The Science Museum

Today I did not study. Today I did not open a book. Tomorrow I might regret it, but today I drove four hours round trip to go to the science museum in St. Louis. I don’t like to drive, but I did like the science museum. I love that it is free and I could go for just a little while without feeling like I wasted my money. I loved to see all the kids and grownups, all having a mini adventure just like me. Despite my dislike of driving, my head was full of daydreams and my IPOD was on shuffle, and the time really flew by. It’s funny how that shuffle thing works. For months, I waited for “The Woman He Loves” by Alabama to come on and never heard it once. (Did I just admit to the entire world that I actually like a country song? Trust me - it is just an anomaly). Of course today the song came on. But instead of not wanting to hear it, I just kept thinking: You can tell a lot about a man, by the woman he lets go.

I really do like the song, not in the weird dominating way in which it's presented, but more in a way of expressing that you can tell a lot about anybody by the people that they choose to be with (or without). We are all defined by the choices that we make, even when others don't know or understand those choices. In fact, sometimes I believe that we are most defined by the choices we make when no one is watching. Which is ironic, because our only window into understanding others is by looking at their outward expressions of their choices. All right, I might be reading a little much into it, but music is like that, sometimes it makes you think about more than you actually hear. (That and crim law has me on this weird philosophical bent) Here are the lyrics:

You can tell a lot about a man
By the woman he loves
'Cause nothing else shows a part of his soul
Like she does
And she'd be the one to swear that he hung
The moon above

Yeah you can tell a lot about a man
By the woman he loves
She knows him inside out
The things he dreams about
And makes them come true when she can
She knows all of his faults
The demons he's fought
With nothin' but his hard-workin' hands

And he calls out her name
In passion and pain
She makes him stronger each time
Yeah it's there on her lips
And her fingertips
That she's with him to 'til end of the line

(chorus)

Yeah you can tell a lot about a man
By the woman he loves
He loves
He always loves