For some reason I've been thinking about laughing lately. Perhaps it was brought on by watching Conan O'Brien bobbing for apples (after Martha Stewart tied his hands behind his back with a cloth napkin, of course). I laughed so hard I almost cried. And then I thought about how long it had been since that had happened. And then I remembered a man I knew in high school. I think he was a gay barber, but that's beside the point. (And how did I meet him? And why did I know him? Fascinating questions, but also beside the point.)
At a party one night, he told me about a friend of his who was so funny in high school. She was hilarious. But then she went to college and she got ironic and bitter. And then she wasn't funny anymore. She didn't laugh as much. She got dark. All this by way of telling me to "maintain my sense of humor."
And now, on the eve of my 20th high school reunion, I have to ask myself, have I? When I think about the friends I had in, say, junior high, I remember how we used to laugh at the slightest thing. We used to laugh hard. And then in high school, all I had to do was call up my friend Cyndi using my "Jewish mother" voice and we would laugh for hours. We'd do our "Jewish mother" voices at the carwash, at the dinner table, during grammar class. We laughed all the time. And with my sisters it was the same thing. My one sister would do Dana Carvey doing George Michael. We would all sing "Chopping Broc-olli." In college I would leave my friends long, convoluted messages that usually had a punch line.
In recent memory, there's the Conan O'Brien thing. Oh yeah, and tonight I laughed at Son's statement that what he wanted for dinner was "Beans and Buggers."
So what's happened? Has life gotten less funny or have I?
4 comments:
No, it's not you. Llfe has definitely gotten much much much less funny (and it's going to get worse).
Drugs. It was the drugs. And sometimes the pants your friends were wearing. But mostly it was the drugs. I remember how my cheeks were hurting. I'm going to practice my perma grin right now.
I have tried three stabs at composing a comment, all of which ended in a terrible cliche (I'll spare you). Your blog makes me laugh, so there's that, which is good for me, anyway.
This will probably be a cliche too, but while I think most of us laugh less as we get older, each laugh is more valuable, more of an accomplishment. When adults find people and situations where they can truly laugh, they should foster those friendships and events. One example: in my bookclub (now there's cliche--sorry) we all meet together on Valentines to play the Newlywed game though most of us have been married for a decade or more. My point is that we laugh and I mean laugh hard; it's a cleansing of the soul experience.
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