David Sedaris, our dead sisters, and "more."

CW: Mention of suicide and sexual assault

On the first leg of my flight from my adopted home of Central America to my former home of Portland, Oregon USA, my “free internet” was behaving as if it was urging me to turn to my neighbor, shrug, and say with a knowing smirk, “Welp, you get what you pay for!”

So, instead of doing what I had planned – futzing around on the internet, alternating between funny cat videos and doomscrolling - I settled instead on watching something on the screen that Delta Airlines has affixed onto the headrest of the seat just in front of me. I scrolled through their menu of offerings, and, in the “Series” category, I chose a MasterClass series, this one featuring David Sedaris on the topic of storytelling.

I’m always seeing Masterclass courses that I’d like to check out via advertisements on social media. There’s one that features short-story writing by Joyce Carol Oates that has caught my eye as I’ve read a bit of her work, and both her stories and storytelling style have moved me.

There’s another done by Roxane Gay, a powerhouse of a writer who shares the name of my late sister (minus a letter) that I’d also love to hear from.

The ads for these courses will suck me in, just long enough to click on them. I’ll even sometimes get through the first few screens after I click the red button that instructs me to “sign up now.”

But then I hesitate when it gets to the part where it asks for your credit card number as, usually, I’ll see the courses around the same time one of my dogs needs to go to the vet for projectile vomiting or when it’s simply those last few days of the month and my bank account is running on fumes; there goes that. It’s not so much the $6/month that stops me but the (billed annually) after it.

So yeah, on the plane when I saw the MasterClass as a free (with my airline ticket cost, of course) option to waste some time, I thought, fantastic, thank you. I’M GOIN IN!

And listen, I don’t live under a rock. I HAVE heard of author and humorist, David Sedaris. I’ve personally heard of him via my knowledge of his sister, comedian Amy Sedaris, and I have a good friend who has read a few of his books and she’s raved about him. But my “to be read” pile rivals a beanstalk to a mysterious land of giants (one giant? I don’t recall the number of giants) who live in the clouds, and my ADHD is wild as fuck. And somewhere in the midst all the chaos, I spend my time writing and occasionally drinking, eating, and sleeping – mostly in that order.

These things coupled with my desire to listen and learn specifically, as of late, from more female voices – I honestly feel like I’ve heard quite enough from men, thanks - has stopped me from making any effort to specifically seek out his work.

Having watched this series now, I am officially super fucking angry with myself for waiting so long.

I now have three of his books in my “save for later” cart which, to be fair, also has an electric pasta maker I can’t afford, a leather top hat (I have my reasons), and some twinkly lights shaped like decaying babydoll heads that have been there for at least five years, so it’s not like this is indicative of any sort of a promise.

But these books? Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’ll snatch them up soonish.

And after having consumed the entirety of his Masterclass series, my world has been mildly rocked - for a couple reasons.