Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002

by David Sedaris

Dad doesn’t pay attention when you talk to him, so Paul’s taken to throwing the term IRS into his sentences. Then it’s suddenly: “Hold on a second, what did you say?”

We picked it up on Canal Street, at the loft of a guy named Hugh and his two roommates, Scott and Leslie. Their place was spacious and homey, like a log cabin. Hugh had a wet bar in the shape of a tree stump. Leslie was making an apple pie and they were listening to All Things Considered. Hugh is handsome, a nice guy. Gay.

THE Hugh?!

Today I ate in the cafeteria with a she-elf whose husband is a female impersonator. Hmmmm.

Tell people you live in New York, and I’ve noticed they’ll offer half a dozen reasons why they don’t live there: the crowds, the high cost of living, the crime. I’m not suggesting they move or anything—far from it. It’s funny how defensive certain people get.

I looked at a book Alba and her business partner had recently published. I remarked that it was beautifully bound and printed, and Alba sighed, saying, “I am tired now of beauty.”

June 26, 1991 New York I began a writing class at the Y tonight, and though the teacher hasn’t a knack for generating critical discussion, I still get a kick out of her. At one point she read a poem by someone I’m not familiar with. “History has borne him out to be something of an anti-Semite and a racist, but he was funny,” she said. Our homework assignment is to write a story in the form of a diary entry.

I stretch myself too thin and wind up with tiny houses.

March 9, 1993 New York Roger Donald called from Little, Brown to say he would like to negotiate a two-book deal. To celebrate, I bought a denim shirt and thought it amazing how quickly one’s life can change. I never thought I’d want a denim shirt.

The police always think I’m a woman.

February 28, 1994 New York Helen knocked this morning and asked me to mail some shit for her. Literally. “It’s a stool sample,” she said.

Hugh’s friend Sue, who’s from Georgia, had a New Year’s Day luncheon and served ham, collard greens, and black-eyed peas, traditional Southern food meant to bring good luck and prosperity. She cooked the collards with a penny. I told Amy about it and now we’re trying to think of other recipes that call for change.

“Monkey Heads on a Pine Tree.”

I’d been to only one Walmart in my life before this and I was shocked at how ugly it was, even by American standards. It was a mammoth jumble of absolute shit made more chaotic by brightly colored signs and promotional displays.

July 13, 2001 Tübingen, Germany This is my new favorite German city, and it’s nice because I really didn’t expect it. It’s a college town, but the old center is remarkable, crammed with steep-roofed buildings and intersected by a network of streams.

I turned on the TV last night and was delighted to find Cops, which translates to It’s Worth the Detour.

Buying things you don’t want or need has become a patriotic duty,

October 31, 2001 Cincinnati, Ohio On CNN I watched a discussion about post-9/11 America. One of the panelists was the editor of Good Housekeeping, who reflected our new seriousness by placing the Stars and Stripes atop the traditional gingerbread house gracing the December cover. This is the sort of bullshit CNN is becoming famous for. I looked at this woman, thinking, Just…get the fuck off my TV.

November 1, 2001 Dearborn, Michigan I had the night off so went to the multiplex across the road from the hotel to see Joy Ride. The only people in the theater were me and an obese woman dressed like a witch. I’d seen her earlier in the lobby, noticed the tall black hat, and thought, That person is going to sit in front of me. And so she did, directly in front of me, though there were hundreds of empty seats for her to choose from. “Fucking…witch,” I whispered.

Their lives were so sorrowful that they treated what had happened to her not as a crime committed by an individual but as an impersonal misfortune like a badly set bone that warps as it heals.

While listening to a country music station, we heard a talk/song narrated by our flag. “I flew proudly at Iwo Jima and on the blistering deserts of Kuwait, anywhere freedom is threatened, you will find me.” The flag recounted being torn into strips to bandage wounded soldiers and then it explained how it hurts to be burned and trampled by the very people it works so hard to protect. When given a voice, our flag is not someone you’d choose to spend a lot of time with.