To my knowledge and as a general rule, funerals are not known to be particularly funny in nature.  Neither are the associated sounds and anxieties of spending any amount of time in a dental chair. Reactions to events can be funny however. Or, more strictly speaking, my reactions can be funny at the very least. Or at the very leasty-least, funny to me (at least?). Of course, many a time I have been called funny, which seems a good enough thing in itself though this intelligence was more often than not dispensed with an accompanying finger twirl to the utterer’s temple. A rather odd tic for so many of my acquaintances to suffer. Hmmm… Anyway, having more recently been attributed with melancholia than merriment (thanks mom!) , have resolved to renew my lifelong affinity for the silly, amusing and absurd. (Aside to the previous – Given the promising way it sounds, the word Supercilious has a very disappointing definition. Begone negative word!)

So imagine this – you’re laying back in a somewhat comfortable lounger-type chair with an embarrassingly useless and inadequate thin paper bib fastened about your neck by a chain made for stronger work. This may or may not be after the ridiculous and ritualistic little numbers chant the dentist and his assistant recite with teeth domino poke-ity prods for effect. (2,4,5,3,3,3. That’s good, right? No? Bad? Is this even about my teeth or are you two just flirting in code?) An assembly of foam forms best suited as a base for Barbie furniture is then brought into play and strategically placed in your mouth leaving your tongue nowhere to hide. Something resembling a rubber jar opener is the finishing touch. They ask if you are ok. Good manners, being much faster than the slow rise of panic allows a grunt of sorts to escape which is assumed by the dental squad to mean all systems go! The dentist dons goggles and a small strong headlamp and then, with what would seem to be the nimbleness and 8 legs of a spider, deftly parades a multitude of instruments into your doll furniture filled face. Wait. Did I just think of a spider? Panic. Panic. Squirm. The dentist and his trusty assistant speak to one another, occasionally including me in their chatter but it is too late for me. I am on a countdown of sorts now, wondering how long I have been there, drooling and squirming, my tongue not amused by housing so much foam and rubber and tools and hands. I open my clenched eyes and look up at the dentist and somehow his headlamp has changed from a helpful hands-free mouth illuminating tool to an insanely preposterous and hysterically funny unicorn horn of light on some guy’s head. I’m beginning to choke with laughter, and try to sit up. The dentist and his assistant wonder out loud what has gone wrong and convulsed with laughter and with tears streaming from my eyes I’m trying to unload the furniture from my mouth. I can hear them asking one another if I am ok but the ridiculousness of the situation prevents any response from me. It is several minutes before I can compose myself, make my apologies and try to somehow explain. The dentist dons the headlamp again and I feel the echo and shudder of laughter wanting to rise back up. My jaw had been tired from the furniture, my face likewise tired first from the laughter and now it’s suppression. I had to come back another day for them to finish.

This same inappropriate laughing hysteria threatened to overwhelm me once at a funeral. Prior to its onset I was pensive and reflective, just as everyone else present. The organist played appropriately sorrowful songs until one quite well known and exceptionally lugubrious piece pushed me over the raging falls in a paper mache barrel. Maybe it was the word “wretch” when one already keenly feels the disconsolate weight of the world but there it was, whoosh! Without any warning an odd warble came from my throat. Its arrival was so startling I wanted to look around to see what other source it may have come from but then the bubblings began and I quickly made exit and found myself blinking in the sunshine, happy and sad altogether.

This past week has seemed like a much longer period of time, maybe more like a month in length. Last Friday seems like a few weeks ago and since then it feels like several games of tether-ball have been played and won and lost, the rope wrapping firmly around the pole in my favor then twisting, unwrapping, flying overhead and behind again to wrap in the wrong direction. Discouraged and then trying not to start from there, dispirited and then trying to come into the moment. Here-there, to-fro, back-forth. I’m like Gene Kelly dancing on and off the curb in Singin’ in the Rain. I’m crazed. I’m fine. Good actually, sometimes. I’m siiiiiiiingin’ in the raaaaain!

When I was 14 and living in the mountains I went skiing with a friend. Though not from the area I believe she went skiing often with her family and had her own equipment and clothes. We were headed down the hill and as I turned to ski back across the hill the other way managed to witness her tumbling mid air, head over skis, until creating a snowy explosion of sorts upon landing. I worriedly called her name and quickly tried to sidestep back up to her. “Are you ok? Are you ok?” shuffle up shuffle up.  She was just beginning to stir as I reached her and I was so happy to see her moving and alive. I dropped to the snow in front of her and with profundity let her know right then and there what a good friend I was. “You dropped a dime” I said. She was silent for a moment and then we both burst into crazed laughter that winter day.