an evening with david sedaris

last night david sedaris was at rainy day books. i heard about it just the day before, so i thought i would head on down there and hear him reading, maybe get a book signed. if you don't know who david sedaris is, well and even if you do--watch this.

unfortunately, the thought in my head of "oh i'll show up at 6:30 and that will be plenty of time" was sorely off. if i'd have known how long the whole thing would take to hear his reading and get a personalized book signing i would never have stayed the whole time. but as it was, seven hours later i made my way home after the following conversation:

david: "are you 'luke'?"
luke: "yes that's me, i'm one of the selfish ones getting the book signed for himself."
david: "so do you have to go to work in the morning?" (it's 1:30am at this point)
luke: "well kind of, not really."
david: "could you do your job if you were paralyzed?"
luke: "well yeah actually probably."
david: "so not a lot of walking, climbing stairs?"
luke: "no not really."
david: "oh that's good. do you know any paralyzed people?"
luke: "i don't think i do actually. do you?"
david: "no i don't either. most people don't actually. i recommend that you just spend some time by a ramp."
luke: "oh well there's one right outside."
david: "well good then. you can just stand there for awhile and you'll probably run into one."

i thanked him for signing my book and i opened it as i was walking away. he had scribbled: "to luke, i'm so happy that you can walk."

another things i learned throughout the entire ordeal:
-in france you can get milkshakes made with breast milk (from david)
-a french roll from hen house can sustain you a really long time
-the rainy day parking lot is actually not all that uncomfortable
-people are really interesting
-i was in fact hit on by a slightly intoxicated woman in her upper 30s
-david takes notes for his stories a lot from the things around him. one time he watched his sister lean back in her chair and get her teeth flossed for 3 minutes by her pet parrot. she leaned her head up and looked at david, already with his notebook out, and said, "no."

*edit. also forgot to mention that david was drawing pictures in lots of people's books. them throwing up was a common one. also there were a lot of pictures of abraham lincoln. one guy i talked to said he drew a picture of an owl with a text bubble coming from it saying "i like black people."