I Seem to be Bright Red

That's what my wife says. Could be the inhaler I'm using to open up my lungs. But my last intake of mist was hours ago. Am I universally dilated?

Also, sweaty. Working on some jokes for tomorrow, but it's hard to put in *the verve* when one is not feeling well. And over the years our league has become a "tough house," one too much in touch with its own mortality.

Every group needs a generous laugher, someone who is either high in empathy or low in discernment who fills the silence, who fears it the way a child fears the dark. I'm a generous laugher, but I can't very well laugh at my own stuff. Physically impossible, you know, to joke and laugh at the same time. You have to be doing one thing or the other, so might as well go deadpan and act as if the point is telling jokes the audience doesn't get.

Deconstruct the conceit, you know?


That reminds me of one of my favorite grad school jokes, a joke that I thought at the time elevated the discourse.

An Englishman laughs at every joke three times: When you tell it. When his friend gets it. When he gets it.

I like that Englishman.