So, what are your hopes and dreams?

I often ask this to provoke people, usually in a moment when I have nothing else to say to them, or if the conversation is in need of an injection of character that is at the moment lacking. But I have never thought seriously why people squirm when I ask this, exhibit varying degrees of uneasiness, annoyance (understandable, since I partly aim to be a pest), and resentment towards me and my trump card of a conversation starter and ender.

Personally, I do not see the harm this question has. Are we not at the age where we are constantly thinking of our future, anyway? Don't we, as a generation of college students and grads with a whole world of adulthood possibilities, always have our hopes and dreams at the front of our minds? It does not seem like it would be a stretch for people to throw something out there for the sake of conversation, like "I plan to apply for graduate school," or "I want to travel and live in a few places before I am tied down with a mortgage."

In practice, "what are your hopes and dreams" is the conversational equivalent of waking someone up from a deep sleep for no good reason. They become irked by my nerve to ask such a question. Perhaps I need to be more sensitive and consider how personal and meaningful hopes and dreams are to all of us, and to display them willy-nilly without proper warning or prep time may throw some off guard. For all fairness, I do not expect a prepared answer or essay, but only to talk about what is on everybody's mind.

What concerns me is that hopes and dreams are not at the front of people's minds, that one is forced to search themselves every time I ask that question. If they have to search, they may find that they don't know what they want or they don't have an exact plan, and we are so often told that we need to know what we want to do with ourselves, that they feel bad about this. I do not wish to make people feel bad, but I also do not demand to hear a friend's detailed five year plan, since I do not have one of my own, or at least for a long time I did not. I am more than content to hear my friend's ideas and options on what they wish to do in their future, and this makes for an interesting conversation. It is fruitful to talk about these subjects, since talking about hopes and dreams is one step into actualizing them.

I wonder if people resent explaining what they have been thinking in regards to their future, especially at random. They do not wish to expose their uncertainty, their vulnerability, even among friends? It is one thing to have trouble deciding on a plan, but to refuse to think and talk about having a plan, I can not help but think as avoiding the inevitable. Not to say that I devalue the option people take of "going with the flow" and waiting for their future to come to them, whether it be the development of ideas over time or by chance opportunity. But this in itself is a plan, and I am curious to know why people choose it.

Perhaps what irritates my friends most about this question is because it forces them to face a fear that they have. I too am often overwhelmed by the vastness adulthood offers, a whole life of time and agency, risk and responsibility. Our childhoods were filled with hope for the possibilities of the future, but the demands of education and the distance time placed between these two chapters allowed us to place adulthood on the shelf for perpetually later analysis. Now that we approach the event horizon, it causes us to be still and uncertain. Trying to conceptualize it all can be daunting, and sometimes I have to accept my bewilderment and fear of the unknown and move on with my life and look forward to gradual enlightenment. We also can not anticipate what will happen, completely out of our control, that will impact the course of our lives and cause us to readjust our plans and dreams. But most of the time, when I am not in a state of panic, I am open to discussing with peers about life, for you only learn from it.

I have never considered why some of my friends hate this question, but I am now concerned about their unwillingness to consider the future or verbalize their hopes and dreams, however short term, small, or subject to change they may seem. Am I asking them to do something that they do not wish to do? If one's hopes and dreams are not easily acceptable or in the process of being conceptualized, then where are they? Are there any: large or small, for this year or for this lifetime? Is it not ok to not know the short term, but have a vision of some far away life, whether it be one of security or family, or a particular place in mind, and to express it? All of these are important, and I do not see the stupidity of asking or talking about them. I dare people to have hopes and dreams, to risk sharing them with the ones they trust, even with the chance that they will never materialize, that we may fail. I do see the stupidity of avoiding these topics out of the fear of the unknown, out of the fear to dream, to not talk about one of the biggest things in the room, where ever we go.

So long, for now

I left Washington DC on Sunday, after spending a whole day touring with my parents, taking pictures next to monuments. The weather was hard to bear in the other extreme, when I got here in August, it was humid and too hot. When we were walking on the Mall, it was windy and too cold. Helen hung out with us for part of the time, and she cooked me a breakfast of mimosas, french toast, and veggie bacon. I fell asleep as soon as I sat down in the car, so I did not give DC a proper final goodbye.

But I don't see it as a goodbye, I will be seeing this funny but charming city soon enough. I decided (don't worry, there is good chance I will change my mind again) that I will go to law school, either a specialized program or with a combined masters, after a year or so of working in DC. I concluded this looking at snow-covered pines somewhere in Pennsylvania, thinking that I would like to take my skills anywhere, not just our nation's capital. But, in the meantime, DC is just as fine of a place as any to hang one's hat at the end of the day, and it is one of the few places that has ample jobs for what I have been trained in my undergraduate career: to umm... be critical and political!

So, see you later, DC. Hopefully you will have an affordable apartment waiting for me when I get back. Please?

I smell.

My roommate came into my room to avoid working on her paper. She said something in my room smelled. I told her it was most likely me.

She agreed.

Oh, Lord have mercy!

I am in the midst of writing a research paper on U.S. sanctions on Burma. It is a typical story. Girl has assignment, girl avoids thinking about assignment, writing assignment, up until a week before it is due. Girl regrets her consistent past decisions to not work on her assignment, for it would have made this current week a lot more easy for her. Grant it, this particular story has some sweet plot twists, like this evening, for example.

I finally saw the Detroit Cobras! I manage to miss out on seeing them every time they come by either Detroit or Cleveland, but thanks to my mentor, I had a ball with Jane Claire as we drunkenly twisted and mash potatoed to garage rock covers of old R&B tunes. It was fun to just go out and dance to a live band, and judging by the lack of a crowd, it seems not too many people want to do that these days...fuck them.

I am actually appreciating the process of writing this paper. I wake up, I create, I go out and have fun. Its an honest way to be. A part of me is pained that I am not outside, fully enjoying DC and its first fall of snow. I have about a week left here in DC, and I dare say, I will miss this town. There are so many more museums I have let to see. Hello, Air and Space museum? And all the African American historic sites I never got around to seeing because I am a bad white person! Argh!

No, its not just that. I have fallen for living in a new place, making new connections, living my life. But lets stop beating around the truth. I am smitten by a certain someone, someone I would rather not leave to go back to Ann Arbor just yet, and would rather spend my time with than writing about Burma. The reason I am typing frantically over sanctions and this troubled Southeast Asian country is because I have spent too much time falling in love. I wonder as I write this assignment if I will regret my choices if I do not receive the grade I feel entitled to, if my undergraduate career of last-minute bullshitting will not carry me through. Should I place a footnote for the professor, explaining that being alive is just as important as, if not more than, producing a 20+ page qualitative research paper on some social/political topic? Or perhaps all my charm and graceful encounters with Ifie will rub her the right way and she will give me a good mark. Or she will see right through me. Either way, I only have the moment.

The Keeper let me down

My keeper broke the other day. The tip you pull in order to pinch the base snapped and made it nearly impossible to get out. The whole thing was a messy affair and made me late to work.

My keeper lasted me three years and two months. When I bought my keeper at the tender age of 18, I thought it would stay with me during a formative decade in my life. I imagined being with her long into my ripe late twenties and both of us agreeing what a long, strange trip it had all been before I purchased another rubber menstrual cup. Sad to say, we didn't even make it through undergrad.

Since I keep up the facade with my mother that I still use tampons and pads, I let her buy me some for DC (I figure coming-out as a Keeper user will be an uncomfortable conversation about sanitation). I grew tired of these disposable feminine hygiene products rather quickly and decided that I needed another keeper in my life. Even if I did not save the projected $600+ I would have if my Keeper had not broken, it is still amazing for its convenience alone.

I called up the local Whole Foods to ask if they had Keepers. After explaining what it was to the male sales assistant, he told me that they only had Diva Cups. Being indoctrinated into the Keeper camp at a young age by neo-crunchy feminists, I had a strong bias against the Diva Cup. But I figured that if silicone is good enough for my dildos, its good enough for my blood cup, and would perhaps last longer than the gum tree variety.

Whole Foods only sells the Diva Cup. I felt like I was buying something that could be sold in the same aisle at K-Mart as Barbie and Bratz dolls, based on its packaging and matching accessories. The extra cardboard does not appeal to bleeders who want to cut down on paper use, and the overkill that is the feminine color scheme did not make me any happier. But, alas, my impatience and desire to reuse my menstrual appliances won over my disapproval of the brand's marketing strategies. I went home to find that each cups comes with a cute DIVA flower pin that I can put on my backpack, as well as a cheap and gawdy storing pouch.

Hating aside, there are a few upgrades that the Diva Cup offers compared to its earth-sister cup. The silicone is much softer and thinner than the intimating brown cone of the Keeper. Also, there are markers that measure in oz and ml how much blood your Diva Cup has collected, which reminds me of all those science classes I said goodbye to after I received my high school diploma. Doesn't everyone want to know how much they bleed? Maybe I can start recording it...yeah.

The one downside to the functionality of the Diva Cup is the shortness of the tip, which makes the wearer have to dig a little deeper in order to pinch the base and empty. I realize that my over-reliance on the Keeper tip is what ultimately led to its premature death, now I see with the Diva Cup that all I needed to do was finger myself (a bit more) every time I wanted to gain access.

The makers of the Keeper now make a silicone Mooncup that has the same shape and tip, and I wish Whole Foods would sell this one so I didn't have that silly pouch and pin. I know that co-ops like the one in Ann Arbor sell Keepers, so why doesn't a mega organic store like Whole Foods sell every blood cup our market economy has to offer? Is it the nature of corporate takeover that takes even the most feminist and environmental product and make it another consumerist gender stereotype? Perhaps the makers of the Diva Cup hope that by marketing their product as cute and girly, it will attract women who would otherwise shrink away from the idea of a reusable blood cup or, goddess forbid, touching their own bleeding pussies. Women have to be cool with their pussy blood to handle a cup, and there is so much shame and disgust surrounding menstruation in our culture, that it may take some encouragement to get more women on board. But does it have to be through obnoxiously pink packaging, or the coaxing of a cheap flower pin?

Its in the name itself. You have the Keeper and Mooncup, which carries on in the environmental-feminist tradition of the Keeper, owned by many a girl who are or went through an Ani DiFranco phase, are veg, and/or went to summer camps run by hairy college-age feminists. Then you have the Diva Cup, which embraces the image of the woman who still wants to be fabulous and feminine, while also saving the environment or avoid monthly batches of bleached cotton up their vag. For others, it is just the right product for them, it is smaller and more flexible, and you can measure your blood!

So, am I being too critical over this whole Diva Cup thing? Considering its lodged inside me right now, maybe, but I have read one too many Bitch magazines cover to cover to not write social commentary on menstrual cups. Goddess bless.

Going out with the tide

I apologize for falling behind with semi-regular updates on my life in DC, but noting my guilt is mostly an attempt at self-flattery, thinking that I have a readership. All that aside, DC has picked me up in a gust of restless confusion, for everyday I wake up with one idea and fall asleep with something completely different.

I am Dana, and I am a graduating college senior that does not know what she wants to do with her one precious life.

("Hi, Dana")

I came to DC hoping to figure out whether to go to law or public policy school, and to find a job for the year off I planned to take before going on to grad school. Up until a few days ago, I had fanciful dreams of living in China and writing plays about the history of small Oregon towns. It seemed completely possible, and indeed, it still can be, but now, I am back right where I started. I want to either go to law or public policy school, and would like to get a job in the non-profit sector in DC after I graduate. (bitter sarcasm bubbles up to the surface) Awesome, a semester well spent. Now I have it all figured out.

I am not the only one. All my friends are in different states of the same soon-to-be or post-graduated quagmire. Some days, I panic. Sunday I went to a mediation gathering at an Unitarian church with my friend Eunice, and was embarrassed to cry in front of all those meditating strangers. It also didn't help that my cell phone went off right in the middle of the practice and I could sense everyone losing their much sought after inner peace. Sorry, Sangha.

Other days, I am quite hopeful and excited, which is obviously more comfortable, but I know see the necessity of having both the dark and the light with me, or the yin and the yang, if I were to take from my mediation visit or my undergraduate education. Being afraid and uncertain can be inspirations to move and do, while embracing the possibilities makes it possible to find what is right.

In the meantime, it is just so easy to enjoy myself. I thought I would miss Michigan falls, but in DC, the fall goes on and on, and I dare say I am charmed by this funny valentine. There will be sad, and there is plenty of bad in this town, but if I can still see the good and keep the hope, then I am going to make it after all.

(Tosses hat up into the air)

DMC meets NYC

I didn't know if I was out of Jersey, I gazed out of my Chinatown bus looking for any sign of official New York. The guy next to me helped me out by pointing to the Statue of Liberty in the distance. Oh, I guess I am in NYC.

How did I go about 21 years as a young American without ever visiting NYC? Distracted, I was. Shaen was an excellent hostess and has great command of the territory. She led me all over lower Manhattan and out to her Hasidic Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn. I liked the chilled nights we spent wandering and admiring the brownstones and fire escapes. Now I know where all the hype stems from, NYC has it all. I have a greater appreciation for its influence on American and global culture, and I wish more cities could have its energy. Yes, lets work, live, and play all in the same place. I imagine there would be a lot more interesting towns and cities in the US if that were the case.

There are more hipsters than rats in NYC, unfortunately. Before this comes off as a wide brush stroke of hating against hipsters, lets provide a solid definition of hipster and the issues that arise from their grouping in large numbers.

By hipster, I mean an individual that grabs on to the general counterculture scene that takes much of its influence from NYC art and culture, and becomes a drone of sorts. Urban Outfitters and Pitchfork provide them the tools to adopt the mainstream of the non-mainstream and the inability to think for themselves. Going to NYC, I expected to see new and different people from the people in Ann Arbor and DC who wished they were in NYC. Yes, I saw some clever fashion combinations and hairstyles, but they were drowned out by what everyone has become so use to, thank you American Apparel! NYC may be one of the major epicenters of new ideas of culture, and everyone flocks to it because of it. In their migrations, they bring back generic reflections of what the city projected, creating whole populations of walking, breathing echoes of itself.

Besides this lack of visible originality among my peers, I am increasingly concerned over our generation's dependence on irony. But that is for another time.

I do not have issue with all things associated with hipster. I have accepted skinny jeans and...well, I am sure someone could call me out on more things. I would rather hang out at the Black Cat than 99% of clubs and bars in DC. There is a lot of commonality. Its counterculture relates to my lifelong sentiments of not identifying with mass media and so forth. It is easy to understand.
We went to a girls party at the Knitting Factory, and while many of the girls were very cute, they also looked, talked, and acted the same. How American it is to be caught up in individualism, with hipsters being no different. In attempts to question, reject, and go against mainstream society, their culture settles with accepted norms and trends that ultimately go against their original purpose. I would say, "how ironic," but its happened many times before with previous counterculture movements. Hipsters have a heightened awareness of their individuality and are defensive to be labeled or associated with the word. It would be a defeat. The conflict of human desire to be unique and to be part of a larger association, throwing punches in NYC and all over this land.

I agree with Jane Claire, it is much better to go and create "your own scene" than show up to something that is already happening and try to squeeze yourself in. Make a scene, where ever one goes.