It’s been a long day

Posted on by Live & Learn

It’s worth mentioning that this is my edit. Of the roughly eight million words handwritten or typed into my diary since September 5, 1977, I’m including only a small fraction. An entirely different book from the same source material could make me appear nothing but evil, selfish, generous, or even, dare I say, sensitive. On any given day I am all these things and more: stupid, cheerful, misanthropic, cruel, narrow-minded, open, petty—the list goes on and on…It wasn’t easy revisiting what are now 156 volumes of my diary.

I broke the job up—a month or two per day—but after reading about me, I’d have to spend the rest of the day being me. I don’t know that I’ve ever done anything quite so exhausting.

~ David Sedaris, in his Introduction to his new book “Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002)” (Little, Brown and Company, May 30, 2017)

Notes:

18 thoughts on “It’s been a long day”

    1. Raye said it first in an earlier comment about your magic. How do you do it? Trenchant? Never even heard of the word. Does it capture him, BOOM.

      I had to look it up.

      Definition of trenchant
      1
      : keen, sharp
      2
      : vigorously effective and articulate a trenchant analysis; also : caustic trenchant remarks
      3
      a : sharply perceptive : penetrating a trenchant view of current conditions

  4. Oh, I can SO relate to this post! I was a radio interviewer for 9 years, and have lately been contemplating resurrecting my show Alternative Currents. But listening to myself, oh! Gosh. I provide podcast links to those programs on my website, fine. It’s FINE with me if you listen to them, carry on, godspeed and all that. But to listen to myself – to attune to the Me that is preserved there in excruciating detail – exhausting, indeed! Whew! !!

    1. I can relate to that. I never had a podcast, but on any given day, ESPECIALLY a good one, sometimes I’m not sure how I can stand myself. Thats why I hate weathermen. They seem to be the deepest reflection of myself.
      Aaaaghh!

    2. Laughing, so get it. I would love to be a radio interviewer if I only had some skills (a voice, better listening skills, a higher intellect, etc, etc).

  8. As a journaler, and someone who started crafting a book out of that ME-ness, I can relate to the exhaustion, and overload. It was so freeing to cart those journals to the dumpster instead.

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