Anyone who gets to know me will find out that I enjoy a good laugh. Some people might say it's an unusual laugh or maybe just a loud laugh but whatever the case - no apologies here - I will admit that I just love to laugh! I prefer to remember comments like "you have a great laugh!" - Sarah Gunn aka YMC Wall Candy blogger. Like my friends and most of my family, Sarah gets it and she even goes by the name @lovelaughshop on Twitter! It's been said that "laughter is the best medicine" and who doesn't need a good belly laugh every once in a while, right? When it's time to decompress from the day, I would rather watch a comedy than a period piece or a horror flick.
One of my favourite places to have a good time is Second City in Toronto and Yuk Yuks just about anywhere. When I found out that Canadian funny mummy Jessica Holmes took the time to write a memoir I knew I just had to check it out for a good chuckle! Actually, after reading the ARC of the book I was hoping Holmes would change the title to ROTFLMAO! If you need clarification on that acronym just look it up in urbandictionary.com. While you're there look up any words or phrases you might be puzzled by so you'll actually know what the cool kids are saying. Trust me this helps when you're on Twitter LOLing or trying to decipher your 14 year old son's text messages, but I digress. Holmes is a writer, an actress, a comedian, a parent and just an all around funny mummy! Picture Carol Burnett meets Julia Louis-Dreyfus (big fan of her sitcom "The New Adventures of Old Christine"). Jessica Holmes has several television credits, Royal Canadian Air Farce and The Holmes Show to mention a few. Her book is a trip down memory lane (pictures too) and filled with funny stories about growing up in a sitcom like family, being a gawky teenager, her foray into standup comedy and television stardom. Holmes felt she lost her sense of humour after becoming an adult and parent. Her hilarious book highlights how she eventually finds her way back to the funny side of life.
For a good laugh sit back and read this seriously funny excerpt from I Love Your Laugh.
I Love Your Laugh: Finding The Light In My Screwball Life
by Jessica Holmes
ONE
Welcome to Myself
Hello. I hope you’re having a great day. I sure am. Just this morning I was on my front lawn, sitting cross-legged in my beautiful dress, playing with my adorable children. Scott, my handsome husband, came outside and motioned subtly for me to close my legs.
Me: Oops, was my underwear showing?
Scott: Yes, your underwear, hair, and a pee stain, actually.
Welcome, reader. Welcome to a typical day for me.
I’m a writer, mom, wife, actor, and comedian. I’m also a perpetual student of life. My learning curve seems to be steeper than most people’s, and even though I’m all grown up, I still learn lessons through embarrassing situations on a daily basis. I never thought about putting it all down in a book until a year ago, when my inner muse, the creative voice that inspires my work, went on strike.
Me: Okay, muse, please, please, please help me get started on this sitcom idea!
Inner muse: Uh-uh. I have a surprise for you!
Me: Wow – are we writing a movie?
IM: Nope.
Me: A play?
IM: Nope. A book. You’re going to write about your life.
Me: A book about my life? But I’ve never slept with an A-list celebrity! Besides, doesn’t writing a book in Canada work out to, like, six cents an hour?
IM: Only if you’re veeeeerrrrry lucky.
Me: Yeah. I think I’ll pass. Time is money, and I need to earn a fast buck so I can hire someone to fix our pipes so our tap water stops smelling like cauliflower.
IM: Book, or nothing.
Me: Argh! Fine. What do I write about?
IM: Your most embarrassing moments.
Me: What!?
IM: And your lows.
Me: Why would I ever do that?
IM: So you can share how you learned that laughter got you through those things.
Me: But I don’t laugh through everything. Like, if I lost a foot in a tiger fight, I couldn’t laugh about that. Not for, like, at least a week, probably.
IM: So write about how eventually, with a bit of elbow grease, you overcame obstacles and regained your joie de vivre.
Me: Okay. I guess that’s pretty cool. But I’m going to change the names of people so no one is embarrassed.
IM: Fine, what do I care?
Me: And it’s not an autobiography. I’m not ninety!
IM: No. And you’re no Tori Spelling, either.
Me: Yeah. How did she lose that baby weight so fast?
IM: Tom Cruise said a prayer for her.
Me: Really?
IM: No. Are you sure you’re a university graduate?
So here’s the gist of it: I had a Camelot-like upbringing, then adulthood hit. It hit really hard. And I felt unprepared for the blows life dealt me. As a sensitive and self-conscious person, my problems became too big for me. So I changed to suit the times. I became harder. Stronger. Defensive. And at the cost of only one thing: my laugh.
I only noticed it a few years ago. Scott, my husband, and I were kidding around about something, and I was laughing. Scott said, “I love your laugh.” The words hit me like a truck because I couldn’t remember the last time I’d really laughed. My optimism had disappeared somewhere along the way, and I was living protectively, hanging on to anything I could, afraid of what life would take from me next.
I wasn’t poor, starving, or injured. I hadn’t lost a loved one. I didn’t have one big problem, just the regular, day-to-day events that we all encounter. But my hypersensitivity to those events wore me down, and I found myself feeling resentful and wary most of the time. It’s no way to live, and I’d have given anything to get back my youthful naïveté.
I’ve since crawled out of my self-imposed hole. I laugh at life’s oddities instead of waiting for the other roller skate to drop. Sharing my experience was important enough for me to veer away from celebrity-crotch jokes for a year and instead jump into the isolated world of book-writing.
My inner muse and I have had a lot of arguments while trying to get it right. Even agreeing on a title for the book was a struggle:
Me: I Love Your Gas.
IM: No.
Me: Peroxide and Methane: The Jessica Holmes Story.
IM: No.
Me: Katie Holmes: The Jessica Holmes Story.
IM: That doesn’t even make sense.
Me: How to Improve Your Laugh Life.
IM: Puns are so ’80s.
Me: My Auto-Laughography.
IM: Do you have an inner lavatory I can throw up in?
Me: I Love Your Laugh: Finding the Light in My Screwball Life.
IM: Your ideas are all terrible. I’m embarrassed for you.
Me: Um . . . Would you mind forwarding me the resumés of a few other muses?
If I’ve done my job, this book will make you feel validated, happy, and inspired, and only slightly offended. So now, in fifty-five to seventy thousand contractually agreed-upon words, I’ll share my most relevant and ridiculous moments. Here goes everything . . .
Everything’s funny, as long as it’s happening to someone else.
– Will Rogers
Change, personal and political, does not come about in a day, nor a year. But it is our day-today decisions, the way in which we testify with our lives to those things in which we say we believe, that empower us. Your power is relative, but it is real.
– Audre Lorde
Excerpted from I Love Your Laugh by Jessica Holmes Copyright © 2010 by Jessica Holmes. Excerpted by permission of McClelland & Stewart.
BOOKALICIOUS BOOK GRAB GIVEAWAY
McClelland & Stewart is offering copies of I Love Your Laugh for 2 lucky Bookalicious readers who leave a comment below telling me what makes you laugh.
Yummy Rules and Regs: You must be a Yummy Mummy Club member to win. Click to sign up! It's free and filled with perks. One comment per member. Entries accepted until November 15th, 2010. Contest open to Canadian residents only. Winners will be picked using www.random.org.
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Good luck!
Relish reading,
Wanda Lynne Young
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