The Laughing Episode

Maybe this has happened to you.

You’re some place fairly serious, aiming to have a fairly serious conversation, and suddenly something strikes you funny.

Something that isn’t actually funny in real life. Oh, say, bowel cancer. Or blood clots. Something unanimously unfunny.

But, you see, outside of this fairly serious conversation, you’ve been navigating some very serious paths with mounting stress.

Like hardcore advocating for the care of one of your parents, battling hospitals and insurance companies with a fierce power of persuasion.
Or navigating ten months of a pandemic.
Or watching people storming the nation’s capitol.
Just… hypothetically speaking.

And then laughter strikes your stress release valve. And it becomes increasingly obvious: this wave isn’t stopping until it’s done. You absolutely cannot get it together. No matter what you do or try.

And so you laugh and laugh and laugh until your stomach aches and your face is leaking fluids of various viscosity and you can’t finish sentences and your brother had to close the show because you cannot… cannot… can’t.

And it feels so good.

Maybe that has happened to you.

It happened to me. LIVE. On the air.

Episode 79

p.s. My brother and I launched a podcast earlier this year.  Let’s Talk Soon, where we talk about what we’re reading about, writing about, thinking about, and speaking up about.  (And sometimes what we’re laughing-ourselves-silly about.)