Celebration: Some Silly Little Love Songs

In celebration of Valentine's Day, I'm sharing some of my favorite songs about love.

MY FUNNY VALENTINE. Performed by Ella Fitzgerald. The first time I ever heard this song, Jordan was singing it, and as many versions as I've heard since then, his is still my favorite. We may think we want someone to tell us, "You are the most beautiful, you are the smartest, you are perfection personified," but isn't it a lot nicer to hear someone say that even though you're merely human they like you just the way you are? That's why I like this song.

SONNET 29. Rufus Wainwright. Little known story behind this song: The Cosmic Director of the Arts, who is in charge of all the art created in the many universes, was approached one day by his arch-enemy and former childhood friend the Cosmic Director of Small Mindedness with the challenge, "I bet you can't make Shakespeare any better." The Cosmic Director of the Arts had just two words to say in response -- "Rufus Wainwright."



LOVE'S A GAME. The Magic Numbers. For those who may be without valentines this year, a song about the fickleness of love. But I dare you to try and feel sorry for yourself while listening to this song. Also, remember that I love you...just not in THAT way.

Celebration: Who Do You Think You Are

I don't watch a lot of real-time TV. I get my shows online, usually. But every now and then I sit down for some couch-style TV watching and this weekend I saw a show I'd never heard of before but was fascinating. The show Who Do You Think You Are traces the genealogy of a different celebrity every episode. Generally, I find the lives of celebrities only interesting in the gossipy sort of way that loses its intrigue quickly, but in the case of this show the fame of the main subjects adds to the emotional impact of the stories because you feel you know them (or at least a version of them) just a little bit better than some Regular Joe and so you feel just a little bit more invested in the story of their journey to discover their roots.

Watching the show made me think about what really makes up who I am and it reignited my curiosity about my own roots. Unfortunately the only episode on the NBC website is the Vanessa Williams story, which isn't as emotionally engaging because she doesn't seem as genuine as she could be, but if you watch TV on Sunday evenings, you should check this one out.

Celebration: Safety

Yesterday, while on a walk with my niece and nephew in my in-laws' neighborhood, I noticed smoke rising from the back of one of the houses we were passing. It smelled like the charcoal my grandpa uses in his barbecue so I thought that's what it was at first, that it had just gotten a little out of hand and started smoking. Then I noticed smoke had begun pouring out of the vents in the house's attic. And then I noticed smoke streaming out of the corner of one of the upstairs windows, and rising up to combine with the increasingly engorged cloud of gray smoke in the sky. I reached for my cellphone, but it wasn't in any of my pockets. Then I noticed that in the few minutes it had taken me to notice all these things my nephew, who has the energy of an antelope, had somehow propelled himself so far down the street that he was nearly invisible. It was a strange moment, where everything seems drawn out, slowed down. I felt the responsibility over my nephew's safety and the responsibility to address the emergency taking place in front of me, and the panic of not knowing how to respond to both.

Luckily, Jordan rode up just then on his dad's bike. He called 911 and I shepherded the children back to my in-laws' house. Some neighbors came outside to see what was happening and were able to get the owners of the burning house on the phone to find out what to save, and a neighbor broke into the house and rescued the dog and an urn. The fire department arrived quickly and immediately went to work. Luckily no one was harmed, though their tiny dog will probably never like the smell of barbecue again. Jordan's parents don't know the owners of the house very well, and the family will probably never know who exactly helped them out, but I was really grateful for Jordan's timely arrival on the scene. And most of all, I was grateful that everyone was safe. Since I was a little kid, the idea of fires like that has been darkly terrifying for me. Though it seems like the inside of their house was almost completely destroyed and they likely lost many things of sentimental value, it's nice to know that all that was lost were things.

Celebration: My Bizarre Dreams

Some of you may have heard about the dream I had a few weeks ago where Craig Ferguson and I were a detective partnership and Craig Ferguson kept insisting on dressing up in elaborate, unnecessary and very conspicuous costumes, usually ones that revealed huge portions of his masculinely hairy chest. I always have vivid, bizarre dreams like this.

Last night I dreamt that my sister Mitzi, Jordan and I moved into a house with a rather pudgy, middle-aged fellow who liked to dress up in drag (dress-up theme here?). For the housewarming party, to which many of the people from mine and Jordan's current and past wards (church congregations) ended up coming, our new housemate dressed up in a brightly colored, overly-feathered, showgirl outfit and performed the following dance:

He reached one feathered arm around a corner into the room where all our guests were gathered, and touched his pointer finger to a melancholy-looking picture on the wall while singing in low, solemn tones, "You...do..." Then in one fluid movement he ripped the picture off the wall to reveal a different, bright and happy picture, while simultaneously spinning into the room in a dozen perfectly realized pirouettes and singing loudly, triumphantly "SOMETHING TO ME!!!" Ending with his arms extended upward and outward as far as they could reach. It was quite a moment.

I remember the Dream Me feeling a little bit of his excitement and also a little bit embarrassed for him because it just wasn't the right crowd to appreciate this sort of thing, and hoping that people would clap. But I don't remember if they did.

I do hope that someday I learn to sleep better, but I sort of hope I never stop having these amazing dreams.