Wendyl Nissen: No joking matter

There can be humour in the depressed condition. Photo / Supplied

Usually when when I sit down mid-week to tap out the 750 words which make up this column, I simply ask myself "what's annoyed me this week?"

And usually I come up with something, whether it's having to push a uterus back inside my hen's bum or arguing with my husband over what our new letterbox should look like.

This week there have been so many annoying things that it's difficult to single out just one and, amid the plethora of negativity, I find it difficult to live up to the one word which sits at the top of my column: humour.

"There can be humour found in the depressed condition," said my husband helpfully.

"What part would that be?" I snapped. "The black dog sitting on my chest or my unwillingness to come out from under the covers?"

"Most stand-up comics suffer from depression," he said helpfully again.

"Are you suggesting I turn up on open-mic night at the Classic to moan about my last period?"

"No," he replied. "But perhaps you could do what other columnists do and write about their divorce every week, their dead dog, how writing is just like plumbing, simply repeat the week's political events in turgid detail, or go on about their 'bulging mailbag'."

"Why don't you just write it for me then, Mr I'm So Full Of Good Ideas? You're a writer, no one would know."

"I'm not sure quite how to tell you this, but I tend to use bigger words than you," said Mr Only Person I Know Who's Read Proust - Twice.

"Perhaps I could get one of the columns I wrote five years ago and rewrite it? Surely no one would know?"

"Good idea. Get out of bed and get them."

"Can't. I'm incapacitated."

"Gosh - that's a big word."

"Not funny."

"Anyway, have you read those columns lately?" he said. "They were quite angry."

"Exactly," I said, before dredging a few out and deleting them with embarrassment.

"Took myself quite seriously back then," I added, before attempting once again to find a humorous topic. "There were the guys at the caravan who escaped their wives for a week to do some fishing and never did. They were pretty funny."

"Yeah, write about that," he said. "Might need more than the one joke to get you through 750 words, though."

"And then there was the woman who accused me of ripping off her soap-making recipes just like Alison Holst and Annabelle White. That was quite funny."

"Hilarious."

"And then there was the 10 days during which I forgot to ring my mother." "Not funny."

"Do you think this is the stage those other columnists got to when they started plagiarising? Should I just go online to the Guardian or the Observer and find someone else's humorous take on life and rewrite it as mine?"

"Perhaps if you spent less time at the caravan writing your book, you would have a life to write about in your column," he said.

It is true, I have been avoiding life, closeting myself between four walls of retro sheet metal, gazing at the sea and typing frantically in an effort to meet my next book deadline.

"That's it. I'll write about how hard it is to write a book," I said.

"You did that, three times I think. Lots of lovely descriptions of Venice, I seem to remember. By the way, where is that novel you wrote in Venice?"

"Cogitating."

"You and your big words. I think you mean gestating. A book can't cogitate - that means thinking."

"You know what I think? I think next week will be my first column about coping with separation."