I’m a Cliché, and That’s OK
It’s hard to write about yourself, but here goes.
I lived in Los Angeles for a year and a half, and I tried to love it. I got tacos from food trucks, went to the beach, visited all the major art museums, and hung out with film students. But I didn’t love it. I’ve recently realized that I hated it.
After visiting San Francisco and finding it the most beautiful, dense, walkable and diverse city I’ve ever visited (have you ever heard that before?), I reflected on my instinctive abhorrence of clichés. I used to think groupthink was bad. I used to think you couldn’t box me in or reduce me to a simple stereotype. I used to think I was special.
I used to be wrong.
Here’s a quick rundown of the characteristics and possessions that cement me in the 20-something liberal hipster camp:
- A liberal arts education (degree in philosophy)
- A Mac laptop
- Outerwear from REI
- Moleskine notebooks
- A drive to eat ethnic food that’s technically obsessive and compulsive
- A semi-ironic infatuation with top-40 pop and mainstream hip hop (my desktop background is an image of Nicki Minaj)
- Knowledge of what post-rock means
- Cognizance of typography, spelling, and grammar that occasionally disrupts everyday functioning
- Affinity for craft beers, cheap bourbon
- Encyclopedic knowledge of Arrested Development and The Wire
- Dogmatic adherence to the tenets of New Urbanism
- A vague desire to get something pierced or tattooed
- Slim-straight jeans, flannel shirts, cardigans, retro sneakers, and Casio watches
- A belief that the government should probably do more about the environment, health care, ending wars, closing Guantánamo, promoting high-speed rail, and taxing the super-rich
- A tumblr blog
So basically, I’m a caricature. This is me formally declaring that I’m an unreconstructed, garden-variety, latte-sipping, liberal coastal urban élite. From now on, I’ll try to say what I think, without regard for how much it makes me sound like That Guy.
I love that San Francisco is the most European of America’s cities. David Foster Wallace and Michael Chabon wrote very funny, sad, moving books, but I’m not crazy about Dave Eggers. I think I’ll start doing yoga when I get back to Minneapolis. I might want to start a bluegrass/folk-rock band, too. Does anyone want to listen to some Kanye?
Update: I was a strict vegetarian for a couple years, but now I vacillate between ovo-lacto-pesco-vegetarianism and eating free-range meat, too.
Update 2: I usually don’t watch sports, but I can make exceptions for tennis, soccer, and sometimes cricket.
