How Do You Say Sedaris?

Last Wednesday, a good friend took me to see Dave Sedaris speak at UCLA. Despite having read almost all of his books, this marked the first time I was going to see him in person. Granted, I did “hear” him before when they ran one of his stories on This American Life. I’m not proud of the fact that it wasn’t until the end of the story when they announced his name for me to realize it was actually Dave himself, which meant I had spent the entire time wondering why the piece sounded so goddamn familiar. I learned three things from this night.

1. Dave Sedaris is a very short man. (To be honest, he never mentions his height in his writings, or maybe he had but as self aware as his pieces are, he always keeps a safe distance between his physical self and his readers. All I knew was that he was white and gay.)
2. I’m never going to be able to write as funny as him.
3. I’ve been saying his name wrong the entire time.

Thanks to all those “friends” out there that have listened to me talk about him and never took the time to correct me. Jerks.