I’m ransacking the cerebral files, the dream bank, the piggy bank.
Hell, I’d empty the sperm bank if I had one around and thought it would help me crack a smile.
I’d shake shake shake as much as I could from any of those vessels, to collect a clinking coin or drizzly drop of humor. More specifically, good humor. And today, I can’t seem to do it. I can’t find “the funny.”
And that worries me.
Bad days, good humor
Even on my worst days, somewhere, somehow, I can usually find the funny. You know – humor in all things, positive attitude, laughter makes the world go ’round, laughter is the best medicine, etcetera, etcetera. But this morning, I can’t find the funny.
And the fact is – I really do believe that laughter is excellent medicine. I know it lowers stress. I know it reduces pain. I know it’s good for the heart, and superb for the emotional aura we give off – and give to ourselves.
It may not be Weird Science, but it’s real science for sure. And while humor is a mask, it’s also great for what ails you. So could someone pass a plate of funny, please? I seem to be running low, and they don’t dish it out at my local pharmacy.
Waking to “reality bites”
No nightmares. No earth shattering news. Just waking as usual, to a gray morning and the daily worries. Yes, pain. (Damn those restless legs to hell! If I’m going to kick through the night, could I at least dream myself a tango??)
And the mind is spilling over with networking activities pursued most of yesterday, and well into the evening, including connecting to wonderful old friends with whom I worked 20 years ago. It was another life, a kinder life, a so-called “normal life.” And their voices (as young and vibrant and warm as ever) were as good as time travel and a tasty tonic.
Yet sleep gave way to waking and reality. To the knowledge that reality bites. Shouldn’t I be able to drum up the funny? Besides – the Academy Awards are this evening – complete with Joan Rivers, snarky commentary on the Red Carpet, and that’s always fun. Surely I can talk myself out of this mood, and find a chuckle, a chortle, niggle a giggle out of a tormented teen wiggle??
Laughter is the best medicine
Do you find that humor makes you feel better – about everything? I do. And I’m throwing open the door this Sunday morning to the Good Humor Man. Come on. You’re out there somewhere. And sometimes a gal just needs to put on her pedal pushers and sidle up to Tall-Dark-and-Offering-Ice-Cream. So swing on by with the ding ding ding of your bountiful bell, your merry tuneful truck, your array of goodies. Open up the cooler to sweets and recollections, to innocent times, to fewer stresses, to creamsicles and conversation.
Maybe I just need to be zapped back a few decades, for a brief stay. You know – to neighborhood play, running through the sprinklers in adjacent yards, the 50 cent movie on Wednesday nights, snow cones at the corner pharmacy, a game of jax on the floor with my dad, Mel Brooks records on the phonograph as I listen to him laugh, and I laugh because he seems happy. Maybe I need to dip my emotional toes in a time of believing in the future. Just a quick trip, a tantalizing taste.
Would that return the errant funny?
The funny bone’s connected to the…
So where, exactly, is that funny bone anyway? Or at the very least, where’s mine? Has it been stolen by extra-terrestrials? Gone rogue? Just out to lunch? Hooked on phonics?
Wherever it may be connected in this great thread of mind to soul human fabric, my funny bone seems to be unraveling and unhitched, at least for today. Yes. I retain my right to perspicacity (isn’t that a fabulous word?) – acutely aware that moody today may give way to mah-velous tomorrow. And maybe if I cook a nice dinner tonight, and coax with a gooey dessert, the funny will return to my house of cards and horse around without bringing it down. I need that flinty splint to brace me up and do its duty: laughter to beat back worries, laughter to ease aching, laughter to calm the commotion of teen comings-and-goings, and to slam a smile on my pouting puss.
Raw humor, rogue humor, halcyon health
We’re all about a good guffaw around here. Amusement in a word, a retort, a situation, a story. From the proverbial sublime to the ridiculous, it gets us through. That, and my occasional recall of halcyon days when life was simpler, and not so frightening.
The gist of this non-jest? When “the funny” goes missing, I’m concerned. 
- Do you rely on humor to make it through your tough moments?
- Do you prefer raw humor or raw oysters for an mmmm-mmm mood shift?
- Rogue humor or rogue politics, to take your mind off your troubles?
- Is humor part of your daily dose of denial – or a helping of health for whatever life dishes out?
- What do you do when you can’t find “the funny?”
Oh, God, I wouldn’t make it thru ANYthing without The Funny. I tell my kids all the time, if you don’t laugh you’ll cry. Or die.
The days it’s hard to find I want to just go back to bed. But now you’ve got me thinking… Even after my marriage ended and I entered my “dark period,” Hope was the thing I couldn’t hold onto. But I still laughed. I make it a rule to surround myself with funny people.
Great post!
My sister is hilarious! She can always make me laugh. I don’t find myself to be particularly funny but I love a good sitcom, a great comedy to get me out of a bad mood. I’m good at finding the “giggle” in things but like you, when I get into a funk — it’s hard to pull yourself out! Let’s hope Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin can tickle a giggle or two out of you tonight!
Yes indeed – here’s hoping there’s some good entertainment tonight on the Oscars. Fashion and “the funny” would be the perfect combo.
When I can’t find my funny, I surround myslef with people I love and it usually finds me. Seems like love warms the soul, lightens the heart, and makes all things possible…even a visit from Mr. Humor!
It’s basically been Grand Central Station around here this weekend. Boy teens in/out/in/out, and my car gone… is there humor in that? Hmm. I’m thinking, I’m thinking…
I miss the humor when it disappears. I don’t always look for it in tough times but when it shows up, that is a plus. Mr. Good Humor would be appreciated here today!! 😉
I notice I somehow manage to find humor in things even when I am in a not so pleased mood. Sometimes it is voluntary and other times it is not. I have an internal drive so you can figure where a lot of it coms from. One of the questions on a take home part of a quiz for one of my classes asks what humor means to me. I never thought about what humor means to me. I just thought things were just funny because of this or because of that. This post was funny enough because of the situation and how you were expressing it.
I duno. Things are just funny.
you are nothing if not perspicacious, my friend! i hope the blast of humor is working for you. i’m trying it and failing miserably. but i did write a blog post, for what it’s worth.
feel better, feel better, feel better! (saying it to you, and also to myself)
Cool words generally perk me up. But it may be time for a sarcastic sonnet or a vivacious villanelle. Though either would likely end up a limerick or a ghazal. Now there’s an odd couple!
I had the great pleasure of sitting down with a university president last week who had me in stitches. His anecdotes from his childhood, growing up in Texas, and stories related to his academic history were a pleasure to hear. He had a unique delivery and dialect that made me never want to end the evening with him. That evening set the friendly tone of a full two days of meetings and activities with several wonderful people and also served to remind me that being yourself is always the best policy in any situation. Humor takes the edge off. Humor sets a tone. Humor solidifies friendships and decreases uncertainty between colleagues (and future colleagues).
Well, don’t think too hard. Something might probably be funny later.
It’s funny (pun intentended) but somehow I DO manage to find the humor in most situations. Maybe it’s due to how tragically bizarre some of what I have experienced really is, or that when you are the target of someone’s anti-social behavior you just HAVE to laugh. Otherwise, if you take it too seriously, you may end up joining them.
Humor does help almost every situation. My problem is I’m not very funny… but I love finding the funny in my every day life, I just can’t relay it very well 🙂
Hope you’ve found some humor in today!
I’m definitely getting “the funny” from Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin! (With a dose of high fashion. Now I just need my popcorn.)
Watching the Oscars now. Not getting quite as much “funny” out of Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as I had hoped for. (Where’s Dan Akroyd when you need him?) So far my biggest laugh came from the Tina Fey/Robert Downer, Jr. bit.
Hope you’re getting a few smiles this evening.
Also watching the Oscars, Kristen. There was a little more “funny” in the beginning. But some of the gowns were gorgeous. (Ah for the Robin Williams and Billy Crystal wackiness… )
BLW, Why not some emergency Latvian to the rescue? Some jokes about the Latvian Oscars (Eastern European women dressed up in their finery – yes.)
Okay, I’m known as a Jewish comedian type but I come from a very funny family. And, with our connection to the Holocaust, it was either laugh or jump off a bridge.
I want to point out that even though you may think you lost your funny, part of this post is, indeed, funny (gone rogue? Hooked on phonics?) but, if you still have a problem, I will be your performing monkey and coax a laugh.
I am a firm believer in gallows humor. Nothing is off the table as far as joking goes–it’s how I deal. But when I can’t find the funny, I give myself full permission to wallow. For a day. Stay in the pajamas, eat Ben and Jerry’s out of the carton. Swill wine. Be at peace with the sad for 24 hours. It works for me?