Concerning Anniversaries

Next month marks the legitimate one-year anniversary of Hipster, please! Sure this blog was around for a bit before that, but it was mostly just me fucking about, a lonely man-child trying to find his place in this big ol' Internet.

Once I settled on a tangible purpose, I began working. Alone.

If you'd asked me back then where I'd be with this project a year later, I would've remarked the same: alone.

I would've been greatly mistaken.

Some people actually read this blog. It's a fact I try to deny, but I know it to be true. And though their number is far from legion, they are – you are – good, decent, nerdy people whom I appreciate greatly. But there's more than that.

Hipster, please! has become, I'm both pleased and surprised to say, a legitimate team effort. Fine folks like Beefy and Antisocial provide me with storage space and bandwidth for Radio Free Hipster for no other reason than to help out. I'm also fortunate to have new friends like Denika, Church, and Matt who share with me their music, pass on tips concerning nerd news happenings, and are always quick to hip me to any new artists they happen to come across, and old homies like my boy Brüx helping to keep me on top of events that I couldn't possibly attend myself.

I guess what I'm saying is that Hipster, please! wouldn't be possible without all of you. Whether you're a reader or a direct contributor, I humbly thank you for your time and for making the past year so damn much fun. You're too good to me.

But there's one person who helps more (in a way that is both more palpable and more nebulous) than anyone else, and that's my wife Em. Now, as a rule, she doesn't read the blog – hell, the odds of her actually reading this are slim, at best – and she has only the vaguest idea what, exactly , it is I do when it comes to my writing. Still, she supports me, even though the concept is foreign to her.

She works harder than I do and makes more of a financial contribution to our little family, but she never gives me any shit about it. As I'm whiling away my lunch hour in my little office, ignoring my real duties in favor of trading emails with Dan or YTCracker or adjusting my podcast's track list, she's busting her ass dealing with new mommies and even newer babies. In more ways than one, her hard work affords me the opportunity to do this – writing about music – which is what I long to do.

Interestingly enough, our five-year wedding anniversary is today, and, even though she probably won't see this, it seemed important to mark that celebration as well.

It's just nice to realize that the solitary task that I set for myself is not nearly as solitary as I thought.

I'm no braggart. I don't like to boast, but I am full aware that I'm a very lucky man.

Hopefully, I'll find some novel ways to celebrate Hipster, please!'s first birthday. I've got a couple ideas in the works already.

And as for celebrating the wedding anniversary? Five words: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie.

What can I say? Y'all know I'm a huge nerd!