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Dear Diary

Hipstercrite Life, Thirty-something

Remember when we used to write super personal blog posts?

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A recent work photo, where I was asked to bring something I love and I brought my NPR tumbler

 

Tonight my roommate and I went down a Gawker rabbit hole, which led to an Emily Gould mouse hole, which led to a “Why don’t I write super personal blog posts anymore?” ant hole.

Refreshing myself with Emily Gould reminded me of the late-aughts heyday of personal blogging, when I and many of my peers spilled our guts through our tiny real estate on the web. But as the years went on, many of us went on to careers that took priority over our blogs due to financial reasons. We also grew out of our twenties, having accumulated spouses and children on our exit, and not finding the time, energy or the inspiration to write about the nitty-gritty of our dramatically different personal lives.

But today…today I decided to write an good, ol’-fashioned Dear Diary post.

And it was way more difficult than I thought it would be.

You see, I’m seven years older than the 25-year-old (more…)

March 24, 2016 by
20-Something, Hipstercrite Life

All the Tiny Sounds: An Exercise in the Forgotten Art of Journal Writing

This past week, my writing work has picked up to the point where my mind is left strained, incapable of producing intelligible words after a certain point. Though I’m beyond thrilled and appreciative to have the work, it leaves  me with leftover brain mush to spew out onto my blog. My blog is a big part of my life and I made a promise to myself to write every day (a promise I haven’t kept), but on days when my mental and emotional states are taxed, I want nothing more than to write “BLARGHHHHHSMAPPPPPPP!”  over and over in this empty white space.

But last night at 2AM, I forced myself to upchuck thoughts onto paper with pen, something I hadn’t done in awhile and something that ended up looking like a child wrote it. It was difficult and often ugly, but a good exercise in knowing that I could still partake in the art of journal-scribbling.

My life has gotten very regimented. I go to bed around 12AM-1AM, wake up between 8:30AM-9:30AM and write and interact on the web until the waft (more…)

December 14, 2012 by
20-Something, Hipstercrite Life

Keep Your Feelings to Yourself

As of late, I present a lighter fare to nosh on.

I’ve drifted further and further away from any complex or adverse feelings due to wanting to keep the site a happy playground full of Jeff Goldblum photos, poop jokes and jointly Jeff Goldblum photos containing poop jokes.

This need to check rain clouds at the gate coincides with my own personal progression of keeping my emotions to myself. This isn’t due to any particular person or experience in my life scaring me into not sharing my thoughts (though I have a grandmother who stifles her emotions to the point where they manifest into random outbursts of directionless anger and a former, life-changing boss who often told me I acted too much “like a girl” and that I should stop it), but by the fact that I became sick of hearing myself whine, lament, sob and complain as an early twenty-something and have become increasingly annoyed by others who do the same thing (mostly the whining part). This act of personal defiance is not necessarily (more…)

December 4, 2012 by
Austin, Hipstercrite Life

The Emergency Room is a Scary and Confusing Place at 2AM

“Somebody stabbed me with a screwdriver!”

These words traveled with a ten-person entourage on their way through the ER doors last Friday morning at 2AM.

Geoff and I were at the ER because he had a 103 fever and was coughing up blood.

Not coughing up blood in a Robert Shaw at the end of Jaws when he gets bitten by Jaws kind of way. More of a, Geoff: “Ew, is that blood in my mucus?” and Lauren: “HOLY MOTHER OF GOD! WE’RE TAKING YOU TO THE ER RIGHT NOW! NO TIME FOR PANTS!”  kind of way.

You see, Geoff is a wee bit of a hypochondriac (I love you, baby) and I’m a bit of a nervous Jew who is petrified that everyone she loves is dying all of the time.

This combination leads to barely thought-out sprints to the ER, but to our credit, spitting up blood is not something that is normal.

It scared us enough to take him to the ER because that’s the only friggin’ thing open at 2AM.

As though it’s a prerequisite for getting submitted into the ER, we waited our obligatory hour in (more…)

September 25, 2012 by
Hipstercrite Life

Uninspired work is the worst kind

Today I am to announce who won the “Everyone Loves Austin” t-shirt giveaway.

I will do that later.

Right now I don’t feel like writing at all. Not even that sentence.

In fact, these past 8 days have proven difficult in writing emails let alone blog posts. Sometimes I don’t even finish sentences while talking. I trail off, confused as to what I’m saying. I switch out words for other words. Left becomes right, north becomes south.

My brain is so cluttered with stuff, I can’t even tell if I’m writing this sentence correctly or not.

When I read these words aloud in my brain, a hundred other voices compete to make themselves known.

All these conversations battling for hierarchy in my head end up sounding like Peanut’s adult talk.

When I try to be creative, I feel my thoughts running immediately up against a brick wall. I start a sentence only to find it struck down by immovable and nonexistent brain matter. I can see the wall, but I can’t see the words. They are a dust (more…)

August 20, 2012 by
Hipstercrite Life

The Crack-Up

source

The past couple of nights I haven’t felt my strongest.

As I mentioned before, my boyfriend, who I’ve spent nearly every day with since we first met, has left for Portugal for three months. Since I work freelance from the house, I find myself with more alone time than I did before I met Geoff. We don’t have a TV, so there isn’t the omnipresent media voice protecting me from my own thoughts.

Actually, that’s a lie. There is a TV. It’s upstairs in the bedroom, but I refuse to sleep there. I sleep on the couch downstairs because I feel safer there. Upstairs I have no control of what is going on downstairs.

This logic makes no sense.

But back to being alone with your thoughts. It’s a dangerous pastime when you have an overactive imagination. It can be paralyzing. You can absolutely convince yourself of something because all you’re doing hyper-focusing on that thought.

Every night, every damn fucking night, I’m convinced that someone is going to break in. I hear a noise (more…)

March 27, 2012 by
Hipstercrite Life

Creative Block or Fodder? When Life’s Challenges Affect Your Writing

Ah, writer’s block.

You never know when it’s going to hit.

The current writer’s block that reared its ugly head last week after a homeless man tried getting into my house while I was taking a shower, was actually a long time coming.

I wish I could pin it entirely on the homeless man, but in reality, he’s maybe only 50% of the blockage traveling through my creative vein right now.

The homeless man has preoccupied my thoughts.

Though he is not a danger, at least I keep telling myself, his presence has recharged any already existing fear I’ve had living on the eastside. With my fear comes the frustration that I should not live in fear in this neighborhood I love so dearly. I try to remind myself that living in a big city comes with its “character”, but within the past year, I’ve seen more sketchy shit than I have in my entire life. When I lived in Los Angeles I was shielded from the grit and grime because I lived in an apartment. In Austin, I live in a house and I’ve never (more…)

February 21, 2012 by
20-Something, Hipstercrite Life

Home is Wherever I’m With You

As of today, I officially moved into Geoff’s house.

When I tell friends this, they usually respond with, “Wow! Taking the big step! Are you excited or nervous?”

Because I feel neither, it confuses me when my friends ask this, but I guess it is a legitimate question. Moving into a boyfriend’s house is a big step, but for some reason I don’t view it that way. It just seems natural.

Considering I’ve been staying here almost every day since we first met, there is no fanfare for my official arrival into the house. Instead I have a pile of crap that needs to find a home in its new home.

As I sit here on his couch, a long, green mid-century couch that was oddly in the film Tree of Life, I look around and see very little that is mine because this is not my house. It is Geoff’s. He designed the house himself with his former long term girlfriend. The design and decor of the house doesn’t scream, “Geoff and former girlfriend!”, nor does it scream, “Just Geoff!” The design is minimal (more…)

February 1, 2012 by
20-Something, Hipstercrite Life

This is the Post Where I Bitch About Money

Money.

Didn’t come from it, never had it, don’t currently have it.

If  money was something I cared about more, then I probably wouldn’t be poor. Though I’ve worked non-stop since I was legally able, I care more about enjoying life than working towards being wealthy. The little taste I got of the 24/7 work lifestyle in Los Angeles was enough to push me into a constant state of living paycheck to paycheck.

I don’t like being poor. It’s not fun to not have extra money to buy things like a new book or clean underwear every once in awhile, but it’s the choice I made. I keep thinking that one day, maybe, I’ll strike rich. Maybe I’ll write a book and sell it. Maybe our movie will make it big. However, the older I get, I wonder if I’ll wake up one day at 45 and think, “Shit, I’m still dirt ass poor.”

Of course, I’m only 28, so maybe I shouldn’t be rich. The only people who are 28 and rich came from money or work in stocks.

I’m also an “artist” in a sense, so I’m supposed to be (more…)

January 6, 2012 by
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