This week's excitement, other than eating hotdogs and drinking beer in the park or seeing Camera Obscura after my friend's rooftop birthday party, is that I got a ticket to David Sedaris in November. My stomach is getting all butterfly-ey just thinking of it.
I love David Sedaris. My friend tipped me off to him in 1997 with "Barrel Fever" and that's all it took. I love him more than I've ever loved any gay man in history. The audio books are what sealed the deal with him; the lisp and sardonic tone he brings to every reading makes every listen an event. When I ride the Greyhound I listen to disc one of "Holidays On Ice" because his story about being a Macy's elf is the only thing that calms me enough to almost fall asleep while in motion (this also works on planes, even though I am generally unable to sleep on those, either). In short, I would have done almost anything for a ticket to see him.
See, at work yesterday my supervisor casually asked me if I had seen the little blurb about David Sedaris coming to Vancouver in the Georgia Straight (the dominant free weekly) and I lost it. I couldn't concentrate. I asked her to clearly tell me what she was talking about as I started to shake. Literally, it was that bad. She mentioned that her partner had just bought tickets on presale and would I like to talk to him to get the details? I grabbed the phone that she thrust towards me. Vince (her partner) explained that the blurb mentioned that tickets were going on sale today, but mentioned that you would need the password "writers" to get tickets. Ticketmaster is tricky about presales and make you use a password, but when tickets are on sale they never require a password; you just buy whatever they have. So, Vince being smart about this thing, figured he'd try to buy presale with that. It worked.
I promptly hung up on Vince and hightailed it to a terminal so I, too, could order tickets. I was having problems breathing. Adrienne (my supervisor) kept checking to see how I was doing. When I got the confirmed email that I was now sitting in Orchestra Seating Row A, I sent out an email to as many people as I could focus on in my contacts list that I thought might live in Vancouver (as I said, I was having trouble concentrating on anything else). I know of at least 5 other people that are going, so I'll know people who are there, but none of us will be sitting together. I think that's OK because I would just embarrass anyone I sit with anyway.
So, November 1st I'll be listening to David Sedaris in person, likely with my hands clasped together, ready to clap a little too long and yell a little too loud. Just have to remember to pick up the ticket.
I don't think I mentioned it, but the Camera Obscura show was really fantastic. Sounded excellent (except for not understanding a thing that the guitarist said; I'd rather blame the mike than his accent) and the crowd was pretty nice. There was a cute dancing boy nearby who I wanted to love, but decided that he was too into Tracyanne (he did yell out that he loved her) to notice me.
All this crappy maintenance and shit is starting to piss me off.
Currently reading :
Holidays on Ice: Stories
By David Sedaris
Release date: 01 November, 1998
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