Category: Erin Dugan (page 3 of 4)

Morning Music

Some mornings, I can’t get out of bed. Not because I’m depressed or because I have two broken legs or because overnight my roommate decided to glue the side of my face to my pillow. It’s because my bed is magical, a place of little cares and utter comfort, a haven of turquoise sheets and throw pillows and the compounding effects of two (yes, two) mattress pads of down feathers and memory foam, a structure of cheap residence-hall-issued wood and dreams.

 

Life forces me to rise from this mythical place of REM and happiness. Recently however, the utter grogginess and despair I feel in my soul upon hearing an alarm clock has been somewhat lessened by the most basic and obvious auditory stimulation: music.

 

I never used to do music in the morning. I liked to occasionally listen to NPR, starting my day with a quick update on the tragedies of the world. Oddly enough, the voice of Robert Seagull didn’t inspire me to wake up and initiate my day on a peppy note. Last week however, my suitemate and I happened to be getting ready at the same time. She did something radical. She blasted Pandora Show tunes at 8:00 am.

 

It was incredible. My day was absolutely fantastic. So in the midst of what is likely a horrific academic week, a week where you and your bed may be going through a rough patch in your relationship (my bed and I certainly are), I have compiled a list of the five most game changing, life altering songs to start your day with.

 

5. Sir Duke- Stevie Wonder (because there are few things better than some old school Stevie to get you jazzed about the next 16 hours)

 

4. Gold Digger- Kanye West (because some mornings you just need to feel like a boss and Kanye was fantastic before he started naming babies after cardinal directions)

 

Screen Shot 2014-03-19 at 11.25.00 AM

 

3. Defying Gravity- Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth (because all you are doing is going to class and actually attempting to defy gravity would be far more difficult)

 

2. Good Day- Nappy Roots (because the title says it all)

 

1. Come on Eileen- Dexys Midnight Runners (because although I have no idea who Eileen is, her name never fails to put in me in better spirits)

Forty Days

I was raised Catholic. “Lent” is a word that I associate with ashes and approximately seven days of personal sacrifice. Like many of my peers, I’ve been “trying” to give something up for Lent since I was a little kid, even though the practice was never taken particularly serious in my family. At age eight, I remember telling my mother that would I give up green beans. At age 13, my Uncle Jim told me that as Irish Catholics, we benefited from a specific provision that allowed us to break our Lenten promise on Sundays. And every year that I can remember, my dad has exerted a laughable effort to give up “chocolate” (as the days go by, this definition usually evolves into a single brand or type of chocolate delicacy).

 

Screen Shot 2014-03-05 at 11.46.42 AMOn paper, giving something up for 40 days shouldn’t be that hard. And sometimes it isn’t. If you specify your chosen vice enough, or if you secretly plan to abandon all Lenten practices on Sundays, it won’t be difficult. Your 40 days of “renunciation” will pass by largely unnoticed. For the past few years, I have made Lent simple. I haven’t felt exceptionally close to God for a while now, I haven’t gone to church since I’ve been at UD, and I certainly haven’t felt the need to commit to 40 days of sacrifice. I’ve given up things like swearing (but only on weekdays), dining hall desserts (with the exemption of cookies and ice cream), and gum (unless of course I have just consumed an everything bagel or am studying).

 

This year however, I am accepting the challenge otherwise known as Lent. One of my roommates and I have decided to give up all sweets, including but not limited to SAS cupcakes, Hershey’s dark chocolate kisses, UDairy ice cream, pretzels smothered in Nutella, and dining hall chocolate chip cookies. It’s going to be incredibly difficult. I fully anticipate a number of cranky days and tormented nights. But that’s the point. Whether you’re Catholic or not, giving something up, something that you value too much or that you consume in excess, clears a space in your life for something positive. Making a sacrifice for 40 days demonstrates self-discipline, a willingness to prioritize, a certain level of maturity. No matter your religion, it’s good to evaluate your virtues and vices every once in a while. Without my hand in a bag of Cadbury eggs, who knows what I will be able to accomplish.

Why D.C. is Cooler Than You Think

I spent the month of January in Washington, D.C. Not Spain or Chile or Tanzania. Washington D.C.

 

On paper, my winter session trip selection seems rather lame. I didn’t perfect a foreign language or add any new vaccines to my medical record. I didn’t visit sacred tribal lands or ancient temples. I was literally 90 minutes from campus.

In reality however, D.C. was awesome. Just. Awesome. After spending nearly a month in such a metropolis, I have come to the conclusion that our nation’s capital is entirely underrated and to remedy this situation, I have composed a list.

photo-3Why D.C. is Cooler Than You Think it is: A List

  1. Free stuff. All of the Smithsonian museums (the Air and Space Museum, the American History Museum, the Portrait Gallery, the ever-exciting Postal Museum) are free. So is the National Zoo. So are all of the monuments. Essentially, it’s a poor college student’s paradise. You can spend all day at a mall without ever extracting your wallet.
  2. Senate and House hearings. If you are willing to have your bag scanned and enter through a metal detector, you can go to any open hearing in the Senate or the House. I know- it’s nerdy, but if you like politics or want to be able to say something like “Yes, John McCain looks quite old in real life,” then you really should attend. Hearing schedules are available online and based on my personal experience, anything that involves global warming is sure to be highly entertaining.
  3. Food. My time in D.C. was characterized by a great deal of food-oriented gluttony. I regret nothing. In Georgetown, the desserts are on point. We hit Baked and Wired for punny and mouthwatering brownies and cupcakes; Pie Sisters for pie (obviously); and Olivia Macaroon for you guessed it, macaroons. 8th Street, near the Eastern Market metro stop, is a haven for new-American cuisine, bakeries, and international delights like Thai and Cuban food. And anyone who knows anything eats at Good Stuff Eatery, home of the greatest cholesterol-raising gourmet burgers, milkshakes, and French fries. My one universal piece of advice for eating is to do it with friends. That way, you can share (take food off their plates) in order to sample everything a certain restaurant is known for.
  4. Bag taxes. When I realized that this was a thing in the District of Columbia, my hippie heart rejoiced. D.C. charges you $0.05 for every plastic bag you use when you buy groceries, nail polish remover, clothing, anything with a price tag, encouraging citizens to utilize reusable bags for all of their shopping excursions. In my personal opinion, it’s a brilliant source of revenue.
  5. Young people. Not to dismiss my elders, but D.C. is home to a plethora of young folks from every area of the country. Jobs on “The Hill” are high stress and high energy, meaning that if you aren’t an actual Senator or Representative, you are likely to be under the age of 35. If you can hide any socially awkward tendencies for at least the first two hours after an introduction, you might make a friend.

Erin Dugan

The Big 2-0

Today I am celebrating my 20th birthday. I have lived for 175,200 hours, 7,300 days, 240 months, and two decades. My teenage years are coming to a close and the reality of “aging” is setting in. I think I might even have my first wrinkle. It’s a pretty groundbreaking moment when you realize that you consider yourself to be old.

More important than the numbers and my need for eye cream however is the fact that it will be my first birthday celebrated without my family. This winter, I am in Washington D.C., fulfilling some credits and (hopefully) making some connections in the field I desire to one day work in. My mom won’t wake me up with a song or a freshly baked muffin. I won’t get to choose my favorite entrée for dinner or blow out any candles. Instead, I’ll get phone calls, a package that is scheduled for delivery some time between 4 and 7 pm, a poorly worded early morning text message from my father.

The cake I make for myself every birthday.

The cake I make for myself every birthday.

This feeling of distance is part of growing up. We are all destined to find ourselves in foreign territory at some point. The most successful people in the world don’t remain homebodies. They seek to see the world, to absorb knowledge, to extend the bounds of their comfort zones. Long distance relationships aren’t just the basis of rom coms or reality television. Chances are that most college students are in one, with parents, siblings, family traditions.

As the timely distance from childhood increases, there is loss. We stop believing in Santa or the Tooth Fairy. We lose the favorite stuffed animal we once couldn’t sleep without. We begrudgingly accept the fact that money does not spring from wallets and that laundry is real life. We realize that our parents aren’t invincible. We give up traditions that once seemed so important (like being awoken with freshly baked goods on the morning of your birthday). Magic is replaced by knowledge.

This year, my birthday will be bittersweet. I’ll be in a city that I love, participating in a program that could potentially set my future career into motion. I’ll be attending a hearing on Capitol Hill, something most U.S. citizens can’t say they have done (and something I am very nerdily excited for).  I’ll be surrounded by new friends. I’ll likely consume all manner of fatty delicacies at Good Stuff Eatery.

However, I highly doubt that anyone will awaken me with a song or a cake, and I don’t think candles are allowed in our student residence. My boss won’t take the excuse “but it’s my birthday” for any lackluster performance and my parents won’t be around to refer to January 9th as “my special day”.  I will miss these little things that once made the passing of a year of life so astronomical, so exciting, that sleep the night before was impossible. But this aging thing brings about a new kind of thrill, new prospects like drinking legally and living in your first real apartment and graduating, more important milestones than an anniversary of being born. 

Erin Dugan

Comfortable

I specifically remember listening to National Public Radio when I was seven. It was the first dose of purely American news I ever fully digested. We had lived on a military base in Stuttgart Germany for the past three years. Military orders and a few moving trucks brought us to south Texas, a place that served patriotism super-sized. Audibly famous radio reporter Don Gonyea explained the items on the menu. It was NPR talk that made me realize my mother was incredibly different from her military wife counterparts, a unique inhabitant of one of the reddest states in the nation. “Liberal” and “primary” were words I sprinkled into family dinners before I knew their precise definitions. Morning Edition played when I got ready for school, Car Talk was always on after my soccer games, and Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me made my dad laugh.

[Later on that year?] When I was in the second grade, my mom purchased John Mayer’s first album, Room For Squares. The tracks of that album became the background music of my early years on earth. If it wasn’t filling our Volvo, it was emanating from our home stereo system. If it wasn’t available for play, it was hovering on the surface of my mother’s lips and vocal chords. She thought he was a genius. “Have you heard ‘No Such Thing’? This is a kid who was a total nerd in high school and look at where he is now.” By the age of eight, I knew every word to every song on the album. Heavier Things dropped in 2003. In my mind, it was the work of a musical god. I went so far as to debate one of my carpool drivers on the merits of the track “Split Screen Sadness”. Mrs. Scheffler found it too poppy, while I found it catchy and a unique departure from his previous work. I was a third grader. By the time Continuum came out, I was a fan of unparalleled devotion. I considered “Dreaming With a Broken Heart” to be the greatest song of all time.

I started watching Friends when I was ten, a consequence of the Dugan household’s very first television and antenna. We had a grand total of ten public channels. One played episodes every weekday night from 9:00 to 9:30 pm. My mother made this discovery before I did. And despite the fact that most of the references were over my head and that it was a relatively late hour for television, she let me watch. When she felt guilty about some sexually explicit comment that no doubt confused me, her signature phrase was “Remember, this is just a show. Real life isn’t like this.” But I hoped that it was. I wanted to live in a well-decorated New York apartment with a crazy neighbor and a crew whose lives were so entertaining that national audiences found themselves laughing.

Some of the time, I find myself acting as a cultural nomad. My iTunes contains both dirty rap and bluegrass, my closet holds studded black tank tops and cashmere cardigans, my bookshelves hold works by JK Rowling and Ralph Ellison. But more often, I find myself referencing NPR stories, scrolling through artists on my iPod until I reach John Mayer, and quoting Friends. I know them well. I can identify reporters by their voice alone, I know every word to every song, and I consider myself one of the gang.

My preferences aren’t something I give much thought to. They so heavily involve my past, something I rarely consciously reconnect with. I prefer to think of myself as living fully in the present, so on top of everything that I am already planning for the future. In my mind, nostalgia is for the weak, and so I convince myself that I am repressing it, that I don’t experience it. Music gets me from one point to another and the news makes me an informed citizen and television keeps me entertained. I like to think of my tastes as dynamic, current and automatic, growing up just as I do. But they aren’t.

The most significant aspects of my personal preferences involve comfort. I associate Robert Seagull with weekend family pancake breakfasts. The conversation topics of the Central Perk Cafe made me laugh with my mother and the first friend I made in Catholic middle school. John Mayer released Battle Studies when I was in a huge fight with my friends and Born and Raised 12 days after the sudden death of my godfather. My life has been a series of transitions, changes, instability, the pillars of a Navy brat. Constants were and are rarities. And while the news of NPR can be biased, the humor of Friends is juvenile, and the music of John Mayer is vanilla, I don’t have to try to like it or understand it. It is worn in. It is safe.

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