sarcasm turns your hair grey you know

Ok, a short diatribe post about humour, and the sense (or lack of) that some individuals of my acquaintance exhibit. Now, I have been called funny (witty, humourous, entertaining) enough times for me to think that there might be a small degree of truth in the comments. Purely anecdotally (I am not anal enough to have done a scientific study on this, yet) I make people laugh/giggle more often than I don’t. So some of the time I make people laugh unintentionally, but most of the time, when I want people to be amused, they are. I’m not saying that I am a standup comic or anything – far too shy if nothing else – but I seem to be blessed (?) in that I can spread joy just by saying whatever comes into my head. All evidence to the contrary, I do actually occasionally have thoughts in my head.

Now, if I was forced to describe my sense of humour, I would have to resort to such words as “self-deprecating”, “dry”, “sarcastic”, occasionally “silly”, or just plain “screwball”. The telling of long involved jokes is not my thing – I tend to loose track and, by the time it comes, the punch line always falls flat – and I have always expressed myself better in writing than verbally. A minor speech impediment kicks in so that, when it matters, the words just refuse to come. That, and my brain runs about five thousand times faster than my tongue, so the words get all jumbled together in my mouth. My dad used to have a phrase he would make me repeat when I was younger “engage brain before opening mouth” (or words to that affect, it’s been a while since he said them to me. Other catch-phrases of his [“we’re doomed, we’re all doomed!!!” and “it was a dark and stormy night…”] have overwritten the important life-lesson ones*), but the sentiment holds true. All of which is a long winded way of saying that I don’t (as a rule) plan what I’m going to say in advance (you’d never have guessed, would you?). When I think too hard, it just goes bad. Very bad.

I thought people had realised this about me. It took the Latvian Lovely a month or so to tune into my wavelength, but now she is practically in permanent hysterics.** And she has the excuse of the language barrier for not understanding me. I really must learn to talk slower. Now, I know that sarcasm**** doesn’t translate perfectly into text. When I was posting with monotonous regularity on Terisia and over at the CoF, I frequently had to resort to the [sarcasm] tag, which for the place worked – they were public community boards and, whilst the people who knew me well understood where my brain was coming from, there were always people who didn’t know me and who were willing to take offense. I even had to stop cheerfully insulting people, now that was hard. In my family “you dippy cow” is a term of endearment. I guess it is all in the intonation. The tag just saved a lot of trouble in the long run. I think at one point my sig even said something like “Warning: British, will use Sarcasm”. (OOH! Got a great idea for an image/tag there… Moose, hands off, mine!) But I don’t want to have to resort to that around here! Bright Meadow is my place now and frankly, having to worry that people might be offended/take my comments the wrong way is starting to piss me off. Please, please, please take it as read that the overall tone of this blog is meant to be fun, ever so slightly silly, and blond in a left-handed kind of way. A bit like me really. I want people to have fun around here, I really do. I made a comments field so that y’all can join in. I am a great one for getting everybody involved – my entire thesis is all about web-based participation – so just kick back and enjoy! I am not that easy to offend. I’m most likely to laugh. If something pisses me off, then I say so. A spade is, just occasionally, a digging implement, as far as I am concerned. Life really is too short to get offended by and then to hold a grudge. *****

And that is all I have to say on the matter. It’s been a long week, I have had the grand total of about three hours sleep, my back is in agony, I can barely grip anything thanks to my wrists, and I’m shaking I’ve drunk so much caffeine (tea has more caffeine than coffee per unit), so I am going to sit back in my uncomfortable train seat and doze till we get to Coventry. Ah, a weekend of doing bugger all on the boat and, more importantly, not having to feel guilty. Yep, the godhead that is Graeme has decreed that I am permitted a week’s holiday before I have to start on my thesis proper, and by all that is holy I am going to make the most of it. Too tired even to put an exclamation mark at the end of that sentence. Dear lord.

* You can tell I’m doing a computing course, can’t you?

** Let me clarify this. More often than not, she is laughing AT me, not WITH me. It’s just the way I detail my tragedies. I was explaining the catalogue troubles that had led me to have to write a 4000 word essay in under 24 hours (20 hours, including about four hours of sleep, in the end), and she was all but rolling on the floor! ***

*** Sorry, wrote this on the train, not yet cracked the side-note coding, so long live the footnotes. Been rather hectic this last few weeks. I’ve been subsisting on a diet of kit-kats and endless cups of tea. Not healthy. And I haven’t been to the gym in about three weeks :S

**** Ah, sarcasm, that mainstay of the British sense of humour. That, and irony. Oh, and surrealism. Got to love those Pythons.

***** I can hold a grudge with the best of them (especially sticks of evil blond patronising clompy candyfloss, grrr…) but it takes a lot to make me hold a grudge. If nothing else, it just takes far too much energy, and I am, if nothing else, inherently lazy. I must have been a cat in a previous life.