Tuesday 4 December 2012

Wherein a Narrative Law kicks our Hero in the genitals

Tuesday is the worst day of the week. I know I’m flying in the face of received knowledge here on the Internet, but bear with me. The title of this post will become clearer, too, as you move to the conclusion of this piece.
Mondays are excellent. I like Mondays. You’re chilled and relaxed from the weekend; you’ve got exciting projects lined up and you feel like you can take on the world. You got up early, had plenty of time for breakfast, and a run, and your shower was hot.
Wednesdays are the midweek point; the hard slog is over and the end is in sight. In fact, you say as you work through the boring minutiae of your day, you’ve already had lunch and that means the day is half done, so now you’re just past the halfway, and it’s all downhill from here.
Thursday is the starter to the main course that is your weekend, enough to summon saliva to your lips as you contemplate the decadence with which you will spend your free time (or, indeed, the IKEA furniture that you’ve not had a chance to put together yet).
And finally Friday, the way you shiver in antici-

-pation, and watch the clock, and probably bum off a little bit early. And then enjoy yourself all weekend.

Tuesday, on the other hand, is the worst day of the week. The buzz has worn off, the projects that you were hoping would be exciting are, in fact, the same boring projects you do day in, day out, and the rest of the week stretches out in front of you, as limp and dull and insipid as the off-white walls in your cubicle cell.

That having been said, I had a pretty good Tuesday. I finally finished a translation work that’s been hanging over my head for too long, I finalised details for the upcoming dinner, I played Scrabble with my students and found a chess partner, and my brother is doing me a huge favour out of the goodness of his heart.
Here’s a picture of him kindly not looking handsome so that I look better. First and only time in our lives.

Since then he’s found a lovely girlfriend, a seriously decent job, and gained several inches in height on me. And a better dress sense. And he’s in Hong Kong.

Bastard.

On the other hand, there’s a chilli bubbling away behind me, rice gently cooking, I have money and warmth and I’m teaching a language I love in one of the most beautiful places in the world.
So looks like Tuesdays aren’t all bad.

And now the meaning behind the title of this piece becomes clear, because having written that, I added a little pinch of spice, checked my rice, turned around and found that my laptop had crashed and lost every word that I had typed. I have just retyped this blog post, and in doing so forgot the rice and over-spiced the chilli. By over-spiced I mean my eyes are boiling in their sockets from the fumes wafting around my flat. This the narrative rule that states that when a Hero's life appears to be defying all the odds and going well when by all rights it should be going badly, it is just about to go hideously.

Alternatively known as a Hope Spot, for you trope-spotters.

So I take it back. Tuesday can get stuffed.

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