This Week's Laughter #13

An archive in delight and happiness

As demonstrated in most of the first twelve installments of this archive, I’ve grown to understand that laughter, to me, feels very experiential. Tied to a moment and therefore maintaining its own temporality, a timeliness to the laugh that shifts how one perceives time. This week, I’d like to document more aesthetic laughter.

As I stepped off the elevator of my therapist’s building, named Norse-like and full with this eeriness that we’ve discussed a few times, the first I spotted was the open door of a now-emptied office. I hadn’t seen vacancies in this building before despite having come here for some nearly seven years. Something about the space made me giggle uncontrollably. There was an additional, smaller secondary room attached to this large main room with a sink. It was perfectly functional, didn’t seem like there were any real damages or the like. And yet, for whatever reason, everything being finished and trimmed so 80s-like, feeling much akin to the therapist’s room design in The Sopranos, juxtaposed with such a stripped down (and still functional) sink did it for me.

An empty office space in my therapist’s building, complete with an installed yet stripped barren sink.

I’ve probably written of this overlook a few times now. It’s incredibly picturesque, even if the view beneath it is less so most days due to the car-congestion and the pollution in the air or the cloud-cover and inability to really see the Olympics across the water. Despite having walked by, bicycled by, driven by, and any other form of transit imaginable (except, perhaps, flight) this corner more times than I care to count, I never really applied the DEAD END sign to it as it indicates. There’s so much life in the greenery, the trees and shrubs, the golden light of the overlook that with the cold sign in front, it feels very much so out of the 60s-cartoon style humor of ‘BEWARE OF DOG’ signs with a little lazy fluffball Pomeranian whose only desires are to be pet and get treats. Contrast charms and disarms me into chuckles and guffaws.

DEAD END leading to the light, the golden hour sunset precipice overlooking the highway and Lake Washington.

Below, here, a staircase ambled upon, in the midst of repair. It feels oddly intimate to witness a staircase you once knew as covered but not uncovered. What are all of the markings, stains. Look at how the lines of the boards warp slightly, but not in an unsound way. Look how whomever stripped the carpet previously gave up on trying to get select staples out, revealing the waves of fabric like an odd cat’s cradle. And then, only after considering the staircase, do your eyes really fall into the bottom of it. THIS SIDE UP. Imagine a staircase installed inversely. I mean, wouldn’t it work all the same?

Or even simply applying strictly to the carpet, I love that there’s the assumed diligence that one needs such bold and large reminders of which side should be facing the oncoming horde of soles. And then there’s something about the light of the stairs, how the metal corners seem to reflect in moderation, that almost feels like you’re walking up this staircase towards an Oscars-type awards ceremony. Pop the champagne, THIS SIDE UP, let us laugh uproariously as the bubbles flow.

THIS SIDE UP of a staircase heading upward, stripped barren of carpeting.

And this leaf I witnessed. Onbeing. Being-devoured. Yet so full of color. How many colors do you count? Let me list some I’ve found from this online color tool. Chrome yellow, squash, bee yellow, grapefruit, thunderbird, lava, grenadier, mahogany, burnt orange, nutmeg, otter brown, espresso, wild willow, greenish tan, pale olive, manilla, honeysuckle, french beige, muesli, soya bean, hemlock, tobacco, russet, auburn, burgundy, and pumpkin skin. This is not exhaustive. This leaf is budding so full of potential. This leaf has already died. Sometimes you see the potential of something violently bursting from its seams, pouring out in spite of the boundaries and limitations one might suppose on it, and can’t help but laugh in celebratory pride.

The drama and conflict of this leaf. The colors. All of it so full with life and violence.

What have you seen lately that has evoked within you something so profound and powerful as a laugh?

Thank you for reading.

The last laugh I’ll share with you of this week is also a promotional nod. Dearest friend Ally Ang and I are starting a reading series titled ‘Other People’s Poems.’ As we discussed and set things up for the socialization and proliferation of this reading series, drawing as many interested parties as we can muster, we came upon a dilemma: Other People's Poems was a handle already taken on almost all social media. What could be done? Except to dream bigger. So we took the handle “@SeattlePoetry” and laughed with each other mischievously that we should strive to define such a large mass as the poetry and poetic scene of an entire city. Such is life. Such is joy. Follow us! Join us!