Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002

by David Sedaris

If nothing else, a diary teaches you what you’re interested in.

That’s the thing with a diary, though. In order to record your life, you sort of need to live it. Not at your desk, but beyond it. Out in the world where it’s so beautiful and complex and painful that sometimes you just need to sit down and write about it.

I worry about money, but when it’s gone, it’s gone.

So I was walking down the street in my new uniform, very happy, when a guy looked me over and said to his friend, “Who’s the faggot?” Then I was just an idiot with stupid clothes on.

Sucks, doesn't it?

explained what all his tools do and then he suggested that he could pay me in Christmas gifts. If he has a pool, two cars, two Streamline trailers, and a home with two fireplaces in it, he can pay me in real money. I don’t think his wife likes me too much. Christians are strange people.

John wants me to go to church with his family this weekend. He tells me that my life is empty, but it isn’t quite because I bought some pot today.

It’s humiliating to have to look busy.

Every man on the street was old and dirty and looked like he was on his way to an adult bookstore.

The last time I was up at five was because I hadn’t gone to bed yet.

One day when I had her, a kid wet his pants during geography, and she told the class that Steve was just excited about learning. Even in 1964 I thought that was funny.

and had a car accident—my first. I was disappointed: no blood. I would have enjoyed just a trickle.

I went to pick up my pieces that were rejected by the Wake County show. “Oh, yes,” the woman said when I gave her my name, “you’re the one with the little cardboard boxes.” “Yes, that’s me.” I’d wanted to get in just to trouble people like her.

I modeled for Susan’s drawing class this afternoon and had an eerie feeling that everyone was staring at me.

Ronnie is incensed over the royal wedding. “Did you know that silkworms spun the fabric for her dress?” “Silkworms spin everyone’s silk,” I told her. “That’s where silk comes from.” Somewhere she heard that four hundred bears were killed and turned into hats. We went to the movies, and all I thought the entire time was Where on earth does she get her information from?

Today T.W. asked, “Did you get any cootie last night?” At the sight of one girl, he said, “She could make a bulldog break her chain.” When a young woman passed on a bike, he yelled after her, “Don’t you know it’s illegal to peddle pussy in this town?”

This is why feminism.

Tommy is Dougie’s cousin and frequently talks about “gnawing on some pussy.” That sounds pretty severe, to gnaw on it.

One of the delinquents she’s assigned to kidnapped two children, drowned them, put their bodies in plastic bags, and left them on the curb for the garbagemen. That’s a bit more than delinquent, I think.

He speaks combat Greek,

A Greek man lured her to his apartment recently and tried to make love at her. That was how she said it: “Make love at me.”

I have much more respect for drag queens than I do for all these full-grown men lying about who they really are.

Finally he was hit by a train while walking, which is strange because

trains don’t generally sneak up on people. For the most part, barring a derailment, you know exactly where to find them.

Tiffany was rushed to the hospital in New York the night before last. It turned out she was four months pregnant and the baby was

growing in her fallopian tube rather than in her womb. It’s called an ectopic pregnancy, and she knew nothing about it until she started hemorrhaging. “Do you have any questions?” the doctor asked before he performed the operation to extract the fetus. And in a weak voice Tiffany said, “Yes. When can I have sex again?” You really have to hand it to her sometimes.

when a woman came up the stairs, Mr. Johnston turned to me and winked, as if to say, Watch this.

“I’ll have to paint your apartment next,” he said to her as she passed. “Maybe we can work out a deal.” When the woman smiled politely, he stuck out his tongue and made a quick licking gesture. She was in her late twenties and was carrying a bag of groceries from an expensive store. She was dressed in a suit and was so clearly not a prostitute, it was ridiculous. The woman entered the apartment across the hall, and after she had closed the door behind her, Mr. Johnston told me he had her in the palm of his hand, that she was his for the taking. As he said this, I heard three clicks—one lock after another being secured. That’s how interested she was.

On the street, a prostitute in a jean jacket asked if I wanted a good date. I’m always amazed when they mistake me for a straight man.

In the park I bought dope. There was a bench nearby, so I sat down for a while and took in the perfect fall day. Then I came home and carved the word failure into a pumpkin.

Aw, David...

He spends a lot of time telling you how smart he is, which is odd because, if you’re truly all that bright, people can usually figure it out on their own.

“Don’t you hate it when parents curse and don’t treat their children with respect?” the woman who lives on Dakin asked.

Yup

I told her that my mother’s new favorite word is fuck but that she can’t figure out its place in a sentence. “She’ll say, ‘I don’t give a fucking darn what you think.’”

Aw, that's kind of cute.

Rather, we teach him that a stove is hot, by pressing his hand to the burner for a minute or two.”

A MINUTE or two?!

just as she asked him to sit back down, he farted.

Interesting: I read something recently from a teacher of deaf kids that the kids didn't realize farts are audible to hearing people!

The copy reads, “A vicious hermaphrodite wants to control the country, and only two people stand in his way. [Only two?]

Times have changed when a hermaphrodite wants to control the country and only two people stand in his way.

A person would be in pretty serious trouble if his graduation gown no longer fit. It’s like outgrowing a tent, basically.

I haven’t worked in more than three weeks, but it was nice to be mistaken for someone with a job.

Outliving my enemies

Always a good reason to live.

Every day she goes to the beach to revive her tan, and every day men fuck with her. They call out concerning all the various parts of her they’d like to

have access to. Men on bikes, on the street, on the train. I forget how much crap women have to put up with.

I hated Reagan but stopped dwelling on it after he became such an easy and popular target. My eyes never welled up when he spoke. They narrowed.

The article suggested that a man’s infidelity is always the wife’s or girlfriend’s fault. It never considers that maybe he’s just an asshole.

I hailed a cab at four thirty this morning and got a driver with straw-colored hair. After I got in, he met my eyes in the rearview mirror and said, “Did you see any pussy out there tonight?” I told him I hadn’t been looking, so some might have slipped by unnoticed.

I’m often talked to like this by taxi drivers, and it makes me think their cabs should be a different color than the others—that way women will know to avoid them. It gives me the creeps that this guy might pick up my sister. Then again, if anyone could destroy him, it would be Amy.

Hugh’s place on Canal. I was excited to be there and decided to have a crush on him.

Oh hey wait, THE Hugh?

I’m surrounded by people who have more money than they know what to do with, and none of them have earned it.

He yelled at a neighbor whose gate squeaked. “You ought to oil that damned thing.” “You ought to oil your fucking head!” the man shouted back, apparently unaware that he

was talking to a very important petty thief and heroin addict.

What makes young people young is that they see themselves going up, up, up. Not me, though. I’m old now.

Other people’s pain is uninteresting. My own, though, is spellbinding.