Skip to main content

Jinxed

I think I have figured out why I am walking around like Linus with a little cloud of dirt corrupting every nuance of my life: I'm jinxed.

No, seriously.

And I think I know why: Lack of balance.

Now, I'm not talking about missing fiber from my diet. Or that my inner core is lacking some firmness. I just think somewhere along the line this year, I was distracted and took the wrong turn down some alley where it just ain't that friendly. Where cab drivers tell me racist jokes AND THINK I'M THE KIND OF PERSON WHO AGREES.

So here's my plan.

I'm going to be super friendly. To everyone. Yep. Kind of like that random acts of kindness idea. I'm going to try and do at least one kind thing everyday for the next 30 days. For anyone. And I don't mean filing the tip jar. I'm talking kindness. I'm talking helping a mom with her stroller up the subway steps. Smiling at the grumpy woman with three boxes of Triscuits who cut in front of me at the drug store. Waiting patiently even when the sales person at The Gap forgets to give me a gift receipt, and I have to go back and wait while she rings someone else up and rolls her eyes at me. I'm going to smile and say thank you to her.

Now don't think I'm not doing this for myself. Because I straight-up am. I seriously hope that by doing this I may actually tip this crud-hole of an alley I'm stuck in, back on to its correct rotation and perhaps something will give. Maybe I'll just get punch drunk on being kind. Maybe my face will un-fuse from its semi-permanent look that says, "Stay the F--- away." Who knows.

All I know is that I have to do something. All I know is those four cups of coffee, and nightly glasses of Rioja are just not working anymore.

So here we go.....

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Things I'd forgotten about babies

Having had no babies in our house for half a decade Alpha and I are in dire need of a refresher course before the arrival of Peanut this summer. So we've been hanging out with as many small babies as possible in an effort to ease ourselves back in gently prior to the Big Event. This is what we've figured out: Babies are really cute. Especially when they smile. And they smell really good. Plus they feel nice to cuddle. And persuading a baby to fall asleep with minimal screeching feels a bit like winning the lottery. But all this is only really great in the context of other people's babies. Because then you can hand them back when they shout or if they've done one of those really nasty up-the-back-of-the-babygro yellow poos. Or if you want to do something nice and solitary, like go for a wee. This is because babies are tiny dictators. Their weapons of choice are noise pollution, sleep deprivation and projectile poo - and they have no moral qualms about launching the...
Apologies for being incommunicado this week and hope none of you out there are too distraught not to be receiving the usual almost-daily MotV missives. The reason for the silence is that I'm up to my neck, metaphorically-speaking, in research papers for my first grad course assessment. This experience has made me realise how rigorously un-academic I am in my thinking. It has also illuminated how reliant I am on red wine in order to get through endless evenings typing furiously on my laptop, not to mention the fueling of increasingly colorful curses that I feel obliged to aim at the University's online library system which consistently refuses to spit out any of the journals I'm desperate for (I refuse to believe this is 100% due to my technical incompetence...) Oh well, if this is the price one has to pay in order to realize a long-cherished dream then it's not all that bad... No one ever said a mid-life career change would be easy. Wish me luck!

Environment

Being an expat, a favorite topic of conversation is 'where I/you want to go next?' or 'When do you plan to go home?' It's a good question. I'm not sure I want to stay in Dubai for ever, but I'm also not sure about how long I want to be here for or where else I would like to live. For almost the first time ever, I have no fixed plans apart from keeping my eyes and mind open to interesting opportunities. And as to going 'home', I have no idea where that is. Constantly moving around as a child left me with the feeling that 'home' is wherever I am right now, so in effect 'home' could be anywhere. The longest I've ever lived in one fixed place was 18 years in London, on and off, but that doesn't feel like 'home' either - I love going back to see family and friends, and it's a great place to shop, but that's about it. I have a great love for California, which is where my extended family is from (and where most of the...