a little david sedaris, for your tuesday morning laugh...

Excerpted from Slate.com - David Sedaris' Diary:

It was 20 years ago, almost to the day, that I began keeping a diary. A friend and I had been hitchhiking from Oregon to Vancouver when, for no reason whatsoever, I scribbled the day's events onto the back of a restaurant place mat, not knowing that the activity would become obsessive. My earliest diaries are stored away in my father's basement, and I can't bear to read them. Entries are introduced with Joni Mitchell quotes and melodramatic sob stories that end with lines such as, "I know now that I must walk alone!!!" What makes these diaries extra embarrassing is the fact that I hadn't even started drinking yet. I can't blame the writing on drugs or alcohol--that was me talking. I'd like to know what I ate when I was 19 years old. How much did it cost for a pound of chicken or a pack of cigarettes? What did I carry in my wallet, and who did I talk to on the telephone? My earliest diaries tell me none of these things. They tell me not who I was, but who I wanted to be. That person wore a beret and longed to ride a tandem bicycle with Laura Nyro. He wanted to arrive at parties on the back of a camel and sketch the guests, capturing the look of wonder on their faces as they admired his quiet, unassuming celebrity. I've been tempted to destroy those early diaries, but the very urge reminds me that I really haven't changed all that much.

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My sister Amy and I are working on a new play. It opens in two months and so far all we've got is the title, The Little Frieda Mysteries. We'll get together, throw out some ideas, and then, by the time I've started writing something, Amy will have decided that the character is blind, or paralyzed from the waist down. We're still in that phase where the story changes by the hour. I'll call her with a bit of dialogue and find that her phone has been disconnected by her rabbit, Tattle Tail, who regularly chews through the phone cord. Amy got this rabbit nine months ago, and now her entire apartment has been rearranged to accommodate its needs. Tattle Tail roams freely from one room to the next. She'll use a litter box, but only if it is placed upon the sofa. Great piles of alfalfa, dandelion greens, and parsley are heaped upon the living-room carpet. She's got all the carrots and dried food she can eat, but still she can't resist chewing the furniture and electrical cords. Amy will wake in the middle of the night to find Tattle Tail chewing her hair and fingernails. I left the outline of the first act on Amy's sofa and Tattle Tail was kind enough to edit it, chewing away the opening monologue and peeing on whatever was left.

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Parked in front of my building this morning was a compact car with out-of-state plates. The rear window was shattered, the ground littered with chunks of glass. Someone had rifled through the back seat and glove compartment and the tape player had been stolen. On the rear bumper of the car was a sticker reading "Visualize World Peace."

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I talked to Amy, who reminded me of the old show-business formula for finding your stage name. You take your middle name and follow with the name of the first street you lived on. My stage name is Raymond Wayne. Amy is Louise Bournthill, and Hugh is Alexander Cannon. I thought this was a foolproof method for coming up with a sophisticated-sounding name, until later in the afternoon when I talked to my friend Marge, whose unfortunate stage name would be Ruth West 34th Street.

To find your drag name, you take the name of your first pet and follow it with your mother's maiden name. I am Dutchess Leonard. Hugh is Winnie Neurath. Some people were just born with good names. Our friend Jolean Albright has Kerwin Fairlawn as a stage name, and Winky Dykeman as her drag alternative. Winky Dykeman--it just doesn't get any better than that.

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Hugh left last Wednesday to spend Thanksgiving with his mother in Louisville, Ky. I've been on this kick lately where I pretend that Mrs. Hamrick is my closest friend and confidante. Whenever I hear Hugh's key in the door, I pick up the phone and pretend that his mother and I are having a conversation. "I love you too," I say. "I'm sorry we won't be able to spend the holidays together, but you know what it's like with Hugh around. I'd rather just the two of us spent some time together, just you and me. Maybe next weekend we can go off to some quiet place upstate, and ... hold on, Joan, I think I hear him coming."

I pretend to receive gifts and checks from Hugh's mother and write fake letters, in which she begs to legally adopt me as her son. In truth, Mrs. Hamrick could take me or leave me. She came and stayed with us for a few days in early May. She's a trim, articulate woman who slept on the sofa and spent her mornings drinking tea and reading the international section of the Times. That's the last thing in the world I'd ever read, but, Hugh's family, having lived in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, loves nothing more than to debate the fine points of American foreign policy. They're forever referring to some crisis in Ghana or Ethiopia, and know the first and last names of every rebel leader or diplomatic attaché. It's a far cry from me and my family. Unlike the Hamricks, our world ends at hollering distance. We are the people who, when polled by man-on-the-street reporters, identify "Boutros Boutros-Ghali" as the name of a personal-injury law firm.

Hugh called this afternoon from Louisville. "Listen," I said, "I know this is delicate, and I don't want to put you in a difficult position, but would you please ask your mother to stop calling me every 10 minutes? She's complaining about your visit, and I don't know how much longer I can put up with her crying."

I had more to say, but he hung up on me.

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