Good Books Bring Better Days

I apologize for yesterday. It takes a lot to get me so upset, so that should give you some idea to how awful the day was for me. Ugh! So glad that it's over and each day offers a new and fresh beginning.

I didn't have to work this evening, so I took it easy, spending the extra time with my boys, and curling up with a new book from the library. I saw it there last weekend, and I've been carrying it around with me everywhere since (I never leave home without a book) but today was the first chance I've had to crack open the cover. It's called, I'm Dying Up Here: Heartbreak and High Times In Stand Up Comedy's Golden Era by William Knoedelseder.


I thought it looked like an interesting read, but I wasn't prepared by how fascinating it is. Once I started reading, I wasn't able to put it down until dinner simply couldn't wait any longer. Even now, I'm anxious to get back to it.

I don't know why, but comedians have always pulled my interest. They're such complex people, standing up on that stage under those white hot lights, turning their most intimate and embarrassing moments into comedic fodder for the masses to laugh at. Yet so many of them are angst-ridden, painfully shy, and introverted. The guts they have to get up there and lay it all out -- "Here I am, this is me. Love it or hate it." leaves me awe-struck.

In that way, they aren't that much different than writers. Only we get to hide behind our books most of the time, while with comedians, the judgement is never reserved until later. I admire gutsy people. Those who have this burning within them to bare their souls and move people to laughter, to tears. That's what unites us and binds us together as human beings. The fact that we're able to partake in each other's joys and burdens, to lift up eachother's spirits or send them shattering to the ground.

So if you need a lift of your spirits, a temporary ease of your burdens, as I did today, why not give this book about some of the funniest people on the planet a read?