Jokes – Rant and Roll

Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.

Five things that are making me laugh.

1. In Act V, scene i of Much Ado About Nothing (my spirit animal in play form), Benedick calls Claudio “Lord Lackbeard” when confronting him on his wrongful scorning of Hero.

Now, I’ve always thought this to be a terrific insult, and I laugh at it every time I either read it on the page, or hear it used live.

This past weekend, I made a joke about the fact that I’ve pretty much run my breasts into non-existence. Building off of this love, Marc didn’t miss one beat, and immediately called me his “Lord Lackboob.”

LORD LACKBOOB.

Classic.

I’ll be laughing about that for YEARS.

2. This Lonely Island song.

Angela Merkel is a lyric.

A LYRIC!

I can always do with more Merkel in my life.

3. I was speaking with my mum on the phone yesterday and she told me how she was helping out at my sister’s store when she went to the washroom to use some of my sister’s hairspray.

(My sister practically lives at her shop, so she keeps an assorted array of housekeeping materials in her bathroom – toiletries, changes of clothes, shoes – it’s a veritable treasure trove of her stuff.)

Anyway, my mum nearly gave me a laugh-induced stroke on the skytrain when she followed-up with, “only what I thought to be hairspray turned out to be industrial grade oven cleaner!”

And people wonder why I am the way that I am.

4. This photo of my sister and I from Christmas this year.

Yeah.

It’s really amazing Ford Models isn’t blowing up my phone trying to sign me.

5. Mary Roach’s Packing for Mars.

This lady is one heck of a great writer, and funny to boot. Ever wondered how hard it is to use a toilet in zero gravity?

No?

Me neither.

(But you’ll definitely not want to miss her chapter on just how hard it can be. I mean – they actually have to practice, on earth, with cameras, before launching themselves into orbit!)

I mean, who knew that there would be such a science, to well, this part of science?

…

So that’s all she wrote my darlings.

I’ll just be here in my little corner of the interwebs, silently shedding these tears of happiness.

And I’ll probably be here for a while.

Keeping them in stitches

Big news sports fans!

I have been invited to perform a set at the upcoming Vancouver ComedyFest!

Oh. My. Goodness.

You might have guessed that I am more than a little excited.

But what else can I say? It’s only been two months since I started this journey to Stand-Upsville, USA (Stand-Upsville, Canada just doesn’t have the same ring to it) but every step has been simply tip top, candy shop.

To be completely blunt – getting up on that stage and telling jokes is pretty much the greatest adrenaline rush that I’ve ever known.

It’s interesting: I’ve written at length about the runners high that I’ve experienced, both on training runs and during races, but this sensation is something completely different.

Right before I go up on stage I get so cold that I can hardly stop myself from shaking like a mad shaking thing (imagine me as a Polaroid picture, if you will.)

My teeth chatter, my knees lock – I sometimes even lose partial circulation in a few of my fingers. Seriously, I never know if i’m going to turn to stone, or just pass out.

But after telling that first joke, and getting that first laugh, I might as well be flying ten thousand feet above the city, whizzing past cloudscapes, dodging meteor showers and shooting stars.

I go from living in a block of ice to feeling like every fiber of my being has been set alight, set on fire.

Simply put: it feels good. It feels like it fits.

Now, please don’t take this as me saying that I am some kind of professional or unstoppable hot shot. I full-on recognize that I am greener than the Jolly Green Giant’s left thumb and still have much to learn.

I’m just so happy that I finally got up the courage to take the plunge.

I mean, since my days as an absolutely barmy little girl I have always loved to make people laugh.

Some of my earliest memories are of sitting in a room – yammering on like a monkey in a tree – playing comedian for a group of adults and absolutely relishing in the attention.

I learned quickly that if I was smart and deft enough, I could get away with saying terrifically mad things, just as long as the end result was a solid guffaw (or guffaws.)

I might not have been born a drama queen, but I developed the sensibility at a very early age.

As a dreadfully self-conscious teenager, the only way I was going to get through my awkward high school years was to constantly crack jokes and make people laugh.

And now, my delightfully hilarious husband and I are in a constant battle of one-upmanship to see who can give the other person a laugh-induced hernia first.

Sometimes when I am working on bits, M and I jam on the joke together and I am literally left breathless (but also thinking HOLY SMOKES WE ARE DEFINITELY THE WEIRDEST COUPLE IN THE HISTORY OF COUPLES.)

I can only hope that my brand of humour has the same effect on the audiences for whom I perform (the breathless thing that is.) I really do try and present a show that is both funny, smart, and thought provoking. Seriously, for me, I like nothing more than a joke that makes me think, and makes me continue to think.

And this will never stop being my goal every time I set foot in front of a crowd, in front of a microphone.

Well, that and keeping my knees from knocking together too hard.

Because goodness knows, I bruise so very easily.

All the world’s a stage

Hi friends.

I am so excited to be writing today’s post it’s a little silly.

So let’s just get right to it shall we?

Fry-up time!

Minty fresh.

On Tuesday I made mint pea soup and parmesan toast:

Out here on the west coast, it has been raining like a raining thing and I find that once our days reach a certain level of murk, all I want to do is make (and eat) hot, healthy foods and curl up in front of the fire.

Hence the need to whip up a fresh batch of this glorious green concoction.

Now, whenever I eat/make pea soup, I always think about that scene at the beginning of The Rescuers Down Under (we’re talking high art here folks), where Bernard takes Bianca out for a really fancy dinner (with the express intention of proposing to her).

Side note: I will always stand by my opinion that The Rescuers – the original movie – was always the better movie of the two.

Anyway, the mice and all the other animals are actually dining in the chandelier of an incredibly well-to-do (human) restaurant. A pea falls off the plate of one of the human dishes, only to be promptly scooped up by one of the animal waiters (a very posh-looking grasshopper), who then slingshots it up to the animal kitchen.

There, a chef – also a grasshopper – takes the pea and turns it into soup.

Now, what made this short, but memorable scene so brilliant (to six year old me) is the way both of these characters exclaim “pea soup!” with such enthusiasm and hilarity.

And as a child I could never, ever, get enough of their enunciation and tone.

And to this day, it still cracks me up.

So of course, every time I sit down to a bowl I absolutely have to say “pea soup!” just like a posh grasshopper waiter-or-chef.

Seriously, check it out for yourself:

And believe me, once you start, you won’t stop.

Onwards!

Taking a stand.

So.

I promised to post it as soon as I had the chance, and well, here it is!

My stand-up routine.

Meep.

Full disclaimer – this video contains some not-so-safe for work language. I make a concerted effort to communicate in this here blog without any swears, but I must confess that when I get on stage they are much harder to contain.

I do so hope that you enjoy it.

p.s. My name is Vanessa Woznow. Erm…hi?

A good word.

One of my most-loved things to do in preparation for the holidays is purchase beautiful little cards and send them to all my family and friends.

This year I chose gorgeous doves! And penguins sledding down a hill!

(This photo is also excellent evidence that I cannot keep myself away from sparkle – even in card form.)

Last night I prepared all of my cards for my rad work mates and for my family’s cousin Christmas card swap – a tradition born out of my grandfather’s passing five years ago.

He used to send us each a personalized card every December 25^th, and we want to keep the memory alive by making sure we stay in touch over the holiday season.

What makes it even more special is that this year I will get to see so many of them in person.

And goodness knows I CANNOT WAIT.

(Double eep!)

…

So there you have it beauty cats.

Soup, comedy, and cards – the trifecta dominating my thoughts on these dark and dreary, and oh-so late autumn evenings.

I hope all of your weekends are filled with love, laughter, and light.

Because goodness knows, Nymeria and I wouldn’t have it any other way.