Izobel and I went to see Portrait Artist of the Year being filmed this week.

Seven-year-old Iz was bored after an hour. The first hour was clapping and cheering three times on cue, as three surprise guests were revealed. Exciting! However, Stephen Mangan asking a seven year old to be ‘surprised again’ from a different camera angle, with the same three now very unsurprising guests, was not so.

Izobel smiled wide-and-white when I said we’d sneak out. And we did sneak out. Before the first brush touched the first canvas. Izobel was happy.

“If you’re happy…” I whispered as we slid silently behind a curtain . “…I’m happy.”

And straight after, Izobel made me think about something I hadn’t thought about quite so purely and simply for years.

Straight after my, “If you’re happy, I’m happy.” Izobel whispered back, her right hand holding my left forearm, her eyes looking up, fixed on my eyes, “If I’m happy, I’m happy.” She said. Then winked. Smiled. Nodded quickly. And off we slid.

I smiled too as we hit the mid-morning sunlight. Am I happy? I thought. Am I really happy? And as I looked down at Izobel holding my hand, skipping (her not me). I knew the answer was yes.

And off we skipped, together.

Lisa squeaks, squeals or ‘ouches’ out-loud half a dozen times each day. Nowadays, so often do these exaggerated responses to featherlight bumps, scrapes and scaldings occur, I ignore them.

Yesterday however, there was a shouted, relayed report from my 7 year old, Izobel, that her bare-footed mother had stood on a Leprechaun in the kitchen.

“Daddy! Mummy screamed. Because she just said she stood on a Leprechaun!”

This, I didn’t ignore.

Life’s like that isn’t it? Dull repetitiveness is ignored. It’s boring. Sameness just blends in. And that’s why LinkedIn is such a head-shaky place. Businesses merging into one as they speak in the same, ‘We are delighted to announce…’ tone of voice as each other. Telling us the same things over and over and over. God it’s dull!

Take a risk! Say something different! Say the unignorable! It’s not as hard as you think. Start by just not saying what they bloody well said. In the way they bloody well said it.

And that’s why, unlike Lisa’s other squeaks, squeals and ‘ouches’, I didn’t ignore her standing bare-footed on a Leprechaun in the kitchen. Izobel and Lisa caught my attention.

Even though.

As it turned out.

It was a peppercorn.

It’s never a good idea to put a kiss at the end of any message you send to anyone you know through work.

Because it triggers Kiss Anxiety.

If you don’t include a kiss with your first message, you think they think you’re cold. Especially if they then reply with a kiss. If they do reply with a kiss, you think they’re the kind of person that doesn’t get Kiss Anxiety and that makes your Kiss Anxiety much worse.

If you do include a kiss with your first message, and they don’t ‘kiss-back’, you think you’ve offended them and you think they think you’re creepy.

If you do include a kiss with your first message and they do kiss back, you then have to decide whether kisses are now the norm. Or just a nice part of the introduction bit.

If you decide that the first kiss was just a nice part of the introduction bit, and leave a kiss off the second message, you think they think you made a kiss-error with the first message. And because they kissed you back, you think they think you think they’re creepy because they kissed back as a result of your kiss-error.

However if you do do a second kiss, that’s it. You’re committed. You can’t then pretend that the first kiss was a kiss-error. And if they don’t kiss you back a second time after your second kiss to them, you think they think you’re creepy for presuming that kiss are the norm and not just a nice part of the introduction bit.

Shit!

‘Just checked my last few messages.

I’m going for a lie down.

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