Let yourself laugh

What makes you laugh so hard your belly shakes?

I saw a refrigerator magnet the other day with the words "It's called PMS because Mad Cow Disease was already taken."

I told my friend about it and we laughed. I laughed so hard my belly quaked. All the tension in my body broke up into tiny pieces and fell away.

What is a belly laugh? It's a tremor rippling through your tissues, tickling your innards. It's an inner shimmy, the cells of your body dancing with delight.

If it's been too long since your last good guffaw, now's the time to get the laughter going again.

Here's how—

1• Invite some friends to join you—the more, the better. Arrange yourselves on the floor so that you're lying at right angles to each other, one woman's head resting on the next woman's belly. (The first one in the chain will have her head on the floor; have a pillow handy for her.)

2• The first woman says "Ha!" The next woman adds another "Ha!" and so does the next and the next, passing the lengthening list of ha-ha's down the chain.

3• Be sure to play a number of rounds, changing places so that the first woman has a chance to be in the middle of the chain. And if you aren't all breaking up into belly laughs, start trading your bawdiest jokes!

Resources:
Baubo's Bawdy Joke Bazaar

References:
refrigerator magnet: Claire Vohman, www.clairewashere.com
ha-ha's: See Andrew Fluegelman, ed., More New Games & Playful Ideas. Toronto: Doubleday, 1981.