Wit & Humor

I am slightly depressed tonight. I was fine, and had fun today, writing in a dry way and making fun of things, but then I went out with someone and it was just a mixed bowl of nuts. I had some individuals laughing like they thought I was a joke and not in on my own jokes.

A lot of people have the same sense of humor, here, as I. They know when I'm speaking tongue-in-cheek, and writing something that sounds very serious but is cracking me up as I write it.

It is on a night like this that I really, really, miss the people I'd run into in Arlington, VA and D.C. I don't know. I didn't have to justify my humor. Everyone understood. I cut up and others cut up and we played off of eachother and just had FUN and I cannot, for the life of me, DO that here.

I can't laugh. If I laugh here, it's at myself or something I write, which is cracking me up because I have no other entertainment, or something that's just silly. But silly things don't happen here very often.

It's not that I am superior in my wit at ALL, it's just DIFFERENT. I mean, the leaf blower on the street didn't know if I was serious about getting my hair blow dried?

Sometimes, I really feel like most people get it--when I'm being satirical, or dry, or funny. Or making fun of myself. But there is another group that just irritates the hell out of me, that sees everything so straight and it's like they don't know what dry is. I don't like having to explain myself, and going back to correct something because someone doesn't "get me". I never had to do this in D.C. I mean, not everyone liked me, for sure, but I laughed SO much MORE.

People are very pleasant here, in general, and I've seen a good sense of humor side to the town. But maybe I'm not very funny anymore, in the same way, or people just don't get me here, or I just dry up.

I don't even want to be with my ex again, and yet I sometimes get more laughs out of 20 minutes with him than I do all day here. He at least understands my sense of humor (and we don't even speak the same LANGUAGE!). But for all I know, it all gets out to someone anyway and is used against me. I don't even know anymore. Nothing in my life is private and I'd like to know why, aside from a formal explanation about technology.

I don't have anyone to be witty with.

Some people are really into formal jokes like, "Have you heard the one about...the duck walks into the drugstore and asks to buy a tube of chapstick..."

And this is totally not my style. I couldn't remember a whole set-up joke like that if I tried. I only quip or play off of someone else or laugh at situational things. My whole family is more into formal jokes. I don't know. I feel like a fish out of water.

And yet, I am thankful to many in this town who have helped me to feel safer. I really feel that some people, even if they are not close to me, have made this a safer place for me and my son to be, and whoever is responsible for the reprieve, whenever there is one, deserves all of the blessings God could bestow, and has my thanks and my debt, which I cannot repay. Thank you. Things here are sometimes, truly, no laughing matter.

The only time I laughed today, if it wasn't over something I wrote, was when I was at the bookstore this evening, reading from The Times (which I picked up because of the cover story on Hillary) and read this other tiny blip about scents. About how fragrance affects people and their personalities. I got to the end of that article and burst out into spontaneous laughter. Which surprised me. wow. I laughed at something besides myself today. I got to the part where the article says when a "fart-scent" was sprayed people seemed to be more "critical" in a particular way and it was so stupid...I mean OF COURSE, I would think, MORE "critical" about anything, assaulted that way!

I am starved for humor. Nothing is funny and no one is funny, not even me. I'm not laughing and I'm not having sex. Very bad duo (just for the record, I laughed or giggled after writing this, at the shock factor, and yes, I'm joking around again, but sadly, I have to define this). My life, frankly, SUCKS.