Slumped Shoulders

I suspect I have what my mother calls a 'black tongue' when she's feeling particularly provincial. A black tongue, for the uninitiated and the minimally Mangalorian, is the 'mooh' in 'Tere mooh mein keedey, tere mooh mein dhool'. It is the harbinger of inauspicious, unfortunate circumstances and its proprietor is roundly decreed by all, a bloody nuisance. Folks, I have a sixth sense for the awful.

Thing is pessimism is my chief defence mechanism. I fetter my expectations to the bleakest eventuality and figure it can only be good news from thereon. I'm the Worst Case Scenario girl. The girl that, when everyone's chirruping about how we're going to have a big posy of an outcome, will go deathly quiet and nod weakly.

Grimacing and scorn... "What? What? Just say it."
Sheepishness and shame... "I don't know what you're talking about."
Irritation and exasperation... ". . ."
Hijacked and pleading... "WHAT IF IT'S AWFUL? WHAT IF IT SUCKS SO HARD WE'LL NEVER RECOVER? WHAT IF IT REDUCES US TO EMPTY SHELLS OF HUMAN BEINGS IRREVO-IRREVI...I-R-R-E-V-O-C-A-B-L-Y?"

Glaring and subtle gulping. Resumed chirruping but now a touch uncertainly. Setting down the plate extra hard when I ask for the bread to be passed.

Mercifully, I've been wrong every time it has come to other people's potential misfortunes and this led me, quite foolishly, to risk some optimism in my own affairs...
Last year, I lost seven phones in a span of 6 months, each within 2 to13 hours of thinking 'Hey, I've not lost this phone in a while."  Or "Wow I'm really growing up, I'm so responsi... WHERE THE HELL IS MY PASSPORT?! I'M GOING TO BE STRANDED IN THIS AWFUL COUNTRY I'VE BEEN PRETENDING TO LIKE." OR, and this happened twice, "I think this might be it, he's the one. Yep." Next day/ week, relationship kaput.

Now when I feel optimism or self-congratulation threatening to ruin things, I quickly distract myself until the feeling passes. I've been disaster-free for a couple of days now. It's quite dull, really.

Plans for Getting Better

1) Finish all the books I started last year and didn't finish because I got distracted. For every Pratchett I read, I will read one of the classics or one non‐fiction book.

2) Quit smoking. And keep quitting every day, if it comes to that. Ditch the aerated drinks.

3) Return calls within the day. Keep phone conversations short. Twenty minutes will be my upper limit after which the mother will call me for lunch/I will be walking doglet in an area that does not have network/ the wraith‐like Anglo Indian I've hired especially for these occasions will vulgarly keep calling me till I hang up with you.

4) Gently exhort every clean shaven man I come across to consider facial hair. Unless it is Jon Hamm, in which case I'll be gently exhorting him to consider things of, one might even say, a hairy nature.

5) Comb my hair every day.

6) Write something entirely unrelated to work at least thrice a week. Even if it just means describing in tedious and enraged detail how the bathroom renovations we undertook TWO months ago have been jinxed in every way because we tried to save money and ended up with a contractor who should be handed over sole custody of the word 'moron'.

7) This is the year of Meaning and I will not piss it away to be instead, Well Meaning.

8) Don't be mad if people I like don't like me ‐ I can understand if petulant, cranky, and selfish is not your type. People who like me, I needn't like (What a load off when I finally realised this was an option).

9) Talk to the mother daily. With no distractions. Offer to help her around the house.

10) Stop saying 'I mean' every other sentence. I've played back some of my interviews with people and God, I sound like an idiot.

11) Get a little bit of the bitchery back. This nice girl thing is boring for everybody.

12) STOP BUYING LIP BALM, what I have will last me until menopause. Besides 'oh but look at all the pretty colours!' will not hold up under my CA's withering stares.

That's about all the character building I can assimilate for now. I will chart my progress here and hopefully I'll have to stop soon because consecutive self‐congratulatory posts saying 'I did it, I did it' tend to lose shine very quickly.