After a work party today, three different people told me I was funny. Not in the “don’t point and laugh, she can’t control that God gave her that face” way. But in the “wow, those stories you told were really amusing” way. That’s nice to hear.
But then I spent five minutes wondering if I should be less funny at work, because maybe being funny isn’t very professional.
Then I was all super proud of myself that I only obsessed about it for five minutes and that used to be at least an hours’ worth of obsessing time.
Then I was even more proud of myself for not doubting them…it dawned on me recently that people don’t lie about stuff like that just to be polite. They lie about what a pretty skirt your wearing, or thinking you lost an imaginary 5 lbs, but funny isn’t one of those things that just gets thrown around as a false compliment. So I’m happy.
Isn’t it nice when small things make you happy? Like buttons. Buttons are usually really small, and when I was little they made me really happy. Mom kept a huge tin of mixed buttons in the sewing room in case we ever needed them for button emergencies. Gramma did too so I wonder if I will have a similar collection by the time I’m old, but I doubt it, because I watch that hoarding show and then panic that I’m going to turn into a hoarder and start throwing things away. So a button collection is probably not in my future. And when I was little we never really needed the buttons for anything button related anyway so I probably don’t even need a button collection. As a kid I just ended up throwing them into old pill bottles stuffed with wires, and bolts, then I pasted googly eyes on the bottle and shook it hard hoping all the pieces would fall together into a robot. (I really wanted a robot and I’m still pretty sure that’s how they’re made.) So anyway, long story short, small things make me happy, and I’m funny (in the good way). Yay me!
Writing Exercise:
Have you ever attended a party or other social occasion, and then blurted out something you wish you could take back? Like an embarrassing over-share about your childhood, or misunderstood joke? While these moments can make you want to crawl into a hole to hide, they can be great inspiration for our writing. Think of a time when you made a social blunder then imagine what would happen if every time you tried to make it better, something made it worse. Or imagine some creative ways of getting out of the embarrassing situation. Just how far can an uncomfortable moment go? Would your character end up gibbering in a corner? Would people join the insane moment and eventually laugh? Would your character end up incarcerated? Spend twenty minutes writing about your escape.
Happy writing.
