So I met David Sedaris last Tuesday. He likes to converse with his fans when signing autographs, coming up with a personal inscription off the cuff. I know this because the husband’s store was sponsoring the show, and I had been helping corral the roughly 2,000 attendees all evening before gleefully flinging off my volunteer cap and taking my place near the front of the autograph line. Retail hath its privileges. This was how I came to be standing across a table from one of my favorite authors, also probably the most famous person I’ll ever meet, an actual expat, and a former New Yorker — about the closest you can get in Charleston, SC to a member of the non-existent gay mafia. And he had not a clue, at first blush, that I was not a heterosexual. I have no idea how I feel about that, but it does make for a story.

The teenysomething who immediately preceded me had been subjected to the “so what do you do” question, evidently his question of the night. She stated that she was still in college, but she had been so inspired by Mr Sedaris’ work that she planned to be a writer. He stated that she was a pretty girl, writing was a really shitty way to make a living, and that she just might be better off becoming a prostitute or something. Her reaction betrayed perhaps a little less familiarity with his writing, and his humor, than she had implied. As she skulked off, I immediately imposed myself, grinning, in front of the author as he was still gazing crossly at her retreating back. He turned to me, conversationally, and said “What? She is quite attractive. I think she’d make a fine prostitute. You’d have sex with her, right?” And I did not know what to say. I think I managed a “pardon?” Gamely, he continued “That girl, she’s pretty enough to be a hooker, right?”

I have no memory whatsoever of the rest of the encounter. The ‘pusher’, the woman from Dan’s store whose job it was that evening to move the books along and ensure that the post-it with my name on it was properly oriented, filled me in later. Apparently, I then raised my right hand at about chest height, palm out, fingers splayed, and waved it about a bit. “Hello. Gaaaay.” This makes sense to me, in that I did roughly the same thing when my mom asked me shortly after I turned 18 if registering for selective service made me the slightest bit anxious. Mom and I shared a hearty laugh that afternoon, also marking the first time since I had come out at 14 that the subject of my queerness had come up between us without becoming a Conversation. Anyway, somehow I managed to make it through, despite the blackout of both all higher language functions and memory, without leaving too much of an impression on the distinguished author. It seemed to me, later in the evening, that in this case it might be a good thing to not be very memorable. Thus, the inscription: