Kittens and Monkeys and Weight Loss. Oh, My!

We went to see David Sedaris read at the Orpheum Theater on Saturday night, and I have not laughed that hard in a long time. The stuff he read was truly inspired. He's started writing what he calls "fables" now, which are basically character and conversation studies, but with cats, baboons, hens, and roosters as the main characters instead of people. The first one he read, for example, was about a cat getting "groomed" by a baboon in preparation for her attendance at a wedding. Insightful hilarity ensued. He also read a lot about monkeys, thanks to his obsession, and even read some of his diary entries, which were a real treat!

I bring this up not only to brag that I saw David Sedaris, nyah, nyah!!!, but also because at one point in a particularly hilarious story (involving a refreshingly ample amount of profanity), he mentioned the act of kicking a kitten. I knew Lisa would appreciate it because, in context, he was describing the way he felt after berating a cabbie he'd had in New York when he was visiting his sister Amy -- he'd done it but he'd felt badly afterwards. I think there's something we can both agree on there, right, Lisa? Oh, and speaking of Amy, David reports that she is currently writing a homemaking book a la Martha Stewart. I can hardly wait to see that.

BTW, if you're sufficiently jealous, you could always head down to the bizarro-tropolis of Bloomington, Indiana to catch his reading at Indiana University tomorrow night. Tickets are still available via Soul-Suck... er, I mean, TicketbeastMaster. Otherwise, get your hands on today's issue of The New Yorker (April 18th, 2005). The issue is devoted entirely to travel ("The Journeys Issue"), and therein can be found one of David's stories entitled "Keeping Up" (p. 92). He read this to us on Saturday. It's one of his meandering tales that begins in front of his apartment in Paris, where Americans invariably stop to argue, and eventually winds its way to how his boyfriend Hugh's fast-paced walking leaves him in the dust and how he is going to leave him because of it. It's a wonderful love story.

And in totally unrelated news, I would like the record to show that before I headed to Atlanta, I had lost a grand total of 18.5 pounds (in four weeks). I'll report on the weight re-gain (if any -- although surely the existence of this parenthetical itself will serve to jinx its own optimism) upon my return.

Spring and travel has me wistful. I miss you people. Where are you, Aimee? Chad? Jeremy?! When's the reunion?!?!