laughter, please

Today's quote comes from pages 234-235 of Lewis Black's book Me of Little Faith, from the chapter entitled "God Knows Funny". Mind you I am not necessarily a religious person, but neither is Mr. Lewis' book trying to preach or convert anyone. This one paragraph really struck me as intersting:



"And imagine a religion where all God asks of you is to have a good laugh and then get back to trying to be a nice person. Let's face it, we could use something like this since we're living in a world that makes most of us so uptight that being nice is an exhausting proposition. Which is why my God would want each and every one of us to laugh - as it simply and miraculously alleviates stress."



Since I'm the kind of person who can't seem to get away from introspective blogs, I'll mention here that lately I've observed that I've been unusually uptight. If you know me well, you know that I'm generally uptight anyway, which means that lately I've been ... making diamonds? So I read that paragraph and am reminded that laughter is a very healthy thing to have in one's life. Perhaps it's not only laughing at the funny, but also being able to laugh at the rediculous or the impossible instead of getting angry that could help me relax and live a healthier life.



Way back in 2008 after returning from a breathtaking trip to New Zealand, I said I should adopt the "No Worries" lifestyle, and I certainly haven't done that yet. Perhaps I should start looking at both that and more laughter, particularly at myself, so that I can sigh and move on with living.

no traction work day, parents watch kid for first time

Kind of a waste of a day as far as work is concerned. Never could get any traction, just kept spinning my wheels. probably mostly my own fault for not brainstorming with peers to get through the design block I was experiencing. Also quite nervous these days about staying at home on Wednesdays. It's totally worth it to get to spend the time with my son, but loosing 20% of my work week puts a LOT more pressure on me the other days to get all the work done.

But hey, on the brighter side of things, my parents watched Tyler today and had a great, fun day with him. Apparently he was nothing but smiles and was rolling over in both directions, so that's really great; I was afraid there's be trouble since he hasn't spent all that much time with them in his life so far, but he proved me wrong and did really well today.

weekend, most of it

Had a lot of fun at a BBQ at the Shaw's yesterday. It's so very, very healthy for Laura and I to visit friends and laugh. Something about the friends we have .. they're just such cool people, and we always feel so good around them. We always come home afterwards feeling refreshed. Anyway, just a couple hours spent hanging out with them, the Telfords, and Beth and Thom.

Spent a chunk of today bbqing again with Laura's family. Tyler was argumentative most of the time, but it was still an enjoyable visit, right up until the part where we had a metal object jammed in the front right tire of the car, and had to put on the spare to drive home tonight. No, it wasn't vandalism; somehow the tire, which, by the way, is essentially brand new, picked up what looks like a broken tire valve stem. It wasn't leaking any air, but it sounded like a large rock stuck in the tire as we tried to drive away from Laura's brother's house. We thought about just staying the night in Folsom, but ended up driving back home ... at 50 miles an hour. It's really interesting to see just how fast and reckless everyone drives when you are going that (relatively) slow and watching them damn near run up your ass. So we cruised home with the hazards on, and had a lot of laughs.

Oh hey, Happy Birthday America!