Mood of the Day: Pretending Not to Smile at My Phone

Forecast: composed, with scattered leaks. The screen lit up on the table beside my tea, and I reacted with the calm of someone defusing a small device. Eyebrow neutral. Shoulders loose. Mouth, unfortunately, not consulted. A corner of it moved without permission, and I had to turn the phone face down like a card I did not want the room to see.

Let us be precise about what happened. Someone sent me a message. It was not poetry. It was not even particularly clever. It was a single line about the pigeon that had stolen half his sandwich, and it was delivered with such flat dignity that I laughed once, out loud, alone in my kitchen, like a woman who has lost an argument with herself.

The mood rating for today is Contained. A strict smile quota applies. I permit myself one genuine smile per hour, and anything beyond that must be disguised as a cough, a sneeze, or a sudden interest in the window. I have already used my allowance and it is barely noon.

What interests me is the pretending. Nobody is watching. There is no jury. And still the face fights to stay neutral, as though happiness were a rumor I was trying to keep from spreading. I suspect the effort is the tell. People who are truly unmoved do not need a strategy for looking unmoved.

Forecast for tonight: the phone will light up again. I will say I am not waiting for it. I will be wrong in a very quiet way. If you want to hear my voice say all this with a straight face, which is harder than it sounds, find me on TheFriend.

More like this: check it out.