Shallow

Damnnnnnnnnn, this movie moved me. Wow. What a powerful film.

I was super grateful to get to sit next to my man and take it in. The music was of course one of the most powerful parts of it, and this song, when Lady Gaga comes onstage, is my fave:

Tell me somethin' girl
Are you happy in this modern world?
Or do you need more?
Is there somethin' else you're searchin' for?

I'm falling
In all the good times I find myself longin' for change
And in the bad times I fear myself

Tell me something boy
Aren't you tired tryin' to fill that void?
Or do you need more?
Ain't it hard keeping it so hardcore?

I'm falling
In all the good times I find myself longing for change
And in the bad times I fear myself

I'm off the deep end, watch as I dive in
I'll never meet the ground
Crash through the surface, where they can't hurt us
We're far from the shallow now

In the shallow, shallow
In the shallow, shallow
In the shallow, shallow
We're far from the shallow now

Wooaaaah
Woaaaaaaaaaaah

I'm off the deep end, watch as I dive in
I'll never meet the ground
Crash through the surface, where they can't hurt us
We're far from the shallow now

In the shallow, shallow
In the shallow, shallow
In the shallow, shallow
We're far from the shallow now

Yes, we are far from the shallow. In nice and deep, where all the juicy stuff is...

Born This Way

I'm still on the tolerance theme with today's post. I blogged about Lady Gaga not too long ago -- I'm a fan. And I fell in love with her a little bit more as I watched her sing her song about all different kinds of people deserving love to a Superbowl crowd that undoubtedly included a lot of people who find Trump's message of intolerance attractive:

It doesn't matter if you love him, or capital H-I-M
Just put your paws up
'cause you were born this way, baby

My mama told me when I was young
We are all born superstars
She rolled my hair and put my lipstick on
In the glass of her boudoir

"There's nothing wrong with loving who you are"
She said, "'Cause he made you perfect, babe"
"So hold your head up girl and you'll go far,
Listen to me when I say"

I'm beautiful in my way
'Cause God makes no mistakes
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born this way
Don't hide yourself in regret
Just love yourself and you're set
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born this way

Oh there ain't no other way
Baby I was born this way
Baby I was born this way
Oh there ain't no other way
Baby I was born this way
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born this way

Don't be a drag ‒ just be a queen [x3]
Don't be!

Give yourself prudence
And love your friends
Subway kid, rejoice your truth
In the religion of the insecure
I must be myself, respect my youth

A different lover is not a sin
Believe capital H-I-M (Hey hey hey)
I love my life I love this record and
Mi amore vole fe yah (Love needs faith)

Don't be a drag, just be a queen
Whether you're broke or evergreen
You're black, white, beige, chola descent
You're Lebanese, you're orient
Whether life's disabilities
Left you outcast, bullied, or teased
Rejoice and love yourself today
'cause baby you were born this way

No matter gay, straight, or bi,
Lesbian, transgendered life,
I'm on the right track baby,
I was born to survive.
No matter black, white or beige
Chola or orient made,
I'm on the right track baby,
I was born to be brave.

I was born this way hey!
I was born this way hey!
I'm on the right track baby
I was born this way hey!
I was born this way hey!
I was born this way hey!
I'm on the right track baby
I was born this way hey!

Same DNA, but born this way.
Same DNA, but born this way.

Thank you, Lady Gaga, for being part of the resistance, and for preaching tolerance. You had a whole lot of people listening...

Million Reasons

I love me some Lady Gaga, mainly for two reasons:

1) She reminds me of Amy Winehouse, and

2) She spoke/sung out about sexual assault in a beautiful way that people heard at last year's Oscars.

But also, she writes some pretty beautiful songs, like this one:

You're giving me a million reasons to let you go
You're giving me a million reasons to quit the show
You're givin' me a million reasons
Give me a million reasons
Givin' me a million reasons
About a million reasons

If I had a highway, I would run for the hills
If you could find a dry way, I'd forever be still
But you're giving me a million reasons
Give me a million reasons
Givin' me a million reasons
About a million reasons

I bow down to pray
I try to make the worse seem better
Lord, show me the way
To cut through all his worn out leather
I've got a hundred million reasons to walk away
But baby, I just need one good one to stay

Head stuck in a cycle, I look off and I stare
It's like that I've stopped breathing, but completely aware
'Cause you've given me a million reasons
Give me a million reasons
Giving me a million reasons
About a million reasons

And if you say something that you might even mean
It's hard to even fathom which parts I should believe
'Cause you've given me a million reasons
Give me a million reasons
Givin' me a million reasons
About a million reasons

I bow down to pray
I try to make the worse seem better
Lord, show me the way
To cut through all his worn out leather
I've got a hundred million reasons to walk away
But baby, I just need one good one to stay

Aye-eee-ayeee-ay-ayyee
Oh, baby I'm bleedin', bleedin'
Aye-eee-ayeee-ay-ayyee
Can't you give me what I'm needin', needin'
Every heartbreak makes it hard to keep the faith
But baby, I just need one good one
Good one, good one, good one, good one, good one

When I bow down to pray
I try to make the worse seem better
Lord, show me the way
To cut through all his worn out leather

I've got a hundred million reasons to walk away
But baby, I just need one good one, good one
Tell me that you'll be the good one, good one
Baby, I just need one good one to stay aye eee ayeee

I can definitely relate to this. When the New Englander came back into my life, I gotta admit, all the reasons he gave me to walk away came flooding back.

But once I let myself be vulnerable enough to listen to him, I realized he was giving me more than one good one to stay...

'Til It Happens To You

I decided pretty spur of the moment to go visit my friends in Milwaukee last night, and I was extra glad I did when I realized that the Oscars were on. I haven't seen them in a few years -- not having a TV means I'm not as aware of when these things are on and don't have a good way to watch it.

I didn't see as many movies last year as I usually do or would've liked -- hopefully some new movie dates will come into my life in 2016 -- and in a lot of ways I would have been fine with giving the Oscars a miss again this year.

But then Joe Biden took the stage to talk about the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses, and introduced Lady Gaga who gave what might have been the most powerful performance I've ever seen of 'Til it happens to you:

You tell me "it gets better, it gets better,
in time"
You say I'll pull myself together, pull it together,
"You'll be fine"
Tell me what the hell do you know,
What do you know,
Tell me how the hell could you know,
How! could you know

Till it happens to you, you don't know
How it feels,
How it feels.
Till it happens to you, you won't know
It won't be real
No It won't be real
Won't know how it feels

You tell me "hold your head up"
Hold your head up and be strong
Cause when you fall, you gotta get up
You gotta get up and move on."

Tell me, how the hell could you talk,
How could you talk?
Cause until you walk where I walk,
It's just all talk.

Till it happens to you, you don't know
How it feels,
How it feels.
Till it happens to you, you won't know
It won't be real (how could you know?)
No It won't be real (how could you know?)
Won't know how I feel

Till your world burns and crashes
Till you're at the end, the end of your rope
Till you're standing in my shoes, I don't wanna hear nothing from you
From you, from you, cause you don't know

Wow. Just Wow. I could tell by the way she sang it that she herself had been sexually assaulted, and indeed, she was, when she was 19 years old:

Till it happens to you, you don't know
How I feel
How I feel
How I feel
Till it happens to you, you won't know
It won't be real (how could you know?)
No It won't be real (how could you know?)
Won't know how It feels

My own assault happened when I was much younger, and one of the reasons I'm writing a memoir is so that people to whom this has happened will feel they have a voice, in the same way Lady Gaga gave the survivors she shared a stage with a voice:

Till it happens to you, happens to you,
Happens to you.
Happens to you, happens to you,
Happens to you ( how could you know?)

But it's also so that people who haven't been through it will know, or at least understand a little better, how it feels:

Till it happens to you, you won't know how I feel

The Sound of Music

I didn't watch the Oscars, but I did hear that Lady Gaga performed songs from my favorite musical, The Sound of Music:

The hills are alive with the sound of music
With songs they have sung for a thousand years
The hills fill my heart with the sound of music
My heart wants to sing every song it hears

My heart wants to beat like the wings of the birds
That rise from the lake to the trees
My heart wants to sigh like a chime
That flies from a church on a breeze

To laugh like a brook when it trips
And falls over stones on its way
To sing through the night
Like a lark who is learning to pray

It's starting to get to that point in the winter when I'd do just about anything to be galavanting like Julie Andrews in warm weather when everything is green again. Alas, this morning when I got up it was -8, and by the time I went out for my run I think it was up to 4 degrees above zero. I hadn't run in a while, and I have to say that there were parts of it that were absolutely miserable: wind ripping right through my clothes, making me wonder what I was doing out there.

But there were also times when, protected from the wind and bathed in sunshine, it felt amazing to be out there, and at that moment I felt not unlike Julie Andrews sings about feeling in Austria:

I go to the hills when my heart is lonely
I know I will hear what I've heard before
My heart will be blessed with the sound of music
And I'll sing once more

I noted after I was done, too, that I felt measurably happier. It feels like it is going to take some time to fully recover from what I've been living with for the past several weeks, but I'm going to get there...