We're at risk of losing many things during this pandemic, but let's hope that doesn't include our sense of humor. After all, we certainly can agree at least that life is a joke, albeit at times like this a rather bad one.
As a writer, many of my jokes involve wordplay, naturally, and at the tail end of this post I've included a few grammatically suggestive one-liners from a marvelous list compiled by one whose sense of humor parallels mine.
But most things are not funny at all. It's been a busy week for my EMT son. Just turned 26, he is dispatched throughout the Bay Area, to San Jose, Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco to respond to 5150s (people considered a danger to themselves or others); people seriously ill from the usual causes, and Covid patients. (EMTs handle a lot of these cases when individuals need to be transferred from one facility to another.)
I often worry about him, of course, but I understand why he is does this work. From an early age, he displayed a deep empathy for other people. He wants to help people and he has the skills and strength to do so. Last year, before he was licensed, when I had to make several 9-1-1 calls, he usually was there before the ambulances arrived.
But no matter what he sees, including my illnesses, he never seems to lose his sense of humor. If a patient is up to it, he jokes with them on the way to the hospital.
Laughter can nourish a person back to health as certainly as any IV drip. We agree that sometimes the best joke a patient can play on this sick world is by NOT dying when he otherwise might have. Better to live on and see what stupid thing is going to happen next.
That way, you can keep having dreams, for better or worse.
In my latest dystopian dream the other night, I was stumbling blindly through the embers of a burned-out city when I encountered a disheveled Donald Trump. "It's all Obama's fault," he muttered as we passed in the smoke.
I woke up in a cold sweat. It's hard to imagine a worse joke than that one.
***
* As Wildfires Burn Out of Control, the West Coast Faces the Unimaginable -- Firefighters across California and Oregon are bracing for stronger winds that could partly clear the air — but also fan the flames of uncontrolled blazes. (NYT)
* Campaigns battle for women who regret voting for Trump -- White women — especially those who are middle- or working-class and didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton in the last election — loom large in a presidential race that could, like 2016’s, be decided by shifts among a few sets of voters. (WashPo)
* The U.S. shows all the signs of a country spiraling toward political violence (WashPo)
* When Good People Don’t Act, Evil Reigns -- Stop thinking that the horrors of the world will simply work themselves out. (NYT)
* In Visiting a Charred California, Trump Confronts a Scientific Reality He Denies -- A president who has mocked climate change and pushed policies that accelerate it is set to be briefed on the scorched earth and ash-filled skies that experts say are the predictable result.(NYT)
* Ohio State University plans to cancel spring break next year to reduce the exposure of its students, faculty and staff to coronavirus. (OSU)
* The paper towel shortage in the United States didn't stop in the spring.Part of the reason for the shortage is people keep hoarding them: there was a massive surge in sales of Bounty paper towels in July, Procter & Gamble (PG) reported, as customers swept them off store shelves. (CNN)
* A new Monmouth University poll finds that former Vice President Joe Biden holds a 51% to 44% lead over President Donald Trump among likely voters. Among registered voters, it's Biden 51% to 42% for Trump. The average of the two, an 8-point Biden advantage, is in-line with the national polling average. If Biden wins by somewhere between 3 and 5 points nationally, he'll be the clear favorite in the Electoral College, even if there is some non-negligible chance Trump could emerge victorious. (CNN)
* Israel heads to a second lockdown as coronavirus cases soar -- The new restrictions on people’s movements for at least three weeks are set to begin Friday, coinciding with the start of a month of Jewish holy festivals. (WashPo)
***
Time to go to the nearest pub:
*A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but
hoping to nip it in the bud.
*The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.
*A dyslexic walks into a bra.
*A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little
sentence fragment.
*A synonym strolls into a tavern.
*A question mark walks into a bar?
*Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”
-- Jill Thomas Doyle
***
I close my eyes, then I drift away
Into the magic night, I softly say
A silent prayer like dreamers do
Then I fall asleep to dreams, my dreams of you
In dreams I walk with you, in dreams I talk to you
In dreams you're mine, all of the time
We're together in dreams, in dreams
But just before the dawn, I awake and find you gone
I can't help it, I can't help it, if I cry
I remember that you said goodbye
It's too bad that all these things
Can only happen in my dreams
Only in dreams, in beautiful dreams
-- Roy Orbison
-30-
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