Steve Martin Offers a Cure for Post Holiday Stress

Ahhh, the holidays; a time for fun, good cheer, and merriment for all. It’s a time for people to recharge their batteries and come back to work refreshed and ready to take on a new year. Or, if your holidays were like mine, a time to drive from get together to get together through terrible weather on a marathon visiting session that ends up being too much family in too little time. I love my family as much as the next person but seven days straight left me feeling like McCauley Culkin at the beginning of Home Alone. I found myself wanting to say to them, “I don't want to see you again for the rest of my whole life. And I don't want to see anybody else either.” Okay, maybe I wasn’t that wound up, but I was definitely haunted by images of my family for days.

At the end of it all, I was left with a single day to wind down before getting back to the normal routine. But how would I spend that day? Easy – relaxing with a good book that doesn’t demand deep thought. The book I picked up was The Ten, Make That Nine, Habits of Very Organized People. Make That Ten. The tweets of Steve Martin from Grand Central Publishing.

If laughter truly is the best medicine and you need treatment, this is the book for you. This book, just as the title suggests, is a collection of Steve Martin’s Twitter posts. Unlike some tweeters (who shall remain nameless) Martin’s tweets do not revolve around shoe shopping, feuding with other celebrities, or posting way too many selfies. Instead, his tweets are pure, unfiltered Martin gold. This is not Steve Martin reading from a script, but Martin delivering his own thoughts without compromise. And man, are they funny! My favourite of his tweets are those where Martin appears to be tweeting from jury duty:

REPORT FROM JURY DUTY: Other Jurors are stupid. They don’t believe in “hexes.” Plus they want me to put my magazines away.

Or those where he tweets about the Martin invented character Creepy Guy:

Creepy Guy here fixing basement. Odd that he has to tie me up to do it.

But aside from his own tweets, Martin also trades tweets with his followers, and some of those directed at him are as funny as his own. One follower tweeted:

@youcatastrophe: “I think I’m the only person in the world that truly understands you and gets your humour. That said...you’re not very funny.”

The fact that Martin included this tweet in the collection just goes to show what a great sense of humour he has.

Needless to say, after finishing this book the thoughts of unrest and bitterness about the hectic nature of my holidays were replaced with feelings of contentment and serenity. I only wish that it were a bit longer. Reading it is a lot like eating popcorn: easily consumed, deliciously enjoyable and gone before you know it! Luckily, once this book is finished you can follow Martin on twitter and get your daily dose of medicine. Happy New Year!

Click this link https://twitter.com/SteveMartinToGo to follow Steve Martin on twitter.