a little humor helps

A few things have crossed my path this week which have given me true laugh-out-loud moments (I mean really, how many times do we LOL when reading a text message?), so I thought I'd share them with you. The first is one that my trusty friend Is it Old? told me is so old it's dead, but I don't care. I'm sharing it anyway! Maybe some of you are even slower at me to be introduced to funny things on the interwebs. It is a website called The Oatmeal; it came to us from someone in Nate's office who thought of him when they read this brain comic. I have been going back to it occasionally for more laughs (see here, or actually, all of these), and it never fails.

My second share is a book I read much of while we watched football this weekend:

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Carrie Fisher is as delightfully self-deprecating and honest as she is hilarious and insightful. I so rarely get to use the word salacious, but it certainly applies in her accounts of past relationships. I typically shun the autobiographical works of celebrities, but I so loved her talented semi-autobiographical novels that I've read (Postcards from the Edge and Surrender the Pink) that I couldn't wait to read the real deal. Who wouldn't want to know more about a marriage to Paul Simon?

One seldom finds someone with mental illness who is willing to share the details of their struggle in such an open and eloquent way. I agree with the New York Post that "she has expert comic timing and, perhaps more importantly, better stories than most drug addicts." She describes her experience with the mood swings of manic-depression/bipolar disorder, and I sympathize with how troubled her existence must be at times.

My only minor criticism is that she went into a bit more detail than I cared to know about her parents' relationships, but I imagine this addition was for the benefit of the curious generations before me (her parents are the Hollywood celebrities Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher). It is a trivial complaint and one that's easy to forgive given how quickly I read the book. I immediately got her newest book "Shockaholic" so I can continue learning of her tales of having ECT, i.e. electro-convulsive shock therapy.