I was never a big fan of Twitter. I’ve been told numerous times it’s a “must” for writers. I’ve also never been a fan of things being referred to as a “must.” It’s not that I have a problem with authority— no, I grew out of that pseudo-anarchist stage by the time my breasts had already come and gone with that welcomed loss of pinchable “baby fat.” There I go with the quotation marks again, but that was a time where everyone kept telling me, “Don’t worry, it’s only baby fat. I guess the boobs were baby fat too, though.
Anyways, as a young writer, Twitter is an apparent must, or at least according to my teachers, my marketing professors, my writing friends and colleagues. So I have one, and it’s not that bad once you get to know it. I’m grateful to the Twitterverse because I stumbled upon a retweet of a retweet that told me David Sedaris was doing an AMA on Reddit. Now, for those of you who aren't as well-versed in internet acronyms, AMA stands for "Ask Me Anything." These forums provide a place where the mundane becomes fascinating, where the faceless masses of Web 2.0 can band together and marvel at the uncommon and the little things that make a person interesting. As a young, aspiring writer and also a fan of Mr. Sedaris, my interest was sparked by the AMA, titled, "I am ‘America’s Most Beloved Author’ David Sedaris. AMA." So naturally, I stopped what I was doing to record my thoughts as I read through the various questions and comments of the adoring masses.. 2:21 pm: Start I wonder what he's promoting? 2:22pm Ohhh, gotcha. It's a book tour. In that case, maybe I can spend Thanksgiving weekend with David Sedaris. Just kidding, he’ll be here in Florida, and it’s sold out. Drats. 2:24pm Why does everyone in this AMA begin their "questions" the same way? [Insert compliment about how you're my favorite author ever] [Question #1] [Question #2] There I go with the quotation marks again. I don’t normally use them so much. I must be feeling quite sarcastic today. It’s probably because I’m sitting on Reddit. RealDavidSedaris: I taught myself to type. And I always thought I would start with one finger, and then advance to the other 9, but I never did. AND I've been typing for... let's see...uh, 77,87,97,107, okay, 38 years, and I still have to look at the keyboard. 2:25p.m. Well, at least it isn’t his publicist typing, (for those of us who remember the Morgan Freeman incident of 2013), it’s "America’s Most Beloved Typist." 2:32p.m. ====== I wonder if he knows how parallel we are. Yes, I just used the word "parallel" to compare myself to "America’s Most Beloved Author." I wonder if there's a way David Sedaris could possibly know that I knew what dysfunction meant before I could spell it. That my family is full of-- something else. Let's call it a bitter want for normalcy. That even though something pushed me 1,000 miles south at seventeen, I still feel something pushing me forth. Back and forth. Onward, ho! Record the world around you. Read, write, be. But make it home for dinner once in a while. And bring that hammer. For everyone knows, "A house divided cannot stand." Just keep on moving. Parallel. I mean it in the way that you want to know them and understand them. Hell, I’ve been trying to my whole life. 2:40 p.m. Control F+ “real” That’s how I find him, the “RealDavidSedaris.” I find myself searching for “real,” and scanning for yellow highlights among the thousands of other users filling the forum with questions on everything from his stories and writing advice to missed moments at book signings and dating advice. I’m searching for something real within the notorious mob mentality and fan accounts of the interwebs; the catfish and the trolling of the Reddit black hole. I press control+f to find the "real" man (or rather his typist, but hey, it’s not his fault he suffers from one-fingeredness). So I search for real because America’s most loved author is real. And that’s why we love him. Hell, he’s the Real David Sedaris. He’s all honestly, self-deprecation and dysfunction. America’s Most Beloved Author. 2:46p.m. Writer's block and flying lawnmowers RealDavidSedaris: Sometimes when I'm stuck, I'll open an English textbook, and do the homework. There are a lot of college writing textbooks that will include essays and short stories, and after reading the story or essay, there will be questions such as "Have YOU Had any experience with a pedophile in YOUR family?" or "When was the last time you saw YOUR mother drunk?" and they're just really good at prompting stories. You answer the question, and sometimes that can spring into a story. You know, this is really good advice: I mean, I don't have advice to offer on many things, but THAT is good advice, and you're NOT gonna hear it from a lot of other places. Sometimes, I listen to... jazz. It can't be... music with words in it. But lately, I'm on a... let's see, I'm on a Bobby Enriquez kick. It doesn't have anything to do with writer's block. Well, where we live in Sussex, sometimes there are gliders over our house, and gliders don't make any noise, but the planes that tow them into the sky do, but I like to cover up the sound of the planes. It's like a flying lawnmower. That’s one way to make use of all those old textbooks filling up my bookshelves. But really, has anyone else noticed how wonderfully Victoria (his typist) captures his voice? And now off to write about the last time I saw MY mother drunk... 3:00pm On death Yasistahsass: What's the meanest thing you've ever said to anyone including yourself? RealDavidSedaris: "I hope you die alone." I said that to my father when I was 13. And I've thought about it ever since. I don't think he remembers it, because as a parent of 6 kids, you're gonna hear a lot of things like that. But my fear is that my father will die alone. And...I'll be forced, for the rest of my life, to think about that terrible thing that I said. Does anyone know a woman who might want to marry my father and stay by his side night and day? He's 92. I told you we were parallel. We run together but apart. There’s a whole world of time and ocean and experience between us— words yet to be written and families functioning on differing frequencies. But I’m not going to tell this to the Reddit world. Faceless screens only enable malice. And angsty teens are the cruelest of all. “I hope you crash and die tonight,” I told her as she left the house. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t want the seven of us to be left motherless, to be the burden of our milky-eyed, big-bellied, diabetic father. But I was mad, and I said something that has stayed with me. It has the weight of possibility, the grind of four wheels and my lonely father. For now I'll keep wondering and writing and jotting down my thoughts as I read random AMAs. Speaking of which, here's a list of upcoming AMAs.
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Alyssa ShainaWriter, reader, believer. Archives
September 2016
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