Hipster Dichotomy

My present data of research towards the pros and cons of being a hipster, which was once the emo, was once the punk, was once the goth, which was once the asshole.

1
PRO: fashion conscious, on average better dressed than most
CON: overemphasizing importance of one's image and look,

2
PRO: despises and rejects established norms within the hierarchal groups found in adolescence and tweens
CON: participates meticulously in the styles, trends within their own social group, as well as patterns in manner, speech and activities

3
PRO: topics of conversation are interesting and eclectic
CON: more elitist than intellectual, overall superficial involvement in certain interests

4
PRO: funny, witty, sarcastic
CON: ironic to the point where nothing is genuine

5
PRO: good music taste
CON: judgmental, often times relentless opinion to mainstream music (unless otherwise trying to be ironic, see 3)

6
PRO: confident
CON: superiority complex, exclusivity

7
PRO: good company, good time
CON: typically seen in students of the upper-middle/upper class with no job or ambitions

8
PRO: reflective of the smug, individual-based and some cases apathetic generation of today
CON: adamantly popular and growing trend, and ironically losing its original goal of individuality

9
PRO: finds the label 'hipster' unappealing and pretentious
CON: usually is a self-proclaimed 'hipster' and keen to the collective movements happening within

10
PRO: cool
CON: cool

Memories let you know when you're done for.

I. I was stuck working the at the community center, tutoring a man named Carlos because I hadn't done my taxes five years ago and had refused to pay the subsequent enormous fines. He was thumbing through one of those introductory level English dictionaries, and on a particular page, he paused for more than an awkward moment. He asked a question hidden inside a choppy sentence, along the lines of, "Hi James, what is difference from a words "disparate" and "desperate?", to which I replied "one letter".

II. He used to get so stinking drunk. He'd wake up in the morning shaking along with the almost caved-in floor never knowing quite what to do. I've never felt more alive than the days I spent looking in his window and watching him dissolve. And when he died, like we had all expected and hoped, his dogs knocked down the apartment door and mauled every mailman in California.

III. We lined up for the cork popgun shooting range at the fair. The hot dog vendor's catcalls have not made me sick to my stomach yet. A kid from the youth club hangs around, the one with the stray eyebrow. I lent him my last cigarette 'cause he looked at me cross eyed, and it made me laugh.

August

staring through windows
trees dark, expanding
needles in my hair
kisses are empty

i remember
the parking lot affairs
a means to no end
and hearts deep, aching

skin against skin
forehead against forehead

but the radio tunes out

august is coming to an end

After Vitzel, Albert Goldbarth
This was very long but in parts, which I like in writing. This is what I attempted to mimic in my last entry. The phrases are very vague but expressive and it's more like the reaction the reader has when experiencing those words together, rather than the concrete meaning of it. Sometimes it's nonsense but he still manages to create a kind of flowing, almost comical voice. The vocabulary he uses always has a theme that ties it together. When paragraphs or moods change, so do his words.

The Death of the Moth, Virginia Woolf
Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? That would be me. There is absolutely no plot in this story, but it is beautiful. She relies soley on poetic imagery and metaphor. On the surface it was to me mere idle musings and irrelevant to my life. But I came to see how it romanticized the relateable and similar stasis I have had in Biology class. I was of course bored out of my mind and far more concerned with the events of the yellow little spider on the wall then whatever the professor could possibly be talking about. And when the moth began struggling and protesting, and how she focused on the detail of the legs twitching and fighting for life -- it was quiet sad.

Storytelling

I was born in a house that was really a wasp's nest where the arms of my siblings left trails on the walls that were sticky. The queen was always shouting. She broke bottles in her hands, feeding them jagged glass and spoiled contents -- yet her own belly curved into her heart, a striped fruit brimful of ooze.

Hidden well were the doors but the walls were sometimes tricky. On brighter days, I could escape high into the branches as they broke off and bled honey into my hands. Arched and shaking, I sang snail songs hidden from bird's-eye-view, sleeping in rotted trees that forever echoed earthtones.

After rainy days, I collected empty shells I wanted to somehow attach myself to. But it served only to let me drink in a deep, green, salt flood in my ravelled abdomen.

I did not know the forest.

Window

An armada of bulbed clouds started turning purple and orange. They appear as mobile billboards, advertising a vigil contentedness. The sky is an otherwise circumstantial layer, blanketing the white foliage with sweat, carrying the odor of car gas as its eternal wedding gift. That’s how Mother Nature works when she’s dealing with our house calls. She’s abbreviating a state-wide weariness, sour and pregnant with weather patterns...

Mostly what came to mind was the insane amount of people I ran into today. Some we scheduled to meet, some by chance. And to the ones by chance, I questioned the one's who didn't acknowledge me with a wave or smile. Did they just not see me or did they ignore me on purpose? That plagued me, to be honest.

I was doing the English exercise at this Hawaiian barbeque place with two friends I ran into. I remembered it when Mai mentioned a paper due for a class, which set me off into an internal nervous breakdown about having the time to finish. I also thought about the owner and his wife being extra nice, letting us sit and finish our food well past their closing time. He asked us about our ethnicities, majors and years with genuine curiosity. I missed receiving such ease and kindness from a stranger, though I can't really say we're stangers anymore. Very shortly after meeting him, he smiled at me in that familiar way you do with someone you know. I felt at home.

Dinner

Five rice rockets* stand parked together in front of the restaurant. Passing them by, I relax and laugh at how such an image had assured me I was at the correct location. It reminded me of my family get-together during New Year's. We were lost in the winding Sacramento suburbs and desperately trying to find my auntie's home when suddenly, one of us points out a house with seven SUVs parked outside.

I walk inside. The dinner was set up as a fundraiser but was doubling as a birthday celebration for Vivian. Tonight, she wasn't wearing her typical head-to-toe American Apparel outfit. Instead, she had a short black dress, heels, a tiara, and a red sash with the sparkling words "Birthday Girl" sewed on. I look around the table and everyone is dressed to the nines.

Having come immediately from lecture and the library, I was still in my gray, oversized v-neck and tattered, once-white vans sneakers. 'Out of place' wouldn't do my feelings justice. No one seemed to have passed me the 'dress cocktail' memo but I thought back -- these were guys who got fancy for McDonalds; I should've known. Truly though, I didn't mind. If I'd gone home first, I wouldn't have had the motivation to get dressed up anyway let alone drive back.

As I sat down, my mind raced around the same thoughts again, again, again. I have an assignment for that online English class due tonight. I have a patho exam tomorrow morning. And a healthcare organizations exam after. WHAT am I doing here?

But I knew. They'd been asking around about me, where I've been and how I was. I thought back to how I hadn't been to any of their meetings or get-togethers since the semester started and how happy they all were to have run into me last Friday. They asked my brother about me at the party on Saturday and asked him to tell me please, please come today. But most importantly, I knew myself: my hermetic and unreliable nature, the tendency to alienate, and my overall incompetence to being a good friend.

Vivian was one of the girls to ask for me Saturday. I stood up and gave her a hug and peck on the cheek. I miss this, I thought to myself, I really do. And with that, I left the anxiety of an English entry published before midnight for later.

(Now to study for patho...)



*rice rocket: any Japanese imported car (Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi, Nissan etc.), self-modified to look fast or racecar-esque