humans are funny

Category: life

  • I’m not even going to think of a title.

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    I’m in Spain! I’m here to work on my Master’s thesis, which is about perfectionism, a disease I contracted long ago. If something I do isn’t done perfectly (speak Spanish), I get mad at myself. At least I used to. Now I’ve been working on it for two years, so I’m getting better. Look, I’ll even spell a word wierdly and leave it just like that.

    Before Spain, the country of my dad’s family, my mom and I hit up Poland and Italy, the countries of her parents. It’s been an Adventure in Ancestry, a Raucus Ride into our Roots. We didn’t meet any actual ancestors though. I imagined fat Italian ladies pinching our cheeks and forcing five courses down our delicate American throats. Okay, that did happen, but they weren’t our relatives. Ancestry.com claims to be a gateway to long-lost family members, but it really just shows you records from before they had computers. While it is cool to see my grandpa’s signature on the Ellis Island register from 1937, those documents did not lead me to long lost cousins who would take me in, invite me to Ibiza, and leave me huge inheritances. I hate Ancestry.com.

    Still, our trip did help us understand from where we come and why we are who we are. And after fifteen days with my mom, we were still alive. FIFTEEN days STRAIGHT after living apart for fourteen years. That’s a feat. We actually had a great time, and we learned a lot of deep things about each other like we both hate tomato seeds. She’s been back to the comfort of her own sofa and her non-spotty internet for over a week now (besides that whole storm/lack of electricity thing), which means I’ve been alone for over a week.

    Being the detail-oriented perfectionist that I am, I had a list of things I was planning to get to the moment my mom swept herself back to the land of dollars. I always have a to-do list. There’s never not something to do, to write, to finish, to email, to edit, to study, to read. Since the last time I traveled in 2009, I’ve been glued to lists. And meetings. And traffic. And things and things to do.

    When she left, I cried. Then I pulled out my list: Send postcards. Talk to strangers. Walk around the city. Write a book or two. Come up with a million-dollar business plan. Fall in love. Email all the people I’ve been wanting to email forever. The yoozch. The yush? The ush? The usz?

    But something came up, and it’s something I’ve never done before. It’s something everyone has always told me to try, but I’ve never let myself try it for fear it would interfere with my perfectionism. It’s called: Nothing. I AM DOING NOTHING. Nothing. This is the first time I’ve written something in weeks. I haven’t peeped at an email. I’m only half writing this because I’m also watching the most fascinating Spanish game show (Joder! Tienen los mejores game shows aqui!). I’m waking up at 11am. ELEVEN! I’m taking baths for so long that my fingers actually have grown prunes on them. And when I get tired of the bath, I walk to the beach. And when I get sick of the beach, I sit at a restaurant and watch people make me food. I talk little. I wear the same thing every day. I sit silently. I didn’t even move when a huge cockroach flew through my window.

    From afar, one might think I’m depressed. I probably look like someone’s just died or like I’ve just escaped a violent relationship. But I’m simply in shock. I can’t believe how great it feels to do nothing. I don’t have a TV in my apartment in America because I feel like it interferes with my productivity. And now I’ve put everything off so I can stay in and watch a semi-less trashy Spanish version of Maury Provich. It’s so good (But I don’t understand why that one guy’s long lost sister didn’t come on the show! Doesn’t she want to know her biological family? I would definitely do the show if such a nice invitation in such a big envelope arrived for me– duh, hermana!).

    I’m totally letting myself not DO, and it feels pretty fucking great. It also means I’m not perfectly finishing everything I’ve set out to do. But whatever. Maybe that means I’m finally cured and I can come home. I have a whole lot of American TV to catch up on.

    ::I hope everyone’s out doing something patriotic today on this very special day of Independence. I passed a Burger King today!::

  • We’re gonna farty like it’s 1896.

    According to the Huffington Post, Maria Gomes Valentim is now the oldest person in the world, born in Brazil in 1896.

    She says her secret to living 114 YEARS is that she eats a roll of bread every morning.
    Yes, a roll.

    I had the great luck of meeting the oldest woman on Utila island yesterday. She won’t tell me her age, but she is definitely the oldest because she has outlived every one of her friends. When asked for her secret to longevity, she says, “I poop every morning.”

    There you have it, ladies and gentlemen: Eat a roll. Poop a roll. Live forever.

  • Fuck you, weather

    In the grand scheme of time, Mike DeStefano and I merely passed through each other’s lives. Still, this man had a profound effect on my life, my life’s purpose, and everything I want to be. I’m not just saying that because that’s what happens when somebody dies– we make the dead guy seem grander than they were. No way. This guy was grand. A whisper from him was so loud. And he whispered that I was somebody and that I can do anything. He believed in me. And coming from a guy who was sharing his story honestly and making a living at it, that meant more than anything. And I never told him.

    Regret. Regret. Regret.

    Hoping that a major part of purgatory and/or dying and/or afterlife is blog reading, I’m saying it here. Everything I’m so grateful to have learned from Mike DeStefano:

    Before his death:
    1. If your first conversation is about the moment you decide to commit suicide and how it actually makes you happy because it’s clarifying and definitive, there’s really no need to ever talk about the weather. It now seems pretty pointless to talk about the weather with anyone. Why not just have meaningful honest communication? So what if it’s just someone you met in the elevator? Tell him about your alcoholic dad. Do it. Fuck weather. Or traffic. Or fart jokes. (Poo jokes an occasional exception).

    2. There is humor in absolutely everything. Even AIDS. Because Humans are Funny. I knew that before, but it’s nice that Mike confirmed it for me.

    3. When my dad killed himself, I thought him a coward. He was faced with a fork in the road, both paths seemingly helpless dead ends. He didn’t feel up to finding the magic key that would reveal another option. He just gave up. I always figured that was a conscious choice he’d made. He could have chosen to live and figure life out. For years I wondered why he didn’t just make a different choice, but part of me thought that was just my idealism speaking. Mike proved to me that it was possible: He had a Comedy Central special. And before that he was a drug counselor. And before that he was a drug addict. And before that, he was twelve (one of his jokes). He said, “Life is brutal at times. But not only can you survive it, you can turn it into something pretty cool.” And he did. And my dad didn’t. But I will.

    5. We also have another conscious choice: Do we make an impact on everyone we meet or do we remain forgettable?

    4. I’m so happy that I have suffered. Suffering makes the rest of life seem beautiful. Suffering takes the pain out of parking tickets and little things. Suffering is what makes us all the same.

    5. Acceptance. Unattachment. It’s all possible, which is great because wanting someone to change for you is much more painful than accepting them. Even if he thought you were a douche hack comic, he wanted you to be better. Even if he saw that you just wanted to talk about weather, he knew you’d figure it out eventually. He was judgmental in his jokes only to make people more aware. When speaking at an NA meeting, he said “There’s nobody in this room that can’t achieve anything they want to achieve– unless you’re thinking of becoming a pro ball player or a stripper. Don’t be retarded about it.”

    6. There’s something very sweet about a guy with a Bronx accent calling you a cunt.

    7. I really don’t hate the word ‘cunt.’ It’s just a four-letter word. Why do we give it so much power? Why does the majority get so offended over so many things? Get over it. Go have an ice cream sandwich.

    What I learned from Mike’s death:

    1. Don’t fucking wait. How many times have we learned this lesson? I didn’t tell him how much he meant to me because I figured I would tell him later. Thanks a lot, later. You really fucked me.

    2. Don’t assume. I just assumed Mike would be in my life. Assumed he would be so proud of Taboo Tales and would want to publish a story in the anthology. Assumed I would see him in NY one day. Assumed he would help me get an agent so that I could travel around to colleges and talk people out of suicide (his idea and I love it). All of those assumptions were wrong. I fucking made an ass out of you and me. Dammit.

    3. Assumptions are what makes death hurt more. Because now I have to re-imagine all those events.

    4. I have a new respect for Facebook. It really helped me grieve when I could see so many others also in pain. Misery loves company? No, misery loves Facebook.

    5. Mike had just put on his one man show, ‘Drugs, Death, and Disease: A Comedy.’ He spent one hour on stage talking about his life and deep meaningful issues, things he learned from suffering. Issues that weren’t fighting with fart jokes to get laughs in comedy clubs. Issues that deserved a stage and an open audience. He said to his producer after the show, “I’ve said everything I’ve ever wanted to say.” He was done. He no longer needed to be on earth. How many of us can say that? How many of us can say that we’ve squeezed every bit of ourselves out? How many of us has squeezed the juice out of all our relationships? How many of us really take advantage and not for granted?

    6. I am so grateful for the community here on this blog. Thank you very much for virtually holding me in your arms.

    7. All comedians die early. Fuck. Was just about to start doing more stand-up. Next up: Zach Galifinakis. I feel it.

    8. You can fall more and more in love with a person even after they die. Watch this short film:


    And if you really want to know even more, this link leads to the entire story.

    “When you give, it’s the only time you can see that you have anything…  Me being alive is a very improbable thing. Of course I give to people. I’m happy to be alive.” -Mike DeStefano

  • I’m a Chupacabra & You’re a Unicorn

    My friend, Madge, is 62. After her dining room table lasted her twenty years, she bought a new one.

    “It’s so weird to think this could be my last dining room table,” she said.

    Holy shit!

    I mean, Holy shit.

    I’ve heard that we are all going to die. I know people die. I saw my grandmother in her casket when I was eight (and poked her body because my cousin dared me to). Plus, my dad never calls me anymore, so I’m pretty sure he’s dead (although, I still slightly suspect he faked his death to move away to his secret family in Idaho– road trip to Idaho pending).

    I get it. People die. Everybody dies.

    I’ve even contemplated my own death. I like to ask myself about my own death pretty often. I’ll say, “Hey, Laurenne, would you be okay with dying today?” Or sometimes my own demise is forced upon me when I’m just walking in a really bad neighborhood (which I do pretty often because I like to live on the edge). I’ll say, “A bullet could go through your brain any minute now. Are you ready?”

    And usually it’s a yes. Usually, I think about all the times I’ve laughed in my life and all the people I love, and I say, “Yes, I think if I HAD to be okay with dying today, I’d be okay.” When I landed in Papua New Guinea and the guy in line behind me in customs told me he was 100% positive that I would be raped and maimed if I stepped into the street, I did it anyway because I had prepared myself mentally for my own death. And because I’m fucking crazy sometimes. And because I was in Papua New Guinea! Totally cool with dying after that.

    But mentally prepared for dying is one thing. Actually preparing for dying makes me want to crawl in a hole and avoid avoid avoid. Actually buying the last dining room set ever in your WHOLE LIFE…? I don’t like it and I don’t like that I don’t like it. Some cultures celebrate death. In Bali, they party when someone dies. The human is able to pass onto the next life, which has the possibility to be so much better. So why not celebrate? And in India, death is not so scary. If you’re a devout Hindu and you die by the Ganges, no biggie. But, in this society, death is looked upon as such a horrible ending. We escape conversations about death and whisper about the poor souls with cancer and then soak up boxes of tissues when they finally disappear.

    When we know death is close, we do everything we can to keep it away. We’ll undergo any operation necessary to hold on just days longer to our precious lives. Yet, we can’t stop ourselves from eating Big Macs and shooting up schools.

    Most people in this country believe in heaven, yet still we still hold on so tightly to life. Why is everyone so scared to go bowling with their great uncles in the sky? Either we’re all aware that we wouldn’t be dressed well enough to get passed the heavenly doormen, or there’s a little part of us that thinks heaven sure sounds like something we just made up to make us feel better about dying. We have no proof and no idea about what death could be. Really, dying is like walking into a dark room. What if we turn on the lights and it’s better than expected?

    I may tell myself I’m okay with dying sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I’m finished. I want to see more of the world and make more of a difference and love even more people and laugh a million more times. And to me, death takes that away. But maybe it doesn’t?

    I would like to salute my friend and her dining set for addressing death as the inevitable mystery that it is. It’s just some thing that happens. Perhaps not a horrible thing. We’re all going to die. And we don’t even know what that means.

    Possible things that happen when we die:

    1.   Our souls travel to a Universal hub. We have to take turns coming back to Earth to learn lessons. But we all think Earth is so boring and petty, so we have to Rock, Paper, Scissors for it.

    2.   We find out that all the mythical creatures actually exist in another realm. In this other realm, I am a chupacabra and you are a unicorn.

    3.   We find out we’ve been in the matrix. Laurence Fishburne is there and then we all wear black coats and then there’s an oracle and then some more stuff happens but I don’t remember cuz that movie was a long time ago.

    4.   We all become shape-shifting ghosts and we meet up once a day to watch all the human teenagers masturbate. Because we think it’s funny.

    5.   We find there really is a heaven and hell. And that we’ve actually been in hell this whole time.

    6.    Nothing at all happens. We just die. But there’s a perfect few seconds right before we realize there’s nothing when we’re able to regret ever wearing MC Hammer pants.

    Anybody else have a good theory?

  • Survey says… inspiration! Or broccoli.

    It’s 2011. Fuck.

    It’s now time for people to scoff at me and return my checks due to my failure to remember it’s 2011. Not that I write checks that often. Other people do. And those people are usually in front of me at the supermarket.

    Shit. This post isn’t so positive. One of my 2010 2011 resolutions is to think more positively. Wow, that shirt looks great on you.

    There’s a reason for the timely negativity. A reason for my cowering in the corner, very reluctant to welcome in a new year. It’s because 2010 2011 will be one of the biggest years in my professional career. I’ve planned it that way, so that’s how it’s going to be. Shit is going to happen. My vision board agrees.

    That also means that I’m going to have to make all that stuff happen. And that’s creating a lot fear and vulnerability all throughout my little body that is miraculously still pretty little compared to the amount of food I’ve eaten this holiday paired with alcohol in the hope that I’ll forget the fear and vulnerability.

    You, see, I have this dick of an ego, Lawrence, and he likes to chime in and tell me I’m a failure and that it’s stupid to actually try to be a full-time non-advertising writer because I’m just going to fail. But, rejoice! I read a book about dealing with dickface egos, and it said to write out Lawrence’s words with the non-dominant hand and then respond with the dominant hand. And let me tell you, Lawrence has some bad handwriting.

    It did teach me that my biggest fear is failure. And that I’m making failure out to be this horrible demon of a thing that I won’t be able to escape, a red X on my face like that on the faces of the Family Feud contestants who don’t know that the survey said broccoli.

    But then I thought more about it and realized that failing is my own invention.

    Some people think Obama is a failure. Others still really admire him (I swear. We’re out there.). But what’s really the most important is how he sees himself. He can choose to be mad at himself and listen to his jerky ego, or he can be proud of what he’s been able to accomplish and go to bed smiling.

    My point is that fear and failure live only in our own minds. And if we have the power to deem ourselves failures, don’t we also have the power to deem ourselves winners? Let’s choose that option. Let’s all be winners.

    I’m still unclear on the very objective failures like fathers who leave their kids and never call them until they’re in their twenties. That’s a parental failure, right? Well, I guess the kid could think the father failed, but if the father was doing the best he could at the time, he could still think of himself as a winner. See how I turned that around? I should really be a helpful guest on Jerry Springer.

    Is that show still on? If so, I can believe it. I spent a lot of time avoiding Lawrence by watching my mother’s television this holiday season. There are some really crap shows on. Cake Boss? Seriously? See how I’m starting to go all over the place now down here toward the end? My old self could say that this is a total writing failure. But my new self declares this post a winner.

    I’m coming out of hiding and am now prepared for 2010 2011, the best year yet. For real. Because I said so. Let’s enjoy it, fellow winners. Let’s be positive and make things happen. My, that shirt looks really, really good on you.

    UPDATE: I don’t really have a vision board.

    UPDATE #2: Tony Robbins called. He wants his post back.

    UPDATE #3: The guy who made up the joke about things calling and wanting their stuff back called. He said that shit is old.