September 13, 2010
Woke up bone tired this morning. Of course, when you wake before even the owls give a hoot then what do you expect? But because today is Monday, the fatigue seemed heavier, my mind fuzzier than they would have on a draggy Thursday or Friday.
Turned out, all that bone-tired fatigue made me kind of funny, though.
In talking with my newspaper students about AP style rules this morning, I blundered and bobbled and blah-blahed my way through one wrong example after another, all the while, giggling alongside my students. And by the time I talked about attribution and how one might describe Mama Cass choking to death on a turkey sandwich, well, the “lesson” was pretty much over, and the Vegas act was in full swing.
By the time class was over, we felt pretty darned good in each other’s company, glad to be there, sharing goofiness and not really worrying too much about the details. That doesn’t mean we didn’t work hard, though. We just enjoyed ourselves along the way.
Odd as it sounds, I think this is one of my gifts—being willing to be goofy in front of others. It’s an unusual kind of binder, sometimes lashing out against me rather than bringing us together, if the act is too obscure, too absurd. But mostly, my willingness to be goofy, to not fret screwing up publicly, to enjoy the “wonder where this is going” mentality of a rambling sentence, has served me well in life.
Bottom line? I think bottoms are still funny. And I can never turn my back on a clever turn of phrase. Puns are like daily vitamins for me, my insurance against the bleak reality of headline news. I will not make fun of people, unless they’re my people. And then? Well, God help my children, that’s all I can say.
I’m not sure what it says about me, this willingness to play the fool. What does it mean that Jill and I couldn’t just pick up Allison and Bailey at the mall? Why, for instance, did we need a cheesy theme song, half cracked windows and a well-tested horn when we pulled up beside the food court? That Allison longed for suicide and spoke of her science teacher who was standing close by, well, that just made the whole thing kind of perversely perfect. In fact, I consider it the high point of my weekend.
And who can say why I donned my old clown outfit when my friend Allison’s birthday rolled around, heading downtown to her bank where I pretended to be a clown for hire?
I don’t know what made me walk into the bank president’s office, asking for Allison because “this is the room she said she worked in.” But it was really, really fun. And Allison still works there, so it must not have been too terrible.
If goofiness is the upbeat, sunny side of my middle-aged insomnia, if lack of sleep is what it takes to connect with my students on the most banal, idiotic level, then so be it. I’ll take that over a generational disconnect any day.
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