Another blog on writing thoughts.
I know, you all groan inwardly. Here again we must listen to the obsessive-compulsive, Type A, neurotic mess of a writer talk about her own insecurities and do a little whining, followed by a predictable conclusion. We just came to see the duck fucking she promised us a month and a half ago.
Well, first of all, I keep wanting to write about the randy mallards but then I realize it might go into my thesis, so I'm hesitant to blog about it.
Wednesday was my birthday. It actually sucked royally because I was recovering from an obscene migraine, and four days later I'm still so darn fatigued and headachey that I'm wondering if maybe I contracted Lyme Disease while romping around in the wilderness of Belmont County for the last few months. Oh yes, I'm a horrible hypochondriac. Just a mess of a hypochondriac. All winter I had a twitchy eye (or was it a twitchy finger?) and I was sure that there was a growth on one of my lobes. And then I switched to the far more realistic fear of an impending-anaphalactic reaction. Every time I took any sort of pill I was certain my throat was going to close up. I'm absolutely off my rocker, I know. I never did continue with the medication that was prescribed to me, because it clouded my head. And now that the stress of school is over, the anxiety has largely melted away. I even managed to ride in the passenger seat with Shawn driving and not brace my feet against the dashboard in crash position. That's progress.
What does this have to do with my birthday? Not a damn thing. I had a migraine; it makes you stupid for a few days. It was a tangent. Anyway, the Lyme Disease thing...I'm calm about it, for once, and curious, and cautious. It's something I'm keeping an eye on. Stiff neck, headaches, fatigue, confusion, joint pain...those little bastards are out there. There's nothing so creepy as a parasite. Anyway.
As I lay there miserably on my birthday reading my plethora of Facebook birthday greetings, a theme emerged: You're the funniest person I know. You're so hilarious. You make me laugh.
Holy shit, Batman. Don't tell an obsessive-compulsive that she's funny. It's too much.
I know I'm funny. God didn't give me the gift of beauty, or a quick wit, and he didn't make me much of a public speaker. (In fact, I think I'm far more likely to pass a thesis defense if I just sit there and shut up for an hour. Opening my mouth can only screw it up.) The one thing He gave me was a sense of humor. A very specific, sarcastic, biting one. I've learned to be careful; last year I almost ended a friendship when I made what I thought was an innocent crack about a friend's pants. Not everybody appreciates it. But, it seems that many of my Facebook friends and my writer friends do. Write more funny, they say. Where's the funny, my local writing group asks when I show up without something to read.
Do you know how hard it is to write "funny" on command? In fact, out of every ten essays I write, only one is funny. That blog early in the semester that everybody loved about my encounter with a rabid squirrel and walking into a log? That was me being "on." Most of the time I'm not "on." And as for the Facebook folk, they only see me when I'm "on." Funny people shut the hell up when they're not feeling funny, lest they be discovered as an ordinary, not-so-entertaining human being. When I'm not funny, I'm not talking, or writing.
Also, I've discovered in my MFA program that there's a huge difference between a funny quip and a funny essay. Quips are easy. They're like the whoopee cushion of writing. Writing a humorous essay, or story, requires the literary equivalent of a room full of fart gags, and chances are that after a few air biscuits the reader is going to be bored. That's a lot of pressure (pun not intended but I'll go with it), and what's more, humor doesn't sit in a jar waiting for the lid to be lifted so it can burst forth. Imagine the circumstances that came together that day last winter for me to write that humorous blog: the dog had diarrhea, the trapped squirrel, the log in my face, the fricking flat tire...that morning was a gift from the universe.f
(I think I just stated that walking face-first into a fallen tree was a blessing.)
Therein lies the part where "writer" comes in. I don't get those sort of funny days very often, so this means I'm going to have to rely on my skills. (Ugh.) And in turn, that's where the insecurity comes in. I'm not sure I can force funny on any given day. Rather than a steady stream of comedy, it seems to come in wee bursts, all-or-nothing funny flash-floods.
I read 300 pages of Freudian humor analysis this past semester. Freud taught me how to craft his version of a joke. But even if I had any respect for Siggy himself, I couldn't agree less with the way he deconstructs humor. Sure, somebody has to do it. It's interesting to note why things are funny to the joke-teller and the joke-receiver. But I think analysis falls apart in my hands when I'm writing something funny. Sometimes a joke is just a joke. I don't give a shit why you laugh at what I say, as long as you laugh. Any press is good press.
Moreover, when I went to a one-day conference at school last fall, I sat in on a humor lecture. And there was no comedy in that room. That is to say, it was dark humor. Sad, ironic, look-what-the-characters-have-come-to humor. The essays didn't make me smile. Sigh. I hate that kind of irony.
Okay, I love irony. Writers feed on irony the way my kids live on cereal. In high school we were force-fed irony until we puked up Sophocles. Our discussions were led while the word "Irony" was written on the chalk board in huge letters, as though irony were the orgasm of our literary roll in the hay. And, I suppose it is. But dark, ironic humor isn't particularly funny to me. If you don't smile when you read what I write, it's not humor. It's not comedy. It's not fucking funny.
That's not particularly scholarly of me, is it? I just want to make you people laugh. Life is serious enough, and nature writing has the potential to be a serious downer due to the fact that we're all in a sorry-ass situation of our own making. (Irony! God, yes! Right there!) But dammit, if you keep telling me how funny I am and how I should do stand-up in my kitchen and write a Sedaris-esque book, I haven't a chance in hell. Lower your expectations. Then, maybe I'll come up with something cleverly humorous just to stick it to you.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go check my scalp for a bullseye rash.
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