Me Talk Pretty One Day

Things I learned from Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris.

Sometimes life is just dumb

Sometimes your sister will jokingly refer to you as a rapist in front of a subway car full of people you will be forced to travel with for the next fifteen minutes with, alone. Either that or the heiress you work for will try and make you catch a pigeon because she’s convinced it’s the missing parrot she saw posters up about earlier. There’s a reward for the missing parrot. Living in New York isn’t cheap, after all.

Other people’s parents are weird

Lou Sedaris ate his hat one time. Not figuratively. He actually did it.

Amy Sedaris is doing life better than you

When she was a kid she prank called her father, pretending to be a friend of her mother’s (her impressions were already on point) and came onto him. Her father didn’t go for the affair (luckily) but did start setting the unsuspecting woman up with many men in years to come. Amy never told him the truth.

She also wore a fat suit home one time, just to freak her father – who has always been obsessed to the pointing of insulting about the physical appearance of his daughters – out. Another time she had her face made up to look battered and bruised for a photo shoot and kept the look on all day.

She’s doing her own thing.

At least there are some embarrassing things you did not do

David went through a pretty intense performance art stage.

It happened concurrently with the perhaps more intense Amphetamines stage.

Everyone should move to a foreign country

The first time David went to France with his boyfriend, Hugh, it was purely for the shopping, Unfortunately, Hugh’s French holiday home was in the middle of nowhere in Normandy and did not yet have installed electricity or hot water. There were few shops and the only word David knew how to say in French was “bottleneck”.

When they moved a few years later it was to Paris. Paris was a lot better because of all the cinemas showing films in English. He likes it fine apart from the times he has to do things like explain to French people the picture of Jody Foster they’ve seen carrying along a bag of dog shit.

Everyone should move to a foreign country.