Don't Sleep With A Bubba: Unless Your Eggs Are In Wheelchairs. Susan Reinhardt
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“I’m just here, well, to talk to you about stuff.”
Stuff. Who says “stuff” to David Sedaris? He is accustomed to scholars analyzing and interviewing him, not country bumpkins who can’t even remember their names and occupations.
We shook hands, though mine was already shaking on its own. We were about the same height. Should I hug him? Should I ask if he’d like a piggyback ride around the hotel just for fun? He couldn’t weigh that much—maybe 110, 120. We could go up and down the great hallways giddy-upping and just forget the whole interview thing since I had no idea what in the world I was going to talk to him about.
“Hello,” he said in an almost childlike voice and I moved forward to hug him, but it’s a good thing I didn’t, and you’ll hear more about that later.
He didn’t introduce himself. I figured it was because he is shy, and saying, “Hi, I’m David Sedaris” would be like a big movie star playing demure and saying, “Hello, I’m George Clooney.” No need for introductions on his part. We decided to go someplace where he could smoke his Kool cigarette. I’d never known a white man to smoke Kools. Seemed like Kools were the top cig choice for hip African Americans and Marlboro Lights were for white folks.
We chose a small table in the main room where the fireplaces are big enough to engulf most of my living room. Dulcimers dueled, and I could barely hear the soft-spoken writer. I kept imagining him leaning over and saying, “Forget this. I think I love you. Isn’t that what life is made of? Though it worries me to say that I’ve never felt this way.”
He had probably watched The Partridge Family . I’ll bet he liked David Cassidy, too. And Bobby Sherman and Peter Frampton.
He lit his cigarette, and I just sat there drinking in the smell as if it was aromatherapy and not carcinogenic. I panted and palpitated and wondered if maybe he would get upset if I did the gorilla defibrillator thing on my chest since I was again beginning to black out from nervousness. I had read in one of his books where he used to lick things like doorknobs and lightbulbs and that he suffered from an assortment of obsessive-compulsive behaviors and neuroses. Surely he would understand a girl trying to beat her heart back into a steady pump-pumping.
I was still wet with rain, rustling my papers and parcels like a dog trying to get comfortable. He smoked and stared and didn’t seem to mind he was there for an interview and I was doing nothing but daydreaming and thinking of love songs.
I’d better ask something…anything. “Have you been here before, to Asheville?” My voice came out squeaky, twangy and very Loretta Lynnish.
He smiled and relaxed with his legs crossed and his arms loose. “About four or five times. Lisa’s here with me,” he said.
Oh, I guess he meant to throw that in so I’d know his “bodyguard” sister was on call in case I had any ideas of sinking my heterosexual fangs into his sweet gay neck meat.
This would be Lisa, his older sister, and one of his personal assistants of sorts. Other siblings also play starring roles in his books, which include Barrel Fever , Holidays on Ice , Naked and Me Talk Pretty One Day , the latter two becoming immediate best sellers. His latest that I owned, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim , is also a best seller and I’ve read them all at least twice.
What could I ask next? Hmm. I just sat with the cat holding my tongue hostage and a recording device by my side. He stared at it several times. “It’s not a camera,” I said, laughing nervously. “I was thinking maybe later, we could have you do a little reading, a minireading into this microphone.”
At this point he could have laughed hysterically at the preposterousness of my plan. Here was a man with a golden voice and here was a hicky, though I prefer drawling, Southern Belle with a cerebral crush on a very gay man trying to coax that voice onto her recording device.
His face registered utter kindness. Or maybe I was misreading things. Perhaps he was humming a Frampton tune. Maybe he was thinking how refreshingly small my pores were. I’ll admit my skin was looking rather good since I burned it off with some acid ordered from eBay.
OK…What to ask? Other reviewers and interviewers always talk about his political satire and genius ways of describing the human race and condition with just the right blend of humor.
“I’m not the sort of journalist who’s going to ask you those kinds of questions,” I said.
He nodded and produced a “Mercy, what-did-my-publicist-get-me-into?” smile.
Instead, I asked about his wrinkled shirt. Turns out his plane arrived, but his luggage did not. We talked about his clothes, and I said to the most famous writer I’d ever met, “Why don’t you go to the Goodwill and pick something up? I could drive you there. I bought a great Kate Spade with only a small flaw on the handle, kind of looked like a rat or dog had maybe chewed.”
More of that look. He sort of cocked his head. Ah, he’s cute. So small and fine-boned and adorable. I wanted to take him home and have him bronzed like a pair of baby shoes. Or maybe set him on the shelf. Or maybe just have him sign a few books I could set on the shelf.
“I love the Goodwill,” I said. “Do you?”
Shit. I just asked David Freakin’ Sedaris if he loved the Goodwill. I’m so fired. My career is over.
“I’ve been to the Goodwill before,” he said and I knew then we were meant to be. If only it wasn’t for that minor problem of me being married. And him being gay.
It’s not like he was a snob. Lots of stories in his books talk about him working rather gross jobs including cleaning apartments in New York’s rich section for a living.
“I won’t buy pants there, though,” he said, blowing curls of his Kool into the air.
“Really? Why not?” Oh, good, our conversation was finally off to a start.
He sucked his cig. “The last time I did, I got the crabs.”
Saints alive, David Sedaris is talking about a sexually transmitted disease! This was going to be a great interview after all. “Oh, I got those one time, too,” I said, wishing the hell I hadn’t. “I was dating this gorgeous man, cute, even with a horse-shaped head and horsy teeth, and he passed them along claiming he picked them up off a workout bench at the Y. I know he cheated.”
David seemed entranced and even leaned forward, closer to my face. I decided to divulge more. “I got rid of mine easily, since I couldn’t find but two, but he was such a wooly booger he had to shave himself. Then guess what happened?”
“I can’t imagine,” David said.
“When all that fur grew back, the crabs—I call them crotch crickets—well, they came back, too. Do you know what he ended up doing?”
“I can’t imagine,” David said again, and I could tell he was bemused and enchanted and this subject was far more interesting than some fancy New York Times reporter picking and analyzing his brain.
“See, he was just planning on scaring them with his Bic lighter, but instead, he caught his whole pubic area on fire and had to go to the emergency room. His region blew up like that because he’d put Polo cologne down there for some odd reason and it sort of didn’t mix with the Bic’s flame.”
Why am I saying this shit?
By now we had decided the dulcimers were too loud and moved to one of the long corridors of the inn. We faced the inner courtyard. Here, it was quiet. No music to compete with. No smoke. Nothing but sheets of rain and a wrinkled and stubbled famous author biding his time with a little-known reporter and doing so with grace. He didn’t glance at his watch but once.
As we talked, his sister Lisa appeared and politely interrupted. She had a list of spa treatments she presented to her famous brother.
“There’s the custom-blend facial or a hand-and-foot massage,” she said. She also suggested he might enjoy the gentleman’s wax, a paraffin for