Leather Studded Kiss & A Wedding

Lady Gaga is playing in town tonight, which basically means....avoid all traffic within a given radius of the arena tonight. Now, I must confess that I recently added Lady Gaga to my itunes/ipod. No, it simply cannot be helped. It's perfect music for a high-intensity elliptical workout. Sometimes, when I'm in my car and Lady Gaga comes on the radio, I'm tempted to bust out singing "Poker Face" and "Bad Romance". Some people have likened Lady Gaga to Madonna. What do you think? Is Lady Gaga the same thing to younger kids (like teens or tweens) that Madonna was in the 80's?

I am indeed of the generation that wore jelly bracelets and friendship beaads/pins, and jelly shoes in 1985, and danced to "Lucky Star" in front of my mirror, trying to emulate Madonna in said MTV video. I was eleven years old, already 5 feet tall (with no clue I'd only grow a couple more inches and so I slouched because I was a head taller than a lot of my friends). I had a crush on a kid in my class named J@ason and I hated that he liked a perfect little flawless classmate named Br!tney. (Oh, how my pre-teen jealous infatuation ate away at me and oh how silly it was but it felt oh so real and oh so intense). I already had boobs, still had braces on my teeth, and I liked singing "Like a virgin....touched for the very first time". Do you think we would have been friends if you had known me in 1985?

Either way, that's okay. The secret is out. I kind of sort of like Lady Gaga. I'll play "Bad Romance" as my gym music until I get tired of it and need to go back to listening to "This American Life" podcasts during my exercise sessions.

Speaking of "bad romance" (or romance gone bad?), yesterday I saw on Facebook that an ex got married. Yes. Architect Boy. And oof.....for a moment there, my heart stopped and it made me kind of not able to breathe as my eyes drank in the words that D had married over Labor Day weekend in Lake Tahoe, with fireworks in the background. It's okay, really, and I'm truly OK and happy for him. But I'd be dishonest to say it's not without a twinge of that "what if I had not decided he was Mr. Right-Now, but rather, Mr. Right". Would I be getting married this weekend then? It was I who called the shots and ultimately called it, after deciding that no, it couldn't work because a lot of what he wanted with me was on his timeline and not a timeline I felt I was ready for, with so many uncertainties and so much other stuff happening in my own life....I'm a big believer in that timing is everything when it comes to romance and relationships and all that. You can meet the right person at the right time, or at the wrong time. And you can certainly meet the wrong person at the right time (or the wrong time). If it doesn't align in that intricate and delicate balance of things, then it fails or is rocky at best.

I wonder at times, "Did I do the right thing?" but it is what it is. I am usually confident in my decisions and don't second-guess them once I decide something. And I'm not second guessing it here, but I think what I'm trying to tell you is that yes, it affects me in a way that catches me a little bit off-guard, much like it did when he told me exactly 1 year ago that he was engaged, seemingly so soon after I said we weren't a "we". I feel dirty saying this, but I dared to wonder at the time if she was someone he started seeing on the rebound, simply because it was so soon. But no. I feel a twinge of sadness and fondness for the couple of years that he was a presence in my life, and I genuinely rejoice for him and wish him a lifetime of happiness. We did remain friends, and that's what friends do or try to do: be happy for one anothers' happiness. Friendship can be such a tricky beast when we're all too human.