Most of the people I know are queers, cynics and ladies (and some various combinations of the three) so I was largely unaffected by the Heterosexual Roman Triumph otherwise known as Superbowl LI. Super Bowl? Super-Bowl?

*googles it* Super Bowl. But now all I can see is “super bowl” like “Gee, what a great bowl!” And I don’t mean to brag, but I know my way around a super bowl. Have you ever been to Paint Your Own Pottery? I’ve been. Twice.

I watched the Super Bowl in the way God intended—I made Moscow Mules, ate dip and kept saying to my friends, “I can’t believe it starts at 6:30.” Because seriously, I get that it was in Houston, but that’s a long time. By the time 6:30 rolled its lazy ass around, I was two Moscow Mules-deep and had accidentally chipped my nail polish on a tooth as I vigorously ate a tortilla chip.

Also full disclosure: I left after Gaga performed, was asleep by 10 p.m. and then jerked awake at 2 a.m. and checked my Twitter to find out that the Patriots had come from behind (gay) to beat the Falcons in OT (overtime) 34 to 28.

I first was very confused because my entire Twitter feed was just, “THE FALCONS WON THE POPULAR VOTE” and I had just woken up so the joke didn’t translate for me. But then I went on my Twitter moments and understood the ref. Funny (?).

I am very petty, so my immediate reaction upon waking up and finding out the Patriots had won was deep, unbending anger because that means that the annoying people I go to school with (i.e. everyone who isn’t a cynic, a queer or a lady) would be happy. I am very petty. If I were a Golden Girl, I would be Petty White. Also I’m very much over the Patriots doing so well. How can you root for someone like that?

Side bar: my mother expressly rooted for the Atlanta Falcons because she “loves an underdog.” So some of my pettiness is probably genetic.

While watching the game, I was overcome with confusion and I had tried to learn as much as possible before the game. I didn’t even make any jokes about the position “wide receiver.” But as soon as the game actually started, all my learning went out the window. First of all, I didn’t realize what I was watching was the game until about a minute into it. Secondly, it’s kind of impossible to figure out what’s the game and what’s just a replay. Like, are they trying to make it more confusing?

Thirdly, I find it offensive that they disregard time as a concept so flippantly. Sure, it says “20 minutes on the clock” but those 20 minutes could be forty minutes. They took a “break?” “pause?” “time-out” with three seconds left on the clock. Could anything happen in that time, or couldn’t they just take those three seconds to get comfortable before the (what’s the in-between time called? Rest period?) started.

Gaga’s performance was very good. Very surprising, because I assumed she would play a lot more Joanne than she did (she just sang “A Million Reasons”). But Gaga is always subverting expectations, and instead of playing to the Texas crowd with her rock-folk-country album vibes, she served vintage queer Gaga.

She also subverted expectations by not going full-throttle political. A story circulated the week before the Super Bowl that the NFL was trying to muzzle Gaga’s political speech. Whether or not that’s true, we’ll never know, but the performance was very patriotic. And some reactions I’ve read online say that that was the most political and radical thing she could’ve done. That she could’ve softballed it and gone crazy-divisive and angry and scorched-earth. But instead she praised American unity and set the message as “We stand together.” That shows a lot of intelligence and restraint on her part, to not give into the anger of the people and to stand for something greater.

God, I love her.

Literally that’s it. Congrats Pats, but can we limit the masturbatory praise to this week? I don’t feel like avoiding articles about how amazing the Pats’ comeback is. Like, they’ve been in the Super Bowl forever; it’s not that amazing. It’s kind of expected now. They could take a leaf out of Lady Gaga’s playbook and give us something unexpected. And they could totally incorporate her football gear into their uniforms.