I won’t lie to you.  I was pretty stressed out yesterday.  Not over big issues. It was just a day that lots of  things needed to get done and not enough time to do them all. Life happens, right? My focus was split into what felt like a million directions.   But as per usual, I survived and the world continued on as it usually does. No one else seemed to notice how stressed I was. Nor should they, I wasn’t falling apart. I maintained my sensibility.  Until my girlfriend called me.  She was my outlet. I was able to do that healthy thing called unloading…and I felt much better.  It’s important to do that.

Equally important; we need outlets to vent, outlets to create, to cry, and oh we need to laugh.  And we need to laugh LOUD.  Those little L O L’s have their place in the world.  There are many ways to de-stress.  My photography is huge in my life. I get lost in that world that calms and grounds me.   My creativity in the Arts is another one.  Our theatre group is knee-deep into the rehearsal process of an extremely wonderful comedy, “Looking”, by Norm Foster.  Now there’s an outlet. It’s been a life saver as I navigate my way between jobs.

A good cry is another great outlet.  Do you ever catch yourself looking into the mirror after  a good tearing jag?  We often worry that people might notice we have just cried.  Why do we DO that!  It’s the most natural thing in the world. What a beautiful sight!  Red swollen eyes after a good session of sobbing and sniffing is evidence of another wonderful healthy outlet.

I wonder if I look just as beautiful laughing as I do crying!  OMG, I love the ugly laugh!  And it’s good for you too!  Wouldn’t a prescription request look great if it said: Ugly Laugh, 3X a week for what ails you!  Add in a dose of knee slapping, table pounding, foot stomping, try not to pee yourself ab work out;  and we should be good to go. Forget the prozac and the ativan.  Let’s just go for the laughs.  It is more contagious than a virus. And way better for you!  Before you know it people are laughing with you. How healthy is that!

 Laughter is a people uniter that bonds us  in ways that are hard to explain. Conversation can bond us…but throw in some laughter and it seems to speed up the process!  We can’t fake laughter. We can try but it doesn’t work and isn’t near as much fun.

After my stress  filled day yesterday we had a line run  for our upcoming play. This script is so well written that we are constantly discovering new and funny nuances.  Kudos to Norm foster and his brilliance.   Throughout the course of our evening combing through Acts 1 and 2  and running our lines we found ourselves bent over into full fledge ugly laughs.  All of us. Honestly, we were near death!  Okay, so no one actually died.  Do you think I was still feeling stressed after that?

It is our hope that our audiences are blown away by a fun evening of gut wrenching laughter when they come out to see our show.  We are working very hard to make that happen. And we have the satisfaction of taking our audience away from their everyday stressors in life.  That’s when we know we have done our job.   The process that begins with memorizing lines to the point of believability when we step onto that stage is all worth it. It involves hours and hours of work and dedication involving many people.

And the bonus?  A few of our own ugly laughs along the way.  Have a great day everyone.  Wishing you all the happiness and laughter you can possibly want!