Just Be-Cosby

What makes you laugh? I'll bet it's not what makes your mother laugh, or your husband, or your children for that matter. Laughter is such a personal interchange, like a private joke between your brain and your funny bone.

I love trying to figure out what makes people laugh.

I became fascinated after my very first foray into comedy which consisted of an impromptu routine almost sixteen years ago. Without planning what I would say, I got up from my seat, took the microphone, and with zero trepidation told people about my life. Seriously, it was a twenty minute, off the cuff relay of my job, children, husband, and life in general. Stories mostly, with absolutely no structure, no punchline, and no expectations. It went over like free twinkies at a weight watchers meeting. They gobbled it up.

During the past three years I've endeavored to take my comedy to new heights, to be a “professional” if you will. Workshops, books, and conferences all tell of how-to formulas that include punchlines, set-ups, and measurable LPMs (laughs per minute.) I've studied, attended, and digested these materials and advice ad nauseum. I've changed and contorted my style to become the picture of comedic strategy, and you know what it's done? Diluted my comedy, and more importantly, my love of comedy. Trying to fit into the stereotypical formula has drained the joy right out of making people laugh, and that's a pretty sad statement.

Jerry Seinfeld has been quoted as saying “the closer your comedy is to who you are, the more successful you'll be.” How insightful. Look at Bill Cosby. You don't get more beloved as a comedian than Bill Cosby. How does he do it? He sits on a stool, and tells stories about his job, his children, his wife, and life in general. No overwrought formula, no cookie cutter jokes, just Bill and his stories (brilliantly crafted and woven of course) and we gobble it up. I'll bet if you had lunch with Bill Cosby he would be just as funny, and just as real as he is on stage, and that's what makes him worth watching.

Are you squeezing who you are into a formula that robs you of joy and laughter, diluting your love of life and the way God made you? Then go back to simply being you, with your own unique style, and if someone asks you why you keep smiling, say... “just be-Cos-by.”

Sally Baucke - One Body Central

Can You Empa-thighs?

      A new fear gripped me today. No, not about the economy, or the war in Iraq, although both those agendas could strike fear in the heart of any American. Indeed, my fear did not come from global "climate change" or whatever we are calling it now, and it is not from life's uncertainties that undoubtedly lie ahead.
     No, fear struck today as I sat innocently in my Grandmother's mahogany dining chair (as I am right now,) getting ready to click away at the keys on my laptop. As I waited for some witty, inspiring comment to flood my cerebral cortex, I leaned back and lazily dropped my arms to my sides, and that's when it happened.
     Instead of feeling the chair against my hand as I was subconsciously anticipating, an altogether different sensation marked my arm, then made it's way up to my brain and back down behind my eyes which opened wide in response. What I felt wasn't hard like a wooden chair, but rather, it was kind of soft and spongy.
     It was... my...gosh, I can barely say it...my thighs. Oh.... my.... goodness..... Seriously?
     Could this seriously be happening? The middle-age "spread" as it were? I've always heard about it, but listened with an indifferent ear like one might about an impending deadly virus that is claiming lives in other parts of the world, but too far off to impact the present. But apparently, I did not exercise the appropriate amount of healthy fear when I should have, so here it is, larger than life. In what seems like an overnight event, my legs have decided this chair is no longer large enough and they are scouting for new real estate. Or perhaps my outer thighs are trying to emancipate themselves from my inner thighs in a surreptitious internalized fat coup.
     At first I just sat there, stunned, letting the horrific reality sink into my paralyzed mind. Then I did the worst possible thing a woman can do in this situation: I felt them again. And again, kneading and poking as if this would cause them to deflate and go back to their prior, mind-accepting proportions. 'What's next?" I thought, having to scoop my chin off the kitchen table like a growing ball of silly putty, right in the middle of consuming my super-sized platter of burger and fries?
     The worst part is, I don't remember this being the case just yesterday, though I may not have been giving the matter proper attention as I've been preoccupied with sedentary blog writing and mindless ho-ho munching. I'm just saying, it feels unfair, that's all. No warning, no incremental graduation of flesh, no formal announcement, just poof! there they are, thigh 3 and thigh 4, like two bowls of rising bread dough spilling over to meet the floor.
     I think tomorrow I shall choose a different venue for writing, such as a double-wide chaise, or better yet, the middle of my king size mattress. Hopefully I'll have at least six months or so before my thighs crawl off the edge of that and maybe by then I'll have figured out a way to be creative while I'm on the treadmill. In the meantime, I'm adopting a personal "don't touch-don't tell" policy with my own thighs . Now that's something to really be afraid of.