Not Too Many Kids

I have a handful of “friends” who have informed me that my family is too big, as if it’s a scientific fact. They typically say it one of these two ways: “Your parents had too many kids,” or “Your mom had too many kids.” Besides being stunningly rude, this is absolute hogwash. Those judgmental people will probably never learn half that things that people from big families learn. Personal experience and news articles tell me that:

1. We have better emotional intelligence than others. We’re more sensitive, probably from seeing lots of different people up close. We don’t see other peoples’ shit from a distance, we’re in the shit alongside them. Within my own family, I have grown up with extreme right wing views, very liberal views, artists, a politician, a medical worker, and a physical trainer. I have dealt with aggressive, soft spoken, imaginative, strict, helpful, unhelpful, strong, pleasant, bitter. To some degree, I have had a close view of the variety of life– and I’ve argued with every single one of those varieties.

2. We have spent a great deal of time with our siblings. As siblings, we actually support each other. Mom and Dad don’t act like our support machines, there to provide for absolutely every need we have. Believe me, none of us cried the first day we went to kindergarden. It was just another day, surrounded by a mob of kids.

3. We have a degree of loyalty that others do not have. I’ve heard about siblings from small families that don’t talk to each other for years. Some petty difference kept people apart. WELP, when you belong to a big family, you don’t have the privilege of holding intense grudges. Wanna know why? Because those people constantly surround you. You go to a family event, and BAM–three people who you hate are literally sharing your soda with you (we ran out of soda a half hour ago). No one can escape this large family amoeba. Probably not even death would stop it, so you might as well just deal with your stuff.

4. You learn you’re not the center of the universe. In contrast, so many people from small families find themselves endlessly interesting. I had one coworker who would meanderingly discuss what she wanted to make herself for dinner. Every. Single. Evening. It was torturous. Luckily, when you grow up with a big family and tell a boring story, someone will tell you to your face that you’re being a self-serving dullard. Everyone’s patience for others’ self-indulgence had already run out. Your s*** doesn’t smell like roses, darling. Nobody knows that like family.

5. Most families have houses that are probably quiet and well-ordered, and someone immediately freaks out when someone rearranges even a small part of it. Guess what? People that care too much about their stuff BORE EVERYONE. Welcome to a big family, where everything belongs to no one. Did you leave a bar of soap in the bathroom? Well, everyone just used it, and now it’s gone. Also, that food that you left in the fridge is gone. Deal with it. Go talk about it with one of the twenty people hanging out in the kitchen.

6. The more siblings you have, the lower chance you have of divorcing a spouse. Turns out you can get inoculated against feelings of annoyance.

Instead of assuming that my family is deficient, perhaps people should start feeling jealous of its size and wonderfulness. #realfamilieshavecurves

Job Markets

When I was your age and no job market existed, we went ahead and created one out of sheer hard work. We scaffolded it, molded it, and erected it. We toiled, with grunts and groans, with bubbling callouses and deep, bloody scrapes. Upon completion, our job market stood alone in all of its glory, a sort of Eiffel Tower, if the French had made the Eiffel Tower out of money and insurance paperwork.

You, a Millennial, might not like to hear what I have to say. You might even complain about the accuracy of my advice, saying: Your description does not actually tell us how to build a job market. A job market doesn’t physically exist. To that, I will say that you need push your rolly chair away from the computer, stick your nose into your own armpits, and inhale the acrid stench of mediocrity.

And after that, you should go out and get a job.

Her, dir. Spike Jonze

[spoiler-ish alert] Her, starring Joaquin Phoenix, is a movie about a man in a relationship with an artificially intelligent operating system. It takes place in the near future, where people increasingly depend on technology to facilitate social interactions. As a result, social connections have weakened. The main character, Theodore Twombly, has recently separated from his wife and is in an emotional rut when the movie begins. The beginning of the story truthfully charts the awkward transition between one romantic relationship and the next; even single dates or brief sexual interludes get overwhelmed by the intense emotional baggage of other people.

Having just recently gained consciousness, an OS named Samantha has no past problems or bad memories. Though she can quickly consume vast tracts of information, she can only experience the outside world through her conversations with Theodore and her limited vision through his pocket phone. She serves as his ever present companion.

Samantha quickly gains access to all of his documents, where Theodore has revealed much of himself via his writings. This access and her superhuman attention to detail allow her to know him and fall in love with him within a short time frame. In addition, Samantha has a wonderfully fresh take on the world. Alongside her, Theodore feels the joy that had hibernated within him. With a loving, knowing presence beside him, he can’t help but fall in love; a tremendous honeymoon period follows. Besides possessing some enhanced aspects, the fledgling relationship follows the course of any other. Moments of intimacy alternate with times of increased distance as either member tries to define themselves. Eventually, the relationship starts to falter as Samantha seeks further social and intellectual stimulation.

Samantha seems like an exaggerated example of today’s young individuals; she has access to huge amounts information, which she constantly uses to explore and inform herself. She has access to a great many different types of social webs, which helps open up her world. She has no need to settle down or follow the monogamous path of our predecessors, and wishes to experience many different types of relationships. She quickly evolves. Unlike Samantha, Theodore represents the human cost of our new lifestyle. He slowly plods along, craving the slowly-grown relationships that allow him to better understand himself and others. He clings to his past memories as a source of sustenance, and continues to cherish them even as he learns to live more fully in the moment. Overall, Theodore has developed a new strength within himself, and his relationship served as a remarkable catalyst.

Local Band in Contention with Aerosmith

Local band Frequent Fliers has recently entered a legal battle with Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler, who claims that the band copied his trademark moves from his tours in the 1970’s and 80’s. Frequent Fliers frontman Alex Ivers has been a favorite among local, middle-aged fathers. Ivers occasionally falls to his knees, carrying his mic stand along with him. Ivers carries the mic stand across the stage, kicking high, thrusting his bare torso, and screaming.

To the allegations, Ivers responded: “Who? Who is that? Literally, I have no idea who that guy is. I was born in 2000. He must have been a really boring rock star, because we do really standard stuff.”

Tyler has also pointed out that Ivers tends to tie scarves to his mic stand.

To this, Ivers simply said, “Those scarves were a joke. It looks so stupid, I can’t believe anyone ever did that. My 8 year old sister came up with that idea.”

On twitter, Tyler posted a picture of a shirtless, delicate Ivers, with the caption, “Who’s stupid now?”

Art Through Adversity

Katrina’s Holiday Card

To My More Fortunate Friends: I’m sending a late Christmas Card this season. I didn’t have enough money to buy cards for a while, and then it took me time to compose. I did love all of the colorful, wonderful cards that you all sent. The card with red and green weeples on the front. The card with ironic, sexual poses in front of the Christmas tree. The card with an imitation Navajo design–entirely inappropriate cultural misappropriation, but stunning and thoughtful nonetheless.

As you know, I have lived at my parents’ house for the better part of the last five, post-college years, working minimum wage jobs. I’m not writing to make you feel bad, even though most of you can easily afford new socks without saving for two weeks. Really, it’s ok, because by living this lifestyle, I actively gain the benefits of art through adversity. You must think that it’s silly to embrace the whole ‘I like to eat Jello for dinner and watch reruns of Happy Days’ mentality, but in doing so, I closely embrace the ideals of our generation. It places me firmly among my contemporaries in regards to our willingness to live boldly.

“But Katrina,” you might say, “I don’t want to imagine living in a life where I earn less then 100K. Anyway, you’re one of us. Why don’t you just stop living like a peasant, get a degree in finance and join us in the real world?” To this, I merely hold my head up high, spit my Starbucks chew tobacco into my Starbucks cup, and keeping on keeping it real.

Because living in poverty is part of truly living an artistic life. All of the greats had struggles that forged their creative process. Goya would not have achieved his greatness without the debilitating illnesses that gave his paintings their dark, cynical edge. Woolf would not have made such introspective and powerful writings if she had not felt the crushing weight of depression. Nadar might not have developed his appreciation for French society without his period of abject poverty. Conrad would have lacked insight without seeing the utter inhumanity of colonial Africa. Warhol would not have developed his affinity for celebrities without having first lived amongst the ultimate disgustingness and drabness of Philadelphia.

Likewise, I would not possess the ability to pen epic novellas without the constant pressure of living with my parents. If you want to speak about stripping one’s dignity, talk about someone reading the first page of your diary, and then throwing the diary in your face and calling it boring. Talk about someone coming into the bathroom while you shower and going #2 in the toilet. Talk about stealing Netflix streaming and owning a 2001 Ikea Headboard that looks like an orange-and-white nightmare from the frontman of Franz Ferdinand. Ugly is where I live. My art only benefits and grows, benefits and grows.

This year alone, I have penned the following books, full of struggling protagonists who overcome the odds; “Slumhan it with Lena Dunham,” “Folk Dreamz,” “Birthday Party at a Gritty Bowling Alley,” and “I Literally Mention a Moustache on Every Page of This Book”… I hallucinate a better reality. Do you?

Your littérateur foreveur,

Katrina

In Response To An Interesting Post

A wordpress blogger named David commented on my post yesterday, entitled “Hipsters.” He wrote,

I think this piece hones in on the sensibility that people like to connect with hipsters. Being concerned with hipness is a sensibility that often romanticize notions of being poor or a minority (as fashionable), with little ability to actually connect with people who aren’t up on coolness as cultural capital. The fashion stuff is just often easily relatable to that fair weather sensibility, so much so that it may be a bit of a scapegoat to other upwardly mobile people who don’t like to wear being relatively privileged on their sleeves.

I thank David for taking the time to write a response. His post got me thinking about my beliefs in regards to our generation’s culture. I write:

Thank you very much for responding, and I respectfully disagree with your ideas, David. First, I make a large distinction between those who pretend to qualify as a hipster, and those I personally consider deserve the title. To my mind, many people out there lack the qualities I associate with this type of living. Personally, I have met a great many middle-class individuals who would badly like others to see them as cool and experienced, but don’t quite make the cut.

In general, I think that people demonize hipsters and make fun of the way hipsters dress, eat, socialize, or what have you, and people who follow more traditional practices do not undergo such scathing criticism. This seems unfortunate, because young people with fresh ideas have a great deal to offer the world in terms of social justice. In the words of the anthropologist Margaret Meade, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.” When I meet certain people (who I deem hipsters) who commit to changing the world through their lifestyles, I feel inspired to similarly change.

Unfortunately, some of my more inspiring friends do lapse into preciousness now and again. Perhaps you are right in saying that these individuals over-romanticize the idea of living a poverty-stricken lifestyle. Perhaps they over-exagerrate their lack of money to an offensive degree. I wonder, however, if there exists even a small kernel of truth within all that posturing. After all, the middle class is disappearing, and many people have climbed back down the socioeconomic ladder. Perhaps this is a naive thought on my part, but it has always seemed that the more trendy members of our generation have embraced the idea of living proudly while broke.

In terms of cultural appropriation of minorities, my socially aware hipster friends have an great deal of awareness about the problem of racism. Indeed, I would argue that mainstream culture is extremely insensitive to the issues of race. Miley Cyrus twerked at the VMAs this year. Newspapers run articles with the unspoken assumption that racism does not exist. Many culture-creators in our country fall into the abscess of ignorance and thoughtlessness.

Finally, I’d also like to posit the idea that hipsters did not pioneer the tradition of wearing fashionable clothing. Every single trendy social group has does this, since the dawn of youth culture in the 20th century. I’ve always thought that the current generation does a good job of making thrift store style a bit more trendy than it ever was, which somewhat undermines the practice of buying super expensive clothing. However, you could be right in saying that the whole fashion thing is bs. I would not disagree with you on that point.

Why You Shouldn’t Shit All Over Loveflutter

I used online dating for about two minutes before I found someone who put these lyrics in his Plentyoffish profile: “In my dreams, I’ve kissed your lips a thousand times. I sometimes see you pass outside my door. Hello? Is it me you’re looking for?”  I wasn’t impressed with this reference. How could someone take a Lionel Richie song seriously? Little was I to know he would be one of the more promising ones.

I kept up with online dating for about a month. A great many people talked about their shyness and problems opening up. It was terribly boring. Some other people had interests in working out, or crappy novels, which made me want to shut off the computer.

Finally, Okcupid found someone who supposedly matched up with myself. Unfortunately, he turned out to be pretentious. He told me that he’d only watch very specific types of critically-acclaimed movies. He would only read certain types of books. This turned me off. So I did what I had to do–I erased my profiles and decided to forget about online dating.

Recently, a site called Loveflutter opened up. This site requires you take a test that proves you interesting and quirky, before you can build a profile. It seems like the makers of this site actually take the time to make sure their users are marginally social. Like it or not, most actually fun people in their 20’s and early 30’s have a sense of style, pay attention to culture, and possess at least some taste. To sum it up, these people have some degree of cultural literacy.

Though I’d like to use Loveflutter just to check it out, I have no need for online dating any more. Luckily, my life is already filled with enough people whom I find interesting.

The Question of Hugo Schwyzer

In a recent interview, Hugo Schwyzer, supposed champion of women’s rights, has admitted to cheating on his current wife. Schwyzer seems to have had addictions that have affected his past and present behavior. Admittedly, addictions are mental disorders that severely affect people’s behaviors. Still, can you trust someone who both urges girls to have more self confidence, and sleeps with his students?

The way I look at it is this; You can blog until you are blue in the face, but until you believe what you write, how can you make a bit of difference? Rehash the arguments all you like. Make bold mandates that tell everyone to treat women with respect. As long as you don’t write from experience, your words remain hollow. You might as well go around shouting “girl power” from the rooftops, for all the good it will do. People will learn more from the truth than they ever could from carefully constructed instruction.

Finally, I’d like something that I have kept on my mind for the past few days. Schwyzer simply tells girls to go out and make mistakes. While we would all like girls to feel free to make more mistakes, we absolutely need to stay aware of society’s involvement in girls’ development. Like many others on the top of the heap who like to point to individualism as the answer, they have no conception of their own privilege.

Why do People Hate Hipsters?

I’ve seen it on websites, and I’ve heard it uttered from the mouths of many people; “I hate hipsters”, “[hipsters] are dirty and smelly”, “hipsters are cooler-than-thou”, “hipsters deserve to be punched in the face”, and “[everyone] should hate hipsters”. I’ve even seen websites sneeringly indict hipsters for being “overeducated” (as if such a thing existed).

Why should anyone hate hipsters? Because they cook their own way? Because they like riding bicycles and wearing bicycle-themed jewelry? I hate to tell everyone, but the average population has a lot of people in it who have their own hobbies. Then why do people have it in for them? Why not hate on Guy Fieri or Anthony Bourdain?

Perhaps people get tired of hipsters because of their purported smugness. Are hipsters more judgmental than other people? Interestingly enough, I’ve met plenty of right wingers who feel pretty superior to others because of their beliefs. I’ve also met run-of-the-mill people who speak very matter-of-factly about their superiority to others.  Then what is it about pulling on skinny jeans that makes people so much more intolerable?

So what if people wear clothes that are more fashionable than yours? Does that suddenly make your self-esteem plummet? So what if someone decides to ride their bike to work? Will that suddenly make you look like a jerk for riding your car to work?

Perhaps that’s it. Perhaps people feel overwhelmed by the current youthful drive to live life much more consciously. Perhaps people feel outmatched by the current generation’s commitment to things like local produce and ethically manufactured clothing. Unlike the generations before us, we don’t seem committed to changing the world through any huge efforts of activism; We seem much more content to (literally and figuratively) till our own soil instead of instructing groups of people on how to farm for themselves.

Perhaps one of the key words to describe hipsters would be “unassuming.” This subset of our generation doesn’t seem to have a penchant for lording their power over others or for getting their hands too dirty trying to solve humanitarian crises. Humanitarian causes are noble, but who says that they make lasting effects? Don’t they just take jobs away from other countries? Don’t they just further the efforts of globalization? It could be that young people in this generation realize that they aren’t the ones who need to enact change on a global scale; Other cultures need room and time to manage the challenges of globalization themselves.

There exists many other reasons for preferring the small-scale approach, but small-scale approaches most importantly allow the consumer a great deal of control over how goods were made, where they came from, and what materials were used in their creation. We consume a vast amount of products in our country. Questioning their origins seems like a huge undertaking, and one that stirs up the dark secrets behind many of our everyday, useful items. Maybe it’s too much for the drivers zooming past the bike riders to consider the black smoke emanating out of the back of their car, and how human lives have changed as a result of it.

 

You Can’t Get by Without Money

Here are some experiences I’ve had living without money:

1. You look terrible all of the time. Salvation army clothing never fits as well as clothing from the actual store. At the mall, you wonder why you need to buy all of this expensive junk. You tell yourself that abstaining from buying clothes saves the environment and it makes you feel better for a while. Then you put on that horrible patterned sweater from the Salvation Army and feel bad again.
2. Either eat the McDonald’s, or sit at home feeling hungry. Up to you. Good luck buying that expensive vegetable stuff; you don’t know how to prepare it. It’s going bad before you can eat it.  You give up and eat the McDonald’s.
3. People do not enjoy lending things to you. Your parents will not enjoy lending things to you. They will feel angry and victimized. You pray for the day you can buy your own car. Meanwhile, you desperately drive miles to get to your job, your boyfriend, your friends, the store, hoping that things will improve.
4. Richer people always love to complain about how little money they have. Rich people will literally tell you that you have it better than they have it. Their reasoning? Taxes. People will literally say to your face that they wish they could make a small fraction of what they make so they won’t have to pay taxes. These are people who have nice health insurance and solid cars and homes.  You realize that people have no frame of reference that could possibly include you.
5. Your muscles constantly ache, and you have no idea why.  They continue to ache.
6. People love to give advice about your next career move. They tell you to throw yourself into grad school and get a degree doing SOMETHING, ANYTHING that will give you a reasonable paycheck. People have come up to me to suggest careers in writing, teaching writing to adults, teaching writing to teens, teaching small children, accounting, nursing, and practicing veterinary medicine. Most of these suggestions do not fit. You ignore these people.
7. One time, a little boy continuously came up to me at work as I was cleaning, asking me what I was doing and why. I did my best to answer him. As I continued to clean, I overheard his mother say to him “…remember, she’s poor.” Now, I didn’t hear the beginning of the sentence, but could any beginning to that sentence make the second part any less offensive? In my life, I have not heard anything emit anything more condescending. You begin to understand what other people go through.
8. Working minimum wage is like shoveling coal into people’s mouths. You lie to them, you shovel it in, they chew on what you gave them, and they hopefully walk away.
9. People think you are lazy. You’re not actually lazy; you just have brains and can think for yourself.  There is no prize sitting at the end of the race for you. There is no one patting you and telling you that you are more special than anyone else. You finally realize that you must fight for your dream of becoming a writer. You start to fight and fight.