Self Portrait Tuesday: Time # 4–A sense of humor is about timing and possibly furniture
Posted on | March 29, 2006 |
Ikea furniture is always packaged flat—for easier transport, and because it requires less packaging this way. It is up to you to haul your boxes of furniture home, usually tied to the roof of your too-small car or shoved precariously in the back, with the trunk open, and when you arrive, you stumble inside with the long cardboard rectangles containing what will be your bed or nightstand, and begin the hours-long process of assembling things. It takes a lot of patience, and with any luck, your techniques improve as you go along.
You take a heap of flat boards, pegs, an allen wrench, and follow the schematics that, if they have words at all, are printed in fifteen different languages. You are aware that what you’re doing is a little bit like magic. You are turning the nearly two-dimensional stack of wood and particle board, glass and wicker, into something three dimensional and useful.
You build a wicker backed chair, after putting the legs in place wrong twice. Your cat will later love to sharpen her claws on its rattan and soon it will no longer be presentable, but when you first put it together, all you see are its clean lines and lovely promise. You imagine dinner parties, and sunny mornings over coffee.
Or you put together a glass-topped table that will for years, show every condensation ring but you still can’t be bothered to buy coasters. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to make sense of the arrows and dotted lines: connect region B with point C using tool A. It might not be fine furniture, but it’s a start, and though you dream of owning REAL furniture, the kind you see in the windows of the home wares store you walk by every day, you’re happy with these flat-package creations for the time being.
This is pretty much exactly what the process of acquiring a sense of humor is like.
If you’re me, that is, and you were raised in a home with two of the most earnest, somber parents on the face of the earth. My home was also devoid of TV which contributed to a) the blossoming of my wild and vivid imagination an b) the utter absence of pop-culture sensibilities and all the accoutrements of humor that come with this terrain.
For me, sarcasm, silliness, wit, and comic timing did not come preassembled: an already functional part of my personality from day one. In fact, for years I was almost entirely lacking of anything that could possibly pass as an acceptable sense of humor.
Unfortunately sarcasm is still mostly lost on me. And, though you can slay me with a good play-on-words (my father, in all his etymological neerdieness would, on a cheery day, toss out one after another at the dinner table, and you’d have to be well versed in homophones and double-entendres to find them laugh-worthy, which I was), no amount of hanging out with boys has helped me to understand why it’s SO FUNNY to repeat one liners over and over again.
But I am gradually starting to get the hang of funny. It’s taken years for me to assemble, but I’m finally starting to get that it’s okay to JUST TAKE THINGS LIGHTLY sometimes. To NOT be serious every single minute. Years for me to finally understand that having a sense of humor, first and foremost, means having fun. It means giving yourself permission to make a fool out of yourself—to jump into things, arms and legs akimbo, laughing all the while.
And Bean is like the schematics that come with the furniture. He makes being silly easy. At 13 months, he watches everything I do, and then replicates it, often with unbelievably comic effects. He’ll take a sip of water and then let out this delightful, over-exaggerated sigh, and everybody just dies laughing. Or he’ll hear music and start wiggling his booty around with complete uninhibitedness. Finally, I’m starting to see that this is what humor is all about: over-exaggerated uninhibition. Gusto. Glee.
So we make time for this every day: we sit on the floor, roll around some, and act silly. I’m hoping that by the time he’s big, both of us will have a rip-roaring sense of humor.
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12 Responses to “Self Portrait Tuesday: Time # 4–A sense of humor is about timing and possibly furniture”
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March 29th, 2006 @ 2:17 am
I’m glad that sarcasm is lost on you. That’s precisely what makes your blog refreshing.
Maybe I’m wrong, but doesn’t “inhibition” mean the opposite of what you intend here? I think you want “uninhibitedness” (awkward!) or “uninhibited.”
March 29th, 2006 @ 3:30 am
I love how kids discover humor. Lily has taken to laughing loudly and exuberantly whenever we do, even if she has NO idea what the joke is. It’s funny that she’s already figured out this bit of social interaction… or maybe she just enjoys a good laugh. LOVE LOVE LOVE the photos.
March 29th, 2006 @ 4:16 am
i love the way you are immersed in your daily life… its so goddamn difficult to see it as important enough to pen down ideas about… and yet it IS so important. Spring Freshness thats what your writing reminds me of!
March 29th, 2006 @ 7:02 am
Sarcasm, schmarcasm. Most of the time it’s just hurtful anyway, and not at all funny. Your and Bean’s brand of funny is so delightful! And the whole IKEA-analogy made me laugh
March 29th, 2006 @ 8:08 am
Wonderful analogies!! I love puns although I usually don’t even know when I’ve done a good one; there’s a reason my dad calls me Gracie Allen.
March 29th, 2006 @ 8:42 am
Thanks for the word correction Lisa–that’s exactly what I meant. Late night blogging can do that to a brain.
And Kristen, to be totally honest, I have no idea who Gracie Allen is, which is EXACTLY what I was trying to get at. Oh well. Thank god for google!
March 29th, 2006 @ 9:19 am
And those long cardboard boxes are heavy! I’m always amazed at how they get everything to fit so perfectly in those boxes; it’s kind of like Tetris.
I’ll never forget trying to put together a little bookcase from IKEA with an Allan wrench and a string of swear words. The instructions were in Swedish, I think, and I nearly lost my mind doing it.
March 29th, 2006 @ 10:20 am
Really like the sepia-toned pictures. Particularly well suited for this little set. I must say however that your photography is always delightful.
I too have had a hard time with humour. My husband and dog have helped me immensely on that front but I’m still not a giggly person or a person that overtly laughs…alot.
I’ve yet to enjoy one of those silly laughs fits that seem to grip people in the middle of the day …that is my goal. seriously…..even if its born out of fatigue..to one day find myself laughing uncontrollably (like so many seem to be able to do) for no reason at all. Good goal, I think!
March 29th, 2006 @ 10:34 am
That is so great! Your smiles are very similiar.
March 29th, 2006 @ 2:40 pm
You were raised with no T.V. - I knew I liked your Blog for a reason!
I’ve told and tell my children - TV just fills your mind up with other peoples ideas and then there is less room for your own. I think no TV has helped my children develop long attention spans and vivid, wonderful imaginations, but you’re right about the pop culture references - I’m still at a loss when people refer to the latest reality shows and my 5 year old son doesn’t understand what “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” are all about - I hope they don’t tease him in Kindergarten for his obvious lack of TV knowledge! It is a double-edged sword to be sure.
I’ll get off my biggest soap box!
Great writing!
Michelle
March 29th, 2006 @ 2:57 pm
these pictures were just what i needed to see today. thank you…
March 29th, 2006 @ 6:31 pm
If anything can teach us how to laugh, it’s definitely a child’s sense of the silly and fun. Not to encourage you to watch TV (I’m trying to do less of it myself) but if you want to a watch something that just HAS to make you laugh at the pure absurdity of it all - Waiting for Guffman. Anything Christopher Guest.