I Heart Hipsters

So I’m headed to Williamsburg, Brooklyn Thursday night for a concert. For those of you who live in NYC, you know what this means. For those of you who don’t, I will sum it up in one word for you: hipsters.

No, this isn’t going to be a screed against hipsters. In fact, I can’t understand why people hate them so much. They are so fun to observe, especially in their natural habitats. Also, I feel I have a lot in common with hipsters. They drink beer; I drink beer. We listen to a lot of the same music. Sometimes I think the only reason I’m not a hipster it just seems like too much work, too much keeping up of appearances. Also, I think it’s cool to like things.

But I guess the main reason I like hipsters is I love it when a certain group consistently lives up to its stereotype. (Which is probably the reason I love Jersey Shore so much.) The last time I went to a concert in W’burg, you could have pooled a random group of attendees and found that each person was wearing either a) a flannel shirt, b) skinny jeans, c) plastic frame glasses, d) a beard, or e) some combination of the above. It was funny, and also comforting. Because I knew I could hold my own if any sort of fight broke out.

Sorry, couldn’t help myself. Hipsters, you know I love you.

Gratuitous Pet Shot

I tend to be long-winded, and I heard somewhere that people get put off by huge blocks of text. So I figured I should include a funny photo of my cat being silly, just to break things up. I think her bug eyes make her look like a lemur.

Vanities, or, The Longest Essay Ever Written About Eyebrows, Part 2

A “professional” brow waxer, in the confines of Shelby Township, Michigan, was Sandy, the woman who cut my mom's hair at the local salon. She knew nothing of arch and shaping, and would just drip on the wax and rip away. Sometimes she would leave the wax on for too long, and it would get cold and hardened. As a result, when she ripped off the strips, a good portion of my skin came with it. I'd be forced to go to school with angry, red commas below my eyes, as I painfully learned that cover-up wouldn't stick to open sores.

If that weren't enough, I began to develop a horrible nervous tic. I'd pull out my eyebrows with my fingers while bored or anxious. On a long car trip back from a high school cross country meet, I was worrying away at my brows when my friend awoke from a nap and shrieked, "Stephanie! Stop!" I had created a sizable bald patch above my right eye. The first thing I did when I got home was purchase an eyebrow pencil. I colored in that patch for weeks.

In college, the trauma continued. On a trip to the local mall with my roommates, a woman at a nail salon (I should have known better) did a complete hack job on my face. I still shake with anger when I think of how she handed me the mirror afterward, as if nothing were wrong. But things had gone terribly awry. On the right, my brow looked normal. On the left, only three hairs remained above my arch. I was a lopsided monstrosity. I should have demanded my money back! Instead, I think I even gave her a tip.

Truth in Advertising

I've walked by this sign on the way to the R/W train several times, and it never fails to crack me up. It's like they're saying, "Look, we have good prices. Are they the lowest in the city? Well, we're not sure. There's a lot of stores in New York. We can't say with total certainty that we're the best, but we're pretty good. So come shop here, you're probably getting a good deal, and you'll most likely be happy with your purchase."

Vanities, or, The Longest Essay Ever Written About Eyebrows, Part 1

I think it's safe to say that most of us spend an embarrassing amount of time obsessing over vain, trivial pursuits. For guys, video games and fantasy sports immediately come to mind. For ladies, it has to be appearance. I've known several females who have been locked in lifelong battles against frizz, belly bulge, and wrinkles. If there were a physical feature I’ve spent an inordinate mount of time obsessing over (Okay, if I had to choose just one) it would be eyebrows.

The obsession began in adolescence. It wasn't bad enough that I had glasses and braces, and was generally awkward and gangly. Oh no, genetics also had to bless me with dark hair. Lots of it. And while I'm forever grateful for the thick mop atop my head, I realized around age ten or so that having hair anyplace else was socially unacceptable and gross. I was mortified when Travis Z-- grabbed my arm on the bus and declared that it was hairier than his own. I felt afraid and somewhat ashamed when my mom deemed me old enough to begin shaving my legs. And when Sara J--, who was supposed to be my friend, squinted hard at my face and declared, "You have hair above your lip," I could only sputter that it was peach fuzz. She quickly responded with, "It looks dark to me." Sara, of course, was blonde, and could not begin to comprehend the unfair, hairy-knuckled hand I'd been dealt in life.

And while all of that stuff was eventually handled with razors, smelly depilatories, and the like—my eyebrows, which hovered on my forehead like black furry caterpillars, were not so simple. The only person I knew with worse eyebrows was Miss Good—a misnomer if there ever was one—our inept sixth-grade substitute teacher. And it wasn't the mere fact they were thick, but that their dark color was in stark contrast to her bottle blonde hair. I knew at age 10 that like it or not, I'd be a brunette for life. (Though there was that one unfortunate attempt at fooling genetics and lightening my brows with Jolen crème bleach, which resulted in an interesting if not attractive tiger-stripe effect.)

When my brows began to grow into a Frida Kahlo-style uni, I knew something had to be done. I begged and pleaded with my mother for help. She, bestower of half my genes, could sympathize with my plight. She herself had beat her brows into submission via electrolysis, years before I was born. My mother’s brows—for better or worse—were now two faint semicircles above her eyes.

Afraid that I may growing up too early, my mom reluctantly handed over tweezers with instructions to pluck between the brows only. But with those tweezers in my hand, I couldn't help myself. Though she said to pull out only one hair at a time, I attacked them in clumps. I was a maniac; I looked a mess.

My mom decided we should let a professional handle my brows from then on—and while that seemed like a solution to my problem, my troubles were only beginning.