I'll Give You A Royal Wedding

I set my alarm early early early so I could finally cap off this sick obsession of Kate Middleton and the whole Royal Wedding shebang. My alarm is the radio, and while I heard it, I was still just sleeping away, half listening, when I heard one of the morning DJ's say "there's her dress!!" because they were watching it live as they broadcasted. That woke me up. I flew out of bed and set up my laptop on the bookmarked link to the official Royal Channel on youtube that was giving live coverage.



It was beautiful. From the abbey to the choir to the dress to the palace. But here's how I'm American (biased perhaps with a twinge of jealousy).

It's all fun and games to watch a monarchy continue from afar, but if I were ACTUALLY a citizen, I'm not so sure that I would buy it. Now that they're simply constitutional monarchs, and don't actually make any decisions or do anything political other than show their damn faces and wave, wouldn't you be pissed if 2-3% of YOUR money (via taxes) went to them? Your money goes straight to a family, for no reason, other than their birth, to support their cushy lifestyles, because... well I haven't figured that out yet. The Brits I have met defend the Queen because she "does good things" and "promotes tourism". Wow. So does Disneyland but I'm not paying for Walt Disney to live in Buckingham Palace.

Should the good fate befall me to meet and woo Prince Harry, I will eat my words, delete this article, and trust all of you to keep your mouths shut if you want an invite to the ceremony. Still, I won't hold my breath, especially because Harry probably plays for the other team-- oops! There I go again, badmouthing my husband.

I'm not an anarchist, since I'm not British and I can watch and like from across the pond, but if I were... who knows. As my long-time confidant Morrissey sings in Irish Blood, English Heart:

I've been dreaming of a time when
The English are sick to death of Labour
And Tories, and spit upon the name of Oliver Cromwell
And denounce this royal line that still salute him
And will salute him forever

I'm secretly glad we can all stop talking about the Royal Wedding now. Life as usual!