Gaga just played two sold-out nights in Houston. I went Sunday night for work. You can read my review here.

Her music is mindlessly fun. But when she talks about her mission to free her fans of their insecurities, and when she talks about her relationship with her parents, she seems 100% legit, vulnerable and so honest and open-hearted. This is why I love her.

The reason why so many people are hesitant to admit that sexism exists, and the reason why so few young women are willing to self-identify as feminists is because the sexism inherent in our society is so ingrained that half the time *I* don’t even realize it’s happening.

I remember one WTF moment when a lady acquaintance hung out for hours after a show trying to meet the band. Years later, I would meet the infamous groupie, Pamela Des Barres, who shared with me her philosophy on what it means to be a muse.

Case in point — little girls groomed to be groupies while boys are groomed to be critics. Like there isn’t enough wrong with the music industry’s treatment of and respect for women.

But one thing I’ve noticed since I started writing about music is the number of people who seem to think I have no authority to espouse opinions. When I wrote about Kinky Friedman I had a guy try to tell me how to vote. When I gave Patti Smith an honest review for what I felt was an uneven appearance, I got slammed not only by commenter but also by people in real life.

I’ve suffered momentary doubts and been called plenty of names but one thing I’ve never done is question my own right to write about music — or anything — critically.

So the post is worth a read, but then the writer completely undoes all the mental gains she’s made with this self-deprecating line:

You might also want to look for Anwyn Crawford, whose essay — not fully available online — started this conversation. You are probably better off listening to her about this stuff than listening to me.

And then the title! The title, which apologizes for having an opinion in the first place. C’mon girl! Where’s your resolve?

*It’s always nice to have readers stand up for me in the comments.

Friday night I went straight from lapdance class to the Houston Symphony’s performance of The Rite of Spring, which was magical, to say the least. I kept finding myself almost panting at the anxiety the frenetic music was causing me.

There is a bassist in the Symphony whom I absolutely adore. I first noticed him when I went to the Oscars Red Carpet Party. He has great hair and he’s very animated when he plays, banging his head like he was Lemmy or something.

Here is my review from my first-ever Jimmy Buffet concert.

I regret to inform you that I might now be a Jimmy Buffett fan. I am certainly no Parrothead, but I had a working knowledge of his music before Friday night. However, as I say in the review, it’s fucking impossible not to like the guy. His early work is sentimental without being cloying. His later work is innocent escapism. His politics are sound. And he loves manatees. It’s the first show I’ve been to in a long time in Houston where the drunken crowd didn’t get aggro. It was a damn good time.

You can see a slideshow of pictures here.

* The title of this post? I want to learn that song on the ukulele.

Wednesday night I was going through my Google Reader and I came across this post on Metafilter.

A story I have written was posted to the front page of Metafilter. A STORY I HAVE WRITTEN WAS POSTED TO THE FRONT PAGE OF METAFILTER!

I’ve been a Mefite for five years and it is consistently one of my favorite websites, for its interesting, sometimes silly, but always intelligent links and discussions. Metafilter’s motto is “Best of the Web” and I’m honored that something I’ve written falls under that category.

My first slideshow ever went live on the Houston Press website last night, pictures from Jen’s third annual Pawdrophenia scooter ride benefiting SMART Animal Rescue. I fell in love love love with a pug with a bum leg but CLH would never let me take home another dog. He was so sweet. His name was Obie.

More pictures of the ride on Flickr.

One paper is about sexual tourism and the other is about something I haven’t quite figured out yet, which sucks because it’s totally due in six hours. In the meantime, I wish I was working on something like this: the feminist implications of Dirty Dancing

The other day Matt K and I were talking about regret. I never had any for a long time. Decades. And then I had a ton. There is still wishful thinking and a sense of time wasted. I did a lot with my time, but there was so much I never even attempted because I thought for sure I would be bad at it. Or good at it. This is why I never learned to ollie very well and why I didn’t pursue writing as a legit career until I was about 28. At 28, I had been freelancing steadily for 12 years and publishing a zine, and I still was under the mistaken belief that I did not have what it took to be a writer. Matt convinced me I should try, and I did, and I realized about three weeks into “trying” that could have been writing full time for years, and my cowardice — fear of my own ambition got in the way. And that is my regret. That I lived without a sense of permission for so long.

Words I really needed to read just now, in a time of self-doubt, from a writer and a woman I admire.

I was going to start by bringing up the one thing in your work that I know has influenced my own work, which is the green ray, because I put that little bit of dialogue in Middlesex about people talking about a green ray, which I learned about from you, not having seen your film The Green Ray. I think you said that you got the green ray in the film, but it never appears in any single frame. But you can see it momentarily when the film is running. Is that right?

Jeffrey Eugenides interviews Tacita Dean for BOMB Magazine, circa 2006.

More info on the green ray.