Certain Days are Better than Other Days (U2)

Language: Greek

Many, many years ago, I read something about Seasonal Affective Disorder, probably in some Christian self-help book belonging to my parents, and thought, wow, it would be kind of cool to know when life was going to suck ahead of time; I wonder if I have better and worse seasons like that too. And so I started keeping a diary, supplemented by ratings for each day on a zero to four scale.¹

7,268 days later, I can pretty conclusively say that I don't have SAD. Or if I do, it's not winter SAD, at least (late spring to mid summer, April to July, seems to be the worst time for me). But even so, I can confirm that U2 is correct here. Some days are, in fact, better than other days.

And certain years, also, are better than other years. Which is the real motivation for doing this song at this time: 2006 is almost over, which means revising the spreadsheets again. And the above picture is more or less how things have been shaping up for me since 1987: high and red is good, low and blue is bad.

All the numbers are not yet in for 2006, obviously. But whatever today winds up being like, 2006 is still going to land about there on the graph: not as bad as 1997², but worse than everything else, even 2005, which wasn't exactly my best year either.

Will 2007 be an improvement? [shrug] Odds are. But then, that was also true last New Year's, and it didn't quite work out that way. So. Cross your fingers.

-Jessi

¹ Originally this was a one-to-four scale; I went back years later and retroactively changed some days when it occurred to me that symmetry kind of demanded an odd number of possible rankings. Which is why it's zero to four instead of one to five. A similar historical-accident kind of thing made zero good and four bad, which is sort of the opposite of what everybody assumes and makes graphing marginally more complicated than it really had to be.

²1997 was frakking miserable. 2005 and 2006 haven't actually seemed all that awful while in progress, but 1997 was a monster.

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Certain days are lands, certain days are leaky;
certain days come clean, and other days are sneaky.
Certain days take less, but most take days --
a certain slipping via your fingers above the floor.

Certain days are fast, but most days are rapid;
certain days you use more force than is essential.
Some days fall on us precisely;
certain days are better than other days.

Certain days add above it all,
and you aren't taking enough. What
is better than certain other days?

Certain days are sleepy, other days untidy,
certain days you cannot stand to view the puppy.
They are better than your other skin.

Certain days you wake up complaining, with those.
Certain days are wetting sunny wishes.
Certain days are sulky, certain days have a grin,
and certain days have ruffians, and they will leave you inside.

Certain days hear your voice
in another place;
other days are certainly better than that.

Certain days are honest, certain days are not,
the days are grateful because you have that certainty.
Certain days, you wake up in the army,
and certain days it is an enemy.

She is working certain days; you are lazy, most days.
That baby is feeling certain days.
Looking for the Jesus, and the mother ,
it's better than what the others said. Certain days,
certain days, they are better than the other days.

Certain days hear your voice
in another place;
other days are certainly better than that.