Living on Writer's Block

Another Daily Prompt today, this time asking me what makes me laugh. When I was picking out a title, my mind went straight to Abraham and Sarah in Genesis, when they named their son ‘Isaac’ because of Sarah’s laughter when the angels told Abraham his wife would bear him a son. That’s not something that makes me laugh, however; so what does?

My friends will tell you that if someone mixes up their words when they’re talking, they can often look over and find me dying on the floor.

Example A: “There’s only one way to book. Hold on, I mean… There’s only one way to read a book.”

I won’t share names because someone would get mad at me. But that one lives in my head rent-free. Actually, just funny word-plays in general can put me in stitches. “Put down your atheist” — courtesy of one of my siblings when I was reading Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris. Or this one, “I don’t have good thoughts but I do have ideas” — courtesy of one of the hosts of my favorite podcast.

Sometimes it’s not so much a clever play on words as just an unexpected conclusion — a grandiose and wordy phrase, leading to a seemingly random conclusion. “This is how we raise our kids in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, is by calling it Twitter” — from one of my close friends, when we were joking about ‘X’ versus ‘Twitter’. That one went into my commonplace book.

But it’s not just the wordplays that I like. Sometimes I or my siblings will make some strange sound like a weird squeak or yelp, or we’ll do something super spazzy and erratic out of nowhere and then I can’t keep myself from collapsing in giggles. (I’ve been called dramatic and histrionic very unironically before — probably another thing I need to work on.)

Those are the main things that make me laugh on a daily basis but other times, just being happy will prompt a general chuckle. Sometimes I’ll just remember something a friend did for me or whatever, and the memory will just make me happy enough that I laugh quietly to myself. Sometimes I’ll just remember how pretty one of my girl friends looked and I’ll have to laugh. Or I’ll remember something a guy friend said or did that wasn’t necessarily even funny, and it wouldn’t have to be to or for me but I’ll still laugh.

I don’t even know if that makes sense or if I just sound like I’m spouting words. Half the time that’s all I do, and sometimes it turns out well. But other times it just sounds like the rantings of a tired brain, which, given the fact I didn’t really sleep last night, I would guess is what today’s post sounds like. So I’m going to wrap up before I sound too delirious.

Cheers, y’all.