I’ll admit it, as much as it pains me to explain: I am stylish, but am I hipster? No. As I sit hammering away at my vintage 1890’s typewriter, I cannot find any better word to express my response. If anything, these tremendously trendy tendencies I have adopted have only transcended my title above such a subordinate description like “hipster.” If I had it my way, I would be labeled with a symbol, like Prince. Something with a tree or maybe the image of a broken record player.

Some say it started when I got these rad thick-framed glasses––that I just copied a ridiculous craze everyone else had been following for years. But I insist it was just a matter of coincidence and circumstance. These awesome specs were the only dual-lensed eyepiece being sold at the silent auction my farmer’s market was holding.  And to be thoroughly honest, a monocle would have looked horrendous with my wavy locks, unless I felt like solely wearing my collection of 20’s Venture-Capitalist outfits I received for Alfred Lord Tennyson Day.

Others may insist it’s my taste in music that has grouped me in with the rest of the posers. Again though, just because my obviously superior preference of sick beats, gnarly rhythms and rockin’ synths might differ from that of a standard listener doesn’t mean I follow the pattern of enjoying only obscure, new bands, and then rejecting them once they grow in popularity.

No, I have gotten rid of that process entirely through employing a dutiful companion musician or “court minstrel” to compose musical poems solely for me, just like the kings of Europe had back in the day. In my opinion, the melodies he creates rival that of Mozart, Debussy, and Arcade Fire. I will admit however, that explaining the vassalism of my twenty-first century troubadour to tax companies gets extremely tiring. I can only wonder how all the monarchs dealt with those pests back then.

Perhaps my eating habits and peculiarities bring into question a supposedly heterodox lifestyle. Let me reiterate; even though I do eat locally, that doesn’t automatically mean I’m in my backyard every day tending to my kale and romanesco plants. I’ve thrown out the outdated techniques and traditions of “stationary agriculture” all together.  Instead, I house my garden into a mobile platform in order to always have locally grown food.

Some critics might argue that filling the backseat and trunk of my car with a couple-hundred pounds of soil and vegetables was perhaps getting a little too into  the activity, but I disagree. My only regret is that I am forced to always park outside with the skylight open. Of course I don’t want my babies to die, but I certainly don’t want them stolen by some garden grabbing gangster.

Nor have I particularly enjoyed the Eastern Bluebirds that have taken up a home in the small ash tree growing out the rear window. I figured the company would be more like Snow White and less like bird poop wherever I drive. Obviously, I was wrong. Despite these irks, and that they taste ever so slightly like gasonline, I stand by my veggies through and through.

So yes, I might be more up to date than most of the population, but when it comes to my conformity with the “hipster” stereotype, I’m as out of place as a Top 40 playlist on trivia night in a dive bar. So let me proclaim once more in a dialect much easier to understand––let me be hipstern, if you will, when I swear that my thoughts, my actions, and my very way of life have never been anywhere close to that of a hipster.