David Sedaris

So I met David Sedaris.
I met him on a crazed sort of whim, jumping in my grandmother's car and racing to the bookstore signing.
Previous to meeting the legendary humorist, before I ever got to the wall post directing me to the Changing Hands Bookstore (which I had never set foot in before tonight), I was having a weird day.
It started off pretty normal. I got up and ate the usual breakfast: one potatoe (sliced then fried); two eggs (scrambled!), turkey slices, two cuties, multivitamin, and lemonade. Breakfast of champions. I read about it earlier this semester when I was obsessed with bicycling. I guess I'm still obsessed, because I'm absolutely adamant about eating it. I need the protein and carbs and fruit for my daily twelve miles on the bike. Not bad, I suppose.
Anywho, I ates me some grub and headed to school. I had read on twitter that Atomic Comics was having some sort of ridiculous sale for some sort of ridiculous reason that I couldn't be bothered to remember.I'm a gist man, mostly, and I tend to skim things. Unless it's Simon Pegg's tweets, which I read religiously (I bought his comic book app for the iphone).
In any case, I lucked out, as it was half off everything. Super luck! The only sort of foreshadowing that can be seen here, was that I meant to eat lunch, but was so pleased with my purchases I never got around to it. But I ate a big breakfast, so I figured I was good.
I got some real winners which I could write about here, but I think I'll wait until I've finished all of them and then blog my reviews on my loot. Needless to say, Grant Morrison kills Batman.
So after my first round of providence, I headed to school to hang out. I ran into some friends from my political science class and we had a rousing conversation about about this nutter woman in our class. She believes in aliens, 2012, and the absolute validity of the Left. She is a joy in the classroom. We are pretty sure she has hepatitis. We aren't sure, but we think it's probably all of them.
I left them to their business and drank some CRANAPPLERASPBERRY, which was delicious.
Pretty standard, you say? Ed, quit boring us with your stupid day, you say?
It's all pertinent! Sort of! Mostly the last stuff, but still...
Anywho, I went to my art class, to do art right? Not really, I was pretty much done with my two day sketch and altogether distracted by the texts and phone calls I was recieving. I had been getting them since poly sci on tuesday and they were all in regards to this big 15 page paper that nine different people were writing. Some of these people, who are very nice regardless, were super clueless and called me constantly. One of them, I actually outlined his entire paper to him in detail, three times in one particular conversation! In any case, I couldn't stop the texts crying out for help, so I talked to my Croatian life drawing teacher, Edna, and she let me out early.
This is really were we start our descent.
I left class and biked 10 miles down to my aunt's house to help my grandmother babysit my cousins. This ride was kind of crazy because I was pushing myself for time. I think it took me like 30 minutes? When I got there, I was drenched in sweat and my legs felt like they'd wibble wobble away. But I hung tight and put the rugrats to bed! Hazzah.
It's at this point that I got a push notice from a girl in my life drawing class, Ashley. It's important to note that I saw the notice, but ignored checking my facebook for her wall post. Instead, Grandma and I spent half an hour at Wal-Mart. The only purchase of importance was pesto.
After this, we cruised home. I was nervous about collating and editing all of the papers that the other members of the group would be sending me. It was terrible, I got a big pimple in the middle of my forehead. It's pretty much gone now, but I was pissed yesterday.
Also, my phone was almost dead. I had taken too many calls and texts from people in my poly sci class. It had croaked out it's "Below 20%, Please Charge!" warning. So I plugged it in and sat for a moment to read my messages. It was then that I checked my wall.
"Hey, so if you get here in like an hour david sedaris is still sighning books..."
I looked at the time: 39 minutes ago.
After that, it was like 24. I stopped with the groceries and undressing and politely asked my grandmother to borrow her car. She said it was fine, so I grabbed the one Sedaris book I actually own a copy of: Dress Your Kids In Corduroy and Denim. This, incidentally, was the first book of his I had ever read, ever. It was the actual copy I bought at the Lakeside library when I was 15 or 16. It was my first instance of trying to walk and read; as I read most of it on the walk home from Lindo Lake Park. Past the dirty 7-11, where Joel Wheeler got in a fight in high school. Over the bridge, the underside of which was covered in swastikas. Passed the Circle-K where my mom first worked when we moved to San Diego, before she got the shwanky accounting job that would become my own. All the way back to the house I grew up in (mostly). By the time I reached my bedroom, on the third floor of our pink house in the Navy housing complex, I done.
I made it to the bookstore, immediately thinking it was closed and that I was too late. I started to feel that bitter sort of crushing hopelessness, but I powered through anyways. The lights were on, but I didn't see anyone exept for the guy mopping the floor in the coffee shop.
I grabbed my book and made it to the door. It's an enlightening moment when everything sort of hangs on something so small as a door.
But I pushed it, and it opened.
After that, it's a blur of dead baby jokes and chatter. I had started to change, so I ended up wearing a hoody and nothing under it. This made me a little chagrined when Mr. Sedaris noticed my tattoo. I then unzipped it most of the way, a rather odd thing, I thought. I met up with Ashley and her sister and got to hitch a ride with them in line. We approached him altogether and he was amazingly congenial. It's really hard not to gush about it because he was just ludicrously nice. I told him a dead baby joke and he wrote "To Ed, I can't spell retardED without you". The girls told him there jokes and I remember he told us a dirty one in return, though I can't recall what it was. I feel kind of self conscious in retrospect about the interview, because I hadn't eaten since that hearty breakfast I mentioned early, so I was a little light headed and shaky. He signed their books, even going so far as to draw a dachsund with a baby attached to it on Kelly's. Then they told him it was their birthday, which it was on Tuesday, as her and her sister and some unknown sister are triplets. So, of course, he gave them presents. I'm not totally sure because I didn't look closely and I was talking incessantly (I WAS NERVOUS) but I'm pretty sure it was super sweet David Sedaris lotion and shampoo. He turned to me, looking up at me with these clear blue eyes.
"I don't want you to feel left out..." He said.
"Uh..." I replied.
He fished in his bag (SANTA) and pulled out a box. He opened the box and handed me a small white square card. It read:
Stop Talking
And I will cherish it forever.
Then he told this joke.
(To me) "If you woke up in the woods with grass stains on your knees and a used condom hanging out of your asshole, would you tell anyone?"
(Me) "Uh...Yes? NO! No, I mean, No..."
(Him) "Want to go camping?"
Vulgar, I know, but an appropriate ending to an altogether crazy day/ fall down strange night.