Can I please read your diary

Gossiping about non-famous people and trying to be more observant

Hi everyone! I am employed again and having a really nice time. I wrote this rambly, kind of pointless newsletter a few weeks ago before starting my new job. I am excited to have a routine again. I tend to write more when I’m busy and on the move. Weirdly enough, having nothing but free time led to minimal creative output! Oh well! Anyway it feels nice to put something out there again.

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My brief flirtation with unemployment is coming to an end and I’m pretty bummed about it. Simultaneously, I’m thrilled to start a new job in The Big Apple and generally get some forward movement in my life again. The things about being unemployed is that it’s only fun when you know it’s ending. The first month or so facing no prospects, no next steps, and an undetermined amount of time living at my parents’ house with no income was a huge setback for my mental health. After tireless searching (I checked last week—I applied to 170), I finally landed a job. I start next week. 

With a job in sight, unemployment has been wonderful. No longer worrying about my dwindling checking account, I’ve enjoyed shopping for slacks, going on vacations, being bored, sipping $16 dirty martinis, taking my partner out for a nice dinner, spending hours rotting away on my hammock, and reading all day long. 

I went to Vermont and made jam! Could a person with a JOB do THAT?

Recently, I absolutely gobbled up Educated by Tara Westover. There is nothing I love more than a beautifully constructed, fluff-free memoir. Except, perhaps, essay collections. David Sedaris has long been one of my favorite writers, and a recent re-read of Theft by Finding, a collection of his diary entries from 1977–2002, has inspired me to write again. With all of my free time, I’ve been wanting so badly to write, but the majority of my time is spent alone and relaxing, which seem like the ideal conditions for writing, but have had the opposite effect. I need to be constantly stimulated to get anything done, it seems.  

Theft by Finding is over 500 pages long and I devoured it in a few days. If there’s one thing I am passionate about, it’s gossip and insane stories about other people. The best drama, I’ve always said, is drama that does not involve me. Sedaris has compiled nearly 30 years-worth of his own diary entries and shared them with the public. Like the rest of his writing, the entries are observant, succinct, hilarious, and absurd. The majority of the entries are retellings of interactions with strangers and loved ones, and observations of bizarre or lovely or generally thought-provoking human behavior. 

The purpose of this newsletter was not to review a book that came out five years ago, but here we are! Reading Theft by Finding has inspired me to pick up my journal again, write down some recent observations and revisit older ones. Moving forward, I’m hoping to become more observant of my surroundings and make a better effort to write these things down. I’m always so thrilled when I revisit my journal entries and find a story or brief entry that, at the time, seemed mundane. 

These are the moments I quickly forget and feel brand-new when I revisit them, like I’ve dog-eared a random page from a time in my life that seems so distant. It’s a refreshing break from the my other journal entries, which are mostly exhaustive recounts of the same emotions and problems I’ve had my entire adult life. Feeling stuck in a job, feeling lonely, swearing that I’ve finally fixed all of my problems by reflecting upon them endlessly.  

So, as I enter a period of massive change, I’m going to do my best to focus more on the world around me and take note of the things I see. Instead of gazing inward, obsessing over my own issues, and forgetting to chronicle what’s happening outside of me. I imagine an archaeologist finding my journals hundreds of years from now and hope that instead of finding the ramblings of a self-obsessed 27 year-old, they will find a comprehensive ethnographic study of the world around me. 

Or something like that. In the meantime, I’ve started by collecting entries from my journal and digging deep into my notes app to tease out any interesting human interactions from the past few years. For entries that were dated, I’ve included them. If you have any similar journal entries, brief stories, or memories, please share them with me. I love them. 

• 8/31/2023. Went on a run by the river. I jogged past a woman who looked at me and appeared to be smiling and saying something to me as I passed her. I pulled my ear bud out and she said “Wow! You’re paler than me!” I laughed awkwardly and heard her shout “Go, pasty white girls!” as I jogged away. 

• 8/29/2023. Waiting for Henry to leave a book store in Lake Placid. I saw an older man in a checkered shirt with wide suspenders and a bow tie on. He was carrying a massive serving of soft serve ice cream and smiling from ear to ear. 

• Spring of 2023. Stopped outside of my building at 10 PM to eavesdrop on a drunk couple walking their dog and arguing. The woman said, “Oh my fucking god! Would you prefer I dress like a Grandma when we go out? It’s like…you hate that I’m young and I’m hot!” The man grumbled something. I heard the word “slut.” The woman said “Fuck you. I’m going back to the bar!” She handed him the leash and walked back down Park Ave. 

• Spring of 2023. I was waiting for my Amtrak back to Rochester and a man sat down next to me. He was waiting with his granddaughter, who was heading back up to school. He told me about how he used to be the coach of the girl’s high school soccer team, and of the last game he coached, the winning goal, how proud he was. He told me three riddles and then ended our conversation by saying “I know I’m embarrassing my granddaughter, but if I can talk to someone who looked like they were about to cry and then leave them smiling—I’d say it’s worth it.” I didn’t realize how obvious it was that I was about to cry. 

• 10/30/2022. Outside of a supermarket in Buffalo with Ben the morning after a Halloween party. A middle-aged couple walked by our table and I overheard the man say to his wife: “It’s a joke, Julie. Remember humor?” 

• Fall of 2022. In the Subaru dealership waiting for my car to get fixed. There was an elderly couple next to me, waiting as well. The mechanic came back to tell them their car was ready and the woman had fallen asleep. Her husband woke her up by gently poking her with his cane and laughing. She woke up laughing.

• 9/15/2022. I went to a Red Wings game with Brielle and I asked her what the difference is between a red hot dog and a white hot dog and she said “Well, they’re all horse.” She wasn’t kidding.

• 9/7/2022. I was on a walk by the Peekskill riverfront with my mom and we a saw a young, incredibly fit man with a boom box teaching a simple four-move dance routine to a group of about five other people. It was clear this was a spontaneous gathering of strangers and not a class of some sort. 

• 7/26/2022. Was walking down Park ave with Mike. He saw a bird and said “Whenever I see a bird on the street I imagine I have a toothpick and I spit it out and it decapitates the bird” 

• 11/17/19. At a party: “He kissed me and I started throwing up and never stopped.”

• 10/20/2016. Getting on the bus to go from Rochester to Binghamton. The bus driver took my ID, looked at me and said: “Hey, my cat’s name is Julia! But you already knew that.” 

It is comforting to take stock of the behavior of people around me. It reminds me that most people are truly, deeply weird. And funny and interesting. There are infinite people who will have infinitely strange thoughts and will say things in passing that will stick with me for years to come. 

Sometimes, the very narrow and hazy way in which I view my life makes it harder to see all of the other people out there, who are looking at their lives through their own lenses. I guess I forget they’re out there until one of them says something funny on line at Starbucks or in the urgent care waiting room. Something that makes me peer over my glasses and think “I should write that down.”