Austin Blogger Awards & Life on the East Side Ep 4: The Doobs

Well, somehow I managed to get nominated in three categories at the Austin Blogger Awards. I'm very touched and appreciate everyone's support. To know that people beside my parents actually read my blog gives me the incentive to keep writing and the self-esteem boost needed to feed my fragile, child-like ego.

The lovely folks over at the Republic of Austin have put together this first ever award ceremony that will take place at the Austin Eavesdropper-hosted "Austin Bleet-Up" this Friday, December 3rd 7PM at Whole Foods Rooftop. The Bleet Ups are always a great time and an excellent way to meet people of your own kind and no longer feel like a shut-in.

If you'd like to vote. Please vote here. Hipstercrite has been nominated for the "Blog of the Year", "Blogger of the Year", and "Best Blog to Find Comments of Discussions" categories. As I promised my friends yesterday, I will make you cookies or canned pickles in return.

Please enjoy my latest episode of "Life on the East Side". Joy may be a stretch. This episode, titled, "The Doobs", is a little less East Sidey and a little more quarter-life crisisy. It is about a young man who has discovered that he now likes yacht rock and he's concerned that he is losing his edge.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

I'm back home in New York for the first time in almost a year and so thankful to see my wonderful family.

Lionel and Lucy say Happy Thanksgiving and hope that they can both take off their ridiculous sweaters soon.

How To Have a Hipster Thanksgiving

I know I said that I would stop using the word, "hipster". You're tired of it, I'm tired of it, WE'RE ALL F'ING TIRED OF IT! However, I couldn't think of a better name for this post. Something about, "How To Have An Ironic As Shit Thanksgiving" just didn't sound right. So will you please forgive me and let me have this one more usage?

When I think of Thanksgiving, I don't think of hipsters. Unless I'm thinking of the movie, Pieces of April. Something about a dark Thanksgiving comedy taking place on the Lower East Side just screams pretentiousocity. Something about Katie Holmes makes me think of nothing at all though. Most of us will be having your pretty run-of-the-mill turkey dinners with the family: wearing that one Gap dress we bought in college and only pull out for dinners with the family, remembering why we pay $500 a month to go to a therapist, and getting drunk off of Grandpa's stash of whiskey hidden in the floorboards.

If you're interested in spicing things up and bringing a little of your creative, young urbanite ways to the dinner table, then follow these steps below:

1.) Take the Train- Because something note-worthy and creepy will most likely happen to you on the train and you can tell everyone in stunted breaths about your near-death experience once you arrive. So what it may take you two days sitting in an up-right position to travel 400 miles? Putting yourself in harm's way of flashers, machete-wielding flashers, machete-wielding flasher clowns, or any other weirdo that often rides the train, will be good for your art. Also, you can finally live out your fantasy of wearing your top hat and pretending that your an old-timey president traversing the American landscape. Here is an interesting article from GOOD Magazine about riding the train for the holidays.

2.) Bring Field Roast to Dinner- Unless you inherited vegan ways from your hippie-turned-yuppie-turned-huppie parents, chances are they love meat, and chances are they will put a lot of work into making a beautiful turkey dinner that you suddenly refuse to eat because you decided that you want to be the voice of all the silenced turkeys everywhere. If you really want to drive the point home, whip out a PowerPoint presentation of graphic photos of turkeys being slaughtered on your Mac at the dinner table. Chances are you'll finally have that fist fight you were always hoping for with your uncle Ellroy who watches Fox News.

3.) Canning- Because that part of you that listens to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska while watching Terrence Malick's Badlands while wishing you were a 1920's housewife living on the Plains really really wants to put things in cans. Or that Jewish part of you wants to put everything in vinegar and pickle it and swim in it. Learn all about the wonderful art of canning here.

4.) Adhere to Amy Sedaris' hosting etiquette book "I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence"- If you're hosting Thanksgiving dinner and hoping to get drunk and hit on your boyfriend's dog, then this is the book for you! Sedaris' book is chock full of hosting etiquette, redneck recipes, and funny anecdotes to hosting the most awkward and kitschy event ever! Here is a snippet:

"Hello, and I like you." This is what you're saying when you invite somebody into your home, without having to hear yourself say it out loud. This colorfully illustrated book (see pictures) is my attempt to share with you something I take very seriously: entertaining in my home, my style. It may not be the proper way, or the most traditional, or even legal, but it works for me...Even though the word "entertainment" is commonly used today, to me it sounds charmingly old-fashioned, like courtship or back-alley abortion...I tend to live my life like a deaf person. I communicate with my actions: the way I dress, the way my home is decorated, and the gifts I give all speak for me. I take this to heart when I entertain. My food, my party decorations, the games I create, and the music I play are all personal expressions. This is what will make your party special, sharing a piece of you, a feeling. It's not a competition. You don't have to be the perfect host, just the prettiest."

5.) Make A Lot of Felt Shit- According to Readymade Magazine, Thanksgiving is not complete without making a bunch of felt objects like you did in 2nd grade. What do those mushrooms up there represent? I have no idea. Other than maybe symbolizing when you'll get stoned and talk an hour to the cranberry sauce about what you are thankful for. P.S. The more googly eyes and tiny smiles the better. Your DIY felt object guide can be found here.

Top Ten Ways to Know If You're Addicted to Twitter

Or: Why Twitter Is The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Only Children

Hi, my name is Lauren and I am an alcoholic.
Wait, I mean, I'm a Twitter addict.
I forgot which blog post this was for a second.

I love Twitter.
I'm so infatuated with Twitter that my imaginary boyfriend hypothetically found me holed up in my room this weekend, pant-less, with the glow of my computer screen accentuating the glimmer of drool running down my chin. He asked me what I was doing and I lied and told him that I was watching porn. HAHAHAHA I LIED!

There was a time when I hated Twitter though. In fact, I wrote a poorly-composed blog post about it. To me it was like reading Ikea instructions. At first I was all like, "F yeah! I'm going to make this really neat-o Swedish asymmetrical thingy!" and then after trying to decipher instructions that looked like they were in a foreign language but were actually in English and graphics that looked like a 6 month-old monkey drew them, my voice dropped an octave and I started screaming, "I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS GOD FORSAKEN WHORE OF A COFFEE TABLE!" and made a crucifix out of the cheap plywood and simulated questionable acts with it.

Twitter made no sense to me. It seemed like it only made sense to people who get easily distracted by squirrels.

So, what got me over my Twitter hump? It was while managing the Twitter account of my former employer that I began to understand Twitter's generous offering to the world. I realized it's grassroots marketing benefits for small businesses and how it applied to me and my blog. I began meeting so many wonderful people on and offline through Twitter. I also discovered what interesting and thought-provoking content is passed through Twitter every millisecond! I was completely enamoured and our relationship has been rock solid ever since.

However, sometimes I worry that our rapport may be a little too rock solid. I fear that Twitter is starting to interfere with me and my fake boyfriend's relationship.

If you have these same fears too, then check out my checklist below for figuring out whether or not you're addicted to Twitter.

Top Ten Ways to Know If You're a Twitter Addict

1.) An event or conversation will occur in real life and the first thought that comes to mind is, "How will I best be able to translate or embellish this impressionable event/convo on Twitter?" You also secretly hope that no one who was actually there in real life sees your embellished tweet and publicly calls bullshit.

2.) You keep a running list in your journal of events or conversations for tweeting later...because you will forget to use them later...because Twitter gave you onset ADD.

3.) You are introduced to people in real life and realize that you already know them from Twitter and that no matter what they say their name is, you'll forever remember them by their Twitter handle.

4.) Your Twitter list titles consist of, "People Like Me", "People Who Like Me", and "People Who Make Me Feel Better About My Low Self-Esteem".

5.) You wish you had a time machine so you can go back into time and show every who made fun of you in high school how many Twitter followers you have.

6.) You view Twitter as an excellent public forum to tweet cryptic messages to ex-boyfriends/tweet song lyrics that don't actually reflect your mood to confuse ex-boyfriends/post pictures of you dog/post pictures of you and your dog in bed/post pictures of you in bed/post pictures of you tweeting cryptic song lyrics to ex-boyfriends with your dog in bed.

7.) Your life feels a little more validated, your heart a little fuller, and your groin a little tinglier after you see the "So and so is now following you on Twitter!" email pop up in your inbox.

8.) You constantly hit "@mentions" because you're too impatient to wait for the alert to pop up...because Twitter gave you not only ADD, but possibly Tourette's and Asperger's too.

9.) Twitter has done such an excellent job of teaching you to be concise that now all of the college papers you turn in are 140 characters or less.

10.) You ask your Twitter followers for medical advice.

Tell me in what ways you think you're addicted to Twitter.
Follow me on Twitter here!

I Deleted My Post For Today On Accident...

...and I was just about finished with it too.

I should actually work, so I'm not going to rewrite it until tonight.

So this is what you're getting instead....

My default ass picture.

DAMN YOU BLOGGER!

To Get Old

my grandmother at 19 years of age

Yesterday, a pictorial featuring French photographer Sacha Goldberger's 91 year-old grandmother, Frederika, as a superhero made the rounds. It was impossible not to melt when looking at the distinct woman's face. The story of 91 years and her escape from Nazism and Communism play out in every crevice and line on her face. Goldberger came up with the idea after he noticed that his grandmother was feeling "lonely and depressed" and after some "reluctance" he finally convinced Frederika to participate in the project.

Looking at this slide show made me think about my 83 year-old grandmother, Nan, and her recent bout of depression. Depression might not be the right word for it. Sheer boredom, having no job to wake up to, no family to take care of, realizing that most of your friends are dead, and dealing with a domestic partner that is in the beginning stages of Alzheimer's Disease is more like it.

my grandmother in her 40's

I talk to my grandmother multiple times in a week. She is my second mom and outside of a few stories that would only make her stay up and worry all night (something that she is very good at), I share everything with her. When I call her, I can't wait to hear the enthusiastic, "Hi sweetheart!" on the other line. I reply with with, "Hi grandma! How are you?" but I always know the line that comes next- a pause, then a faint, "Ok". This is not a jubilant "ok", this is a my-life-is-just-ok "ok". I usually ask her what is wrong and she repeats, "I'm bored. My life is boring." No matter how many times she says this it never fails to bother me. Though my mother lives across the street and I call her often, that will never change the fact that she is 83 years old and so many aspects of her life are different now.

I listen to her as she explains her frustration that she is no longer in complete control of her body and mind. Recently she had Carpal Tunnel surgery and currently has a slipped disc in her back. Though she is stoic and a martyr in all the best ways a Jewish woman can be, she can't help but voice her "disgust" that she just can't get up and go go go like she used to. I point out that she's 83, goes to the gym 3-4 days a week, and she always looks like she just stepped out of a movie. However, that is not good enough for my grandmother and I believe that this tenacity is what has kept her so vivacious for all these years.

When my grandmother and I have these conversations I try to put myself in her shoes. Becoming old is something we all do, but not something we understand until we experience it. I try thinking about watching the people that I love come and go, to wake up every morning feeling that there is little to look forward to, that the highlights of my day consist of going to the grocery store, that I can't walk like I used to, talk like I used to, and I'm just plain old tired. Of course this picture is not the same for all senior citizens, but it is for most, if not worse, and I think about the lack of patience we have as a society for the elderly. How our lack of understanding and fear of getting old makes us react negatively towards the people who often need our help the most.

my 83 year-old, plastic surgery-less grandmother, photo taken last december

I will be seeing my grandmother for the first time in almost a year next week. I'm beyond excited. I'm also scared. Scared to see her with a little less spunk in her step and a little more tiredness in her eyes. I'm also scared to see her partner, my surrogate grandfather, Lionel, going through forgetting our names, not waking up until noon, and telling my grandmother that he wants to die.

I'm scared because when I see her, I want do everything for her. I want to take her boredom away. I want to bring her friends back. I want to make me a little girl again. I want to take her all over the world. I want to make her a superhero...but I can't.


Are/were close with your grandparents? What are your thoughts on aging? 

Is Marriage Obsolete?

A new report issued by the Pew Research Center shows that 4 out of 10 people think that marriage is obsolete. Of course most of the people who share that sentiment are us- jaded twenty-somethings who watched the nuclear family crumble before our eyes. We watched our parents bicker and barter until there was nothing left or maybe we were completely blindsided by a surprise dissolution. Either way, we got the craped scared out of us.

The famous New York Times article, "What Is It About Twenty-Somethings?", explains that two thirds of Generation Y live with a romantic partner without getting married and that the median age of marriage is up from 21 to 26 for women and 23 to 28 for men in less than forty years. I know I for one can be counted in that 40% represented in the Pew Research report. It was only as of recent that I warmed up to the idea of marriage and I'm 27! This was the age my mother got married and that was considered late in 1977. I still don't believe marriage works, but I'd rather try my chances than becoming a shut-in with pet hamsters named after Mad Men characters with the Don Draper hamster taking cuddle priority over the rest never at all.

Outside of watching marriages drop like flies, other factors such as the current economic state, waning religious beliefs, and the over-idealization of love and romance have also played a factor in our decision-making process. Hundreds of years ago people got married to ensure legacy or wealth, but now it's impossible to imagine marriage without love. It's even more impossible to imagine having to mount an over-weight, bald, middle-aged farmer neighbor that your parents married you off to at 14. Watching way too much television and film as a child taught me that I don't have to marry that neighbor, I can marry any neighbor, or hell, I can even marry a dude with perfectly white teeth or a doctor who moonlights as a vigilante or someone that smells like Cary Grant.

But back to divorces and why they messed us up.

I have a theory that if you come from a "broken home" you turn out one of two ways- 1.) you learn what not to do from your folks and quickly and happily create a family of your own or 2.) run screaming away from anything that resembles commitment or small beings that yell and poop. That's not to say that your view can shift through the years. It takes many years of self-reflection and therapy to undo what your family did to you but it IS possible.

My parent's divorce was easy compared to most. There was no cheating, no abuse, no mind games, no yelling even. My father simply realized that marriage and fatherhood was not his bag. My parents tried to make it work, but soon enough it became clear that the marriage was over. He moved from our home in New York down to Maryland and my mother and I would often visit. Eventually he met another woman and the same 12-year marriage cycle repeated itself. Now past his second divorce, my father has been dating a wonderful woman for over a year and a half. Recently, my mother, my father, and I all stayed at the girlfriend's house when we were in Los Angeles. We all sat up and talked and laughed and I recall mentally stepping back and thinking, "This is so wonderfully progressive and blog-worthy". Then everyone went to sleep and my father and I sat up and did shots of tequila and talked about how him leaving caused me to pine after unavailable men.

I kind of like the person I am, but I can't help but wonder what I would be like if my parents stayed together. I wonder if I still would have such a jaded view of marriage. Who knows, maybe I would have become a huge mess. Maybe my parents would have hated each other and I would have a different but equally bitter view towards marriage. It's hard to say. The only thing I know for certain is that I come from a broken home, I watched way too much TV as a kid, I'm economically disadvantaged, and I'm not religious...

....Man, am I fucked.


Do you believe in marriage? Did your parents divorce? How do you think your parents and the media helped shape your view on marriage?

Homesick For A Place That Doesn't Exist

I don't think about Los Angeles much anymore.

And when I do, it's not the city I physically experienced, but rather the romanticized one I pieced together through years of watching movies, TV shows, and listening to music about the beautiful, yet fragile place where the sun always shines.

You unpredictably come to mind when I hear a song- a song I never even heard while I was with you- but for some reason reminds me of our imaginary time together. They're songs full of minor chord viscera. Synthesizers and beats I danced to on the beach, in Hollywood, and in my car before I was ever born.

It brings me to my knees. Every absolute and artificial memory intertwines into a billow of what I no longer know is certain. I take on the emotions of character's lives I never lived. I experience flashbacks of times I never endured.

I always thought that the day I stopped thinking about Los Angeles would be a sad day.

However, instead of descending in one fell swoop, the omission happened over a period of time, right underneath my nose- and I never even noticed it.

The trace of your body is no longer familiar on my fingertips. Friends mention new restaurants and lounges that I've never heard of. The drive through Hollywood heading west towards the ocean has become blurry; the view from Mulholland at night a fog.

Sometimes when I'm laying in bed, I think of the nights I listened to your murmur down below. I try to hear your voice. I look for your emanating glow that once carried me off into a place where I dreamed that you and I could make it work, but I can't find you. You have left me just like how I left you.

I left you.

I left you and as I watched you grow smaller and smaller in my rear view mirror I cried for all the dreams I lost and all the new ones I was cultivating. I wanted to hold onto the feeling I knew when I first met you- an idealism that I'm never to experience again. I didn't want to let go of the little girl who thought that the world was good and pure. That people would never try to hurt one another.

That my heart would never be broken.

However, with each mile that I drove further away from you, I became the person I was supposed to be.

I miss you, Los Angeles. I miss my idea of you. Our relationship is now much better since I returned to being the longer of something that is not real.


Are you homesick for a place that doesn't exist? Do you romanticize periods of time in your life?

Life on the East Side Ep. 3- "First Date"

Annie Hall is my number three favorite movie. Ask me on days when I'm feeling romantic and melancholic, and I'll tell you it's my number one favorite movie.

This short has nothing to do with Annie Hall.

And no, the female character is not based off of me....that much.

Boy: "Gosh, I never thought you'd actually respond to my Missed Connection!"

Girl: "I know! How many other girls in Austin fit the description, "Liz Lemon/Joanna Newsom combination that was sitting in Whole Foods reading a copy of Infinite Jest and drinking coconut water on November 12th?"

Boy: Probably around 8 girls?

This Ain't No Disco

I'm in an East Village mood today.
The sort of day where I daydream about waking up in my rat-infested loft next to my boyfriend who is lying next to his boyfriend who is lying next to a nightstand full of hypodermic needles and a vinyl of Talking Heads: 77.

When I feel pretty uninspired, I just think of all the music and art that came out of New York City in the 70's and 80's.
Some of it was great.
Some of it was pretentious and overhyped.
Nonetheless, people were always creating.

And that's what I gotta do...

If you can guess everyone in the pictures below (for a few of them guess the photographer), I will give you a copy of "Low Rent: A Decade of Prose and Photographs from The Portable Lower East Side". It's a fantastic collection of short stories, poems, and photographs from artists who lived or live in LES.

Ruin Porn

So, I'm really into ruin porn.

I'm glad to finally know that there is a name for this because I'm tired of listing, "I like abandoned stuff", as an interest on bios and applications. Ruin porn sounds so much better.

Ever since I was a little kid I've been fascinated with run-down, derelict, and vacant structures. I love history so to me each building tells a story- a moment that was captured in time yet all the players have been removed and is ever so slowly deteriorating back into the earth.

My love for "abandoned stuff" often poses a problem during family vacations because I could care less about things, oh say, like, the Grand Canyon. I'm off looking for some shack someone left behind.

In fact, during our Grand Canyon trip, I couldn't wait to get to f'ed up place known as The Salton Sea. That was my Grand Canyon.

Here are some of my favorite examples of ruin porn:


Ambassador Hotel- Los Angeles, CA

Built in the the 1920's in the Mid-Wilshire District of Los Angeles, this grand hotel with sprawling land covered in bungalows catered to the creme de la creme of Hollywood. Celebrities performed and partied at the world famous Coconut Grove. The Academy Awards and Golden Globes were also hosted there. However, The Ambassador Hotel is probably most notable for being the place where Robert Kennedy was shot and killed in 1968. During the 70's and 80's due to the area becoming riddled with crime, the hotel closed to guests by 1989. The hotel continued to be used as a filming location until its demolish in 2005 to make way for a new public school. I believe that the film, Bobby, which is actually about Robert Kennedy and The Ambassador Hotel, was the last film to shoot there. I used to live near The Ambassador Hotel and would sadly watch on as they tore down this beautiful relic of history. A news report said that the Kennedy Family encouraged the hotel to be tore down and make way for the much needed school.

Photographer Whit Wagner chronicled the last two years of The Ambassador Hotel in his book, "Late Check-Out: Images from the Ambassador Hotel's Final Two Years" Check out more of his beautiful photos here.

Salton Sea- California

The Salton Sea is a ruin porn fanatic's dream come true! I came across so many beautiful pictures of this abandoned lake located in Southeast California. Imagine a beautiful valley housing the largest lake in California surrounded by abandoned town after abandoned town! The history of the Salton Sea is a short one- The lake was spawned accidentally at that turn of the century from irrigation run-off. Not long after that it became a popular vacation getaway for Californians. By the 70's and 80's a series of events led to most of the inhabitants leaving: hurricane weather, botulism that caused mass death in fish and bird populations, and stinky algae. Now it is a ghost's playground. Many of the businesses and houses were left behind. The "beaches" are comprised of fish bones and the whole area smells like death. It's heaven!

By ME!

Beautiful picture by Ben Willmore

Source

Detroit- Michigan

And of course there is the King of all Ruin Porn- Detroit, Michigan. Below are beautiful images taken by French photographers, Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre, from their book, "The Ruins of Detroit"

You can find great photos of abandoned buildings and other gems at one of my favorite websites, Web Urbanist.

Do you like ruin porn? What are your favorite abandoned places?

Slave to Blog

I've been listening to a lot of Bryan Ferry lately- particularly the song, "Slave to Love". If I had a time machine, I would go back to 1985 and tell Mr. Ferry to change the song title to "Slave to Blog" because that's what I feel like as of lately. He would be all like, "What the bloody hell is a blog?" and I'd say, "JUST CHANGE IT, BRIT, OR I'LL TAKE YOUR PRECIOUS CIGARETTES AND MODELS AWAY!" I'd also tell him that I would have to be in his music video and that we would be making out in said video.

Last night I stared at my computer screen for a good hour before giving up on writing a blog post. In fact, I got so angry at my inability to come up with anything remotely interesting to say that I spited myself and the world by going to bed at 9:30! Nine-freaking-thirty! Granted, this Day Light Savings Time is really jacking with my body, but last night made me realize that my emotions are at the whim of my blog. How did I become my blog's bitch? I thought I was the one in charge, Blog! I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONE IN CHARGE!!!

Blogging every day is exhausting. Blogging every day when blogging every day is not your full-time job is really exhausting. I'm sure blogging every day when it IS your full-time job is the most exhausting though. I know what you're thinking, "Well, why the heck do you blog every day? You don't have to you know? You are the master of your own free will!!! " I know that. Well, not when it comes to cheese. Or contacting ex-boyfriends.

The thing is, I LIKE to blog every day. I like to know that there is something new on my website every single work day. And I like having the option to bitch about blogging every day.

My anxiety is building due to the recent realization that if I want to be a professional writer, I'm going to have to learn to deal with having writer's block, being bored, feeling isolated, and maybe a wee bit sexually frustrated. Which are all items I've experienced lately. I've recently decided that staying focused on my career has become more important than over-socializing and even dating. Well, at least that's what I keep telling myself Friday night after Friday night while I sit on the couch with a bottle of red wine in one hand, a block of cheese in the other hand, and a single tear escaping down my left cheek.

Believe me, I've fantasized about being a drunken and lonely writer who stays cooped up in her cabin and churns out pages of existential wonder. The problem is when I get drunk I can't write a legible sentence. For example, a piece that I wrote when I was 22 and suuuuuper drunk, "Why doesn't anyone love me? Why did I just hit my eye on the corner of the nightstand? Why does the nightstand not love me? I'm just a lonely nightstand looking for a home..."

I've also discovered that if I keep myself locked away from civilization in order to write, I start seeing hacked up children and dead women with giant bushes and I don't like that.

I implore you- what is a young wannabe writer to do? Do I buckle down, quit whining, embrace the negative emotions, and stare at a pic of a shirtless Shia LaBeouf during those lonely nights? Or do I learn to create balance and find a way to socialize and date without compromising my writing?

What do you do?

And in closing, in the reinterpretation of some rave band called CSS's words- "Blog is my boyfriend". Well, Blog, don't be surprised if I roll over and start choking you in your sleep one evening.

Here, enjoy the Spanish subtitles...

Let's Bring Back...

Yesterday, one of my favorite Huffington Post bloggers, Lesly M. M. Blume, posted a slideshow in honor of the release of "Let's Bring It Back"- an "encyclopedia of forgetten-yet-delightful, chic, useful, curious, and otherwise commendable things from times gone by".

Ms. Blume already picked some of my favorites bygone mementos and practices (hats on men, dancing, red lipstick, record players), but there are few I'd like to see added to the list.

What would you like to see make a comeback?

1.) Guys Treating Ladies with Respect- Ok, this pic is a little misleading- I'm not suggesting that you court her by taking walks in the garden and then sipping jasmine tea all while your crotch is burning with desire. I mean, you could do that, but there is only so much garden-walking and tea-sipping and painful abstinence-exercising that one can take. What I'm suggesting is that you don't sleep with her and then act like she's invisible next time you see her in public. Or maybe when you take her out on a date, you actually take her to dinner instead of for beers at your friend's house. Or maybe call to invite her to a movie at 7PM at the theatre vs. texting her at 3AM to watch a movie in your pants. What happened to you, guys? Your mommas raised you better than this!

2.) Women Acting Like Ladies- Postfeminism my ass! You're going out behind the bar to suck that complete stranger's wing wong because you have low self-esteem. Lord knows where you got it from because your parents provided everything for you. Why don't you use that mouth for something more interesting like talking about current events or having something say, like, an opinion. And that outfit? Contrary to popular belief, people typically appreciate when more is left to the imagination (i.e. seeing your pasty, cellulite-riddled ass sashaying down the sidewalk in a mini skirt and heels that perpetually make you look like you're walking upstairs makes the rest of us die a little inside each time we see you).

3.) Bow Ties- Whether it be man, woman, child, beligerant senior citizen in diapers, Fox News commentator, or 1980's investment banker who moonlights as a homicidal maniac- they all look adorable in a bow tie. Well, maybe not the Fox News commentator. He'd only be cute wearing his bow tie while we're hate boning him. Something about the bow tie says style, class, antiquity, and grace. Oh, and Chuck Bass. Mmmm....Chuck Bass.

4.) Oil-slicked, Parted Hair- Don't you miss the days when you could change the car oil with your man's hair? I know I do. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the long, shaggy alt-folk rocker hair-do as much as the next twenty-something girl who lives in a town like Austin, Texas, but something about being terrified to rub my cheek against my man's head just does it for me. I mean, look at that picture of Cary Grant! Can you imagine that hair clean with fly-aways all over the place? No. That's not how someone like Cary Grant rolled. He had to look impeccable. The oil-slicked, parted hair made one look like a a plastic doll and isn't that what we all want anyways? To be plastic?

5.) Cary Grant- You know what? While we're at it, let's just bring Cary Grant back from the dead. Let's excavate his grave and bronze his beautiful, decayed 106 year-old body and plant it on top of the Empire State Building for everyone to admire. If that isn't going to work because of general rot and mush, let's start a school called, "Cary Grant's School For Making Young Men Look And Sound Awesome", and breed a whole new fleet of Cary Grants!

6.) Crystal Pepsi- Because soda should be clear, right? Drinking clear carbontated sugar gives the impression that we're somehow drinking something healthier for us when it's no longer poop colored. In my mind, Crystal Pepsi even tasted better. Look at that beautiful bottle there. LOOK AT IT! Don't you just want to run under a waterfall of Crystal Pepsi with someone that looks like that guy below?

7.) Mixtapes- Ms. Blume touched upon records, but why not bring mixtapes backs? And I'm not talking about a mixed CD you make for your new girlfriend with all your favorite Vampire Weekend songs on it. I'm talking about an honest-to-goodness mixtape- like the crappily edited ones you made in grade school with Michael Jackson's "Black or White" playing on loop. The audio cassette mixtape has become a near defunct form considering where, unlike the record, it has yet to make a come back. I'm not sure why that is? Maybe because they sound like shit, who knows?

8.) 1980's John Cusack- I want to build a time machine solely to bring 1989 John Cusack to the future to kill off 2010 John Cusack. Then we'd make it into a movie. What happened to this guy? WHAT. HAPPENED. TO. HIM? Every new John Cusack movie I see, I go through the five stages of grief- except acceptance has yet to occur. Granted we all age and it's impossible to stay 23 years-old forever, but Cusack looks like roadkill left in the sun to bake and bloat. Let's all chip in and get Cusack a full-body make-over and throw some Savage Steve Holland scripts his way. What do you say?