Beside you and I'm falling

I have found myself, more than once, outside the side door of Blount, back pressed against the glass, worried that my ass crack is visible to all those walking down the hall on their way to join me, or join the atmosphere, because it doesn't really matter that I am there or not, as long as there is warm concrete and an ashtray.  However, I am most often not alone; no, Brittney has been losing herself in the overwhelming draw to my computer screen's depiction of a completely accurate representation of lesbians, also known as "The L Word." And most often, my ass crack is not visible because I am wrapped - we are wrapped - in a vintage peacock blanket that is warmer than any Snuggie could hope to be. Cigarettes in hand - did you know that the smoke of Marlboro Reds and Camel filters gives off the aroma of marijuana? - we dissolve into the world of Bette and Tina, Jenny and Shane, Helena and Dylan, Max and Tim, Kit and that drag queen, Alice and Tasha and the hot Asian - our favorites are Bette, Alice, and Shane (in that order) - often screaming at the interwebs for the awful connection in the warm spot, forcing us to smoke one last cigarette and retire to the unwanted warmth of the Blount lobby, where something is always happening and it is always loud - not conducive for watching hot, lesbian sex with the straightest girl I know. Does any of this make me inherently hipster? Does this much anticipated past time of my evenings shout hipster?

Blount - yes

outside - yes

Brittney - no

"The L Word" - yes

computer, so I don't have to purchase Showtime - yes

MacBook - yes

MacBook Pro - no

vintage peacock blanket - yes

cigarettes - yes

Marlboro Reds - no

"interwebs" - up for debate

Is it "hipster" if I do it because I truly enjoy the atmosphere of the warm spot, if I truly enjoy "The L Word," if my truly favorite blanket just happens to be vintage and features a peacock?

To put this in perspective, I now sit in the ultra crowded corporate Starbucks of the Ferguson Center, listening to the Backstreet Boys "The Call," and trying to block out the laughter of a Randolph alum that sits directly behind me, praying that she doesn't notice me. I'm sure she has. I'm wearing a bright yellow headband. I think I'm going to escape to the outside. Notice how unhappy I am!

I never made it outside. I ran into some friends, saw Breckan and trotted over to her to clarify some disturbing news I heard about myself - news I needed to diminish - followed her back inside, found myself back in Starbucks and lost in the conversation of unfortunately straight friends, realizing that I had barely seven minutes to myself before I needed to be back at Starbucks for a meeting about the Fellows Formal. Much to my dismay, it appears that I will have, like so many days in high school, a Starbucks-filled day, albeit in high school, those Starbucks-filled days were much enjoyed.

Man! I feel like a woman.

This is the reaction paper I wrote. This is the reason I had to stop posting this afternoon. The blogging is getting to my head already. Heh heh.

Taken in class:

I've been blogging, inspired by the late Virginia Woolf and her A Room of One's Own. In that inspiration, I am tempted now to construct my reaction paper in the format of a blog. I am tempted to add pictures and videos to illustrate my thoughts. I am tempted to ramble about my life and my musings, as a hipster might, and though I may try to keep this academic, my mind may roam, my mind will roll. "Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind" (Woolf 76). Lock me up in a library of academic propriety; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind. And because of this, because Ms. Woolf has unwittingly given me permission, my mind has been unlocked and set loose like Pandora's box. Pandora Woolf, what were you thinking?

What she was thinking is that women needed a writing style of their own because the feminine experience is distinctly distinct from that of the masculine. Note my use of gender term, and not sexes; unlike Woolf, I do not believe that literature was taken over by the male, but by the masculine. Here is my attempt to introduce the feminine, calling it the female. My release is not in sentence structure, as that of Woolf, though sentence structure is important, and I do, more often than not, catch myself writing in the manner that so characterized Jane Austen, full of subordinations, but more importantly, full of commas. Is this distinctly feminine? Possibly, but I would not hold it against any person of the masculine sort to write this way. I stand corrected by myself. I would not hold it against any male to write this way, but the masculine...the masculine is the short, concise, Ernest Hemmingway sentences. Anyone can admit that he is overtly masculine, and would not be valued if he had written in these lengthy sentences, littered by subordinating, floral in nature, if you will.

I digress, but I gave you fair warning. I am in the blogging mindset and in the blogging mindset I shall stay, not because I cannot escape from it, not because I think you'll understand and take pity on me, but because the blogging writing style is that of me. "What do you mean, Sassy?" you say. Well, as much as Austen's inordinately filled sentences were seen as, well, refreshing to the women of her day, for they were feminine and they were theirs, my stream-of-consciousness blogging personality in my writing, that which is different from the great rowers of literary history, such as William Faulkner, is refreshing to a portion of those in my generation: the hipsters, especially those of the feminine nature, though I find it hard to recall a masculine hipster that has crossed my path. This brings me back to my point(s): the feminine needs a writing style, not the women. And so, for you, whoever you might be, if you can find it in your self to be feminine, at least for the course of the time it takes you to make it to the bottom of this black, pressed lettering, this may read to you as your own thoughts, your own musing, on Virginia Woolf, whether or not they are. For what is feminine but the ability to relate to all things feminine? And what is blogging but the ability to draw a relation to all those reading your blog? Sound familiar? Sounds like Virginia Woolf to me.

The first five times

Yes, it is time that I open a blog. Yes, it is time that I open my musings. Yes, it is time that I bring you to the realization with me: Is she really...a HIPSTER? Hopefully, this blog will lead me to a conclusion, either a confession or a denouncement. From now on, at least for the time of Lent, I will admit to my hipster moments, styles, tastes, thoughts. And I will admit those which are mainstream.

Because of the brevity of time that I have before I must read A Room of One's Own by the late Virginia Woolf and discuss my reactions to it, I must keep this short, not to say that the following posts will be eons longer. That's just silly. But there are some things that we need to cover, such as the day. The day has featured a surprise wake-up to ants crawling across my body, in my body, through my body; hours upon hours of reading about women, be it about abortion or women in fiction or intersectionality or heterosexism; give or take five hours spent with headphones in my ears; and much smoke passing slowly through my lips, around my uvula, only to be encompassed by my lungs, with only a little sprinting back out again.

I want you to notice this guy. Consider him: what he's wearing, how he's standing, what he's thinking. Approachable?

Now I want you to consider how I wait for my Women's Studies class. I stand on the third floor of Manly Hall (yeah, the Department of Women's Studies is located in Manly Hall), cigarette in hand, wearing a hat (which often happens to be a fedora, seeing that I own six or seven of them) and a sweater, often sporting a button-up shirt and Chuck Taylors. My posture? Just as this, only with one hand in my pocket...the other is, of course, steadily transitioning from side to mouth. And I often have my earbuds in my ears, listening to what, I'm sure, my fellow classmates, who are 80% athletes, figure is too trendy to be trendy yet. However, what they don't know, is that this morning, while waiting for class to start, I was listening to the Goo Goo Dolls. Hipster? I'll let you decide.