find any data that confirms this, but I feel that Memorial Day is a day particularly saved for criminal activity. It’s the gateway into the summer- the time when temperatures rise and so does crime. Evil-doers are giving us just a little taste of what’s to come. Sticky and sweaty lawlessness.

Some of you know, my car had (more…)

May 31, 2011 by
Hipstercrite Life

Your Life in a Box Full of Smushed Candy

Moms are awesome!
Want to know why?
Because they send you an Easter day care package four weeks later with stuff like this in it:

A 2001 Engagement calendar.
Me: “Mom, why did you send me a calendar from ten years ago?”
Mom: “Because it’s a very special year. The year you graduated high school.”
Me: “I know, Ma. But what am I going to do with this?”
Mom: “It’s pretty.”

And this:

The script to the very questionable female rendition of 12 Angry Men we interpreted in high school. The play where I was offered the role of Juror #4 or as I like to call it- The Character With the Second to Least Amount of Lines Because I Can’t Act My Way Out of a Paper Bag.

And this:

A CD booklet to a Stevie Nicks box set I no longer have.
Just the booklet. No CDs.
As I flipped through the pages scratching my head as to why my mother sent me liner notes, I became more and more intrigued by the lyrics and pictures and decided that this was the best thing she put in the box.

And this:

An (more…)

May 27, 2011 by