Update: I started this blog post in November of 2019. It was going to be my long soliloquy on why I love David Sedaris's writing. I'm not sure what got in the way of this great and moving masterpiece of a blog post, but something interrupted me, like a bomb went off, and I walked out of the blog post with dinner on the table and the television on. Scientists would stumble on the blog months later saying, "Where'd she go? What happened at the reading? What else was she going to say? Why didn't she eat this perfectly good macaroni and cheese before she left?"
Like the breeze blowing dust down the road, so went my great ideas of how I was going to capture the spirit of seeing David Sedaris read and talk in person. It was going to be so insightful that it was going to go viral, and we were going to begin a long and interesting friendship and letter writing tradition that would be published posthumously, many, many, many decades from now, and people would look back and reread our letters and wonder at the serendipity that brought us together as friends. Ours would be a classic in the long history of letter writing classics. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson would have nothing on our letters.
What is it about people we know through their writing or singing or acting that makes us think we would become such good friends if only we had a reason to meet?
We know how it ends now, folks. Half-baked blog, no long correspondence with El Señor Sedaris, no unwieldy amounts of social media traffic to deal with when the blog hit the airwaves and spreads across the globe. All you're left with is the fleeting feeling I had after seeing his really good reading in Tucson in November. If you haven't read any of his books, I highly recommend them. If you have a chance to see him read in your town, I suggest you go. It's a really great way to spend an evening.
I had two books signed from him after the reading, and we talked a bit about personal tragedies we both experienced. Thinking back, it was such a fleeting talk but also weirdly personal and jarring. On a hilarious note, I told him I was giving one of the signed books to my brother for Christmas. My brother always gives really thoughtful gifts, and I always get him something really useful like awesome socks. So, I told him I had to up my game. David wrote in the book, "You Deserved Better" to my brother. David's right, and David deserved better from my blog. Here's what I wrote back in November. Forgive the schmaltz. or don't.
FROM NOVEMBER 2019
Dear David,
I went with a few friends to see you read in Tucson in November. This must be the fourth or fifth time I've seen you over the years, and I never get tired of it. When I tell people I'm going to hear a guy read stories, a lot of people are skeptical. "Wait. So you've probably read the stories, and now you're going to hear some guy read them out loud?" If only they knew...that's almost exactly what it is, but it's also pretty darn amazing.
I love your writing because it's funny but it also makes you think and cry and wonder how in the hell you were able to write such a balancing act of a story. I've had stories where I laugh so hard my stomach hurts and tears stream down my face, and then this profound, emotionally difficult part comes along, and I am still crying from laughter but now also crying from sadness. Because I am so emotionally mature, I have many moments where I say, "Damn, dude. That's some real shit right there. Did you see him drop that real shit?" See. Emotional maturity.
In the everyday and the mundane and the millions of instances of small life tragedies, we are changed. We develop workarounds to deal. We become. I like how you shine a light on our neuroses and problems and pitfalls and our grace and lack of grace. Somehow in the parade of the best and the worst of people, there's still this love. I like how you steep us in the situations of your stories and show how we deal with the happenings of life around us.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? WE WILL NEVER KNOW? Fin.
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