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If you like hip hop, this one’s for you.

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I went to the Village and sat around in Washington Square. Next to me was this good-looking hippie 16-year-old kid. A dirty old man tried to proposition us both. He asked me if the kid was my lover (an interesting idea). Anyway, we lied our heads off to him.

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I am constantly surprised at how my ideas and opinions can shape-shift. As recently as seven months ago, I might have told you something I believed and I might have really, really believed it at the time.

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Tell strangers they are beautiful. Tell them you want to curl up beside them. Curl up beside them and imagine that you have morphed into a single sushi roll. Pretend that you are the seaweed and the other person is the rice. Cherish this feeling.

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I happen to actually be from the “Jersey Shore,” and as you already can tell, I am a total sweetheart and absolutely worth getting to know (HA, get in line). In all seriousness though, I have a valid argument, because in New Jersey everything is an argument, to make about the “Jersey Shore.”

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I once heard an actual Portlander say (and I quote, as evidenced by the upcoming quotation marks): “If it’s yellow, let it mellow.” This trite rhyme and disgustingly hippy tendency in an effort to conserve water did not make me vomit or scream, but it did make me turn up my nose and just feel generally sad and grossed out.

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My time there captured the stereotypical joys of white Americans as no other place could. I’ve been to Texas and I’ve been to Paris Review readings; both are white in a very distinct way, but each repudiates the other, thus reflecting only half the diversity of white Americans.

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It seems like every Monday morning I trudge into work, log into Facebook and find you at the top of my news feed: jeans rolled-up, in mid-dive over a beautiful mountain spring. Or in a dimly lit bar, engaged in conversation with some transient friend of yours (you look like you’re saying something to the effect of “Yeah, well it’s only illegal because the government saw it as a threat to the paper industry and blah blah blah”).