I Think I Broke My Funny Bone...

My Humerus, or is it Humorous...feels broken.  Ok, that's an exaggeration.  It feels sprained.

No seriously.  For about a month now, I've had a muscle-strain-like pain in my arm.  I'm convinced we need a new mattress because it is the side I sleep on, my left hand side.  Something feels off.  It hurts - and no, I'm not having a heart attack so please try to refrain from giving me unsolicited medical advice (though I do appreciate the thought).  I'm not dying.  But it does feel uncomfortable.

Ironically, I am feeling this funny bone sprain both figurative and literally.



I haven't felt funny in a long time. ( I know you are thinking no shit, your blog sucks !)   I haven't laughed a good belly laugh in a long time.  I haven't read anything that made me choke on my own spit and I certainly haven't laughed until my eyes or another part of me sprung a leak in wayy longer than I care to admit.

To a Laugh Lover, giggling is like an addiction.  You crave, need, search for the next laugh to get you through the day.  When you are a funny fanatic, without laughter you feel like a deflated balloon.  Just soggy and blah.  But when that balloon is blown up, it's colorful, brings joy to others, makes people smile just seeing it, and it flies freely, without effort on its good days.

Maybe it was the Newtown shooting that robbed me of my funny.  Maybe it was the guilt that nothing should be funny while surrounded by so much pain and grief.  Maybe it is the fact that so much of our world is in pain that overshadows the humor. Could it be because the freaking flu virus has attacked every single family I know in the past month?  How about the fact that 2013 is already shaping up to be a real douchebag.   I don't know.  What I do know is, I don't want to feel guilty for needing to laugh.  I don't want to apologize for trying to find the funny.  I just need it to survive..it's like breathing an intoxicating kind of oxygen.  Does that make sense?  We just don't need air to breathe - we need it infused with energy, positivity and laughter.  At least I do.  Humor got me through so many ugly things in my 40 years that I use it as a crutch.  So judge me if you want...go ahead.

I realize that I watch too much of the News.  Then I get hypersensitive to what they are reporting on and add one more thing to my list entitled Things I Obsess About When I Should Be Doing Other Things.  Take for instance, the newsanchor who got severely burned by grilling on her propane bbq.  I started to think about all of the times that I grill in the winter - probably 4-5 times a week - and how I never realized this could happen.  I literally obsessed over this news story for days.  I thought - ok I need to have a plan in order in case this ever happens to me. 

About a week later, I was getting dinner ready.  I had marinated some chicken breasts in Greek dressing and decided to get the grill going and show that 20 degree New England weather that it wasn't going to stop me from making a delicious meal.  As I threw the chicken on the grill, what I think happened was some of the marinade splashed on to the inner part of the grill and caused a mini-spark to fly up and hit me between the eyes.   Me - being uber paranoid about grill fires decided immediately and instinctively that I, too, was on fire just like Hannah Storm  (kind of like when Ralphie thought he shot his eye out the first time he used his Red Ryder BB Gun)...and decided to implement my pre-planned disaster drill to stop drop and roll in the garage.  Quickly, I threw myself while screaming, on the ground and rolled on the dirty, dusty, garage floor.  I am sure within seconds, the spark was out but I wasn't going to take any chances that I could end up much like my chicken, grilled with lines on my face. ((I also had this ridiculous fear resurface from the 80s of my highly flammable fluff-chick 80's satellite hair catching fire like Michael Jackson's did in the Pepsi commercial (again no laughing matter, right?? Or was it?))  When I pulled myself together and realized that I was ok, I ran into the house to find a burn forming right between my eyes, in the shape of what appeared to be the letter A.  No joke.  And if I hadn't waited so long to write about this, I would show you the Scarlet letter between my nearly charred eyebrows.  A for Andrea.  A for Awkward.  A for Awesome.  I'm thinking more like A for Asshole.  (The next morning, when the burn really had time to settle, it was a clear, distinct letter A.  A for Aesthetically Unpleasing).  This made me almost laugh. It was more like a half of a chuckle. I thought well if this isn't blog material I don't know what is.  But then I thought, No, not funny.  Burns are not funny.   So here is where I am doubting myself as a (air quotes)  Humorist.  With humor, does there always have to be a victim?  Is there a way to misconstrue everything that is merely meant to bring a laugh. Could you be called out and criticized no matter what you write about?  I don't ever want to over think my life that much.

I guess, in the end there are two ways to look at things...with a sense of humor - or without.  I mean there is a right time and wrong time for jokes.  I do know the difference.  But I can't go for too long without the jokes.  I don't want to live an existence of being too serious or taking every single thing to heart. 

As I approach 40, and should be thinking about bringing Sexy Back - since it seriously went out along with my first placenta in the year 2000 and as far as I know is still lingering over Portsmouth Hospital's Maternity Ward, but instead, I need to bring Funny Back.  When I can no longer find the funny, that's when I know I've given up and checked out of Humanity 101.

Join me?
~DG