"what is a hipster?"

on saturday night i was in atlanta regaling my friend christy (my best friend from middle and high school) with my story about being bitchslapped (see "hipster cat fight") but when i got to the part about the dumb hipster insulting me by calling me a hipster christy looked confused. in fact, everyone at the table looked confused. none of them had ever heard the word hipster before. in fact, they imagined a hipster to be some sort of hippie complete with bell bottoms, dreadlocks and hemp necklaces and listening to the now defunct phish. now that's pretty damn funny.

for the sake of review here are some hippies:

(note the unrestrained excitement and partial state of undress- not very hipster)

and some hipsters:

(cool and detached and usually fully clothed, unlike hippies. also, hipsters are way hotter than hippies*. check out the cutie in the middle. no, not the one in the red shirt, the other one. hellloo mr. hipster hottie.*)

*disclaimer #1- just kidding, hippies rule!

*disclaimer #2- but totally not as hot as eli. hi honey.

even our waiter had never heard the word hipster before. i was shocked and thought to myself "where have these people been?" then i got to thinking that maybe the word hipster is prevalent only among hipsters themselves or their peripheral hipster consorts. maybe the word and the image it invokes of the perpetually detached, cool, scruffy music lover isn't as universal as i though.

hipsters be proud, you have not yet followed in the footsteps of your predecessors (the flappers, beatniks, hippies, punks, and grunge kids of the past) and become totally mainstream and recognizable. yet. but yet is the key word. i can see it coming and hiding behind your guitars and designer jeans and "unwashed"-clean hair is not an option, my friends. its too late for that. its already hip to be hipster (as long as you refuse to admit it)- people are catching on quick and even i have taken it upon myself to enlighten a few more among the dwindling ranks of the hipster-ignorant. perhaps that makes me a traitor but when it comes down to it, it was pretty funny trying to fit almost everyone i know (including possibly myself) into a neat little stereotypical description of a hipster.

i'm not sure that my description totally clarified things for my friends, but they were definitely catching on by the end of the night. i'm not going to bother going into a long description of what i think a hipster is for you here. if you're really unsure and interested in finding out more about hipsters try a google search- there's enough funny shit out there to keep you entertained without me trying to rehash it all here. or just go to your local hipster hangouts. all cities have them, trust me. well, the hip ones do anyway. but remember to take it all with a grain of salt. certainly hipsters are a diverse group of people that cannot really be categorized by simple stereotypes. *

*disclaimer #3- i think all of my friends are awesome and unique and i would never try to assign any of them to a narrow-minded category. not even the hipsters. or the hippies. oops.

now that i have covered my ass with that little disclaimer, i would like to post this image in honor of christy who has officially declared herself to be a non-hipster now that she knows what a hipster is:

a little out-of-date but still fairly accurate. i would personally get rid of cabbie hat and purse with skull (that is so, like, two years ago at least) and replace them with, say, a scarf and some designer jeans. plus, the white-boy afro is so out and unwashed hair is so in. and about that ski jacket...ok, i'm going to stop now before i give myself away.

dear diary,

here's some funny shit from a diary i had back in 1991.* let's see, that would make me 13 years old, give or take.

*the author would like to note that these are real entries from when she was a self-conscious, boy-obsessed, braces-wearing teenager. she would also like to note that she has allowed herself some creative editing and splicing and a little add-libbing here and there for your reading pleasure.

from l to r: scrawny adolescent girl that looks like a boy (me), the source of my jealousy (boobie girl), scary brutish girl with big neck (my sister)

6-15-91
"I hate being jealous. It makes me feel so rotten. oooh, hush your filthy mouth My sister's best friend and one of my friends, is one person I am jealous of... All of a sudden, after she turned 16 everyone seems to think she is so pretty. I guess the main thing that has made me jealous of her is that she has boobs and i don't. yes, i was being completely serious. i don't think my since of humor developed until later, along with my breasts I guess that is the one thing I would change about myself. I would have bigger boobs. i weep for you young, superficial jenna; influenced in your naviete by ridiculous media sterotypes I hate that word still do but what should I call them then? breasts, tits, melons, gazoongas- whever the fuck you want other than "boobs" I guess I'll just say that I wish I had a better figure."so that every short, pimply adolescent boy i knew would fall hopelessly in love with me and want to make out with me all the time ...

6-16-91
"I was thinking, the only reason we are here (and all other creatures, too creatures? what a dork. oops, that's me i'm talking about) is to reproduce which means that at the time i considered myself a waste because i hadn't fullfilled my obligation to the human species. hadn't even come close. That makes no sense. What good are we doing? good? who ever said anything about people doing good stupid-head? Oh, well. I don't understand it at all." and likely never will

and for the grand finale... some bad peotry written by an overly romantic 13 year-old. me! (seriously, i'm almost too embarassed to put this in, even now, 14 years later but it's just so bad and so funny. how can i resist?)

6-20-91
"Would you like to hear two lines of my unfinished poem? no, please spare us
While moonbeams dance along the darkened shore
I dream my dreams but wish for more retch, vomit
I'm not too sure about the second line or the first line for that matter, I understand it but will anyone else? trust me, its not rocket science It's suppossed to mean that dreaming is not always enough how deep... well anyway, it makes sense to me." and to anyone else with half a brain you fool


well, that's about all i can handle of myself in 1991. something about confronting your younger self is discomforting even when its also funny. i guess its because, as much as i'd like to pretend otherwise, that girl was/is me. now that's some deep shit dude.

hairy underpants

no, that is not a sexually suggestive title. it is the name of a haiku penned by my friend francis "o'poole". a few years back when he and eli and i were on our way from chicago to new york to celebrate the new year. the ride was long and quite snowy and the two boys were whining the whole time about the necessity of turning back before we ran off the road and got killed. however, my sheer willpower and annoying way of pouting when i want to do something eventually won them over and we made it to a surreal and peaceful snow-covered new york city about 15 (or 16, or 17)hours later.

on the way to n.y.c. - eli and frank

the ride there may have been not so fun, but we made the best of it and frank entertained us by writing some trip-inspired haikus that i would like to share with you now:

Haiku #1
Holy Toledo
I hope I see some Quakers
Before the snow falls

Haiku #2
Hairy Underpants
Warm on a cold winter day
Hairy underpants

Haiku #3
Out of the city
Onto the turnpike of time
Kaleidescope time

Haiku #4
Flying buttresses
Wanting to fly but standing
Hairy underpants

i think we can all agree that frank is quite talented. thanks frank.
(good times, good times)

testing...

so, if you made it through that last entry i would like to congratulate you for your stamina. that was the marathon of blog entries and yet you trained, you fought for it, and you made it through. so congratulations. even i got bored by the end of that one. you are a truly dedicated blog reader my friend. perhaps you (and i) should get a life. no, no. i didn't mean that. i need you. don't leave me. i take it back. i'll change, i swear. from now on, none of my entries will be more than five paragraphs. you'll see. i'm different now.

xoxo,
jenna

hipster cat fight

the following is a lengthy and true (although somewhat drunkenly remembered) account of the almost-fight i got into last night at the go bar. seriously, i'm not kidding. the go bar. not classic city saloon. the go bar. you know the one (if you live in athens you do anyway). while a fight at the go bar seems ludicrous enough, the fact that i was the one that almost got in a fight makes it even more ridiculous.

so, obviously, i went to the go bar last night. i went with a couple of friends after stopping by boneshakers for a quick shake or two. as we were walking in we passed by a girl standing by herself outside of the bar. we said hello although none of us knew her. just to be polite, you know. it seems rude to me to pass within a foot of someone who is looking at you and not to acknowledge them. as i later found out, that is because of my poor, stereotypical southern upbringing. little did my two nemeses from last night realize that along with politeness, a true southern upbringing also equips one with sass. and by sass i mean a "don't fuck with me- i'm polite because i want to be not because i have to be and i will kick your ass if you force me to" attitude.

after passing by nemesis #1, who shall henceforth be called by the name "bottle-thrower" and approaching the door to go in we were all startled by the sound of an exploding beer bottle right next to our feet. for some strange reason bottle-thrower (now you hopefully understand the significance of her given name) had thrown her beer right at us. ok. so we went inside.

one delayed reaction later, i was like "did that girl just throw her beer at us?"
and my friends were like "yes."
and i was like "aw, hell no she didn't. what the fuck is wrong with her?"
and they were all like "i don't know, let's get a drink."

and i was like, by that time, already out the door and confronting bottle-thrower.

at this point i wasn't really mad. i was just curious as to why this girl that none of us had ever seen before had thrown a beer at us. so i asked her. she looked slightly contrite and replied that she had thrown the beer because she was moving to l.a. tomorrow and thought what the hell, it would be funny. i told her that i thought that was very weird. why would throwing a bottle and potentially injuring someone seem like a funny thing to do? she wasn't sure but stuck by her story. she seemed pretty nice but that is probably only because i was slightly intoxicated and not really the best judge of character under the circumstances. i said ok, whatever and turned to go back inside when suddenly she said with a smirk, besides, if i had wanted to hurt you i would have aimed for your head. that's when i saw the malicious part of her nature that had prompted her to chuck a glass bottle at us in the first place. i also saw something else. this girl really had wanted to throw the bottle at our heads, but had stopped herself, not because she felt bad about it, but because she was afraid to do it. she was, in fact, just a cowardly bitch. i went inside and promptly forgot about her.

until i came face to face with nemesis #2, who i shall dub "jerry-springer-guest-wannabe". she got in my face and sneered that my boyfriend was telling on her friend. ok, first of all my boyfriend lives in virginia so her claim was pretty unlikely and second of all, her friend threw a fucking bottle at us! am i really supposed to feel bad that my friend chose to inform the bartender of this? clearly my two nemeses had already had a bit much to drink and should probably get their annoying little asses home. then jerry-springer-guest-wannabe turns in a huff and goes to sing her terrible rendition of some indie-rock song, as it was indie-rock karaoke night after all (oh-my-god, does life get any more hipster than indie-rock karaoke?).

*intermission*

(snacks available in the concession area)

i had had enough by this point so i headed to the bathroom to take a quick sip from my flask. when i came out feeling refreshed my friend c was clearly ready to go as was i. i mean, besides me and c and j and bt and jsgw there were only about five other people there. lame. so c and i head out only to run into our friend j in a heated conversation with bt and jsgw. we came in in the middle, but here is what i gathered: bt had thrown the bottle not at all of us but specifically at j because he was too friendly for her taste. it made her angry and reminded her of why she was moving back to l.a. the reason? because she came to athens to get away from pretentious hipster snobs and was met with the exact people she was trying to escape when she arrived in our lovely town. apparently, in her mind, j seemed too incorrigibly hipster and deserved having a bottle thrown at him especially because he "pretended" to be friendly in that annoying southern way. that's when it came out that j isn't even from the south at all. he's from new york or something. well, that threw bt for a loop, but jsgw kindly explained to her that many transplanted hipsters go through a "southern phase" where they try to become more genteel or some shit.

i think that's when i actually got mad. or maybe it was when jsgw started pointing at each of us in turn and chanting "hipster" in a really grating way. i mean, i'm not going to either claim or deny hipster status. i'm sure that is up to each individual i meet to judge if they choose to care about something so superficial and stupid, but i am certainly not going to stand there and be made fun of by some dumb girl who is about as stereotypically hipster as you could hope to find. and seriously, what were they doing at the go bar of all places if they hated hipsters so much? at indie-rock karaoke night? please, even flicker and manhattan, two townie hipster meccas, have got nothing on the go bar. so basically the two chicks are total hypocrites. they are easily the most judgmental, snobby, pretentious hipsters i have yet to meet but they choose to ignore this fact. it's sad really, because it means that they hate themselves more than they hate anyone else (and they really seem to have lots of hatred to go around) since they are the epitome of what they claim to detest.

so i got mad and said something along the lines of "shut the fuck up you dumb bitch. take a look in the goddamn mirror if you want to make fun of hipsters because you're making fun of yourself, too you fucking pretentious hipster."

i think she started yelling something but c was like, ok time to go so we left and got in the car.

but it wasn't over yet. bt ran up to the car and actually said "where are you going? take me with you. jsgw is mad at me because i started all of this and i don't want to go with her. i'm sorry, don't be mad." looking back, i see this for the cowardly cop out that it is. bt actually turned on her friend when push came to shove. sadly, that poor girl cannot even claim loyalty as a virtue. at the time, however, i thought that she really seemed sorry and was maybe an ok person after all and that her evil friend was the one causing all of the problems. i think i had temporarily forgotten who actually threw the bottle at us.

inevitably, jsgw came over to the car to get bt. i don't remember how we started arguing again, but i think j and jsgw were going at it verbally when i chimed in with a "shut up, you're just a bitch and your friend is nicer than you." for some reason the fact that i thought bt was nicer than her made her furious. she claimed that she had been trying to take up for us but i must have missed that part because all i remember is her either making fun of me or getting in my face or yelling. in any case, she got so mad that it was actually comical and maybe my sadistic side came out a little bit too because i seem to remember noticing how mad it made her and deciding to repeat it a few more times for effect. "your friend is nicer than you are. your friend is nicer than you are. etc."

now, i have a very limited experience with physical violence, most of it learned from defending myself against my sister when we were kids so, although this may come as a surprise, i was rather shocked when jsgw reached into the car and backhanded me across the face. my first reaction was to jump out of the car and beat the shit out of her. fortunately (or unfortunately depending upon your point of view) i couldn't get the door open so i had to resort to yelling some more obscenities at her from inside the car. things such as: "what do you think this is, the jerry springer show?" and "do you really expect me to get in a fight with you right here in the parking lot? that is so trashy." to which she responded, "call me trashy then. let's go!" to which i responded by calling her white trash followed by a few unsavory words. truth be told, the door wasn't really what stopped me from paying her back the backhand plus some, it was the ridiculous image of the two of us slapping at one another and pulling each other's hair and rolling around in the parking lot that stilled my hand. now, maybe that image sounds arousing to some of you male readers but, trust me, your imagination has seriously misled you. the reality of it would have been nothing but pure silliness. so we drove away with me laughing at the stupidity of the situation.

my last image of my two nemeses as we left was of bt cowering on the sidewalk because she was afraid we would run over her and of jsgw giving me the evil eye as i laughed in her face. of the two of them i think i prefer jsgw. she, at least, showed some loyalty to her friend and some spunk. it's just too bad that she's so damn angry with life. fucking hipster.

two is not better than one

if i really wanted to grow up i would certainly have made some sort of real effort by now. not these indecisive half-attempts that have characterized the past six years of my life. the problem is that i want two things. maybe that doesn't sound so bad. after all, two is a relatively low number. i've always been a fan of even numbers. of pairs. so two is my number. unfortunately it doesn't work in this situation because what i want two of doesn't come in pairs. i want two lives and that just can't happen, can it?

my one life would be responsible and predictable and comfortable. i would have a satisfying career, a house, i'd probably get married and maybe have a child or two. i wouldn't be rich but i wouldn't have to eat only bananas and beans for a month either. i couldn't devote too much time to artistic endeavors, but i could certainly have a hobby. i never thought i would actually want such a traditional life but i do, in a way. i'm worn out and tired of wanting some unnamed thing and not knowing what my next move will be until i'm already halfway through it.

then again, i've got this image of another life in the back of my head. one that's spontaneous and artistic and wild and passionate. one where i say screw grad school and careers and head out for the great unknown. screw houses and steady jobs and car notes and marriage and just let me be without any of those bonds. just let me enjoy life. if i've only got the one it seems silly to be bored by it. but that life offers no hope of ever relaxing. of ever being content. it offers allure and excitement but if i never know what i'm looking for then it also offers no hope of ever being satisfied.

so i got back and forth. i want one thing and then the other. the constant warring in my head keeps me from committing to anything at all and so i stagnate until a choice if forced upon me by something outside of my control. i'm letting life happen to me and i know that this is not the right way to be. it is not the way i want to be but it is the way i am.

so i'm writing it out here so i can't change my mind. i have finally (drumroll) made a decision. i'm staying in athens for a few more years to go to graduate school. i may be still be inwardly fighting it, this narrowing down of my options, but i will let that other life go for now and try working towards a real goal. of course, i can't say whether the outcome of these next few years will lead me into career-mode or flight-mode but i'm at least buying myself a little time (and hopefully a little maturity) in the process.

(ok, now that i wrote that i'm feeling sick and i want to delete that last paragraph but i'm not going to. well, i might. ok, no. it stays. for now. but really, i'm staying in athens? fuck. ok. i guess i'm staying. but i want to go to spain or ireland instead. no, i said athens so athens it is. athens greece? sounds cool. i could lay on the beach all day and write bad poetry or something. no, not athens greece. athens georgia. right. well, i could do some experiments and get a graduate degree. that sounds...fun? no, i mean- that sounds like the responsible thing to do. yes, exactly.)