Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002

by David Sedaris

(How is it that I have so many Steves in my life and only one Thelma?)

I’ve rewritten things when they were unclear or, as was more often the case in the early years, when the writing was clunky and uninviting.

The point is to find out who you are and to be true to that person. Because so often you can’t.

I decided that maybe two volumes—the second of which will cover the years 2003 to 2017—would make more sense.

“Will you just shut up!” and “Who cares about the goddamn pocket square!” “Who are you talking to?” he’d ask. “Me in 2001,” I’d answer.

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.

October 26, 1977 Everett, Washington At the Beehive Café one egg is 25 cents. It’s $2 for an egg at Denny’s.

At six this morning, he bounded into the living room naked and said, “Let’s go!” He had just returned from his high school reunion. He was in the band.

at the Broadway Hotel, a cheap and depressing place. Scary. There is a real poor and a funky poor. This is the real kind.

we went to see The Day of the Locust, my favorite movie. The man at the box office gave us a discount, saying, “I can’t charge full price for something without a plot!”

I am optimistic that things will fall into place, and one day I’ll be sitting in New York City with correct bus fare in my pocket.

He tells me that my life is empty, but it isn’t quite because I bought some pot today.

There’s free medical and dental but only after three years, by which point you’d be insane.

Everything is green from the chrome oxide I used to polish John’s jade. The insides of my ears are green. So is my snot.

We went to the trailer where he lives with his mother, and maybe one day I’ll get into what happened there.

It’s so hard to put things into focus right now. Maybe in a few years I can make sense of this fall in Oregon. These are just notes. By then, though, this time will be touched by sentiment.

I never thought I’d do this—go home with strangers—but it’s OK with the right stranger.

In current events, a sixteen-year-old in San Diego opened fire on an elementary school playground with an M16 and 250 rounds of ammunition.

The "I Don't Like Mondays" Massacre?

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.

There was an accident yesterday at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, so a lot of people talked about it.

Dad on friendship: “Sure, some people are nice. Real nice. Nice like carpets so you can walk all over them.”

4. I do not have parties (a $50-per-person fee is charged for every “jerk” I invite)

May 17, 1979 Raleigh Gas in four states is now selling for over $1 a gallon.

It must have snowed twelve times today, though never for more than three minutes at a stretch.

When the meth catches up to you, you find yourself paying for it. When on a spree, I’m convinced I can smoke three packs of cigarettes, not eat, and run all over town with no consequences.

I have just taken amphetamines stolen from a drugstore. They’re given to hyperactive children to make them even more hyperactive so they’ll get tired and pass out, giving their parents a rest.

My name will be published in the catalog, so once again I’ll get to see it in print. Now I’d like to get into the phone book.

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

There is a new cancer that strikes only homosexual men. I heard about it on the radio tonight.

buy me a male Hershey bar—you know, the kind with the nuts.”

Tiffany was great company this week. Every night we got high on the beach and made up coastal limericks.

They don’t even carry pints of milk at this Winn-Dixie—you have to buy a whole expensive gallon.

October 25, 1981 Raleigh Again last night I went to Lyn’s and watched The PTL (Praise the Lord) Club. Jim Bakker, the cohost, is desperate for $50 million. He looks like a baby monkey. Not just a baby. Not just a monkey.

I stopped opening my telephone bills months ago. Still they scream at me from the cabinet over the sink where I keep them.

I spent the day crawling underneath the Ewing house and trying to think of one good thing to say about it.

I gave him my phone number because he wants to cook me dinner.

“Can I trust you?” he asked in the front seat of his car. “I wouldn’t if I were you,” I told him.

The Big Star is still holding their poultry-sale extravaganza: mixed fryer parts for 35 cents a pound. I told Dad about it, and he said it was a joke and that all the parts would be wings, backs, and necks. He was almost right. They also threw in some hearts and livers.

They treat me with a kind of detached, patronizing humor that probably should bother me but doesn’t.

We have painted her bedroom Pink Whisper with brown trim—her idea. The dining room is a shade called Zest.

This morning a female sheriff walked through my front door without knocking. I went into the kitchen, and after I identified myself, she apologized. She was looking for apartment number 6. I was glad to point it out to her. I hope she takes those two and locks them up.

Do the tenants know they’re our dinner conversation? In our minds we all but own them.

who stopped on our way out to play six rounds of a video game called Frogger.

Misty is small and pretty in the way that a country-and-western singer might be.

he called Joe an ugly name. “What did you say?” Joe asked. “I ain’t afraid of you,” the man said. He drove away, and I thought of him all afternoon until a bee flew into my eye.

lunch I had a hamburger the size of a Susan B. Anthony dollar.

She thought of staying and finding work somewhere else but decided she can’t live in a state with only one zip code.

He speaks combat Greek, and the people he talks to speak it back.

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.”