I have been thinking about the terms cool, hip and rad. In the past month I've been told I was both cool and hip. I find myself puzzled by the application of these adjectives. I never think of myself as either. Cool I have gotten before, but hip was new to me. So I started thinking more about these terms, what they mean to me, and why I reject them out of hand when someone tells me I am either of them.

When I was in high school, I was the opposite of cool; I was a nerd. I was social enough to know people and get along, but I was never in. Those were the cool kids. I knew my place. It wasn't with them. I didn't have the right hair, clothes, or extra-curricular activites. I didn't have the right religion or the right friends to be cool. I probably didn't listen to the right music or read the right books, either. I was too much of a goody two-shoe and a brown-noser. I wanted to please those in authority too much to rebel in any sort of way that would make me acceptable.

My college had cool kids, too, but in a different way. I wasn't cool like them, either. It's much harder for me to put my finger on what cool meant at Oberlin. I probably wasn't erudite enough, PC enough, queer enough, radical enough, disdainful or snarky enough.

After I graduated from college I moved to Seattle and began to figure out who I was in the wider world. I think I moved from arrogance to true confidence, and stopped worrying so much about pleasing others and just being true to myself (even though this was not ever something I compromised on; I just had a lot less clarity when I was younger). Usually this meant finding things and doing things that were interesting and fun to me. And then finding the people who enjoyed those things, rather than trying to like things to gain someone's approval.

I still see myself as a nerd. I like nerdy things. I am not terribly concerned with my appearance (clothed and clean is my new motto - used to be "comfort before beauty, and if it happens to look nice, that's great"). I don't see people "following" me any more than when I was in high school.

So tell me what cool and/or hip means to you.