The History of my Sense of Humor

It was seventh grade. JoAnna was "going with" Jason who was smart and had really blue eyes, and it was Valentine's Day. Or maybe it wasn't Valentine's Day, but it was some special day, and we're all sitting in the cafeteria sucking on chocolate milk and waiting for school to start, and Jason brings in this book, and on the front of it, it says "What I Know about JoAnna," and we're all like, oh wow, how romantic, thinking it would talk about the way she keeps her eyes half-opened when she kisses or how maybe she's still afraid of the dark or how when she grows up she wants to move to the beach, but then we open it, and it's empty. Completely empty.

And we start laughing. Hysterically. It's a joke, we say, he knows nothing about you. Get it? Nothing. I think I laughed for about two weeks.

Sometimes now, when someone who is a complete enigma to me says something like, "You don't know me," I think, yep, you're so right, I've got a book at home about how well I know you; I've got a whole stack that people give me for the holidays! And then I kind of laugh, but the sky does that weird tipping thing and the bizarre-o ukulele music starts playing, and then I'm not laughing anymore. I'm just sitting there with my empty book, wondering yet again if the trees will ever bloom.