I am verbally impotent. My mighty pen is limp in hand; it is in no condition to impale or explode, barely more threatening than a butter knife brandished by a lowly Bangladeshi kitchen wench in a vain attempt to slay her patrician oppressors.

All semester I’ve resisted bitching about writer’s block. (And let me tell you, I could complain endlessly. I could create a brand new God and bombard her with piercing cries.) But today, dear reader, I come before you and genuflect.

I kneel not to be showered with holy water from the altar of Priapus, but instead to humble myself and beg for forgiveness. Forgive me, (future) fathers and mothers, for I must commit the ultimate columnist sin: self-serving wankery.

Though I have been taught by the best to shun the vertical pronoun, swallow my pride and get used to the taste, I, like our first father, can no longer resist the juicy apple. It hangs pendulous and luscious on the stalk, and this fine eve I must indulge. And you, O gentle reader, must indulge me. The bubble of hot poison that has swelled for months in my mind’s loins will finally burst, and all I can do is apologize for the ensuing mess.

Crossing Storrow Drive at 7 a.m., six shots of Cossack overriding survival instincts, reading this morning’s headlines when it’s still last night. Listening to the ex explain exactly how and why she meticulously tore out the heart and goose-stepped on it for good measure. Eighty billion dollars and slaughtered innocents to discover pesticides of mass destruction and a rusty iron maiden (the medieval torture device, not the glorious masters of delicious metallic cheese). One cruelest month to flush away a quarter of a decade like a spent prophylactic.

But why wallow when I can laugh?

Thirty pages of term papers and the once-reliable brain shooting more blanks than Bob Dole. Three nights a week slaving over a hot griddle, forcing a smile as the nose winces at freshman perfume, earning less than I would if I chased a pot of gold hidden by a blind, retarded, SARS-infected leprechaun.

All this, and the roommate snores. Constantly. I honestly don’t think anyone ever taught him to breathe correctly. Even after Norwegian black metal and the speakers on 11, he’s still honking within two minutes of going down. He snores when he’s awake, for the sake of headless fuzzy Christ.

But I laugh. Like your grandfather dying of a heart condition after raising nine daughters, like Pacemaker Dick being acquitted of gross corruption by a Securities and Exchange Commission panel appointed by Cowboy George, human existence (I see) is altogether too fitting in its absurdity.

Perhaps we are all not lucky enough to be, like Scaramouche, born with the gift of laughter and the sense that the world is mad. But even the most wretched even those who have gone and thrown it all away can learn to see with half the eye of Galileo, to sing with half the voice of Figaro, to stand outside laughing at the rain. The thunderbolts and lightning may be very frightening, but there’s a certain comfort that can only be afforded by cackling with the sane.

Some folks would argue it’s not the only way out; that God, glory, country, love, beer or Howard Roark will lead to fruition. Some folks would also argue that pouring millions into a movie entitled “From Kelly to Justin” starring the American Idols as themselves was a good idea. If you need the analytical skills of Sir Christopher Ricks to see my point, please walk in the direction of the nearest short pier.

We certainly can’t do anything about the fact that life will kill us, but nothing prevents us from enjoying the ride even if it sometimes involves being chained to the pickup truck of existence and dragged. Tears pour salt into our wounds, but laughter, somewhat like cheap vodka and cheaper whores, can only help us to forget them without subjecting us to hangovers and herpes.

So laugh especially at me and, even more importantly, at yourself. To take offense at life and all its disgustingly wonderful quirks is to admit to insecurity, unhappiness and lack of intelligence. Shamelessness is next to godliness, and any wretched egomaniac who proposes to make anything but absurdity of life is doomed to a miserable, slavish existence and a turgid, sterile prose style.

Jason Cammarata, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press.