So You Wanna Be a Hipster

This is one of my favorite pieces I've ever written. I've linked it to the Black Sheep where it was originally published and reproduced the text in full.

http://www.theblacksheeponline.com/article/so-you-want-to-be-a-hipster

Congratulations! You have decided that everything you know and love about entertainment is now worthless and loathsome and is making you thoroughly uncool. You are going to completely change all of your ideas about what is good entertainment to revamp your image and become a hipster.

Don’t kid yourself; the transition from mindless-zombie-slave into full-fledged hipster isn’t an easy one. Being a hipster takes hours of work but must look effortless. Luckily, I’ve taken everything you need to know about being a hipster and compiled it into this 5-step program. Follow these rules, and before you know it, all of your friends will be asking you where to get coffee and what music to listen to. Then you will be able to respond disdainfully without even thinking about it.

Step #1: Think Like A Hipster: The most important thing to realize is that everything you once enjoyed was wrong. It was entertainment for the masses, not for you. Also, start thinking you are better than everyone else. It is important to make everyone feel like you are the pinnacle of cultural capitol, and that your taste in music, books, movies, etc., is the “correct” choice.

Step #2: Talk Like a Hipster: Everything you say should start to sound very important but be entirely meaningless. Consider buying a book of quotes from unknown philosophers and inserting them into your everyday dialogue. These should be used around particularly stupid friends who will not know that you are misusing these quotations.

Step #3: Act Like a Hipster: Begin listening to music that nobody has heard of. Look for music with unintelligible lyrics. The more monotonous it sounds, the better. You must hate everything you hear on the radio. Also, the only films you like now are French New Wave and foreign cinema. If it was made in Hollywood, it is now garbage. And buy a yearly subscription to the New Yorker to display on your coffee table. It is not necessary to read the magazine, but it is essential to own copies.

Step #4: Look Like A Hipster: You should start losing weight immediately. The easiest way to do this is stop eating. Your diet should consist solely of lattés, loose-leaf tea (never from a tea bag) and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Begin to dress in the tightest pants you can find, and pair them with either plaid flannel shirts or vintage sweaters. If a sweater looks like something Bill Cosby would wear, it is perfect. Travel everywhere by bicycle, and be sure to roll up one pant leg when en route. (Side note: it is not necessary to roll this pant leg back down after reaching your destination.)

Step #5: Be A Hipster: You should begin to identify yourself as a hipster in your mind, but NEVER aloud. When told you are a hipster, you should act mildly offended and say something like “Oh no, I’m not a hipster, I’m just into that kind of ______.” The more vague the statement is, the better. You should be condemning the term “hipster” but exemplifying everything that goes along with it.

If you follow this program you will be well on your way to seeing everything ironically and scoffing at all of the lesser people around you. Just remember, every hipster knows they are a hipster, but would never say it out loud. Now get out there are start dissing everyone!

The Wisdom Teeth Chronicles: Day 1

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to spend the better part of my morning drugged up at the hospital getting my wisdom teeth surgically removed. And then I was unlucky enough to spend the remainder of the day on my couch watching movies, sleeping and eating ice cream.

For all you worry-warts, don't worry the procedure went fine. I didn't even try to kill the nurse who put the IV in my arm. And it turns out that I'm pretty funny when I'm on a mild Anesthetic.

Now this has all been relayed to me second hand, because I don't remember saying any of it, but apparently, they started hooking my vitals up to the machines and I said "Oh this is just like being on House!" Score one for knowing that even when I'm drugged up I still love TV more than I'm worried about my own life.

And then apparently after the surgery was over, the doctor asked me "How do you feel?" to which I responded "Is the IV out?" to which he responded "Yes" to which I responded "This is my favorite place on earth. You can all come to my wedding." So I have that to laugh about forever.

Of course it wouldn't be a trip to the hospital if I wasn't difficult in some way, so following the surgery I threw up twice. Which is pretty impressive if you ask me because 1. There wasn't anything in my stomach and 2. The damn procedure was completely over by that point. Score two for overreacting after the fact as usual.

Then after a drive home I barely remember I somehow made it to my family room couch, from which I didn't budge for the next 8 hours. I did something completely unprecedented in my 20 and 1/2 years of life: I put Fantasia in on DVD, watched the first three seconds of the film with Dean Taylor, and then fell asleep until Ave Maria. This I still cannot believe, because I usually watch all of Bach's Toccata and Fugue and The Nutcracker Suite, fall asleep until Beethoven's Sixth and then get really upset when I wake up and I've missed the Mussorgsky and Ave Maria ending. Ridiculous.

After that oddity I watched Fantasia 2000, where I at least managed to stay awake the full three minutes it takes to watch Beethoven's Fifth and then fell completely asleep until Firebird. Which was again weird because I didn't watch Rhapsody in Blue or the Flamingo song.

So following those two mishaps, I managed to successfully stay awake for the entirety of Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Newsies. Which was great because I nearly forgot that I knew all of the words to all of both of those films, but not so great because I could barely open my mouth wide enough to say all of them. This was of course to the dismay of Alexa, who sat with my all day and was devastated I couldn't sing along to all of our favorite musical moments.

So now I have another full day of couch arrest watching movies because our cable is out from the massive Thunderstorm/Tornado I slept through. Visitors are welcome, and recommended to bring some form of entertainment.

Banana Cupcakes

Well as it turns out, shamelessly begging to God and all of your friends and family to be employed can sometimes actually help you. With the help of my new best friend on earth Maggie, I am officially employed by the French Loaf Bakery in Grandview, and Thank God!! So to practice for all the good baking and serving I will be doing, I made Banana Cupcakes!!!

Recipe:

1 and 1/2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup butter

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon vanilla

A pinch of salt

2 mashed up bananas

Mix ingredients together until batter is smooth and bake for 12-16 minutes at 350 degrees, but don't be worried if you have to keep them in a bit longer. The batter takes a while to fully bake, just be sure to test the cupcakes with a toothpick.

They should look like these beauties when they come out.

You can frost them with any flavor frosting you like. I did chocolate, but I'm sure vanilla, cream cheese or peanut butter would also be quite delicious.

And then I decorated them with some walnuts and banana slices. You could mix walnuts into the recipe above as well if you wanted the crunch inside the muffin, or omit them completely if you or someone you knew had allergies. Whatever floats your boat.

And I bought this fun little cupcake carrying box for 50 cents at Target. Now they are delicious and adorable to boot!

The finished product! I hope you all enjoy these treats at home.

I'll be posting more recipes and makes pictures soon. Or you should feel free to come visit me at The French Loaf in Grandview when I'm working!

The Un-Complete-Able Summer List

Now that I have finished with the GRE and still desperately unemployed, I'm starting some sort of mission to do a whole bunch of things this summer that I will of course not be able to complete.

The un-complete-able summer to-do list is as follows. Please comment suggestions for additions; I will take all of them seriously.

1. Learn to bake from scratch.

a) Focus on Cupcakes

2. Read as many books as possible.

a) This list is to be compiled from GoodReads as well as suggestions from friends, family, strangers and the Staff Recommendations section at Barnes and Noble.

b) This list begins immediately with Bossypants by Tina Fey, The Hunger Games Trilogy, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris, The Millienium Trilogy, and Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.

3. I'd like to arrange at least two songs for Meshuganotes, starting with the super secret senior song that I will not reveal on the interwebs, and then one other song that will be equally as awesome.

4. I'm going to watch hopefully 20 more movies over the summer, as to help reach the goal of 200 by the end of the year. And I'm going to start reviewing them as I watch them, because that sounds like a valuable skill to be practicing. And because once upon a time I wanted to do 10,000 hours of writing before I turned 30, and considering I'm not actually chronicling that, the best I can do is to just write a lot.

5. I'm trying to watch 2 or 3 more complete series of television. I'm already finished with Dirty Sexy Money and halfway through Flight of the Conchords, so all I have to do is pick one more. I'm thinking Lost. I just love that lack of pay-off.

6. Get a Job. This is probably going to turn out to be optional.

7. Apply to Grad Schools and/or figure out something else meaningful to do with life.

8. Get Tan. Also optional. Really more related to luck than skill.

9. Budget money and not waste all savings shopping. So far, so good.

10. Finish List.

Please comment suggestions for expansion!!