Hello. This is my newsletter.: I'm an unapologetically loud laugher.

Recently, I went to Sam’s Club. I only go to one of these kinds of wholesale establishments maybe once every two or three years. Larry and Sue (my archery mom and dad) and our friend Meg (my archery older sister) went because Meg needed dog stuff, Sue needed socks, I needed a gigantic package of gum, and – the priority – Larry needed their soft-serve ice cream.

Okay, if you want to have an uneventful, quick-in-and-out experience at one of these places, do not take me. I’ll spare you the details/surprise of what that experience looks like.

Long story short, we are sitting at the table there, all of us eating our soft serve, and cracking up over one thing or another. We are always laughing, we are very funny people. I don’t know if you knew that – I’m very funny. Sometimes I have to tell people.

So I spill something, naturally, and Larry and Sue go to throw away the garbage, and Meg goes to get napkins, and this lady comes up to me and says,

“You know, I’m been observing you all sitting here for a while my husband has been in the store. It’s just so nice to see people laughing. You guys have been laughing and laughing, and it has been so refreshing and nice to see. No one laughs these days anymore. You just don’t see people laughing. I just wanted to thank you, I’ve been really blessed by just watching you.”

I loved her telling me that, and I loved that she could only do so once it was just me – she had to wait for everyone else to step away. I told everyone what she said when they returned.

This past weekend, my brother (my dad’s son) called me, and said that he was going to be in town, in case I could do dinner Saturday or Sunday. That West-Coast side of my family and I talk now and then, but honestly, I haven’t talked to that brother in years. It’s just hard for me, due to things I won’t bore you with. But Brother and my New Jersey cousin, Nancy, were coming to D.C. for the weekend, so I went out to dinner with them on Sunday.

Man, we were laughing our heads off. It’s tough to catch folks up on the last couple years of your life over an hour-or-so-long meal, but I did the best I could, and we were all laughing so much. Nancy is so freakin hilarious. She is classic New Jesery hilarity. Everything is automatically hilarious due to her New Jersey accent.

We talked about my travels, and Brother wanted to know how exactly do I just march into an unknown place and make friends? I told him to just be friendly to the right people, you gotta feel the vibe. “Like our waitress. See, if I didn’t live here, I would ask her what she is doing with the rest of her day after work, and if she would like to invite us to do those things with her.” He seemed fascinated. Eh.

After dinner, Brother told me that it was such a blessing to be around me, like he felt like he had just received a shot of positive energy. He said it was very therapeutic to be around me. I thought that was a nice thing to say.

Saturday, I went to Central Park with my friend Karen, and we were taking the subway down to lower Manhattan, when another train was just fixin to close its doors, and I saw that it was headed to Coney Island. I threw Karen on the subway and told her that our plans changed to Coney Island. It ended up being a very fun day.

I told Brother that sometimes, you just have to hop the available train to Coney Island, and figure the rest out later.