humans are funny

Author: laurenne

  • I’m moving to Malawi!

    Maybe.

    If you remember my most recent Funny Human, The Crowd Farter, you’ll know that I don’t enjoy when people bust one loose in the middle of a sweaty bus or elevator or fireworks display. I can’t deny that I am guilty, but I don’t have to because creepy little Crowd Farters remain anonymous.
    Apparently, the higher-ups in Malawi share my sensitive nose’s sentiment. They’re currently debating a law on banning, as they call it, “breaking wind in public.” The best part of the article is its accompanying picture. Looks like a stinky one.

    THE JUSTICE MINISTER OF MALAWI said, “Just go to the toilet when you feel like farting.”
    Thanks, Justice Minister.
    I seriously love that this is being debated in a government somewhere. If I would have known this was on the bill, I might have flown in. I’m interested in learning more about the system they’ll use to detect the perpetrator.
    Read the entire article [HERE}.

  • I’ll take one Magician and Jazz Hand Wrap.

    This is the best picture of me from the Taboo Tales show. THE BEST ONE.
    I look like I’m trying to show a doctor how it hurts when I squat. With jazz hands.

    So many things happened this first week of February that I believe it deserves a wrap-up.
    This is my first blog wrap. I’ve had spinach wraps before though.

    1. I’ve been in my apartment a year, which goes completely against my normal lack of commitment. The yearly rental increase slid under my door like an eviction notice. I opened it carefully, fearful. Total spike: $2.92. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it in this economy, but I’ll try.

    2. The 45-year-old man in my apartment complex had car troubles. His Mazda Miata convertible died. He bought another Mazda Miata convertible. That is one long, cheap mid-life crisis.

    3. My father’s adopted sister (my beautiful Aunt Lisa) found her birth mother after 50-some years. She suddenly has two sisters, and the families reunited this week in Miami. My Uncle T broke the ice by bringing flowers and saying, ‘If you hadn’t done what you did, I wouldn’t have met the love of my life.’ Ummmm…. I’m still crying about it.

    4. There are several magicians who want to kill me. I reviewed the Magic Castle HERE, which is worse than drawing Muhammad. Those magicians are sure protective of their prime ribs and bland polenta.

    5. I went to a writers’ conference and learned that I’m probably not going to get discovered at a writers’ conference. I tried to do some heavy networking by sitting next to the author of Hot Widow.
    AUTHOR: My husband died in 1998.
    ME: 1998 was a great year! Oh. Not for you.

    6. Taboo Tales Number Two! My partner Corey and I put on the second installment of our storytelling show, Taboo Tales. Again the theater was sold out!!!! The storytellers were brave and insightful and hilarious. I wish everyone could experience what it’s like to bleed words onto an fully accepting audience. It’s magical, and I’m so proud of what we’re doing.

    7. The idea of the show is to get people talking about their ‘unspeakable’ truths. If everyone admits to being fucked up, then we all feel normal. I love that message. But what feels even better is that people believe in it and support it. Several members of the audience were people I met through this very blog. I may or may not still be crying about that too.
    Taboo bloggers: Rahul, Almie, Hollye, Madge, Linda THANK YOU guys for your laughs and support.

    8. Blog Nerd Alert: I’ll soon be switching to WordPress. So… If you’re reading this in a reader, make sure your feed is set to ‘humansarefunny.com‘ and not the old ‘humansarefunny.blogspot.com.‘ 


    9. And… that’s a wrap. I’ve always wanted to say that.

  • Tit. Talk. Tit. Talk. Tit. Talk.


    I’d like to be frank.
    Not a man named Frank. Just frank.
    Frank about boobs.
    Lots of people have them. I have two. They’re pretty cool.
    It took me a long, long, long time to think they’re pretty cool.
    When I was younger, I couldn’t be frank about my boobs. They shamed me.
    I was thirteen and hated myself for not having the hot tits of a developed woman. I wanted to be like Alysa Milano or Uncle Jesse’s wife on Full House. I had high standards, you see. And while all my other friends were sprouting, I was a boy with a ponytail.

    During that awkward junior high period, I HAD TO BE PERFECT. I can guess, but I’m not quite sure from where this controlling neurosis came. I insisted on straight A’s. I needed to have popular friends. And I spent hours… HOURS… in the school bathroom with my portable curling iron perfecting the wave of my bangs. I controlled all these elements, so the fact that I could not force my own breasts to grow was utterly painful. I wanted big boobs. I wanted to attract men with cars. I knew they were somehow connected.

    This was before the teenage plastic surgery craze of today, a time when silicone was still something only weird Californians knew about. I didn’t even think to beg my mom for implants. Instead I stole her bras. I think it’s pertinent to the story (sorry mom) to state that my mom’s bras were…um… very large. I filled them with anything at first. I went through shoulder pads, paper wads, and even water balloons. I settled on some skin-colored pads I got at the fancy swimsuit store. They weren’t my skin color; they were someone else’s skin color.

    I was sure these pads made me look like a pin-up. With this new set of perfect breasts, I pranced around like Rudolph, sure that this new, top-heavy bod would manifest the kind of guy with a Ford Escort or maybe a Geo Storm, the kind of guy who wore overalls with one strap unsnapped. Others didn’t share my vision. You see, everyone at school knew I stuffed. Not just because I miraculously grew mom-sized knockers one day. More because I was so careless. I wore very revealing bodysuits (yes, bodysuits) with my Bongo jeans, and the pads were constantly peeking out the sides. Plus, I didn’t really have any cleavage. It was just very obvious that something was amiss. Yet, in denial I stewed. So much so, that I wore those not-my-skin-color pads until they were really not my skin color. They turned black from daily use and sweat. And years of wear. Years. When I got a lifeguarding job at sixteen, I finally moved on to another form of padded bra that I could sew into my bathing suit. SEW! I had somehow convinced myself that nobody would like me if they saw the real size of my non-existent boobs.

    Finally, something clicked that set me free. I don’t remember what it was, but let’s say it was profound. Maybe I found two small pebbles in a clearing. I don’t know, but one day during my junior year I finally FINALLY finally ditched my pads (or cocoa puffs, as some of my peers called them). I embraced my small tits. And to this day, I wear them proudly like I would a polar bear skin if I were in some indigenous Eskimo tribe. I love them. They work well in tank tops. They point to people. They don’t really bounce around too much. They are rad. I’ll say it again: I fucking love my boobs.

    Society, however, feels otherwise. Now, after all this work to accept my imperfectly perfect pancakes, bra makers no longer make bras in my size WITHOUT padding. They don’t exist in regular stores. I cannot buy a bra that doesn’t come with its own version of the not-my-skin-color pads. Victoria’s secret is that small boobs are not allowed out in the world.

    WHAT?!

    I’ve come so far and now this. I refuse to go back to my thirteen-year-old ways. I no longer strive to meet men in overalls. I cannot digress.

    I’ve looked through racks and drawers and shelves for bras to find only items with cute names like ‘demi’ or ‘push-up’ or ‘Tshirt’– all full of styrofoam. If I want an actual bra in my small size that’s just made of lace or fabric, I have to special order it from Spain. Special order! From a special store not unlike Manny’s Big & Tall Emporium. Being frank about your small tits in America is just as rare as measuring in at 7 ft tall. I’m interpreting this to mean not that I have a strange body, but that American standards are ridiculous. And that European men will appreciate my breasts. One day when I am gone, you will know that I’ve moved to Madrid. And that I did it for the boobs (and also to stalk Javier Bardem).

    This may or may not be my boob shot by a fellow fan of small boobs, my fabulous photographer friend Leo Reinfeld.

  • Today is National People Day! Go get a people. Or just watch ‘Lost.’


    Remember cities? If you live in a suburb or beachy town, you might have forgotten what it’s like to bump into people. To listen to strangers. To sit squished next to another human on a public train. I guess that’s the reason a lot of people move to the suburbs or a beachy town. They’ve had enough of sitting squished next to other humans.

    But I haven’t yet reached that point. And being in San Francisco last weekend reminded me how special it can be to feel other humans RIGHTTHERE, up against me, in my face, in my space. Their languages bounced around me. Their stories lived on their faces. They smiled at me. They asked me for money. They told me the secrets of their city. CITY!

    Usually, if my foot touches another person’s foot, just for a tiny second, we both say ‘sorry.’ One day it became appropriate to be scared of other humans. Scared of touching them. Scared of talking to them. Scared of riding in elevators with them. But we’re all so interesting and different and similar. And we’re all in it together. It’s like we’re in our own season of ‘Lost.’ We all randomly landed on this strange planet, Earth. Nobody knows how we got here, why we got here, what we’re supposed to do here. And there are several fat guys who never lose weight.

    At first, we might have been freaked. But now that there are so many of us, it all seems normal. It’s not! It’s weird and we have no idea what we’re doing here and so we’re building streets and electing politicians and drilling oil and having babies, but we have no idea if that’s what we’re really supposed to do.

    Thankfully, we’re all stranded here together, so let’s figure it out together. Let’s enjoy that we’re part of a pretty cool species and not trapped in some dream and nobody is eating us or whatever really happened in ‘Lost.’ (never saw it– but once I waited on Matthew Fox at a restaurant and almost cried because he was so attractive.)

    I declare today People Day. Let’s go out and crash into each other (metaphorically).
    Go ask a homeless guy why he’s homeless. Go tell a stranger you love her scarf. Go meet your fellow Earth-dwellers. Let’s delight in the stories of others. Let’s touch feets under the table. Let’s strike up conversations in elevators. Let’s just be the interesting, funny humans we are.

    What’s that? You’d rather watch ‘Lost’ than talk to a man in the elevator? Oh.

  • Dirty Ponytails and Mint Leaves


    I’m in San Francisco this weekend, and it makes me wonder: Why don’t I live in San Francisco? I’m in a café sitting on a ratted couch while a lady in a tie-dyed shirt strums a guitar. The place is packed with patrons straight out of Reality Bites. There are a few dogs, lots of laptops, and plenty of fancy coffee brewed one cup at a time. The tables are communal, and strangers make eyes at one another while pretending to study. All the furniture is from the Salvation Army and as dirty as the baristas’ ponytails. I can’t help feeling that I really fit in here. Not that I’m dirty. It’s just that everyone fits in here. Nobody’s propped against the wall asking ‘Who the hell are you?’ with their eyes like they do at my favorite café in Venice. Nobody in here is wearing make-up. And people are actually reading books and not scripts.

    It is so refreshing to eavesdrop on people who aren’t talking about The Bachelor and their recent failed audition. Although, that’s not fair. They could very well be talking about that here, but I can’t tell because the tie-dyed lady is going to town on her vocal chords with her rendition of “On Broadway.”

    I’m clapping and tearing up at the beauty of her ability to just do what she loves in a cafe all day without the anxiety of making money from it. I’m imagining a life here, a Victorian walk-up down the street with wood floors and lots of windows. The parties I’d have. The books I’d write from this very cafe. The dirty ponytail I’d wear. The cool hipster glasses I’d get.

    Uh oh.
    I just saw a barista pull a mint leaf from a real plant and put it in a tea. Maybe this place is actually too hip for me.

    It seems like I do this with every place I visit. It’s so much more fun to imagine how great life could be if only I moved. If only I had more money. If only I could get a better job. If only I lived in Bali or Laos or Mumbai. If only. Everywhere I go I imagine a life there that would be so perfect and so much better than whatever setup I have at home. I compare.
    But I think my goal is to be happy with what I already have. Imagine that.

    For most of my life that’s been a scary thought. That would be settling. That would be deciding that what I have is enough. And how could a shitty apartment with a popcorn ceiling be enough? How could adult acne and a job I don’t want and a coffee addiction be enough?
    Fear!
    I’ve finally realized that I’m always waiting for the calm to come. Waiting, waiting, waiting. As soon as I have my dream house and my dream job and a relationship all sorted out, THEN I can settle down to the thought that I am enough.
    But how long is that going to take? If I keep waiting, I’ll finally feel whole right about the time my tits are rounding the corner to my knees.

    Instead, I have to trust the process. If I know I’m on the right path, then every part about it is enough. We don’t buy puzzles already put together. We buy them because the act of putting them together is fun. (When I say ‘we,’ I mean me and my nerdy friends who have been known to delight in matching sky colors to form the outline of a Tuscan landscape. Ok, it was just me and no friends were involved.)

    For now, my puzzle piece is a cute little apartment in Venice that, yes, has a popcorn ceiling and I love it anyway even though it’s not in San Francisco or India or Bali.

    Uh oh.

    Tie-dyed just sang ‘Landslide’ and some other man/woman (80% sure she’s a woman) sang along from across the cafe. This is riveting entertainment. Nobody is that confident in Venice unless they’re homeless.
    I really love it here. So, maybe… maybe just this one time, everything I just wrote is bullshit and I do have to move. Just this one time.

    *Note: This mural sits in a random alley in SF. There’s a baby exiting the vagina of a woman who seems to have had her face darkened and ruined by pregnancy. This is why I fit in in San Francisco. This is why I’m never having babies.