Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002

by David Sedaris

“Teaching you is like having a cesarean section every day of the week.”

The teacher was extremely unhappy with the other day’s homework and entered the room as if it were a boxing ring.

She brightens up eventually, the teacher, but you have to clear the path.

March 23, 1999 Chicago I haven’t had a drink in forty-eight hours. This is not an accident but a concerted effort, and a very difficult one. I’d have to double-check, but I’m pretty sure I’ve been drunk every night for the past eighteen years.

March 24, 1999 Chicago Again last night I lay in bed unable to sleep. It was my third night without a drink and I was trying to remember what’s so good about being sober. One thing is that I’ll be able to walk through Paris at night.

July 17, 1999 La Bagotière Someone called to tell me that John Kennedy’s plane has gone down off the coast near Martha’s Vineyard. We talked for a few minutes and all the while I wanted to ask, “Who is this?”

What makes the stories so funny is that they lead to nothing. The cut “could support an army.” What does that even mean?

Even the birds seem to have a chip on their shoulders.

October 12, 2000 New York The general agreement is that I’ve lost too much weight. For me, the process has been gradual, but for those I haven’t seen in a while, the change is drastic. People who hadn’t been told about my diet probably imagine that I have either AIDS or cancer—which is a pretty good definition of bad weight loss.

November 10, 2000 Chicago Televisions at the Indianapolis airport showed that Bush was ahead by 210 votes, with one district left to recount. Who ever thought the presidential election would come down to the number of people you’d find in a movie theater? It might be resolved tonight, but I doubt

It’s almost best not to mention it, as any celebration of sobriety seems so painfully childlike. “I know, I’ll have a tea party and invite all my invisible friends!”

September 12, 2001 Paris Last night on TV I watched people jump from the windows of the World Trade Center.

as Americans abroad, we’re supposed to keep a low profile and avoid speaking English on the street. It’s a standard warning the State Department issues whenever there’s trouble.

March 30, 2002 New York On Wednesday, Milton Berle, Billy Wilder, and Dudley Moore died.

It was a real New York conversation. The subject turned to celebrities, and then restaurants.

October 10, 2002 Rochester, New York A sniper or pair of snipers, a “marksman,” a “rifleman,” has shot eight people in DC, Virginia, and Maryland over the course of the past week,