The Best Medicine
It seems I've been found again, not that I'm hiding. With the People below, there are two more doorways back and forward to Iowa City days.
Taking off with the list experiment, I’m digging in, riffing if you will, from a previous list containing my favorite things in life. No, this will not be a list of my favorite ways of being naked with my boyfriend, yet. It will be a list of favorite laughing.
1. As mentioned before when writing about my Mom, my friend Jason has the most infectious laugh ever. While he’s laughing his eyes visibly create something out of what’s been said that’s even funnier. This goes on without pause and increases in entertainment. The night I took note of the way this worked, he was laughing and I couldn’t stop laughing in response, and finally he asked me if I was making fun of him. Nope. I’d been infected. There should be more of this kind of infection in life. I wish I had a sound byte to share. Or, hell, I wish he were here.
2. My brother Alex in March 2004. When my parents, grandma (Phyllis a.k.a. Sally), and brother visited New Jersey, my brother and I began developing a list of my grandmother’s varying laughs. There is the crescendoing sort of moan which falls back down in steps when she doesn’t think something is funny but feels it would be appropriate to laugh. And there is the sudden cackle, which is probably related to the nervous giggle demonstrated by other people including myself; however this version is far more disturbing. It jolts, it jars the whole body, and generally follows rather morbid remarks. On the plane on the way over, my brother was coughing a smoker’s cough. Grandma turned around and said to him, "Hope you don’t have SARS. SUDDEN CACKLE!" All night during dinner my brother, unbeknownst to my grandma, imitated her laughs as if he were merely participating in family time. I laughed so hard I thought I might vomit at the dinner table. This is the first time I began to feel close to my brother.
3. Kyle Wills’ pure, full, boundless laugh. A particular instance repeatedly surfaces in my memory: The whole slew of us were in Chicago where La Makita Soma was opening for Smog, during which night Bill Callahan revealed himself fully to be a prime asshole. Just before we began light-brigading for LMS, Gregg gave me LSD in a green gel tab, a rather potent dose which for the first and only such time made me fearful: I lost the capacity for speech, had no idea where I was in Chi-town, everyone fell asleep and I was alone and incapacitated. Gregg, Mr King, and I were the last awake, and I had determined that Mr King was my stronghold. Meanwhile, Gregg was filling himself with much whiskey. By morning when everyone--I think the rest of the twenty or so of us in one apartment--had risen, I had slept a single chopped-up hour and Gregg was in poor shape; he, Kyle and I were hungry for breakfast. For some reason we decided the Mexican grocery store across the street was a good bet. It wasn't. Passing through the turnstile, we quickly saw the store contained large bags of rice and such, no toast or eggs or even a box of Pop Tarts. So we decided to leave. Kyle and I began to walk to the turnstile at the exit; Gregg turned around right where he was and tried to leave. These were one-way turnstiles. He looked like a wind-up toy butting and butting again the wrong way into the turnstile's metal arm. As his girlfriend at the time I thought I should be supportive and not laugh, so I held it in. Kyle Wills, he let it out, a pure, full, boundless laugh enough for the both of us. Even the memory of that laugh feels like life should be.
It seems I can't just make a simple list, 1-2-3. So be it.
Taking off with the list experiment, I’m digging in, riffing if you will, from a previous list containing my favorite things in life. No, this will not be a list of my favorite ways of being naked with my boyfriend, yet. It will be a list of favorite laughing.
1. As mentioned before when writing about my Mom, my friend Jason has the most infectious laugh ever. While he’s laughing his eyes visibly create something out of what’s been said that’s even funnier. This goes on without pause and increases in entertainment. The night I took note of the way this worked, he was laughing and I couldn’t stop laughing in response, and finally he asked me if I was making fun of him. Nope. I’d been infected. There should be more of this kind of infection in life. I wish I had a sound byte to share. Or, hell, I wish he were here.
2. My brother Alex in March 2004. When my parents, grandma (Phyllis a.k.a. Sally), and brother visited New Jersey, my brother and I began developing a list of my grandmother’s varying laughs. There is the crescendoing sort of moan which falls back down in steps when she doesn’t think something is funny but feels it would be appropriate to laugh. And there is the sudden cackle, which is probably related to the nervous giggle demonstrated by other people including myself; however this version is far more disturbing. It jolts, it jars the whole body, and generally follows rather morbid remarks. On the plane on the way over, my brother was coughing a smoker’s cough. Grandma turned around and said to him, "Hope you don’t have SARS. SUDDEN CACKLE!" All night during dinner my brother, unbeknownst to my grandma, imitated her laughs as if he were merely participating in family time. I laughed so hard I thought I might vomit at the dinner table. This is the first time I began to feel close to my brother.
3. Kyle Wills’ pure, full, boundless laugh. A particular instance repeatedly surfaces in my memory: The whole slew of us were in Chicago where La Makita Soma was opening for Smog, during which night Bill Callahan revealed himself fully to be a prime asshole. Just before we began light-brigading for LMS, Gregg gave me LSD in a green gel tab, a rather potent dose which for the first and only such time made me fearful: I lost the capacity for speech, had no idea where I was in Chi-town, everyone fell asleep and I was alone and incapacitated. Gregg, Mr King, and I were the last awake, and I had determined that Mr King was my stronghold. Meanwhile, Gregg was filling himself with much whiskey. By morning when everyone--I think the rest of the twenty or so of us in one apartment--had risen, I had slept a single chopped-up hour and Gregg was in poor shape; he, Kyle and I were hungry for breakfast. For some reason we decided the Mexican grocery store across the street was a good bet. It wasn't. Passing through the turnstile, we quickly saw the store contained large bags of rice and such, no toast or eggs or even a box of Pop Tarts. So we decided to leave. Kyle and I began to walk to the turnstile at the exit; Gregg turned around right where he was and tried to leave. These were one-way turnstiles. He looked like a wind-up toy butting and butting again the wrong way into the turnstile's metal arm. As his girlfriend at the time I thought I should be supportive and not laugh, so I held it in. Kyle Wills, he let it out, a pure, full, boundless laugh enough for the both of us. Even the memory of that laugh feels like life should be.
It seems I can't just make a simple list, 1-2-3. So be it.
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