Hats off to hats!!

Officially click baited. Read more to find out how.

Recently I’ve been thinking about the future. My cousin was talking to me about her life in LA, and I was thinking about life in Brooklyn and then in New England.

One of my goals after college is to move to a small town in the northeast and work at the town bar for a bit. I’m not set on the town bar; in fact, I only decided that while writing the last sentence, but I think it would be a good way to showcase my shining personality to as many people as possible.

Last year in my English class, we read Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, a book spanning multiple generations of a single family. Basically, it’s about the ties that linger throughout families, generational trauma, and the effects of life events decades or centuries later. Gyasi talked a lot about how even though some of the family members written about hadn’t so much as existed on earth at the same time, they had undeniable similarities and connections. A few books I’ve read recently have had this theme, actually - and I can’t help but wonder in what ways it’s true for me.

Part of me thinks that when I make the move to this New Englandish town, the connection between me and past generations will intensify. Who knows what could happen? Maybe I’ll suddenly grow fond of tennis, make an impulse purchase at LL Bean, or decide to start churning my own butter. (Did my family ever do that? They must have).

Either way, I’ve been thinking a lot about family in general. Maybe this is because I recently learned I’m the product of incest thanks to my aunt’s genealogy knowledge (my parents are tenth cousins). I’m still waiting to learn how close I am to the one and only Joe Biden. Just you guys wait - I’m gonna find a way to bring it up in almost any conversation.

If you’re still reeling from the shock of this information bomb I just dropped, I understand. It took me a little bit to adjust too. If a lot of things about my sister and I started making sense for you, you’re not alone.

Please feel free to take a step back from this post and think.

But back to my original topic. For years now, every few months, I become crushingly depressed thinking about a trade or something similar that is disappearing. In senior year, there were a few weeks when I decided my future held one thing: taking the dying field of cobbling on my shoulders and dragging it across the sea to sweet salvation. This dream faded quickly as I looked up the average annual salary, and it was around 20,000. Also, once the novelty wore off, I realized I had little to no interest in repairing shoes and whatever else a cobbler does.

Last year, during a more troubling time in my life, I wanted to learn how to taxidermy. I’ve, for the most part, moved on, even though I secretly still harbor a desire to learn. Plus, my future house will ideally have a taxidermied animal inside it, if not mainly to freak out my guests.

Anyways, what I mean to say with all this is with all the contemplation on the generations that brought me here, I was thinking about who these people might have been and, more interestingly - what they might have worn.

Hats have always mystified me. They never seem to look right, but I am drawn to them. Because of this, a time when most men didn’t leave the house without a hat on seems outlandish.

Everybody had a hat that they loved enough to wear every day? Did these men feel naked when they, for some reason, had to leave their houses without them, self-conscious of their hatless heads? On a windy day, were lonely hats flying in the wind, free from the shackles of the balding heads they were used to? When did people stop wearing hats, and why?

For women too, what happened to the intricate hats with plastic or glass grapes on top, weird mesh layers, and flowers in every color you could dream of?

It could also be true that they only really wore so many hats in movies; I didn’t put much research into this.

There are so many hats in the world that get cast aside. I wonder how the bowler hats feel, sitting in some vintage store, gathering dust. Those poor hats, having done nothing wrong. Plus, the hipsters who dare to defy the times and wear them out get hated on, bullied even!! The nerve.

I would love to see more hats: pillbox hats, straw hats, boat hats, fedoras. I would also like to offer my official professional condolences to any of my followers who have been made to feel small while wearing a hat, either recently or in the past. I know one or two of you wore a fedora in elementary school, and I can only imagine what you went through.

Hats off to you, my readers

Violet

(Get it??? Because I was talking about hats, and hats off is a common phrase. It’s funny because I used a phrase that doesn’t always involve people taking their hats off in a conversation about hats. And that’s funny because, basically

Lists of Ten, Ranked

1. The Ten "Best" Comebacks. High up because you need to keep your enemies close, and if these are the 'best' comebacks, I need to learn how to respond and become unbeatable, like a Superman of Words. Fortunately, none of these are very good, so it won’t be difficult.

2. The Ten rules to live by Thomas Jefferson. You know it's going to be good advice when one of the top websites about these rules is called "The Art of Manliness." Manliness in its artistic wonder aside, if you did your due diligence, you would notice number nine: "Always take things by their smooth handle.” I agree, Thomas. I always said if there were one man on earth that I thought everyone thought was a president but actually wasn’t a president but in real life was, in fact, a president, it would be Thomas.

3. Ten provinces of Canada. Each one is better than the last! It keeps me on my toes.

4. Ten things you should know before filing a claim for unemployment, à la Illinois state government. This would be super helpful if I was trying to file for unemployment and lived in Illinois. Unfortunately, I am employed in a lucrative blogging career and have never been to Illinois. Semantics, man!

5. Ten things you should never say to a PS5 gamer. Before I set foot back in Montreal, I will read this list. I don’t know proper gaming etiquette, and this list will stop me from unintentionally offending any potential new friends. I will no longer call someone a "Sony Pony" or "Xbot" in good conscience again!

6. Ten things Jeremy Allan White can't live without. I don't believe he really “can't live without” his temporary tattoos or Diptyque candle. It should be more realistic, like oxygen and hair gel.

7. Ten Commandments. Boring, Basic. Nothing these eyes haven’t seen before.

8. Ten things I hate about you. One of them is that she hates that she loves him, despite his other distasteful qualities. I couldn’t tell you the other nine things if you asked me. Unmemorable.

9. Soccer players who wear the number 10 jersey. This is so low because there are not 10 of them. This list doesn't even qualify to be ranked here. Clearly, the writer is getting paid for quantity over quantity, as that would have been one awesome opportunity.

10. This list of ten things. This one’s last place because it’s too meta for me.

Rock Bottom

Recently, I’ve been a fiend for Sudoku.

My journey had been relatively peaceful, nondescript until now. Today, Sarah told me the New York Times reminds her of me. I’ll take it. (She said it was because I’m the only white American she’s friends with). After admitting I’m a bit of a fraud - recently, I’ve barely made it past the headlines, I told her about my recent habit of doing their Sudoku puzzles.

You know, I’ve never seen Pulp Fiction, but I imagine it’s about a paper manufacturer (tree pulp, fiction). Because of this, and because it’s so well known, my next reasonable conclusion would be that there’s a dramatic, show-stopping scene where some big boss, or ‘the Man,’ tells his employee (a girl with a black bob and bangs) some crushing news. To cope, she walks off to smoke a cigarette. (If you asked me what happens next, I’d say she throws the cigarette on the ground, distracted by her thoughts, and the factory catches fire).

I imagined myself to be the bangs and bob girl, struggling under the weight of this new burden. It felt like I got slapped in the face. “Easy??” “Easy!?” Like many things this summer, it caused me to start questioning my reality. Maybe I DID need to continue soul-searching.

The ‘Easy’ level, I’ll admit, is a breeze. The ‘Medium’ is doable. The ‘Hard’ level, though, while I can always complete it, does take me a minute. Sometimes, I taste the sweet tang of defeat and use auto-check part way through. Hey - who says I can’t be vulnerable?

The rock bottom I landed on brought me back to the story I’ve told most of you, one fateful night on the Brooklyn Promenade. It had been a pretty hot day for early summer, but the temperature was finally beginning to lighten up. With Celeste to keep me company, I pulled my arms tight to my chest.

Right before this, I had discovered the Italian language. While my feelings for Italians as people are nothing short of neutral, I was hyper-fixating on a couple of Italian phrases, ‘molto bene’ being one of them. You know the cliché, hope sets you up for disappointment? I’m not usually someone who subscribes to this; I think it makes life nothing short of boring, but, if you will, on this night, you could find me across enemy lines.

I was so far from hope I wouldn’t even know it if it looked me twice in the face. I didn’t allow myself to believe my Italian accent was any good (this is a lie) because if I believed it, my ego would soar dangerously high. Much like Icarus, I have flown too close to the sun before, and I learned my lesson (I had not learned my lesson).

The conversation continued, and it soon came time for me to use my new Italian catchphrase once more. “Molto bene.”

As if summoned by some greater force, as soon as the words flew off my tongue, someone asked a question.

“Are you from here?”

I wondered if it was what Amelia Earhart felt like soaring in the skies, looking down on the people below her and the vast open seas. Did they think I was Italian? Everything I had ever dreamed of seemed possible. Could it be true? I had never wanted to change my heritage so badly. Maybe I was Italian? Maybe she was right? It could be more than just genetics; it’s a feeling. Italian.

Shaking me out of my daydream, the inquirer continued her question, asking what Pier 17 was and what type of events they hosted.

She didn’t think I was Italian. I was crushed. Gone was the story I had begun imagining for myself, who I could have been if things were different.

I could still compare myself to Amelia Earhart; although, this time it was a little later in her journey.

Pier 17. Later, this same pier would force me to listen to a Yung Blud concert across the water (thank you, particle density). Over and over. When will it stop?