L.O.L.

My life has been marked by a touch of hilarity of late. Maybe it's the 90 degree heat. Maybe it's the 10 to 6 job accompanied by the production assistant position. Or maybe it's just my body's defense mechanism. It's my subconscious way of protecting myself from insanity.

This week, I have been busy. I have been tired to the point where hyperbole escapes me. Just as the Hot Festival begins to wind down at Dixon Place, the fast-paced scramble to settle the fall season kicks in. On Tuesday, I felt as if I'd been pushed off a cliff and told to fly. I left work with a headache, a stomachache, and an aching desire to GO HOME. Instead, I went to a production meeting for Manon/Sandra on the other side of town. We sat in the lounge of the SITI studio on 8th Ave and went over all the things that were, and still are, going wrong. It was one of those days. The meeting was adjourned at nine, not because we had resolved any issues or come to any conclusions, but because we were just. too. tired. Tina, Pia, Jessi, and myself hung around in the computer lab for a while afterward, desperate for a little girl time, for company that was purely non-business. We ended up staying in that small little room for another 45 minutes. I don't remember how it started and I don't really care. All I know is, by 9:15, we were bent over double, tears of laughter rolling down our cheeks. What a breath of fresh air that was.

Today at Dixon Place, the atmosphere was similar. In this case, it was Kirby the British bulldog's outrageous, freakishly child-like antics, that had me in paroxysms, holding the partially unwrapped toner I was about to insert into our finicky, freakishly child-like (in its constant need of supervision and care) printer. It was the kind of laughter that makes it difficult to hold things or perform precision tasks. In my case, it made it nearly impossible for me to manipulate the box cutter I was using to slice through the foil wrapping of the toner. My body's way of telling me to take a break.

I started of this post by referencing helpless laughter as a subconscious safeguard against insanity. I'd like to retract that statement. I think laughter is an escape from the sane. It is a relief from the mundane tasks that threaten to overwhelm our sense of joy. It is a reminder that sometimes, it's okay when things don't make sense. Sometimes, you really just need to laugh at the way the British bulldog is attacking the vacuum cleaner with a vengeance most commonly associated with Mel Gibson in Braveheart. Because it's just plain funny.