Cute, right?

You know what is odd? Married women, ostensibly happily married women, who love Adele.

Seriously, folks. Adele’s music is beautiful, but it is the sort of music that requires one to appreciate the lyrics. And the lyrics simply do not resonate with me as a woman who is not only married, but deeply content in love.

It is crazy cute for little girls to sing along with Adele precisely because the music does not match with their lives. But that dissonance is confusing rather than cute when seen in my peers.

I am continually surprised at all those whom I see gushing about Adele. Because they just so happen to all be married women who present themselves as happily married.  So what is the draw? Why would you want to spend all day listening to lyrics about how we “could have” had it all if you do have it all?

My first thought was that perhaps all the stories about how you never get over your first love are true and all of these women are still pining for Mr. Ex even while portraying themselves to the world as happy with Mr. Perfect.

Then I heard “Rolling in the Deep” yet again and realized that maybe these songs are appealing because these women have gotten to the point where they are completely disillusioned with marriage. It may be perfectly normal to have times where you think of your husband as something of an ex considering how different your relationship is from what you could have had.

What say you? What am I missing here? Should I give up my deeply romantic Over the Rhine in exchange for some upset Adele?

I really had no idea. I guess I must be the man who looked in the mirror and then promptly forgot what he looked like. I guess that is why God created digital cameras and blogs. Now I will forever know what I look like.

What do you look like first thing in the morning?

God grant me the serenity
to accept the man I cannot change;
courage to change the man I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

I tried to explain that I wasn’t really sure why I was so sure that he needed to see them, but that I thought they looked like something out of My Fair Lady and he likes old styles, and for some reason I just thought that they just looked…

And as I stumbled around, Josh provided the word: posh.

I responded with an appreciative “ha” but he just looked at me.

“Um, you do know that she’s Posh Spice from the Spice Girls, right?”

“No, I was just trying to think of an appropriate British term.”

I would have laughed harder if I’d known that he was not purposely making a pun. Oh well.

So instead of finalizing our choices and fighting over whom to vote for, Josh and I have been spending time watching and voting on attack ads thanks to WSJ.com.

I cannot figure out exactly how it happened. How did I go from the 15-year-old who told my parents whom to vote for in primaries to the 19-year-old who went door to door campaigning for a certain candidate for president to the 25-year-old who is not voting and feels a little bit guilty but not upset?

The oddest part of all is that I am actually enjoying apathy. I like the fact that Josh and I are spending our time laughing at things like this:

and not fighting over candidates. It is hard to feel like one vote matters in a state like Maryland, and maybe I will end up with a bit more balance after taking a walk on the apathetic side.

How are you feeling about the election? Are you emotionally involved with the results? Have you campaigned before? Have you ever not voted?

I remember mocking my father’s concern about NPR to my eldest sister. She seriously responded that perhaps NPR had actually shaped her and catapulted the apple far from the tree. I thought she was crazy.

I tried to be good. But then one day I felt rebellious and tuned into public radio… to hear the voice of one of my parents’ attorney friends defending homeschooling. Mah Goodness! The irony pushed me over the edge, and from then on I did not bother to try to follow my father’s wishes.

So I spent days listening to the impeachment trial of the the chief justice of the state supreme court, and then stayed up all night to hear the results of the 2000 presidential elections. I even recorded part of the Bush v. Gore case. All isolated homeschooler geek jokes are so appropriate that they probably aren’t even funny. I may also have told my sister that I was going to name my first son “David” after a certain David A. Brancaccio.

Anyway, all that to say, NPR got me through some deep, dark, times as my rebellious teenage drug of choice.

So my love for various NPR personalities is not entirely healthy. And that is why I am convinced that this is by far the best Lady Gaga spoof ever.

Are you not amused?

I told Josh about it in a mygoodnessIknewtherewasareasonthatIdontwanttobeaSAHM sort of way. He responded with a simple “um, Stepford Wives?”

But, as much as I hate the world in which being a mother must be everything for a woman, and thus must be dressed up with faux business cards… they make sense to me. It is a pain to try to write down contact information on random slips of paper while keeping an eye on your children. And it is much easier to figure out which of the ten women you met yesterday you are supposed to call to set up a play-date if you have a card with a picture of the child and mother’s name and contact information on it.

So I am torn. The idea is rather sad, but the mommy card does make a bit of sense in reality.

Would you use them? Do you use them?

Then some friends had extra tickets to Six Flags and insisted that Josh and I join them, despite my protestations that I would be a waste of a ticket.

So I tried The Mind Eraser™ and this is what I learned: roller coasters simply do not work for me. The experience was entirely unpleasant. Since I would have been scared I used my two typical coping mechanisms: logic and prayer. At first I reminded myself that it was highly unlikely that I would be hurt since injuries and fatalities are very bad for business. Then I spent the rest of the ride silently repeating the words which I use to offer God my suffering during any unpleasant experience.

The experience had nothing in common with fun. There was no surge of adrenaline or post-ride high. Afterward I concluded that I had probably ruined the fun with my coping mechanisms.

I never had an I’mgoingtodiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie feeling, so I did not get the rush of lovely hormones and it all seemed miserable and pointless. Why would anyone wait in line for hours for this? I can understand uber-Catholic areas having people in line on their knees waiting for roller coaster rides while praying the rosary, but I do not think that people typically go to amusement parks to do penance.

Do you like roller coasters? Am I just not masochistic enough to enjoy thrill rides, or did I just ruin the fun for myself?

Enter Rockabye Baby!

I grew up in a home that was rather loud and did not include much in the way of lullabies or rock. I would not actually buy this for any child in my care, but I still find it rather hilarious.

What do you think of nontraditional lullabies and baby soothing?

Then I got married. And nothing changed. My husband cared about football even less than I did. My father-in-law was apparently the quarterback of his high school team but never cared that much about pro-football. I am sure that this had nothing to do with the fact that Mississippi does not have its own professional football team, nor with the fact that the New Orleans Saints just were not that inspiring. Anyway, according to Josh, his family never watched football other than the one time his parents made the children watch a game so that they would not be entirely clueless.

And then we moved back to Mississippi. And everyone was so excited about the fact that, for once in team history, the Saints were playing well. Very well. I did not care to follow any of the games, but I told Josh that we sort of had to cheer for the team given their name. He agreed and added that the team colors are actually some of the most appealing visually when it comes to clothing; and who can complain about the fleur-de-lis?

Then there is the fact that you have to feel badly for the people of New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. It rather stinks when your whole area is destroyed by a hurricane and everything takes years and years to rebuild. So it is really nice for them to have the happiness of football. I do not know whether it is the fact that winning is a surprise, or the results of Katrina, or something else entirely, but I have never seen complete communities as excited about a team in the way that they are here. And yes, that includes being in Boston when the Red Sox finally started winning. That was a different sort of crazy..

If all that were not enough reason to cheer for the Saints (and really, how could color preference not be enough to choose a team?) the issue was firmly settled yesterday. No, it was not the fact that the Saints won the game against the Vikings, it was what happened in Church.

The evening Mass apparently started just before the Saints game and the priest took note of the fact without mentioning the half-empty church. The homily was short (smart pastoral move, no?) and when the cantor announced the recessional hymn, the pianist broke in with “would it be inappropriate if we sang ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’ instead?” The priest said “that would be fun” and the congregation sang it with glee.

And so I asked myself what other team could possibly sing such a song in Church? The only thing that I could come up with was the Steelers with a twist, or being lifted up on Eagles’ wings, or maybe something about Jesus riding on a colt? But really, none of that can come close to belting out “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Since we do not have any songs praising Cardinals, I think the matter is closed. I am officially a Saints fan.

How could it be otherwise?