Friday, April 6, 2007

Who Is to Blame for My Sense of Humor? Part I

So onechan has been trying to be funny lately and sometimes succeeding. I mean, she's always appreciated rhymes and puns and intentionally mispronounced words and all sorts of bilingual wordplay, but it's only in the last few weeks that she's made a serious attempt to contribute her own material. The mispronouncing subway stops I give the benefit of the doubt just to encourage her a little. But she's actually been funny this week. Yesterday when I finished the dishes and decided to ham it up with a touchdown sign and an "I am the greatest dishwasher in the world!" (hold pose), she looked at me, paused just the right amount, and said "No, you're not" in just the right tone of voice. Nice.

Imoto has an even better sense of humor than onechan. She was giggling practically from the womb (something onechan never did) and by six months was not only appreciating "inai inai ba" (peekaboo), she was doing it herself. Since she started walking, she's added the "pretending to bite you" game--and just today when we were holding hands pushed or hands toward my mouth and looked at me expectantly, so what could I do but join in the fun by pretending to bite her hands?--to her repertoire. And when she and onechan aren't fighting over something onechan has that she wants or something she has that onechan wants, they crack each other up with all sorts of physical play and high-pitched squeals of delight. It's enough to get me really down that my semester begins next week.

And make me wonder where my sense of humor comes from. So when the inspiration strikes in the coming weeks, I'm going to attempt a Walter Benjamin-style self-inventory of the influences on my sense of humor.

But this weekend I'll be working on something for the WAAGNFNP's contribution to Blog Against Theocracy Week and of course Masters blogging....

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