Under the Gaga Covers

I really love Lady Gaga parodies. They are my YouTube gateway drug.



People (well, Salon) keep saying that she's saturated us; we can't possibly love her more, and yet... new singles are slurped up whole with demands for more. I'm not tired of Gaga. And I love her fans.



The choice of subject isn't irrelevant; she's walking id for American teens, singing about heartbreak and cell phones and destructive relationships and dressing like your weirdest dreams.



People seem compelled to perform through her; her words in their mouths, her hips moving theirs. Clever and curious, funny, sexy, embarrassing.  All sincere.



Want more? Fifty more YouTube Gaga covers here.

Lateness

I don't know how it's possible, but I'm only just now reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.I'm only about 10 pages in; I'll let you know how it goes.
Ethel Waters, Carson McCullers, and Julie Harris, 1950

Mainers mark Earth Day; Portland selling 'green' items | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram

I did this last year: it was a great investment. I should have bought the compost turner, though. I'll be looking into that for this year.

Mainers mark Earth Day; Portland selling 'green' items | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram: "Portland is promoting the sale of compost bins, kitchen waste pails and rain barrels at discounted prices."

Marriage

I'm sure it comes as no surprise to anyone but me, but it turns out that I'm a traditionalist. Yesterday the princess and I went and bought engagement rings, and while she (very sensibly, considering her job) wanted gems that were recessed into the ring, I wanted a diamond solitaire.

I got it.

But trying to rationalize a whole bunch of conflicting feelings-- diamonds-are-blood-stained-meaningless-symbols, diamonds-are-beautiful, everybody-will-know-what-this-ring-means, why-does-it-matter-to-me-what-people-think, it's-money-we-don't-have, i-really-want-it-- is sort of a representation of how the marriage situation is developing in my mind.

I've been ambivalent about the gay marriage campaign, and marriage in general. I still don't think that it should be the Big Queer Cause sucking up all of the funding and attention--I would prefer that queer and lgbt organizers take up things like national healthcare, preventing/prosecuting hate crimes, and equal pay regardless of gender. Honestly, I think that most homophobia can be traced to a root of sexism, and working on THAT issue instead would improve the lives of so many people.

I also think that marriage is a fucked-up institution that is often the cause of much unhappiness.

Still.

I love the princess. I want our families and our community and our neighbors to recognize the nature of our relationship at a glance. I want to share my health insurance with her without having to prove to some city official that we've lived together for 12 months, which is what's required for domestic partnership. If I ever own anything valuable, I want her to have it after I die.

But more important than any of that, and the real reason I'm marrying her, is that I want to. I just plain old selfishly want to. I want to make a promise to her that I will always put our relationship first, and that I will stick around to work out whatever comes up in our lives together. We're not promising to be together until we die; I don't believe in making promises I can't keep, and I don't know what the future will bring either of us. But I do know that no matter what happens, we'll be in it together, and if there are challenges we will always try to fix things instead of walking away.

Nonetheless, I have a hard time with marriage as I've seen it practiced and talked about. I'm going to get married just the same.

More on this later, I'm sure.