reading aloud makes me stupid happy. or maybe just stupid.

There are certain things that I get more excited about than I probably should.

Things like walking into the bathroom to perform my get-ready-for-bedtime routine and suddenly realizing that I already flossed today. Major score, one less thing to do.

And oh, what if my get-ready-for-bedtime routine was something that I actually did perform? Like, on a stage? I think I’d be a starving artist, cause not many people would buy tickets. I think that my life-as-art act might be better as life then as art. Although I’ve been told that I make quite a mirror face, so there’s that. Maybe somebody would buy a ticket to see me make my mirror face.

Or maybe not.

Oh, but back to things that make me more excited than is normal. See, I get really happy when someone asks me to read out loud in a group. Of course, I don’t let it show. When they ask for a volunteer, I wait for what I consider to be an appropriate amount of time so as not to seem too needy, and then I casually say, Oh. I guess I will. I mean, if nobody else wants to…But inside, it’s my birthday. And you’re all the guests and oh look! the birthday girl gets to read! OUT LOUD! and bam! she gets to practice her diction and emote through her words–even if it is just a book about abnormal psychology or fear and art or dance history or whatever, cause READING! OUT LOUD! LIKE, FOR REAL! and who needs cake when you’ve got that?!

And tonight, I got the chance. Cause I was at a Bible Study that my friend Christian leads and you guessed it, he asked for a volunteer to read aloud and nobody said anything (I. KNOW. I don’t understand it, either!). So he finally was like, Okay, Jess. I know you want to read out loud. Do it. And I was all, Oh, well, sure. I mean, I guess I could. I suppose I have time to read a few vers–and I was gone. Happily reading out loud.

Until I came across this one particular verse. It was about someone named Epaphrotitus (I might have just spelled that wrong; spellcheck certainly thinks so, but it might not be up on its Roman names. And that might not be a Roman name). And Paul is praising this guy with the name that’s proving to be unspellable, saying that he is living right–for others and God and all that jazz but probably not in that order–and then Paul says this: And then he got sick and almost died.

And cue Bellatrix Lestrange from Harry Potter, because remember how she seems to be laughing all the time? When it is terribly inappropriate, too; like, when some of the best characters in the story are dying, leaving Harry alone. AGAIN. Well, I read that verse–out loud, mind you–like this:

And then he got sick…trying not to laugh here…and almost…starting to laugh here..died…HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

And I will probably never get asked to read out loud in that group again, because who laughs like a crazy person at someone almost dying in the Bible? I mean, who other than me?

The responding silence is noted.

And not surprising.

Luckily, I was laughing so hard that other people started laughing too. Probably not at someone almost dying, though; it was probably more at me. Which is fine. I will have to practice my delivery, I suppose. I will have to learn what emotions go with what words all over again. I will have to be appropriate.

I have a lot of homework.