Silly Me

What's been cracking me up in the face of death.

GeorgePeters/Getty Images

I’ve had a lot of life thrown at me in the past several months, some of it in the form of death. My stepsister Randi died of a glioblastoma in July. And at the end of August, I lost a dear, dear friend, Julie Novak to breast cancer. She was just 51.

The one-of-a-kind Julie Novak.

Of all the difficult things I’ve dealt with recently, nothing has gutted me more than Julie’s passing. She was so full of life that it’s impossible for me to fully grasp the fact of her death. In the moments when I’m able to, I break down into tears. What my brain struggles to understand, my body seems to know: there have been whole days I’ve a walked around leaking, tears falling from my eyes almost involuntarily.

A couple of days after her passing I realized that what I needed was a dose of “the best medicine,” laughter obviously, which is something Julie regularly triggered in me. Down below I share a list of some of the humor I’ve been turning to, things that reliably crack me up. But first, more about Julie…

***

Julie was a talented visual artist and performer. She was always goofing around, in her performance and standup, in her art, and in her interactions with friends and family. She loved nothing more than to make people (and herself) laugh.

Her humor was often rooted in childlike silliness, which is my favorite thing—even when she was using it in the service of social justice, as she did at TMI Project, a non-profit she cofounded with her wife Eva Tenuto, and where I worked as the editorial director and a workshop leader for eight years, and Celeste Lecesne’s The Future Perfect Project. This video Julie made a couple of years ago to promote her Patreon captures some of that:

I’m prone to laughing fits, especially at times when it’s inappropriate to laugh at all. For instance, when I record music with my husband Brian, the second he hits the “record” button, I start giggling uncontrollably. See also: my grandfather’s funeral, when the officiant described one of the gruffest, most short-tempered blackout alcoholics I’ve ever known as “a gentle person who loved to be around children.” Spit-take.

Julie enjoyed triggering laughing fits in me, usually just by riffing, or singing a goofy song she made up. Here’s a bit from March, 2012, when we had a few minutes to kill backstage before a TMI Project storytelling show:

Here’s me a few months earlier, cracking up while we were trying to film a Kickstarter video for TMI Project in between the many blackouts caused by Hurricane Irene. I can’t remember exactly what Julie said to set me off, but you can hear her, toward the end of the short clip, saying, “She’s completely lost it”—with a degree of satisfaction, I might add.

***

So, now I’m grieving (and freaking out about the upcoming election, and Palestine/Israel, and more), and the only antidote is silly humor. Here’s what I’ve been turning to for comic relief:

1. 30 Rock. Yeah, a lot of the show hasn’t aged well, and it’s really hard to square Alec Baldwin the comedic actor with Alec Baldwin the blowhard, and humorless husband of Hilaria. But it’s still pretty hilarious. I laugh out loud a good five times per episode. Fortunately Brian was up for a rewatch of the series. (Come to think of it, he might have even suggested it.)

2. Flight of the Conchords season one. I’ve never made it through season two, but season one is just perfect. Well, as with everything produced more than a few years ago, the show is mildly “problematic”—a little sexist, etc. But I love everything these two silly goofs do in all twelve episodes of season 1.

3. Grunge Speak. When I’m down in the dumps, all I have to do is re-read the story of the greatest prank ever committed.

   

   NYTimes

4. “The wickedly talented, one and only, Adelle Dazeem.” How Travolta so badly mangled the name “Idina Menzel” in that way—and with such conviction!—is a mystery to me, but a delicious mystery that gets me every single time.

5. Maria DeCotis impersonating the Cuomo brothers (before their much deserved cancellations). I know it’s no longer acceptable to laugh at those guys, but…I still laugh at this. DeCotis’s interpretations of them always tickle me. She’s so good. (It helps that she kind of looks like a Cuomo?)

6. The Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference of November 7, 2020. I still can’t believe this really happened.

Chris McGrath/Getty Images

I could use some more silly things to laugh at, to get me through this time. So if you’ve got recommendations, throw them into the comments, please and thank you.

I also just want to add that while I’m so broken up about Julie’s passing, I’m also feeling tremendously inspired by her endless creativity, and her fearlessness in putting all of herself out there, even when she looked silly. Suddenly my mind is percolating with ideas.

I want to carry those aspects of Julie forward with me, to stop hesitating when I hear the voices of naysayers—real and imagined—telling me to reign it in.

I’ve never been more aware of how short life can be. I’m not going to waste any more of mine waiting for permission to make what I want to make…or being embarrassed about being a silly goof…or holding myself back in any way, creatively.