Laugh-Rite

As has my signature, over my lifetime, my laugh has changed. I noted this phenom. decades ago, and I didn't know how to explain it. I didn't engineer the changes, either; they just happened. I did sometimes act to correct or curtail them. The process has always felt … meta.

If you are of a certain age, you can peg Rosanne Barr's 'ha,' or even Johnny Carson's chuckle, Chris Rock's blast-laugh, etc. We could all come up with many examples; a favorite would be Mr. Jones's doing Darth Vadar.

My first passport (I'm only on the second) had amendments to my signature on the official first inside page. I was conscientious to note for the state departments that I acknowledged a seemingly sudden change in my "legal" way of representing myself with a pen. It went from having most of the 10 letters to a mere stylized version of my initials, a joined set of two marks.

I don't know why.

There was no circumstance to make it so, such as having to sign 100 Christmas cards or business letters. Suddenly, one of my driver's license had A, and the next and subsequent documents B.

People remark on it, more often than I'd think is warranted. I have never commented out loud on anyone's "john hancock," though I'm very interested in calligraphy, especially as it pertains to "the signature," be it on a painting/drawing/etc. or on a legal document or just a letter. The latter in this three-part example-chain is quite rare, I know. But I continue to study people's signatures the way a dog studies smells, perhaps. I just don't have any conclusions to draw.

So I do things like save cards from mom, dad, grandparents. Their signatures (only the lattermost) have changed over the years. Like their land-line home-phone voicemail messages, the signatures of my parents have not moved as long as I've known/seen them (with the exception of my mother's — but I never read her name when she used to sign it using mine/my father's; the font is the same).

My signature has not changed in at least a decade. I have an alternate one I use for business letters; it is in part so I can't be "stolen," but mostly so it looks more human, thoughtful and readable.

One of my college-era diaries has a frontpiece where I would record my new signatures. Some were experimental, some were actual documentation of a rapidly changing personal history. I'm pretty sure I could revert/resurrect any one of them.

My laugh of late reminds me of my sister-in-law's. This would be the younger one, my brother's wife. I think I have a subconscious desire to mimic her genuine happiness. It's consciously known now — look, I discovered it.

No one I know has ever remarked upon my laugh. I have heard things like "don't smile enough," "are you having fun?," "what are you thinking?," etc. My laughs have always sounded outside of my head, and I am curious what they might mean to anyone else. They are supposed to sound like music or at least be usefully infectious.

Incomplete comprehension and poor rhyme (meter is decent but not perfect)

Fat-footed giant fly

likely emerged from the woodwork

Like all the arthropods in this domicile do,

I find you less intelligent than the spiders,

and conveniently that explains a lot.

It makes sense to a human trying to

Order the world as we do.

We don't take in things

at face value but attempt to

Create just as so-named God is supposed to do.

I find us less intelligent than the spiders,

and conveniently that explains a lot.

It makes no sense to me watching my bird die

while I then choose to kill you.

Safari (Mac web browser)

this house (orig. of Mr. Price, who made his fortune along the Missouri River somehow) has belonged to the sisters (Benedictine of Atchison) for a while now, perhaps 20 years or so, and if you can find any data on his first name, etc., you are a better search-engine guru than I; it is not right not to have such data ((heard from a nun's head)) easily found on a library site online; it's a pretty house ((I was inside)), and I envy anyone who lived there or works there now, except I'm sure that 150+ years ago it was not a "fun" place to be, nor would I like to be a sister up in nowhere-KS)

RE: subject line — it does not seem to offer anything better than "delete history after 1 day."

Google/Firefox says it does not store at all, if one choses "do not store."

I do not know whom to believe. I should say "which company" in lieu of "whom," but the Supreme Court and then … (that one fellow running for president) said that corporations are people. Long live English-as-it-evolves.

In other news: 1.5-hr. call with Dad today = he sounds like life is all about having trouble breathing. He called around 2, and I was cleaning; I called back around 4 and he was "just getting up from a nap."

He will be 75 on Saturday.

My mother's father turned 82 on Friday; he had quad-bypass surgery on my birthday (about a month ago) and is doing well enough (better than my dad).

Both have heart disease and are thereby way American.

Both have excellent health care (yay, Medicare + union pension / fed. gov't insurance). They both have opinions that are political (and opposite), and that makes me laugh (until I look at my own prospects).

Guess which is which, and I shall send you something random and perhaps valuable from my home/art/collections. I promise it will not be a 12-year-old cat that howls randomly, unless you are in need of a grey-and-white being who "can see dead people."