The Daily Honky Tonk
178th Edition
September 16, 2009
1:20 PM
Table of Contents
Intro
Different ways of ending notes
On the subject of rape
Ugly to Beauty Gap
Song Lyrics
I took a stress test for my independent study course on health recently and got a score of 624. The computer generated response underneath my score: “Almost 80 percent [of people] with this score get sick in the near future.” I’m lucky that I almost never get sick. I also have know for the last couple days that I just need to throw down my thoughts on paper and send it out into the vast enormity of that shared space we call the web. I’ve never figured out why telling people these things is more therapeutic than just writing in my journal. If someone knows a study about that I would be interested to read it. I would be interested if I could do whatever transfer of emotion through the DHT in a journal written to myself instead. Anyway, I just wrote about things I’ve been thinking about. Enjoy.
“Words form the thread on which we string our experience”- Alduous Huxley- Author
Different ways of ending notes,
“Love, so and so” “Your Friend” “Yours Truly” “Thanks”
Love is pretty clear . ..you use that for your parents, family, and usually for a person you are dating. But sometimes you also use it for a really close friend. When not used consistently, it becomes quite confusing as to how the person feels.
“Your Friend” seems like it should be really basic as well. But don’t we use “Your friend” to those we are interested in before we are ready to tell them directly that we are interested. . .and while it might not say more to them, as an individual we hope they will read between the letters of friend. And sometimes we use it as a polite gesture to people we don’t even know and who wouldn’t appear on our life list of friends.
“Yours Truly” is in my opinion the most ridiculous. What does that mean? I’m yours, for real, as well as everyone elses who I finish in the same way. I can’t be just yours, and not even truly yours. What kind of privileges does that entitle to the reader from the sender. Can they rely on you? Can they trust you? And how are is one “truly” somebody elses. Aren’t we just somebody’s and not even truly then because we are somebody to many other somebodies.
On the Subject of Rape
Recently I was reading from my Physical Health Independent Study Course and I read these statistics:
Victims would be 97 percent more willing to report the rape if there were laws protecting confidentiality and disclosure of the rape victim's name.
Source: National Victim Center
Sixty-six percent of rape victims are concerned about being blamed by others.
Source: National Woman's Study
Now, I am writing about this for the moment because I don’t know if these statistics are still true. The course was designed in the 90s and I assume they would update it. . .but it caught my attention. Why would they not have laws protecting confidentiality? That doesn’t make any sense to me. In fact, it really frustrates me. I’ve had people confide in me about being raped and to think that there isn’t a law protecting them makes me very frustrated. It’s something I think worth changing. But I would like to know where I could read the laws on the topic. I tried to find a place where I could read up on the laws and was having trouble. Maybe I should go to the law school and see if they can help me. Anyway, if it is true that they aren’t protected I want to do something about it.
As a funny note, the other day I was voicing my concerns with a girl about what I read and I accidentally started the conversation saying... “I’ve been thinking about rape recently”.
Ugly to Beauty Gap
I was with Amy the other day when she brought up an interesting concept- the Ugly to Beauty Gap. The Ugly to Beautiful Gap is the measurement of the difference between a person just getting out of bed or coming home from a run and getting ready for a date. Amy noted that some people have a really big gap and some don’t have much potential to change between the two.
We talked about how if you a big gap you have the advantage of being able to stun your date. While if your gap is really small it’s going to make little difference if you spend 20 minutes or an hour preparing for your date.
Amy posed the question to me and a friend “What would you prefer; to wake up next to a pretty girl, or to have a girl who turns heads like a movie star when you take her in public.” If I’m talking to Amy the right answer is the girl who turns your head when she get’s dressed up. If I’m not talking to Amy and I’m supposed to give the answer I actually think then I want a girl who I will always think is pretty. I think I lean towards my dad’s preference. I’m not big on makeup or extra fluff, I’d rather see someone as they really are and be attracted to that. Amy was mad because she is determined that her gap is big. I would give her the assessment that she gave me “You have a medium sized gap.” She disagreed and said I hadn’t seen her at the lowest. I reminded her of a couple instances where I saw her when she was sick or had just waken up.
I’ve been reflecting to see if their are any good examples of this in our popular media. Princess Diaries is a prime reflection of the Ugly Gap portrayed correctly. Cinderella Story is a failure. ( I apologize to Amy for including a movie with Hillary Duff). In the Princess Diaries the show a huge gap. Granted they had to do a bit to make Anne Hatheway not look pretty, but we definitely as a viewer are not attracted to her. But then there is a huge turn around and the Gap is closed. Although she doesn’t go through that gap day to day. A fallacy for sure. Cinderella Story fails because they never make Hillary look bad. In fact, her character would be a prime example of she’s not much prettier dressed up for the ball than when she is sitting in her room texting in her pjs. Hmmm. . .granted, it’s a film, and we never really see Hillary Duff not dressed up. But I think it illustrates it well. I need to think of a male example. .. Hmmm .. .having trouble. That’s okay. It would probably be worrisome if I could tell you about male attractiveness differences.
Anyway, it was a fun conversation to have and to think about. The Ugly to Pretty Gap is going into my conversational concepts file with “Wingmans and The D.U.F.F.”, “Awkward Dating Stories”, and “Things you probably shouldn’t tell a girl” :)
Song Lyrics
Title Unknown- Nick Day- “Just because I wanted to I tripped and fell in love with you” Love is a choice.
Hot Air Balloon- Owl City: “We wrote a prelude to our own fairytale”- I love the metaphor here.
For Liz(She)- Parachute “How can the only thing that’s killing me make me feel so alive.” The up’s and downs of dating life anyone? Ha ha. . .I love how the piano is the driving force in this song.
Let’s Go- Cartel “Let’s go; take the world with me”- I do love a good song that reminds people have the power to make change and we can in a sense “take the world”.
Life is a Highway- Rascall Flats: “Life is a Highway, I wanna ride it all night long”- this whole song is about enjoying life and just living it and loving it. I know it isn’t new. .. But I fell in love with it recently.
Both Sides Now- Mindy Gledhill- “Rose and flows of angel hair, and Ice cream castles in the air and feather canyons everywhere, I’ve looked at clouds that way. But now they only block the sun, they rain and snow on everyone, so many things I would have done but clouds got in my way. I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, from up and down , and still somehow it’s cloud illusions I recall, I really don’t know clouds at all.”
“I’ve looked at love from both sides now, from give and take, and still somehow it’s loves illusions I recall, I really don’t know love at all”- I include the lyrics because they take me to the edge of my imagination and because they speak towards the truth of being able to see opposition in all things, whether it be clouds or love and how in general I would still choose the illusions. . .and maybe not so much as illusions, but what I think of as realistic hope. I try and avoid the idealistic hope I used to preach. . .that only takes a person to extremes.
The Editor,
MARK
