Lately I have been having a difficult time staying positive for one reason or another. You know how it goes – work pressures, money pressures, family pressures, feeling you’re not doing enough to relieve the pressure pressures. So sometimes what I do when I feel it’s all getting a bit too much is what I call the Tell me something good ritual, where I say ‘Tell me something good’ whenever I have a spare moment in the hope that the saying of it will act as some kind of catalyst that will endear the gods to cast their shining light on me.
I have in fact found that saying Tell me Something Good over and over again for a period of days which roughly adds up to 244.75 times consecutively, reaps its own reward when you stop. You are so relieved you no longer have to say Tell me Something Good that you feel good.
The Tell me Something Good ritual worked today. Today the darkness lifted. Derek the handyman who likes flying model gliders and listening to Supertramp, fixed my leaking roof. The agent I rent my house through offered me another year’s lease without a rent increase (I never thought I would be so happy to pay $650 a week rent.)
My sister’s husband hasn’t had a drink for 6 weeks. Small steps, but important ones. A short story I submitted six months ago has been accepted (thank you, powers that be.) And most importantly, my son is now able to defuse tense situations with humour.
Today Jake and his friends got in trouble at school for playing the ‘Foot Long’ game. This is where you draw a prominent part of the male anatomy in the dirt (in this case it was about four feet long) then sit at the top of it with your legs spread while saying :’Check this out.’ Now I know this type of behaviour shouldn’t be encouraged but every young boy should be able to dream of what might be. I certainly don’t want to rain on his parade. Hahaha.
It seems some of the girls in Jake’s class took offence to this game and dobbed he and his friends in. (A dobber is Aussie slang for someone who tells tales.)
Now ordinarily Jake would get very upset about being dobbed on. He often goes on about how dobbing is against the kids code of conduct and all that and should only be used for extreme cases like when someone is being punched or bullied (he has a very strong sense of fair play, our Jake.) So when he told me this story after school I was sure it ended badly and that he had carried on a bit and made the situation worse.
However, to my surprise when asked by a teacher just what exactly he thought he was doing, he replied : ‘Studying the anatomy of the digestive system, Sir. This is the large intestine and this is the gall bladder.’ Jake was told to keep his anatomy lessons to himself but I was so glad he was quick-witted under pressure and managed to maintain his sense of humour. Is that the bell of maturity I hear tolling? He may not end up being as well-endowed as Dirk Diggler but at least he’ll be able to laugh at life’s ups and downs.
Been a great day. Must be time for some Chaka Khan.
