He is so me, I thought to myself, time and again, watching my friend’s one-man show. It’s one of the scarier string of words, “watching my friend’s one-man show,” I know—but I was confident in Ethan. That and the venue was 600 feet away from my apartment. If whimsy struck, I could cartwheel there. Titled Dance Dance Revolution, it was Ethan’s treatise on togetherness, anger, friendship, boyfriend twins, and, indeed, dance. “It’s because of women like her that I live in New York City,” that’s something I say a lot. But watching Ethan perform, it appears I also have a man who fits the bill. Ethan—who, for promotion’s sake, I’ll refer to by full name—Fuirst is brash and, at times, cutting. I’m not sure he’s ever let me finish a sentence. And yet he’s totally unfeigned and, at times, even warm. (Read: a nice Jewish boy.) For an hour and a half, he was in perpetual motion and ceaseless monologue. Like an athlete, with a Westchester accent. A rhapsodic ode to all he learned from reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy. Merging her research on rock concerts and Dionysius with sociological findings all his own, he took us from The Belasco Theatre to a Bushwick circuit party to a group chat that was never the same after the sudden loss of a dear friend. I’d later tell Ethan, among other praise, that the show felt “rabbinical” only for him to respond, gleefully, that he and his director referred to the opening section as “yeshiva.” What I felt, he intended. I’m eager to call this “bashert”—but I won’t push my luck.
Hearing Ethan say, “I hate authority, I only like rules when they are mine”—it was like looking in a mirror. Either that or the inscribed face of my future gravestone. Not to mention, mere moments earlier, when he said, “In the words of Ehrenreich, ‘Whatever social category you had been boxed into...carnival was a chance to escape from it.’ In the words of Madonna off the title track of her eighth studio album, ‘Music, mix the bourgeoisie and the rebel.’” Not that it took seeing his play for me to realize this. A couple months ago, I set Ethan up with my friend Jarod and, when it turned out they were too similar, I took it as a compliment. Like proof that I’d found some intense, gay, brown-haired birds of a feather. So much of Dance Dance Revolution was about Ethan trying to channel his “infatuation with big groups” into “giving one person what they deserve.” That’s where we differ. I struggle, being among the living. It’s never come easy. So when I have these moments of seeing myself in someone else, of getting the chance to say he is so me—it can feel good. Ethan can’t stand that about me. Because for someone who claims to struggle with a solitary streak, I do manage to see myself most everywhere I look. Regularly posting pictures to the internet of George Harrison or Jean-Paul Belmondo or Isabelle Huppert with a caption that reads, “Soooooo me.” This one time, interrupting my itemized list of all the ways Liz Lemon and I are just alike, Ethan said, “You’re always doing that! Always saying you’re so much like someone else! You can’t be like everyone!” That made me laugh, of course. It’s so something I would say.
Wearing all white, an outfit expressly chosen for the evening’s occasion, I met up with Juliette and her fiancée Liz for drinks. Just days earlier, after RSVPing to their summertime nuptials, I’d taken to the internet to ask whether it’s still a no-no for me—as a man—to attend a wedding wearing white. It, reportedly, is. Already seated at this downtown wine bar by the time I arrived, they were a captive audience as I pivoted in place, showing off every ivory inch of my ensemble. “Okay, upstaging the bride!” said Liz. Seattle-based lesbians with hyper-curated good taste, they were visiting New York for a couple days. Austin joined us soon enough, and Ashleigh, too. “I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Austin said to me, later that week. “It was so much fun, that night with Juliette and everybody. You were so funny.” That was sweet. It’s not like Austin never compliments me, or laughs at my jokes, if anything he’s far more generous than I am. But it’s not often he’s praising me for a night-out well spent. If anything, if every relationship has a perpetual fight, there it is. But he was right. It was fun. And I was funny. Juliette brings out that side in me, she always has. The perfect foil. So adept at playing the straight guy while nevertheless sparkling with a sense of humor all her own. God, I thought to myself, looking at this blond, smirking, business savvy friend of mine, She’s so Gwyneth. No wonder.
I was sipping coffee and chatting with coworkers, killing time on the clock until my first tour of the day, when our entire break room began to shake. Before we could even make sense of what was happening, a sufficiently commanding male voice yelled from downstairs, “Everybody out! Get outside!” I thought about it for a moment but, ultimately, left my coffee mug behind. There’s a unisex overalls clothing store next door and the girls who work there clearly had the same idea, seeking sidewalk refuge right alongside us. And after one of the shopgirls told us she’s from California and that it was definitely an earthquake, cue our east coast chorus of “What do we do?!”—all the while standing directly underneath countless glass paned windows. Before we got the go-ahead to return into the building, Jarod came walking up the block, his recently acquired Dunkin’ Donuts in hand. There we were, giddy with collective joy, liberal arts-educated cavemen beating our chests for feeling Mother Earth tremble beneath us—and Jarod hadn’t felt a thing. Four-point-eight magnitude earthquake and he hadn’t even noticed it. Sucker. Over our walkie talkies, I heard another Educator say, “This is Willa in the garment factory, um, should I continue my tour…?”
Sapphically at it again, just not in all white this time, I had plans to meet up with Martina and Laura. Boston-based lesbians with a more privately curated good taste, they were visiting New York for the weekend. “Marti,” as I’ve always liked to call her, whether she likes it or not, chose the place. A co*cktail bar in the Lower East Side spitting distance from the museum, I was thrilled. I was late, though only by a couple minutes, but that was still more than enough time for Marti to realize the error of her ways. Texting me from inside, “What have I done?” After checking in with a bouncer, in humiliatingly broad daylight, I was told to wait in a line outside. For what, exactly, I wasn’t sure. Peering over the shoulder of the khaki-colored FiDi bro in front of me, I watched him search for bars nearby, long prepared with an alternate location by the time a SoHo girlie approached him and said, “Alex, right? Hi! So nice to meet you!” Finally, the hostess came outside to let me in. Kind of. “Please step into the vestibule and I’ll bring you inside from there. Next!” Pitch black and teensy tiny, I felt suddenly reacquainted with the birth canal. Fitting, I suppose, given my imminent company. Following the hostess as she slinked backwards down a corridor, cooing her little introductory spiel, I handed over my bulking, dishwater-gray Carhartt to the supermodel working coat check and, at last, joined my friends. “And they made this very clear,” Marti said, with a hug hello. “We only have this table ‘til 7:00.” It was 6:20. But that was fine. One drink for one hour with old friends, in my book, is plenty. “Leave ‘em laughing when you go,” etcetera, etcetera. I wish I wasn’t this way but—I am.
The museum hired eight new Educators. It’s a lot to get used to, as I remember. And not so much to the actual workplace as to our break room. Half of our every workday is made up of paid break time, playing out in this noisy and smart space filled with noisy and smart people. This little crucible of personalities with unique wellsprings of knowledge and, very much by design, the gift of gab to express it. Where a 24-year-old living with five roommates in Bushwick and a 77-year-old wearing a Cartier Panthère can share a loveseat and never run out of stuff to talk about. I love it so much—most of the time. Not all personalities on parade are created equal. But I’ve been at the museum long enough to realize that people who annoyed me at first can prove, before long, perfectly lovely. Nerves are often prickly. Or at least that’s what I’ll tell myself. Because right near the end of his very first day, suddenly taking a seat beside me, one of these new Educators looked at me and asked, in his strong Russian accent no less, “How old are you?” Privyet to you, too. I told him my age—only for him to look at me in complete and utter disbelief. co*cking his head and pursing his lips, as if to say, Ha ha, good one. A cruelty so immense it almost took my breath away. And so I said to him, “I look older, I know, I’ve been told, but yes—30. I am 30.” If he sensed my insecurity, he wasn’t discouraged, saying, “Oh, see, all these 20somethings working here, it makes me feel like an old man. I was hoping I’d have someone in my corner. I’m 41.” A moment of silence. But, I promise, there’s no hard feelings. And how could there be, when this is all so clearly my karmic debt. Simple as that. After an entire childhood spent chasing maturity, well, kid, here it is! Don’t have too much fun.
I went to Jarod’s apartment for his birthday party. He was turning 25. Going there straight from the museum, I was early but he insisted that was fine. This is crazy, I know, but I often show up to work as much as an hour before my actual clock-in. Mostly because I won’t have to do any additional labor because of it. A 10:15 tour’s not gonna start until 10:15, after all. But there is something to be said for it, for creating a dynamic instead of entering one. Like playing king of the hill, chicly contrapposto with coffee or co*cktail already in hand, playing witness to someone else’s eyes darting around the room in search of a familiar face or somewhere to hang their coat. It’s all about control, baby. Jarod moved into this place a couple months ago and this was my first time seeing it. Looking around, I said, “It’s so…Latin American in here!” That cracked him up, though I wasn’t exactly kidding. The apartment has tile floors and very high ceilings and, from the lofty heights of his third floor unit, the squat vista of Ridgewood does have a way of looking like some Andean ciudad. I met a girl named Lisa who grew up in Reno, went to college in LA, and now lives in Boston. We talked, of course, about Boston. After I called my years as a dog walker “cinematic,” she asked if I’ve ever considered writing a screenplay about it. “Oh,” I said, “It’s written.” She thought I was joking. Jarod put together his own game of Jeopardy for all of us to play. There was one category just about his tweets, so many of which this room full of people had committed perfectly to memory. Word for word. It was almost uncanny. The party was really just beginning but, as soon as Jeopardy ended with my team coming in a close albeit crushing second place, I bid Jarod adieu. Wishing him a birthday kiss before night’s end. If he got one, he never told me about it.
Out on Orchard Street, we watched the eclipse. Me and Billie were both scheduled to lead a tour at 3:00, precisely when near-totality was forecasted. But thankfully nobody bought tickets, freeing us up to join the sunglassed throng. Visitors did, however, buy tickets for Jarod’s 3:15. He missed the earthquake and, now, he’d miss the eclipse. Billie was offering her glasses to passersby, letting strangers have the chance to join in on the moment. All invitation and warmth, she’s always this way. There was this one old lady who gladly accepted Billie’s glasses and looked up to the sky, smiling so big. “Yes, Brian, yes,” I heard our coworker Sara say, stoked to see me capturing this moment, subtly as possible, with a picture on my phone.
Billie was named after Billie Holiday, a choice that required her parents to petition their local French government for approval. And it had just been Billie Holiday’s birthday, just the day before. I knew to make sure we had the break room kitchen to ourselves before asking Daryl how it was. Daryl stays up all night long each and every Friday, hopping from one jazz club to another. He lives and breathes music but his very favorite, his alpha and omega, is Billie Holiday. He’s constantly recommending artists and albums for me to listen to, and always so excited to discuss it the next time we see each other. But never once has he recommended anything of hers. I understand. She’s too dear, too important, too indelibly a part of who he is to share with just anybody. Daryl told me which songs he played yesterday, to mark the occasion. That he called his mom, and then got his sisters on the line too, and how each of them got emotional, talking about Billie. It’s a total blessing, we agreed, to love music this much. And what a pity for all those who don’t. Making it clear there’s no comparison—for his sake more than mine—I told him about seeing Truth or Dare in theaters last year on Madonna’s birthday. How I was surrounded by all these people laughing at all the right moments, quoting her quips and applauding her antics and loving her, just as much as I always have. Telling Daryl that, after discovering her as a 13-year-old boy, I felt like I had to keep her so private for so long, that declaring my love of Madonna would only serve to declare something about me. And so she held my secret. But there in that packed theater, watching a movie I’d seen a hundred times before, once and for all—we set it free. From the corner of his eye, I watched a tear fall down Daryl’s cheek.
The priest from my days at Emmanuel died. Father John Spencer was the college chaplain, presumably leading Sunday’s campus services every week, not that I know for sure. In my four years, I never once attended mass. But I would occasionally linger in the cathedral, late at night and all alone, jittery and fragile after an amphetamine-fueled day of writing at my preferred library carrel. I’d sit in one of the pews, less so praying than envisioning how strange I must appear to any given classmate passing by. Is that Brian Burns?!, I wanted them to think. One night, the door to the sacristy was open and I snuck inside. Touching the altar linens and peering closely at the vestments and vessels. But under the sad fluorescent lights, it all looked more administrative than sacred. Father John was always so nice to me. A truly joyful and kind man. Finding his obituary online, I read, “In 1993, Father John was appointed Director of the Jesuit Urban Center, welcoming underserved Catholics in the Boston area, many of them gay.” That made me cry. I never knew him like that, I still don’t, and I guess I never will—but I did always wonder. His penchant for consolation and friendship are, later on, attributed to his “unusual personal qualities.” There it is, I suppose. And God bless him for it.
I finished Once Is Not Enough by Jacqueline Susann, borrowing it from Isaiah after he said she’s one of his favorite writers and I said I’d never read her before. Bawdy and pulpy while always staying firmly on its feet, with a sincerity that took me by surprise, the novel reminded me of being little and stepping into my sisters’ bedrooms once they’d left for a night out with friends. Breathing in their perfumed world of girlhood. I’d already been looking forward to asking Isaiah what he thought the title meant, its significance eluding me right up until the very end. All alone on a cold Hamptons beach, our doomed leading lady January Wayne is considering true love, and how the unique happiness it inspires might, indeed, come only once in life. And that devastates her. Crying out loud, to no one at all, she says, “Once is not enough!” She’s right, isn’t she?
“Alright, everybody, we’ve got some loved ones in the house,” I announced to my visitors on a sold-out Saturday afternoon tour, all of whom, palpably, could care less. Comped tickets in hand, family-friend April and her cousin Holden and my cousin Kylee were here to see me in action. I put my face closer to Kylee’s and asked the room if they saw a family resemblance. As I recall, no one said a word. Asking everybody, right at the beginning, what might be included in a museum’s recreation of their childhood home, Kylee said, “Alcoholism.” With effortless facilitation, and not without a lot of practice, I responded, “The good, the bad, and the ugly!” It was fine, all told, it just wasn’t my best. And it’s so rarely my best, anytime I’ve got familiar faces on a tour who I’d like to impress. Everyone knows how much I love this job, how large it looms in my life, regularly subjected to stories about the strangers I brought to tears and their requisite showering of praise by tour’s end. It can’t happen every time, though. But to have a person in my life watch me do this work only to think to themselves, even just for a moment, “Wow—he’s actually not very good at this.” Unbearable. Of course, Kylee and April and Holden were nothing but complimentary, waiting down on the sidewalk to tell me I have the clarity of a teacher and the timing of a comedian. Holden asked if I’ve ever done stand-up and while I admitted to taking a couple improv classes, I also said I don’t find comedy funny. I wish I’d stop saying that. Anyway. I’ll try to believe what they said.
Twice in one afternoon, I was privy to someone bringing up Jia Tolentino’s essay on marriage. Or more specifically “the cult of the wedding industry.” And get this, meeting up at the IFC to see La Chimera just a couple days earlier, Austin texted me, “I’m out front. Next to Jia Tolentino.” What could it mean, what could it mean? The second reference to said essay came from Seth, who, until recently, worked for a certain national public radio show broadcasting out of Philadelphia. I also like him for his personality, I swear. After saying he played the French horn growing up, I told him about my high school crush on a boy who played the euphonium. “Well, if it makes you feel any better,” said Seth, after hearing that nothing ever materialized between me and this brass player. “The euphonium? One of the easiest possible instruments to play. It sounds pretty. But there’s nothing to it.” Is that a symphony I hear? Together for 11 years now, when his boyfriend started reading Jia’s book, Seth told him, “Okay, there’s an essay in there about getting married. Don’t let it scare you.” At his last job, so many of Seth’s colleagues were still with their proverbial—and, for some, literal—high school sweethearts. A romantic anomaly, normalized. For mostly writerly reasons, for the sake of my life’s plot, I told him that I’ve got some ambivalence about—what do you know—once being enough. And while I’m sure we both had more to say, our second round of drinks were finished and I didn’t want a third. But like a good producer, knowing any interview worth its mettle needs a kicker, he asked, “Well—what’s the plot?” And like a good subject, or so I hope, I said, “The rest is still unwritten.”
I saw Doubt on Broadway. Waiting for the train afterwards, I thought to myself, and then tweeted, and then texted somebody, “Meryl Streep is the best actress of all time.” I was in high school when my mom rented Doubt from Netflix and I loved it so much that I played hooky the next day to watch that DVD all over again. “God,” my mom said to my dad, watching it as a family, “She sounds just like your mother.” And she did. Meryl’s Bronx accent uncannily similar to Grandma Burns’s Brooklynese. My grandma who, upon meeting my mother for the first time, looked her up and down only to say, “Kristine.” It’s become a kind of comfort movie for me, twisted as that is. It’s not just the lines I’ve memorized but their intonation. If Liev Schreiber caught a cold that night, I was ready and willing to take over. Off-book. But it must be so thankless, truly, to try and do it any differently, let alone better. It’s like Funny Girl, in habits. But shining brightly despite it all—the writing. It’s so good, such a masterwork, with Shanley’s brilliance most evident during each and every turn of phrase from our leading nun. This tormented taskmaster, ambivalently authoritative, only liking rules when they’re her own. Ask Ethan what he thinks about Doubt, I thought to myself. Because hearing Amy Ryan as Sister Aloysius say, “Satisfaction is a vice,” I just about cracked my skull on a stranger’s kneecap, tossing back my head in chummy laughter. It’s not in the movie, that line, so I’d never heard it before. But just shy of too close for comfort, I felt it in my bones.
Killing time between my train’s arrival from New York and my bus’s departure up to New Hampshire, I walked around the South End of Boston. The neighborhood where I used to dog walk. Almost nothing about it has changed, which I guess is the one good thing about fully-realized gentrification. Affluence preserves. I almost forgot just how gay this neighborhood was, this brownstone-brother to Provincetown. That said—I couldn’t help but notice a lot more strollers than swish. But what I was really looking for was my old boss. I knew Nancy was out there somewhere, she had to be. Each and every morning of my (four day) workweek, I’d wake up to a text from Nancy with a thoughtfully-arranged schedule, meeting up with her a couple hours later for a hug hello, treats for the dogs, and snacks for her walker. Always making the time to take such good care of me, despite a full schedule of walks all her own (seven days a week). Leading up to my move away from Boston, our goodbye was the only one that made me cry. Taking a long, leisurely hour around these familiar streets, I stopped in Blackstone Square to eat lunch, keeping my eyes peeled all the while, to no avail. But cutting through Peters Park on my walk back to South Station, I spotted someone familiar far across the way. Their back was turned to me, and they were wearing long pants and a hoodie pulled up around their head, but at their heel—there was a dog.
Not wanting to spook either one of them, from a considerate distance, I asked Nancy if she was interested in a blast from the past. With Judge the brindle mutt leaping up at our sides, we embraced. I was a total sap while Nancy was largely stoic and in that way, again, not much has changed. And she’s still just as beautiful as always. Her very first question was about my relationship and she was so happy to hear I’m still with Austin. For her, she said, from now on, it’ll just be dogs. She’s done with men. I was telling her about my walk around the neighborhood that day, and how I found myself thinking about all the time I spent here as this scantily-clad pretty young thing, with hardly a conquest to show for it. With a gaze as gentle and calamitous as riptide, her blue eyes locked with mine, Nancy said, “You are still pretty. And you are still young.” Beginning to go our separate ways, with less time than ever to catch my bus, I couldn’t help telling Nancy how often she’s on my mind. She wouldn’t accept the compliment. But I hope she believed it.
My bedroom in New Hampshire is steadily becoming less mine. Twelve years removed from living at home, I’m willing to accept this. My dad’s concert posters line the walls, framed but on the floor, waiting to be hanged, while my mom’s paisley-print cold-shoulder blouses hang in my closet, waiting for spring. Foremost furniture flipper of the Lakes Region, my mother had my old nightstand and dresser down in the garage, staining and stenciling to her heart’s desire before hawking them on Facebook Marketplace. Knowing better than to throw anything out, she stowed away all the contents of my boyhood’s drawers in a big plastic tub. I wouldn’t even know what I was missing, if it all got dumped, but still—lacking the space in New York, I’m grateful for the storage. I came across these file folders, one for every grade of elementary school, each one bearing a random assortment of test scores and writing assignments. From the second grade, accompanying a write-up about my “favorite sister” Jillian, I drew my 15-year-old sibling in high heels and a halter-top—with cleavage. “Poor Lindsay,” said Austin. “But your handwriting is amazing.” Getting older now, by the fourth grade, I found a parent survey from Mrs. DiStefano, with questions for mom and dad about their child. Prompted to share three positive things about her son, my mom said I was funny, thoughtful, and a good listener. And when asked to write down one goal she would like to see her child achieve this year, I read, in my mother’s plain and simple print, “To bond with the other boys. Brian has two older sisters and he is much more comfortable with girls. He definitely needs more ‘male bonding.’” It’s a horrible thing, being the subject of speculation. Never once have I found comfort in any story that begins, “You know, I always had a feeling about you…” Because surely it was many things, that feeling about me, but I don’t suspect recognition was ever one of them. Oh well. I was a strange and charmless kid, too clever by half, and my mom thought running with the boys might make me some friends. I can see that. But I really have to wonder—what, exactly, was she seeing?
“How old is Lovey?” I asked Vincent, my two-year-old nephew, who without missing a beat said, “Old.” We were in the backseat of Lindsay’s car, en route to the house so we could put up the last of the birthday decorations for our mother. She still had a couple weeks left of her fifties but, capitalizing on the rare weekend when all three of her children were in New Hampshire, my mom decided to celebrate her 60th a little early. That morning, I joined her to a step class party, hosted by her favorite instructor, where she was feted by all her gal pals from the gym. Amy, the instructor, had a whole spread prepared for after the class, mimosas and trays of little quiches and a station with all different flowers to make your own bouquets. “Vicki Gunvalson’s in the house,” announced my mother, after a costume change in the single stall bathroom, her Hokas and lycra swapped out for high heels and a fuschia freakum dress. So many of the women there, most of whom I’d met before, made sure to say just how much they love my mom. Telling me they get such a kick out of her. That she’s a total character. You’re telling me. I do worry though, that she sometimes looms too large in my personality. Or, at the very least, that I talk about her too much, privy to the occasional Kristine anecdote that only warrants the most polite of chuckles. It’s mortifying. But when some yarn I have about her really does land, when her throw-aways and foot-in-mouths get the laughs they deserve—the jokes feel as good as mine. And how couldn’t they, when my mother begins so many of her stories, “Here, nobody else thought this was funny, but you will…”
We saw David Sedaris. A reading followed by a signing at a theater in Concord. It was a Christmas present from my parents and I accepted it warmly, not having the heart to tell them I don’t care for David Sedaris as much as I used to. I’m not pleased about that. For half my life, as far as influences go, he’s been it. The low overhead I’ve maintained with the menial wages I’ve earned in the constant pursuit of “material”—that’s all David. So how disappointing it’s been, and in just the last couple years, to witness this cherished wit become some crotchety old man. His sentiments are skewing increasingly conservative, yes, but that’s the least of my concerns. What breaks my heart is that anyone could write what he’s writing now. It doesn’t take a genius to feel different from people half your age, let alone threatened by them. So from the fifth row center, when David read how he once described cultural appropriation as, “Making a taco, but putting bleu cheese on it,” I had to stifle my groan. And not because I even disagreed with him. In this essay about taking a safari in Kenya (coming soon to The New Yorker), he writes about how silly it felt to think twice about a Masai tribesman’s offer to wear his traditional garb. That’s fair, and even interesting. But the humorist doth protest too much. In digging his heels, and claiming a side of this discourse, he makes himself just as corny as his much-maligned woke crusaders. Just as fragile as these politically correct phantoms who haunt so much of his new work. Upon finishing this essay, he told the crowd, “And see, the editors at The New Yorker, they want me to cut that line about the bleu cheese on the tacos. But what they don’t get is that…it’s funny! That line makes the whole house laugh. They don’t understand what people actually find funny. They just don’t get it.” Later on, he read an essay about the death of his childhood friend and it nearly brought me to tears. Applauding him, I wanted to scream right out loud, That’s it, David! That’s it! There you are!
Pretending she didn’t know that this wasn’t the actual end of the line, my mother tried to cut but I kept us honest. And as it turns out, nice guys really do finish last. We waited two whole hours for David to sign our books. I made it clear, repeatedly, that I’ve already had my lion’s share of interactions with him and that we could just go home. “I didn’t buy three copies of his kids book for nothing,” said my mother. And so—we waited. At one signing in particular, years ago at Harvard Book Store, I actually tried to be the very final person in line, hoping to have an unburdened exchange with this hero of mine. A couple other stragglers would eventually rain on that parade but nevertheless—I floated on air out of that bookstore. Just about out of my mind after a most-successful back-and-forth and an inscription that read, “To Brian—You know who you are.” It was, in truth, a joke about my nameplate necklace but, at heart, a sentiment I’d hold dear. But that was then and, crawling out of my skin, this was now. A Sunday night in New Hampshire, needless to say, I had nowhere else to be. But it still felt so miserable, waiting for him. Not at all excited but also not at all nervous. So when we did finally get to the front of that line, and David Sedaris greeted us hello, I had nothing to lose. And it was phenomenal. With laughter, and ease, and dare I say a sparkle in both our eyes, we talked about tote bags and Fran Lebowitz and the sweater on my back. I said I’d keep an eye out for him, walking around New York, and he told me I should say hi. My poor mother didn’t get a word in edgewise. Leaving the theater, I apologized for hogging all our time with him, but she insisted it was fun enough just watching me in action. “You were such a natural,” she said. “And he was so smitten with you!” Whether or not that’s true, who knows. I was just being myself.
