《Theft by Finding》David Sedaris

It wasn't easy revisiting what are now 156 volumes of my diary.  I broke the job up - a month or two per day - but after reading about me, I'd have to spend the rest of the day being me.  I don't know that I've ever done anything quite so exhausting.  Hugh would be in the next room and hear me shout things like "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.

February 1, 1981
Raleigh
We went to Lance's for dinner last night and I learned that he keeps a dead rattlesnake in his freezer.  He found it on the highway somewhere.  The snake's not messy dead, just missing some guts, and even frozen solid it still looks alive.  Margaret wants to photograph it in my freshly painted apartment, but I'm afraid to even remove it from the bag.  Were my dad to see it, he'd drop dead of a heart attack - wham, no questions asked.  Half the people I know have dead animals in their freezers: reptiles, birds, mammals.  Is that normal?

April 24, 1982
Raleigh
Tiffany left Raleigh and went back to Maine to work at the reform school she went to, Elan.  I've missed her, so it was good to talk on the phone and hear about her new life. 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.

August 15, 1984
Chicago
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.

December 15, 1986
Chicago
An Asian woman approached me at the IHOP tonight.  Without asking, she sat at my table, snuggled up beside me, and said, "Have you had your hug today?"

I pulled back because I am not a hugger. Never have been. When someone wraps their arms around me, I shut down and stand there with my eyes closed, waiting for it to be over.

March 26, 1991
New York
I'm surrounded by people who have more money than they know what to do with, and none of them have earned it.

December 31, 1991
New York
Dad wants to talk about her death - he needs to - but unlike the rest of us, who yak incessantly about our feelings, he has no vocabulary for it and is reduced to the cliches you'd find on a sympathy card. It's like not knowing a language.

March 9, 1993
New York
Roger Donald called from Little, Brown to say he would like to negotiate a two-book deal. To celebrate, I bought a denim shirt and thought it amazing how quickly one's life can change. I never thought I'd want a denim shirt.

April 22, 1994
New York
All Helen talks about is her pain. Every time I see her she goes on and on and I'm tired of it. Other people's pain is uninteresting. My own, though, is spellbinding.

February 8, 1996
New York
In the paper there's a story about a fifty-five-year-old cancer patient who paid her twenty-year-old neighbor to kill her. The kid went with strangulation, but she revived and then tracked him down, claiming that because she was still alive, he had to give her the money back. They argued, and he beat her to death with a power drill.

February 16, 1998
New York
Lots of domestic violence on Cops tonight. A young woman is punched in the face and her boyfriend goes bananas when officers enter his trailer to arrest him. He's strong, and it takes three men to bring him down. Meanwhile, his girlfriend is screaming, "I only want to talk to you, baby." To the cops she pleads, "He didn't meant to hurt y'all. He was askaird."

As the boyfriend is taken away, he yells, "I ain't never gonna forgive you for this, Randi. When i get out I am going to fuck you up."

She answers, "Do you want me to pay your bail?"

"See," the guy says to her as he's pushed into the car, "they don't know what you're like. They don't know how you talk to me, how you make me have to beat you up."

"I'm sorry," she cries. "I'll get you out tonight."



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1977 - 1983's diary was handwritten, fuel with meth. 時間有時一個月一個月的消失。1983年底他終於進了 Chicago Art Institute 我都感覺鬆了一口氣。1988 畢業。短短日記裡滿滿都是美國的各種惡意，對 gay, coloured, hispanic, AIDS, 女人...... 但或許也沒差別這麼大。讀到一半我這邊11/5 時美國教堂謀殺又死了26個人。

2.16.1988 在被傢具店員工同事羞辱一週後（faggot！），他列了個 Reasons to Live 清單。現在看彷彿大部分都實現了。或許我也該來列一個。

92年 Big NPR Break （文章被 Ira Grass 拿去唸）
93年 舞台劇開始成功，日記只剩半年，停在 7/2

開始成功以後幾乎沒有甚麼可看。煩惱也變成不停的工作與旅行，在各個城市買房子一類。看到 Tiffany Sedaris 03年被他拒於門外。