Sometimes I Make Myself Laugh

Sometimes I Make Myself Laugh · 20 May 2023

…abrupt endings. (Look at that. An ending and a serialization with just two words. And a lead in to this week’s post. Kinda sorta.)

There are times when my writing makes me laugh. Not very often, but it does happen.

I cannot tell a joke to save my life. And if you have read about that before, you know that I can either tell the setup to the joke or the punch line. But never the twain shall meet. Rather, rarely, the twain shall meet. Still, I like to give it a shot every now and then. If only to hear the people around me groan.

The same is true for stories. I cannot tell a good story to save my life. I do not know what it is, but even if I can write a story (which may or may not be true), I cannot tell a story. At least not orally. Not on the spot. Not with a single onlooker or a crowd.

But even though I cannot tell a good joke or story, I can make myself laugh. Usually, with my writing. And usually, in the privacy of my own writing area sitting in front of my computer. Oh, I do not usually laugh out loud. No huge guffaws or anything like that. I just chuckle to myself when it happens.

Now, I do not know that my chuckling to myself means that anybody else will chuckle when they read what I write, but that is okay. After all, I know that my readers (both real and imaginary) will give me something to laugh about if I have said anything worthwhile. My friends will chide me about this or that. Sometimes I need to remember what I even wrote to understand their jokes. After all, I often post my blog and forget it. Like that infomercial. “Post it and forget it.” (I do not even know what product that is.)

At any rate.

I do not know what it is that makes me laugh at my own posts. At least not all the time. Sometimes I write something specific for somebody. Like when I end sentences with prepositions, I usually think of what my friend Marc would say. (He knows who I am writing those sentences for. And how he ends those sentences in his mind.) Or like when I wrote about abrupt endings, I was thinking about what my friend Mike would say. (He decided to speak to me without ending his sentences, which I did not get. Not because he usually talks like that, but because subtlety is lost on me. Which is a completely different story.)

So yes, I often think of M&M when I write something silly. Or even something that I might think is poignant. Others have given and continue to give me feedback on my writing, but M&M are usually the ones to give me immediate personal feedback. Usually in a form that is too subtle for me to completely understand before they remind me of what I wrote. (Nothing like having to explain a joke to take the wind out of a person’s sails. Which is never my intent. I am just slow.)

At any rate.

I thought I was writing about making myself laugh. But I am not sure I did that. Except that when I read my own posts, I often think of what my readers (both real and imaginary) might be thinking. And when I think that M&M and others might laugh, it makes me laugh too. And sometimes I just make myself laugh.

(Sorry about the strange beginning. You might need to look back a week to get it.)

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Abrupt Endings

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