I've been spending a tremendous amount of time with David Sedaris.

I spent some time with him here, on Fresh Air.

I spent some time with him here, on Jon Stewart.



I spent some time with him here, at my house.




Ok.  So he's not really there.  If he were to visit my house, though, that is where he would sit.  The light is flattering, there is a convenient side table at hand where snacks like to hang out, and the couch is very comfortable (as it should be since it took me over nine freaking months to pick it out).  ALSO, in case he was nervous about being in the home of a complete stranger who had hit him on the head with an Eckerd bag full of Diet Pepsi, gummi bears, and a People magazine, tied him up and chucked him in the trunk of her car, I've put a copy of his sister's book next to him (if he were to actually be there) to make him feel more at home.

Given the amount of time Dave (he lets me call him Dave...in my pathetic fantasy parallel life) and I are spending "together," you'd think I would have read the book.  But I haven't.

I own it.  I sleep with it close to me.  But I haven't read it yet.

Instead, I've been reading this:

I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley.

I am a fan of the essay.  Evidence:  Imaginary abduction of David Sedaris and friendship I willed into existence with Cindy Guidry.  I like to read essays.  I particularly like collections of essays.  The random solo essay isn't quite the same as a collection because the solo essay is more like...more like...more like...a blog. 

Excuse me.  I need some bourbon. 

OK.  I'm back.

I'm kidding.

It was absinthe.

Not that there's anything WRONG with a blog (or a not-a-blog), but a collection of essays ADDS up to something.  Even if the individual pieces are hilarious or strange or seem arbitrary, they all contribute to a larger meaning.  The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  If you will.

Recently, two collections of essays by bloggers have come out.   I've read one and the other isn't for sale yet, I don't think.  My brother's initial impetus for strong-arming me into starting Well Read Hostess was because I had no venue for what I wanted to say, AND, more importantly, I had no over-arching theme to tie all my insane rants and narcissistic rambling deep thoughts together in a meaningful way. 

So I've been thinking about this trend towards essay collections, or, as we used to call it in graduate school where the MFAs knew everything important one needed to know (note:  WRH not an MFA = WRH doesn't know everything important one needs to know), creative non-fiction compilations,  and why they are so popular with me, specifically, and with everyone else, in general.

It has to be that we are a quick-hit culture.  We are busy, we are over-stimulated, and we have the attention spans of sex-starved adolescent geckos who've spent the afternoon licking Red Bull off of the QuickiMart floor.  (It's VERY late. I have no idea where that came from.  I apologize.)

But also maybe that we, and I'm talking about those of us who were raised in the 70's - and certainly those of YOU who were raised in the 80's - and more than ANY of the rest of US are those of YOU who were raised in the 90's, are increasingly part of a child centered culture.  Children are the focus of everyone's attention within the family, and so grow up believing that they are the proverbial SHIT.  Which mine are, by the way, but yours...not so much.

This isn't a bad thing, necessarily, except that we are all egomaniacal narcissists to some degree, so we all think it's important to share our every thought with everyone in the universe. 

How did I get here?  I seem to be condemning blogging, which isn't what I mean to do.  FOR THE LOVE OF GOD KEEP READING. 

My point is not that at all...my point is that we like to read people's personal accounts of their experiences, thoughts, vagaries, and quirks because then we feel like we all are somewhat the same and we are validated. 

Back to Sloane Crosley.  Google her and you'll come up with a ton of stuff about how she was the big time PR superstar of NYC.  Then she wrote her own collection of essays...to great critical acclaim, sort of.  Every review/article I read had an undercurrent of something that can only be described as the literary equivalent of narrowed eyes and pursed lips.  Not quite a sneer, not really an overt glare, but a kind of "Oh...REALLY."  Her own website is a little off-putting for me because it immediately made me feel like an old, out of it, tragically lost dork from the suburb of Loserville.  I just didn't get it.  Then again, she is supposed to be a PR megastar, so what do I know.

The essays are entertaining.  She's got some interesting writing tricks up her sleeve.  Some of her phrasing is just a little too clever and self-conscious, I think, but certainly not heinous or absurd.  For sure, a lot of the stories she tells are familiar...they are universal in topic and theme, but also in detail...it's a kind of cultural literacy guidebook (of course, she's uhhh quite a bit younger than I am, so sometimes I catch myself going, "Wha?" but then I pretend I'm 28 and it all makes sense.)

I am a lousy critic.  I am terrified of offending someone or sounding like a dumb twit myself because I've completely missed the point.  Also, given the fact that someone might be listening in and actually respond is both wonderful and utterly terrifying at once (thank the stars above I liked HER book so much).  

But.  Unlike a Sedaris collection of essays, unlike Beth Lisick's collection of self-help experiment reflections, and unlike the vignettes in The Last Single Woman in America, I couldn't find a way to make I Was Told There'd Be Cake a cohesive entity.  I kept searching for the connective thread or the A-HA! link.  On their own, the essays are palatable, some quite yummy, and easy to digest.  In their entirety, they didn't fill me up. 

But I'm sure that Sloane Crosley is a lovely person with good values. She is very attractive and makes beautiful dioramas (even though the song on her website about fingers wearing pants and pooping freaked me way out).



Note:  Up there a bit...no further up....up...up...THERE.  It seems like I'm implying that bloggers don't write anything that has any compelling theme or purpose or message or point.  I don't mean that.  I also don't mean to imply that the collections of essays by bloggers that I referenced are random and disconnected, either.  They aren't.  The one I read had a very clear theme that tied each essay together quite tidily, and the other...I haven't read yet, but I'm going to assume yes.  The point I was trying, and failing wildly at apparently even by my own account, to make is that I've got essays on my mind these days.  Specifically, their increase in popularity.  Ok.  I'm done.