I want to be a hippie

I have recently decided that I would like to be a hippie. Since it seems that no one really likes hippies, I felt like I should take a few days to come up with some good reasons for this decision. I will plunge right in here and confess right off the bat that I do not actually like showering every day. Some days I would be perfectly content to just not shower and wander about town in comfortable clothes. In my current state, people would potentially say things like, ew, or that's gross, or that girl looks homeless. If I was a hippie people would simply say, 'stinking hippie'. On the matter of clothes themselves, I would love to wear ill-fitting vintage clothes in various stages of wrinklyness. Right now I wear regular ill-fitting clothes in the same stages of wrinkle and I merely look like crap. Instead of pitying my obvious lack of fashion, I want people to say, 'what the hell is that frickin hippie wearing?'

If I were to discuss my views on religion, society, and government, right now people would nod, smile, and think that this chick is effing crazy. If I was a hippie, though, they would be like, 'shut the hell up, you damn hippie'. And I would, because as a hippie I wouldn't force my beliefs on them. I'm pretty sure this last part here is the most important part of being a hippie, not necessarily the fact that I want to smell like patchouli (well, maybe not) and wear hemp clothes. So one might say that I am already, in fact a hippie. A hippie in disguise, if you will. Except I am becoming less disguised as time passes... I have noticed that sometimes I say things that make people's eyebrows raise, or in Tom's case utter the words, "what kind of frickin hippie shit is that?". Like when I said I thought it was weird that people drink cow milk... because we are not calves. Or the fact that I think there is more of God in nature than in any church I've ever been to. Or my feeling that I have too many things, things I don't want and don't need, and I have a constant desire to put the TV out with the trash and light the laptop on fire because they are stealing minutes of my life. I won't even get into my strong aversion to meateating, Republicans, and 'the man'. Sometimes I want to just go sit on a mountain and hum while my kids run around barefoot in cloth diapers.

See? I have no doubt that you now think I am crazy. Go ahead, say it. Ask me what on earth has happened to me since the last time you saw me. But if I showed up with lovebeads and little round glasses you wouldn't even have to ask. You'd just shake your head, a little sadly, and say, "the hippies got her." They did get me. I hope they get you too.

*Note* I would just like to say that I am drug free. Partially because you may be wondering at this point, and partly because some hippies are kind of into that. Not this one. While I may be fighting addictions to the internet and chicken, my only drug is love. (Just kidding, that's super lame and no one should ever say that and mean it.)