humans are funny

Category: hmmm

  • This post is, like, so international.

    I’m in Utila, an island off Honduras in the Caribbean Sea.
    I’m having a delightfully relaxing time. Swear. Yes, my rental apartment was infested with fleas when I got here, but the fresh mangoes, the bathwater sea, and the strange Spanish spoken here are mesmerizing. I’ve already forgotten everything about the U.S. Something about a melting pot and hula hoops?
    I’m sitting right now on a balcony under a canopy of green banana and avocado trees. I hiked three hours this morning (read: got really lost). Nobody around to ask. Nothing around but a family of horses, lots of lizards, and silence. YES!
    I took a catamaran to get here, and as I waited for my skipper yesterday, a local guy warned me.
    “Don’t go to Utila, he said. “There’s absolutely nothing to do there.”

    Exactly.

    Mother and daughter! I thought it was cute until I heard them fighting. I think the mother resents the daughter for ruining her twenties. That’s just what I got out of it.

    “Kool Music Clean Toilet” Marketing geniuses on this here island.

    So far the only friend I’ve met here. His name is Bob.
    Doesn’t sound like a local name, but he was totally born here.

    This Osama picture and Sherwin-Williams calendar were posted behind a bakery’s display case. I decided not to patronize the place. Not because I felt hated as a Westerner at a place in support of terrorists. More because I much prefer Glidden or Behr.

    Heading down under there tomorrow for some diving. See you again soon unless my air tank explodes and/or a shark eats me and/or Osama is actually hiding here under the sea.

  • Of course! Yes! Why not?! Absolutely!

    My newest sexual fantasy is that I meet a guy at a supermarket by the bananas. We smile to each other. I take him back to my place. He fluffs up my pillows. I relax on the bed. He begins to slowly dip a rag in hot water and wipe it over all my dishes while I get out my computer. I send out all the emails I’ve been putting off.  I complete everything on my internet to-do list while he refreshes my coffee and occasionally sashays by naked.

    And scene.

    I’ve become asexual because of my constant overwhelm. If you have emailed me and think I’m a bitch for not responding, you’re not alone. I have a list of 100 emails to send. And a million things to do. People who are off curing AIDS surely have a more important to-do list than I do, but mine is long. And it’s all my fault because I have forgotten how to form that word ‘no.’ Do you want to be in this show? Yes. Do you want to dance in an internet video so people can put their head on your body as you wriggle around? Sure. Do you want to drive two hours to interview these guys for an article that doesn’t pay anything? Of course! I actually want to do all those things. I’m stuck between time and my do-everything ideal. Stupid time!

    I’m buried. I’m suffocated. I finally realized this when my birthday came around this past Sunday. I was annoyed by it. Not by the fact that I am aging, but because it was another thing on my to-do list. Ugh, I can’t stop by Target because I have to celebrate that birthday thing.  Let’s get it over with.

    WHAT!?
    I mean, WHAT!?
    I must be stopped.

    Trying to sell an article about picnic spots in LA CANNOT be as important as I’m making it. I’m annoying myself. Is it possible to annoy yourself to death with your own self-importance? I may be in danger.

    A few days ago, I finally began exercising my free will.
    I said ‘no.’
    And I said it with a vengeance. As much vengeance I could muster through text.
    A nice young man approached me in the parking lot of Barnes & Noble. I wasn’t terribly attracted to him, but he was quite persistent. I knew my fantasies could use some bolstering, and I miss wearing heels. So, I said… yes.
    Even though something about him was shady.
    Even though he asked me out in a parking lot.
    Even though he told me he wasn’t at work at 11am because he was the boss of an ad agency and he’d given everyone the day off.
    Even though I have worked at ad agencies and have never seen a 29-year-old boss who could give a department the day off.
    Even though he said he was the boss despite his only being in advertising a year after injuring himself in the NBA.

    I pedaled home, pissed at my lack of ‘no’s.
    Then I Googled his very unique name because that’s what we do these days. Nothing about the NBA or advertising. Nothing explaining the reason he might be hanging out in parking lots.
    And then he sent me this picture:

    And then this picture:

    And I said NO.
    And he continued to send pictures. Like this one:


    And then, with chest puffed and full confidence, I said:
    I’m not interested. At all. Looking for someone older who won’t try to seduce me with pictures. NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    It felt good. I felt like this could be the start of a beautiful relationship with ‘no.’
    Still, he sent me this picture:

    And for one whole week now, I’ve been getting text after text.
    Good morning, Laurenne. Have a great day.
    Good night, Laurenne. Enjoy your sleep.

    So, what I’ve learned from this experience is: I suffer from the inability to say ‘no.’ And when I finally do, shady men won’t let me.

    This is why I am taking myself to a place that will force me into solitude. I won’t be able to clobber myself with busy work or attend any shows. Consider me indisposed (but not in the way people say it when they mean they’re going to the bathroom). I will be in Honduras for the next three weeks. I don’t know why. I don’t know what’s there. I just know that there’s an island that I’ve never heard of (Utila). There are whale sharks, which are the biggest fish to date (about 40ft). And there’s a little bungalow calling out to me to relax and maybe celebrate that birthday. I’ll still be laughing at humans here because I have an unusual attachment to this very shade of blue and white. But I won’t be able to get any more texts. Or pictures.

    See you soon. Unless you’re the advertising boss/NBA player.

    PLEASE NOTE: This post was written in haste, as I am packing and have a million things to do.

  • My love purse is a penny pincher

    Some people in Venice who see me often may not believe I shower every day. But I do. And today I was sudsing up when, clink, a penny fell out of nowhere. It dropped like soap onto my shower floor.

    This freaked me out. It’s not like there are shelves overhead where I keep my wallet or bowls of coins. It’s a shower.
    Then I remembered what I’d read the other day. I haven’t told anyone this yet, but I have some severe brain swelling, encephalitis, and the mumps. According to WebMD. And when I added some abdominal cramping to my list of symptoms on that site, the internet doctor also diagnosed me as possibly having foreign objects in my vagina.

    Yes, WebMD actually hypothesized that I unknowingly had foreign objects in my vagina.

    I used this as a joke in my stand-up routine on Sunday. I said that I usually know when there’s a foreign object in my vagina. Except that one time I found forty-eight cents and a Tonka truck. People laughed. It was a jolly good time.

    But that was a joke. I was jesting.

    And today this penny came raining down out of nowhere. Or out of somewhere?
    Was it my vagina’s way of telling me that maybe I do have forty-eight cents up there and I should get that checked out? I have to admit, I would have preferred fifty cents in the form of two quarters so I could do one-third load of laundry, but I’ll take whatever coins I can get. I like coins. I especially like coin purses– the ones you squeeze on the sides and they open like a mouth OR VAGINA! Holy shit. My vagina is a coin purse (or meat wallet, if you will). I did a quick shower jig, but no other coins fell. One fucking cent? Is my love purse a penny pincher?

    I stayed in the shower for quite some time shaving my legs (It’s May– time for the semi-annual leg shave.) and pondering my frugal finger hut.  As I ran the razor above my ankle, I noticed a small circle. It looked just like ringworm. I know because I had ringworm once in junior high. I got it because I was on the wrestling team and must have started watching 90210 when I got home from practice instead of immediately showering off the dirty mat juices. I ran through all the places where I could have contracted ringworm this time. I haven’t been wrestling. I haven’t been anywhere particularly seedy lately, although I did roll down a hill the other day.

    I was scared to see what WebMD would have to say about my fungal infection and stingy collection of vaginal coins. But as I toweled off, I realized the raised skin circle was exactly the size of a penny.
    Oh.
    I probably slept with a penny stuck to my leg all night. Abraham Lincoln somehow got into my sweatpants and suctioned himself to my leg.

    This should have made me feel better. It didn’t. I feel even dirtier, ashamed that my cleaning standards would allow a random coin into my sweatpants! Gross. How did that happen? I think I liked it better when I had ringworm and a piggy bank pussy.

  • I would rather stuff myself in a duffle bag and be dragged around by a homeless man for weeks.

    I have to admit I was slightly pissed when I heard the Osama bin laden news. Totally ruined my plan. I wanted to find Osama bin Laden. I was going to wait a few years until he got a little older and frailer. Then I figured I’d use my wit and charm and love of sand and heat to slither my way through the desert looking for clues. Once I found him, I’d tell him a bunch of jokes about how Americans think the Middle East is round and how American women are as loose as burkas. We’d bond over  homemade moonshine and his secret love of The Simpsons. Then he’d tell me all his secrets and I’d totally seduce him and take naked pictures of him and choke him to death during some crazy sex fantasy (something tells me Osama appreciated violent sex). This would have required I add a number to my growing list of sexploits, but I figured I’d be doing it for the love of my country and because I thought a public humiliation must accompany the death. Showing the world an Osama penis seemed like good revenge for 9/11.

    Anyway, whatever. America has squashed my dreams. But I realized yesterday that the main reason I planned such an escapade was not to defend the West from the wrath of the world’s most dangerous terrorist. It was far more selfish than that. Really, I just want my own Wikipedia page.

    I need another cause. I must get to Wikipedia. I’ve already tried to stop Hollywood women from wearing skirts that almost show their labia, but that epidemic is far beyond my reach. I’ve tried to stop breast cancer, but Susan G. Komen sent me an irate email letting me know that she’s on that topic.

    My new cause is even more important than all those less important things. And that is: End suicide jokes. Lots of hyperboles are in fashion at the moment. There’s the “I just peed a little,” which is popular. I’ve heard Ellen say it. And then there’s the “I just threw up in my mouth,” which I’ve heard everyone say.
    The worst well-worn hyperbole is the suicide joke, which unabashedly appears in conversations about relationships all over the world.
    People think it’s really such a hoot to say, ‘That date was so bad that I wanted to kill myself.’ Or the teenage favorite, ‘I would rather die.’
    There’s also the one with the finger-made gun pointing at the temple, often used in long meetings. And the more updated finger-made gun pointing at the temple plus a mimicked blood squirt from other temple. For some reason, these death jokes are such an integral part of popular culture these days. I know this because my mom uses them. She’s the last person to hear about things, so if she’s doing it, everyone’s doing it. She called me just the other day to tell me about a new crazy song, Who Let the Dogs Out?

    My therapist even did the gun-to-the-temple thing.
    While we were talking about my father’s suicide.
    Swear.
    It’s so popular that people don’t even realize they’re doing it.
    BUT THEY’RE DOING IT!
    Everyone’s doing it.

    But, guys, can you maybe stop? Please?  I highly doubt you really want to off yourself because of a bad date or because you were caught in the snow or because you ran out of olives or because you got your period in your white shorts or even because you crashed your new car. If you really and truly would rather die than study lame pie charts in a meeting or go to Disneyland with your family (although I do understand how trying Disneyland can be), then your life sucks and you should move to a yurt and try to figure everything out.  Really, I think you’re just trying to be creative by using a cliche. It’s not working. It’s not a crazy exaggeration if everyone’s using it!

    One in every sixty-four people has a friend or loved one who’s committed suicide because about one-hundred people kill themselves per day. PER DAY! That’s a lot of people. Tons. And each time you point a fake gun at your head, it’s reminding the ‘survivors’ that someone they love actually did point a gun at their head (or the equivalent) one day. And it wouldn’t be that big of a deal if that joke weren’t so popular, but now I’m reminded of suicide in pretty much every conversation I have with anyone. Today my friend did the fake gun, and when he thought he needed more emphasis, he went back for a slashing-of-the-throat motion. I’m going to start asking people to simply end every conversation with ‘Hey, remember that time your dad killed himself?’ Because that’s what it does. For me and for one in sixty-four people.

    But don’t stop with those jokes just for me and my Wikipedia movement. Do it so you’re not cliche. Although there’s no such thing as a free lunch for bulls in china shops and men who are worth their weight in gold, cliches make you sound just like everyone else. And you don’t want to be like everyone else. You’re an individual. With a life! A life worth keeping as long as it doesn’t entail a horrible date or Disneyland.

    Try these more creative versions instead:
    *It was so bad I wanted to cut off my nipples and sew them to my eyelids.
    *It was so horrible that I wanted to roll around in elephant poo, pull out all my fingernails, and then go to the dentist.
    *I would have rather watched ninety-year-olds in an orgy for seventy-two hours straight while wearing a diaper and standing on the shoulders of the tallest man in the world.

    Don’t be a cliche. Do it for you. Do it for me. Do it for Wikipedia.

  • Exclusive Interview: a Humans are Funny first

    After waiting thirty minutes in the lobby of the Marina del Rey Ritz Carlton, I called God’s cell phone. He had let his spa massage go too long and was rushing to meet me. As he settled in across from me on the crisp leather loveseat, I made note of a tiny hole in the shoulder of his white robe and a few knots in his towel-dried hair that already curled around his shoulders. His skin was tan leather, almost George Hamilton-like but quite that orange. He shot out some emails while he apologized, keeping his Blackberry poised on the table. “Just in case,” he said, mumbling something about the Middle East.

    Humans are Funny: Thanks for giving me this exclusive interview. I know you’re really busy.
    GOD: Don’t mention it. I’ve been reading Humans are Funny for a long time, so I’m more than happy. Plus, I feel bad about your excessive body hair. Was snoozing that day or something.
    HaF: There are several theories about the end of the world, and I wanted to get your take firsthand. I’ve heard things about the rapture, the Mayan calendar, May 21st. Do any of these hold any truth?
    He picks up his Blackberry while we we’re talking    .
    GOD: I’m sorry, what was that? Had to give some orders. Japan’s getting another earthquake. Small one. Figured might as well, right? Everything’s already destroyed.
    God lets out a chuckle and scratches behind his head.
    HF: Ok. Umm… I was asking about the end of the world. The Mayan Calendar?
    GOD: Who are the Mayans again? Oh… Those short, dark people, right? I forgot. Man, that was a long time ago. They were always sacrificing each other for me. Can you believe it? I felt so bad.
    HF: So, is their calendar correct? Are we all going to die on December 21, 2012?
    GOD: What!? They’re saying that? What fuckers. I don’t think that’s true. Let me check my calendar.
    Looks in his blackberry.
    GOD: Nope.
    HF: Oh, well how about May 21? Of this year?
    GOD: Preposterous. You have to stop reading the tabloids. What’s next? A story about how I promise martyrs a harem of virgins after they die?
    God explodes in a bellowing laughter, causing the fancy tea-sippers at the next few tables to turn and give us the eye. He notices.
    GOD: Just killed their firstborns.
    He senses my disturbance.
    GOD: Kidding.
    HF: Can you tell me a little bit about Global Warming? Or climate change? Or whatever it is that’s changing the world and causing so many upsetting natural disasters lately?
    GOD: Why are you guys so worried about everything? Seriously. Relax. This is life. Enjoy it. Eat. Have sex. Quit yer yapping.
    HF: So that’s the message? Quit yer yapping?
    GOD: Ugh. I’m so sick of everyone thinking I’m going to say something profound. You know what? Filicumpup.
    HF: Filicumpup?
    GOD: I don’t know. Just roll with it.
    He checks his Blackberry and chuckles.
    HF: Sir, What do you think about all the suicide bombings performed in your name?
    GOD: Suicide! Ha! Sure makes my job easier.
    HF: Okay. So… is the world going to end soon? That’s really all we want to know.
    GOD: I don’t see it in the calendar. I’ll have to see what Barb had planned. She does my schedule, bless her soul.
    HF: What does it mean when you say ‘bless her soul?’
    GOD: I’ve really got to go. Meeting Mary for coffee.
    HF: The virgin?
    GOD: Pfft.
    God stands to leave, his robe opening slightly to give me a peak of the magic hidden below (about which I don’t feel I should share… but I did see it and don’t think I’ll ever be the same again).
    HF: Ok, so I’m going to spread the word that the world is not going to end on May 21st or December of 2012.
    GOD: Great.
    HF: Before you go, can you please answer a few more questions… Which religion is right? Why do some babies die? Is karma for real? What should I do with my life? How did Jesus do that fish thing? Why the appendix? Who killed JFK? Why adult acne? What if you were a stranger on the bus? How much do you really know about all of us? What’s in the Amazon? Why Antarctica? Cancer? Do our dead relatives watch us masturbate? Are we all just a little bit gay? Aliens? Reincarnation? Why quicksand,  cockroaches, body odor, Tom Arnold, boogers? Why can’t we all just get along? What does it all mean?
    Before I can continue, God’s bellowing laughter encompasses the entire lobby of the Ritz.  Just like in Star Trek, his body fades away, leaving only a trail of swirling dust. Before I can thank him for pre-slicing our oranges or for flowers or for the smell of fresh cut grass, he’s gone. I speak anyway.
    HF: Thanks for carrying me.
    God’s voice looms.
    GOD: What are you talking about?
    HF: The footprints poem? You carried me. Right? You were there in hard times?
    More bellowing laughter. And dirty stares from the Ritz patrons.