This past weekend I was husbandless. A motorcycle widow. Rune left for COTA (the track in Austin) to defy death at speeds over 180 mph. Fortunately, as always, he came back in one piece. Of course he’s covered from head to toe in all kinds of leathers, pucks, back and chest protectors, etc. but I keep telling him he might want to add a layer of bubble wrap just to be on the safe side. So far, he hasn’t taken me up on my advice, though. So I got a lot of work done in the house, in the yard and on my computer, and chilled with my two currently very lazy kids who are off for the summer (other than summer school). It’s been nice having my babies around to annoy and slather with irritating affection.

This post is a segue from the one about music, the end of which I asked him about the spiritual aspects or basis of humor. Enjoy!

Jamie: He throws himself back in the couch and goes (with pouty lips) “I don’t know if I have much to say about humor.

I wish I could describe Jamie’s facial expression in text.

Me: Sure! We know you do. Cough it up. Cough it up.

Jamie: He does. [Unintelligible]

Erik: Laughter heals! (Shouting) LAUGHTER HEALS!

Jamie: Now he’s shouting it. “LAUGHTER HEALS!”

Me: Yeah, it does.

Erik: But is—

Jamie: No, no, no. What do you mean?

Erik: But laughter is misused in so many circumstances.

Me: Yeah, laughing at people. That’s no good.

Erik: Laughing at people. Laughing to cover up being uncomfortable. Laughing because you’re really angry or you’re hurting. That kind of use of laughter? That’s not the kind that heals. That’s the kind of laughter that’s either providing you with distance, like blanketing yourself so that you can’t be seen or covering yourself because you’re actually a—

Jamie: Don’t say that.

Erik insists she repeat his words.

Erik: You’re actually a low life and you don’t know how to take care of your own ego.

Me: Oh!

Jamie (whispering): Sorry.

We all know Erik is not trying to be an asshole. It’s all in jest.

Me: Explain that more.

Erik: That’s the part when you’re laughing at people. That’s the part where you can’t admit that you know exactly what the other person is going through and you never want to be in their shoes, so you laugh at it rather than show compassion. It’s an extreme cover-up.

Me: Mm.

Erik: The laughter that heals is from something super, super funny that doesn’t hurt anybody else. When I say, “hurt,” I don’t mean punching them in the face. I mean energetically taking from them or hurting them with words. You know it’s amazing that when you laugh [the healing laughter] you don’t ever once think about time.

Me: That’s so true. That is so true.

(Long pause, then Jamie flounces back in her chair and chuckles.)

Erik: It’s not like when you sneeze—

Jamie’s laughing and having a hard time composing herself.

Me: Oh god.

Jamie (laughing): Erik, just please can we pass on this? Apparently he’s complimenting laughing. He says that when you laugh, you get single minded—

Erik: And there’s a certain amount of joy in single-mindedness. You stay in the moment. It helps you stay in the present.

Jamie: But he was comparing it to other tasks that we do like sneezing. Apparently you can have a thousand thoughts and even think, “Please don’t let me fart when I sneeze.”

That explains Jamie’s laughter.

Jamie and I both laugh.

Me: Erik!

Erik: But you don’t do that when you’re laughing. You’re just so busy laughing at what happened. Those moments are golden gems. What happens on the inside is endorphins are flying off everywhere. Pat-chao, pat-chao.

Jamie (laughing): It’s all these sound effects now. Just think laser gun sounds.

Me: Okay. You did good.

Erik: What happens to the texture in the muscles—injuries, stress, tension—

Jamie: He’s showing it going through the neck, the shoulders, the scapula down the back to the hip.

Erik: We have these stressor patterns that we hold in our bodies whether it’s from poor posture or carrying the burdens of the world on our shoulders. When you’re busy laughing, these things let go. Your body finds, not just an emotional balance and mental balance, but a physical balance, too. I would love it if doctors would prescribe, “Watch 30 minutes of comedy before going to bed.”

Me: That’s true!

Erik: You’d fucking sleep better! You wouldn’t think about the shit you were thinking about before, would you? You’d be thinking about—

Jamie pauses to laugh.

Erik: You’d be thinking about Robin Williams when his cat vomited in his shoe.

I laugh.

Erik: You’d think about those silly things. Prescribe laughter. If you find you can’t meditate, you can’t get Zen, then get on Pandora and start listening to your favorite comedian because it does the same mental, physical and emotional things. The only benefit to meditation is that you’re also communicating to your guides and receiving answers. With comedy, you’re not. It’s like a guided meditation. You’re listening to their words, and you’re visualizing the story that they’re telling you and then following through with laughter. But at the end, you’re wide open so why not meditate then?

Me: That’s a good idea? Who’s your favorite comedian, Erik?

Jamie: He says besides Robin Williams and Carl—

Me: Oh, George Carlin.

Jamie: Yes. He’s talking about a guy named, Ryan. This younger guy.

Me: Who?

Jamie: It’s like I want to go into [my computer] and search for the guy.

Me: He showed you a picture?

Jamie: Yeah. Thin guy.

She does a search and comes up with Ryan Hamilton. Never heard of him, but I’ll definitely seek him out.

Jamie (reading): He’s “sarcastic and self-deprecating in his humor.” Erik understands that kind of humor.

Me: Yeah. Except Erik does nothing that’s self-deprecation! And not self-defecation either.

Jamie laughs.

Me: I almost accidentally said that! Let’s hope not. Okay, what about beauty and fashion. Kristina, your sister, has this wonderful beauty and fashion blog called Pretty Shiny Sparkly. You guys have got to check it out. It’s wonderful. She created the blog right after you died because it helped bring something good into her life, so let’s talk about that.

Jamie (saying it like he’s announcing something amazing): He goes, “Pretty. Shiny. Sparkly.”

Erik: Any time that you take care of yourself or do something that you like to do, it’s going to change your energetic quality. Come on. Look at the body posture of someone doing what they don’t want to do and then someone who’s doing what they want to do. It’s not about the task or the actual outcome. It’s about whether they like it or not. We forgot that, as Americans. (Slapping his hands on his knees and saying with an apologetic tone) So sorry Americaaaaa!”

Me: Yeah, you’re beating up on us all the time, Erik!

Erik: I know, but hopefully it’s to get us to change.

Me: Of course.

Erik: We’re taught to put our noses to the grindstone and do what we don’t want to do so that we can get to something that we like do.

Me: I know.

Erik: Fuck that. Somebody else is going to like to do those things that we don’t like to do. Let’s find them and put them in those tasks so I can start to focus on what I want and like to do. It’s really about liking it, enjoying your work. But when we look at physical grooming whether it’s clothes that fit properly, whether it’s makeup or smell, or—

Me: The perfect pair of jeans. Ah, lovely!

Erik (bending his hand at the wrist): Oh you girls.

Me: Yeah, but a pair of jeans that fit just right!

Erik: What about a pair of shoes that fit just right?

Me: Oh yeah.

Erik: Amazing.

Me: They’re called flip-flops.

Erik: A.k.a barefoot.

Me: Yeah, really!

Erik: Even down to the nail polish and having saturated skin—

Jamie (laughing) Do you mean lotion?

Me: What?

Jamie: Saturated skin is what he just called it.

Me (laughing): Oh!

Jamie (shaking her head): Silly.

Erik: All those things add up to be self-care—combing your hair, brushing your teeth, grooming, it’s all self-care. When you’re showing self-care, you’re showing self-love. Physical self-love. It could be that you totally don’t like cologne and you wanna smell all natural, you like dreads in your hair, you don’t like shoes, but those actions are self-care for that person, and it’s showing that same kind of love and embracing. If you can do more of that, you’ll find that you’ll have more confidence and self-worth when you’re coming into relationships, when you’re coming into business decisions and when you’re making decisions and goals with what you want to do with your own life. It’s important to start with you, and just decide for yourself what level of self-grooming you want to be at. Please, people—

Jamie: He just got really close up behind the camera.

Erik: Please, people, make that decision not based on how other people might perceive you.

Me: Oh god, yeah.

Erik: All right, so you’re working on Wall Street. but you’re liking your dreads. Fucking love your dreads, man! Don’t cut them up so you (air quotes) “look” like you belong on Wall Street.

Me: Yeah.

Erik: That shit has got to stop. We have to stop pandering to the social requirements of whoever fucking said it.

Jamie (laughing): Now he’s just cutting up on himself like laughing and…

I chuckle.

Me: You even make your own self laugh!

Jamie (chuckling): Quite frequently!

Erik: So listen to your own level of need and feed it. Some people want to be seen more and some people want to be more in the background.

Me: Yeah.

Erik: You know, some people don’t mind being on camera. They just don’t mind it. Some people are like, “Fuck that! I sweat, I fall apart, and I don’t know what to say. My voice goes squeak.”

Jamie leans back, laughing.

Jamie (clapping): I did it! That is exactly how he sounded!

Me: Awesome. You’re getting good at this. Good sound effects.

Jamie: Thank you! I’ve been learning my sound effects. (She makes a VERY high-pitched squeal, almost eardrum bursting, to mimic the sound Erik made.)

Erik: That’s the level of comfort you have to decide. What do you like? What do you not like? And stick to it because a lot of people who are watching videos like this think, “Ah, they just want to be on this because of their big egos, and they just want to show everybody what they can do.” That’s not always the case, peeps.

Me: Sure.

Erik: We’re comfortable. We got some stuff to talk about. You’re watching hopefully because you like it. If you don’t, thanks for watching.

Jamie laughs.

Me (laughing): Turn it off! Anything else on that?

Jamie: He’s going down a rabbit hole.

Me: Of course.

Erik: No. Ding!