Hi everyone.

Another update! How rare! Wow, what an honor! Yowza!

The short version, for those of you that care deeply about wasting time, is that I'm having a great time here. Fantastic. I know that might not have been clear to this point. But I think this will clear everything up a little bit.

I had fun with this one. Hope everyone's having fun with what you're doing back home.

I still got love for da streets.

~Dave
www.davemcgee.com

*****************************************

The Interview.

*****************************************

Q: Hello, there. Let’s get right down to business shall we?
A: Sounds good to me.

Q: So… is everything alright? I read your last update, and it seems like things aren’t going so well.
A: Are you kidding? Everything’s going fine. I'm having an amazing time here.

Q: No, I’m not kidding. Did you read what you sent out last time? That was some depressing shit. You know there's a problem when your friends are writing you, telling you they're worried about you. I mean, do you just get really drunk and then write these things?
A: Yes, of course I read what I sent out last time. And I realize that it was sort of... a downer, really. But I stand by what I said, even if, and here is the answer to the second question, I was drunk when I wrote it.

Q: I knew it.
A: However, I was not drunk when I sent it out. I edited while sober and I think we’re all better for it. I think that this cultural guilt is an important topic. It’s something I’m dealing with personally all the time, regardless of alcohol consumption. And it's unique to my situation. I wouldn't feel this way in New York, so it's a singular experience. I am still ashamed to see McDonald’s and Starbuck’s being the prime representation of my country here, not to mention our current government. But the uplifting side of it is, I’m also discovering that I really am an American. I know I have this Anglo/Celto-phile thing going on a lot, but the truth is that I am an American. That’s good to finally realize. Circumstances being what they are in my country I was beginning to lose sight of that I think. Nothing like being away to really regain focus.

Q: OK, Uncle Sam. This is your third update. You’ve been gone, what, three weeks?
A: About three and a half, but sure.

Q: And yet you’re already on your third e-mail update.
A: I fail to see your point.

Q: Well, don’t you think that’s overkill? Some of the people that receive this don’t talk to you this much when you’re in the country. Don’t you think it’s… slightly pretentious?
A: You’re understating. It’s incredibly pretentious. However I’m a twenty-one year old theatre major. Not only is pretense generally accepted from people in my position, it’s actually expected.

Q: That is a weak defense.
A: Granted. But understand that the people I’m sending this to are all in the same general category. They'll understand.

Q: Let’s put aside the fact, for the moment, that it sounds like you’re making fun of your friends. When your friend Lisa went abroad, she sent out five e-mails. Total.
A: Lisa went to central Africa. It’s not exactly like she could pop down to the computer lab. I consider it an adventure when a taxi honks at me. At one point Lisa was actually pinned to the ground by a lion.(1) The circumstances are sort of different.

Q: Whatever, Proust. How about, for the first time since you left, we actually discuss what exactly the hell it is you’re doing in London. You’ve talked a lot about Greenland and world events and shit, but haven’t actually discussed anything important.
A: Whatever. And I wasn’t making fun of my friends, you misinterpreted. And that "Hey, Uncle Sam" "Hey, Proust" thing is getting annoying. Cut it out.

Q: Fine. So, what, you’re in the RADA program right?
A: No, I’m not. I’m in the Topics program.

Q: What the fuck is the Topics program?
A: Why is it that NOBODY has heard of this program?? It’s on all the same bits of paper that the RADA program is on! And it’s not just that you don’t know, none of the other students here in London have ever heard of the program. I’m surprised the administration knows what it is!

Q: You’re overreacting.
A: I’m not so sure. I swear to God, nobody knows what this program is. I would think I had imagined it, only I have found evidence of it on the internet. (2) The full name is Topics in British Literary, Visual, and Performing Arts. It’s like a survey course of… well… the arts.

Q: So what do you actually do?
A: Well, I’ll give you a typical day. This morning, I went to the Victoria & Albert museum, and was given my lesson while walking around the British Galleries. After spending the morning there, I walked through Hyde Park, around Piccadilly Circus, and ended up in Leicester Square. I ate some fish and chips on a bench, and I read Jeremy Paxman’s “The English.”

Q: How was it?
A: The book is excellent; the fish and chips were crap. Anyway, then I went to see that movie “Confidence,” and tonight I am going to see a play on the West End. There you have it: British literary (the book), visual (the museum), and performing (the movie and the play) arts. Not to mention the fine arts.

Q: “Confidence” is not a British movie. And you're seeing an Arthur Miller play tonight. He is an American playwright. You can’t count those. And what fine arts?
A: While “Confidence” may not be a British film, Rachel Weisz is in it. She is British. And she is the reason that I went to see the film. They don’t come hotter than that. So I was drawn to it because of its “Britishness.” And while Arthur Miller is an American playwright, this play is British produced. Therefore, it technically counts as British performing arts.

Q: Again, a weak-ass defense. And what about the fine arts?
A: I already told you. Rachel Weisz.

Q: That is a fucking terrible joke. I bet you thought of that on your way to the computer lab, you dork.
A: Yes I did, actually. Anyway, the great thing about nobody knowing about this program is that I’m the only one in it. That's right-- the only one! And it’s taught by the head of Tisch in London. That means that this brilliant woman is my personal tutor of British art, basically.

Q: That’s actually pretty rad.
A: I completely agree. It’s a shame it almost didn’t happen.

Q: Expand on that please.
A: Well, NYU cancelled the program. It’s a very NYU thing for them to do. They had accepted me into this program, but then didn’t want to pay for her to teach one student three days a week. So they cancelled the program.

Q: Surely they gave you some advance warning.
A: No, I was told when I arrived. Tisch London had been informed three days earlier.

Q: That’s terrible.
A: That’s NYU. However, to their credit, when the director of Tisch London called up and noted that that was an extremely unprofessional way to conduct their business, they eventually relented. Then they went out and bought the rest of the East Village.

Q: Ooh… snipe.
A: Indeed.

Q: What else is good?
A: Well, most stuff is good. Like I said, those earlier updates were poorly focused. I'm having an amazing time here, for real. I mean, for the first time in... well, since I can remember I am going to get through a semester without having had a single rehearsal. Not one! And that's pretty great. It's nice to have evenings and weekends off. Contrarily, it's also making me realize that I really do want to direct theatre. I miss it, while enjoying the break at the same time. And apart from that, I finally feel like I’m in college!

Q: The whole “spread-out-campus” thing?
A: Exactly. You’re way ahead of me on this stuff.

Q: I am in the relatively unique position of being both interviewer and subject.
A: Relatively unique?

Q: You are also in the same position.
A: (Pause). It’s a question of semantics, I guess, which I’d rather not argue right now. For the benefit of the readers that aren't me, I will say that attending NYU is not one’s typical college experience (a fact that most of you know intimately). Normal people have parties on campus. We have to go to Brooklyn. Not having a campus, or an insulated environment or, say, a smallish student body all play into the way in which our social dynamics work out. Even as a freshman, I knew maybe ten people in my building. And I certainly didn’t want to walk to Rubin, who knew what went on over there? The structure is so much different from what I would consider “normal” colleges. It got to the point that when I would visit my friends at college, I would think “Wow! I wish I went to college!” And never really notice the absurdity of the statement.

Q: Intriguing.
A: Yes, but also wonderful. I mean, part of the reason I chose to go to NYU is because it was so out of the ordinary. But now I’m getting a taste of the other side, and I’m enjoying it quite a bit. It’s fun finally being in a typical college setting. There are less than 200 of us here (significantly less, actually), and we’re all living in the same building. When I want to see my friends, I have to walk up two flights of stairs. I don’t have to take two different trains.

Q: You are going to be late for your play if you don’t leave now.
A: Oh shit.

Q: Shall we continue this later?
A: Sure, I’ll be in touch. Or whatever.

*******************************************

Q: Welcome back.
A: Thank you.

Q: How was the play?
A: You were there, you tell me.

Q: The first act was great, the second act was overdone, and yet I enjoyed it anyway.
A: I completely agree.

Q: This is starting to get a little long, I think. And we've covered the basics fairly well. So I think I have just one more question.
A: Great. Fire away.

Q: You spend your days going to class and going to museums. Then you walk through an adopted city that is not your own, in much the same way that you would walk through New York. At one time New York was your adopted city, and now it is home. You miss it with every breath and every step. Each moment you realize that you love it completely, wholly. You spend absurd amounts of money on theatre and film, translating the cost into dollars and feeling guilty about wasting so much, about having the privilege to use it so carelessly. You meet people that you never would have met otherwise, and you laugh together and you enjoy yourself in crowds. How rare is that? Even last night, you met this amazing girl. Her name is Jane, and she comes from the Ukraine, and she moved to New York so that when she speaks she has this amazing Ukrainian accent except when she says "walk" or "talk" she sounds like she's been living on Long Island her whole life. And for some reason that you can't pinp
oint, that makes you smile. And the fact that it's not even about her, you don't really know her. You're just glad to meet somebody, another, and then another that interests you, that moves you. That you would want to see again and that you would like to find out about. And then you freak out, because the thought of "pursuing" anything like that is the most indimitating thing in the world so you smile because even with all the changes in your life, that's still so "you". So you just go the club. Dave, you went dancing and it was loud and your ears were ringing, and you were sweating and you moved. You just moved and it was wonderful, to release, to not be able to hear yourself think for once. Because you worry sometimes about these things. You plan these journal entries like they're important, you come up with the ideas, and you work on them for days. You worry about telling people simple things, you worry that people won't like these. So you come up with some bullshit way, s
ay, an interview format, that will enable you to tell all the stuff you're doing without being overt. And you even plan that at the end the interviewer will turn it around, and basically become the subject by spewing out a long message. The answer to which will be "Well, yeah. I guess that about sums it up." And you plan that it will turn into the first person. And I dream about Woyzeck, and I dream of New York. And I live this life here, amazed, and moved, and surrounded by life that is alien to me. I laugh at silly things-- the hats the policemen wear-- and I sit up awake at night and wonder about things that are and that might never be. And I love it, and it's so strange to think that this is it. What if I hadn't come? I am growing and learning and loving it. I am living it. I am standing on the dance floor, and it is shaking with the pulse with the rhythm and it is moving me moving me and I am moving with and I am moving in it. And my smile is for me and for everything. B
ecause I am alive, and I want to know what it means to be that way. My smile is for all of it. And it expands and releases and it flies away from me and I am lighting up the world. And in reality it is just for me on a dark floor in the middle of London, surrounded by a hundred by two hundred by three hundred bodies moving alone, moving together, moving apart and as a whole. And I breathe. And a breath. And it is silent. I mean... you know?
A:Well, yeah. I guess that about sums it up.



(1) True Story.
(2) See? I’m not making this shit up! Topics!

Thrilling Adventures in London
Actually Part 1
***

Part 1 will focus more on events taking place in London, rather than events that were just in my head, or events that took place over Greenland.

I think.

I'll preface this madness by saying that I really am having a fantastic time here. I'm also really nervous because I keep getting audition notices for shows at Tisch, and I think I've forgotten how to spell the name of the show I'm doing in the spring. (1)

It's good to know I have a base of support back home, guys. Thanks for being there for me. Here we go:

***************************************************************************

At least I knew how to feel guilty, which was of comfort to me.

Here I don’t even know how to feel guilty. I don’t know how to address my... or maybe just to feel my... how to express... how to...

I'm avoiding the subject at hand.

I walk the streets, which are lined by McDonald’s and Burger King. Every corner has a Starbuck’s. The Gap and the Coke and you know and you know I’m just knocking you over the head with this.

Of course you know.

But I don’t know what to do about this.

I stand in the post office, trying to buy a phone card, and Eminem is playing on the speakers.

And I’m wondering why in the hell I came here.

***
I don't know how to feel guilty about this. How should I feel? This AMERICANA which has flooded the streets of this foreign city is mine, isn't it, it's my fault?

It’s not my fault, it’s not my fault, I don’t think

But it’s not just the food and it’s not just the commercialism

Here I am a representative of my government. Here I am a representative of my nation’s President

I feel demanded upon to speak for my nation To stand outside of McDonald’s and loudly proclaim

This is not all of us! This is not who we are! We did not all vote for President Bush! We did not all support his war! Many of us marched against it, just as you did! Many of us hate him and hate McDonald’s and hate this war and hate being American, how can I be American, what does it mean to be American

That’s what I am here. Not a representative of me I am an
AMERICAN

And all I can do is be ashamed, and say

I agree, I agree, I think we’ll do better this time. I really think we’ll do better. We have to do better. I know. I know. (2)

And I stop and think for a moment, and realize that this is not really what I'm feeling guilty about. It's part of it. But there's something more.

And I'm avoiding the real topic...

***

Back to the Post Office. I thought "The Post Office" was just a clever name for this little convenience store. Like the bar "Rehab" in New York, only with some semblance of class. But of course, no: it’s actually a post office. You wouldn’t believe some of the shit they have here. I mean, I know I can get a Big Mac anytime I want. But Chinese Spare-Rib flavored Pringles? And I can buy these in the *post office*. What the fuck, right?

I know they speak the same language, basically, and everything. But still I am mystified.

I am mystified about…

What is it...? What I am forgetting?

I don’t know how to feel guilty about it. So ignore it, Dave, just move on just move on just move

***

The next thing Elisheba told me is this:

"Dave, if these updates are all about unrequited love, I’ll kill you. I won’t be mad at you—I’ll just kill you."

So should I just skip this part?

I know what I’m avoiding, and it’s not this.

But it has to be in this order, or I will be classless. I will keep this short:

I am the Best Guy Friend. Again.

Congratulations to me. I couldn’t be more honored.

***

I couldn’t be more of a fucking sucker, is what I couldn’t be. Jesus.

***

Why am I avoiding this topic?

It’s coming and there’s no way to avoid it sure there is I can just

***

So, London, then yeah. I saw Buckingham Palace and I saw that church with windows I was so desperately lusting after.

But it’s all just talk. It’s all just talk.

I just can’t avoid it any longer

***

I am sitting at our welcome party, surrounded by my friends.

And this had to happen, I guess.

The fire alarm began to go off—or maybe somebody just opened an emergency exit door, who knows? Some generic alarm is going off in the building. We look around, and nobody seems to be making that big of a fuss about it. So we continue to sip our drinks and look around.

He approaches our table. "I think the fire alarm is going off."

Somebody at our table responds generically. Like this: "Yeah, sounds like it. But nobody really seems to be worried, so…"

This is how he answers: (this is how this miserable son of a bitch answers:)

"I’m reminded of a certain day back in September..."

***

I’m so fucking angry I’m so fucking angry I don’t know what to do how dare he bring that up how dare he how can he fucking bring that up now and here? He can’t he can’t that is off limits that is off FUCKING limits to bring that up.

So I punch him. Hard. In the shoulder. And I scream at him

THAT IS NOT FUCKING FUNNY MAN WHAT THE FUCK

And he says "I'm not trying to be funny."

WHAT THE FUCK MAN CAN A FUCKING BUILDING... i am stammering... CAN A FUCKING AIRPLANE RUN INTO A THREE STORY BUILDING

And he says "The alarm went off and they didn’t leave"

He’s making it their fault is what he’s doing. The alarm went off and THEY didn’t leave, that means its their fault, ultimately, if they were smart they would have left if they had known they would have left those fucking morons what were they thinking not leaving right? It’s their fault, he thinks, this son of a bitch.

I should kill this son of a bitch.

I’m gonna punch this son of a bitch in the fucking neck I’ll beat the motherfucking shit out of him.

But I don’t. I stand up and I walk out of the room and I walk out of the building and I sit on the steps and tell myself it's not worth it to... to... I've used all of the harsh words I know and they're not enough, they're just not enough. And I don’t know what to do.

This is what I've been avoiding. This is it. I don’t know how to feel about this. I don't know how to feel guilty about this.

It also doesn't help that this guy is my roommate.

***

This is what I'm avoiding, I know now. I am avoiding thinking about this at all. My anger so visceral, trying to find enough swear words to encompass how angry I am, but nothing is enough.

The anniversary is coming up again. If I thought I was messed up last year about it, at least I knew how to feel guilty about it. I could feel guilty because Shaun had ashes rain down on his head, and I didn’t. I could feel guilty because when I hugged him when I saw him next, it wasn’t enough to do anything or to change anything at all. I could feel guilty because I wasn’t there to help do anything, it happened and I watched, it happened and I stood there on the street and I watched. And there was nothing I could do. I could feel guilty about that.

But I could also atone for my lack of importance. I could walk on the streets I walked that morning. And I could force myself to confront the walls covered in posters, covered in faces. And I could stare at a terribly empty spot in the sky and mourn alone.

Here I don’t know how to feel guilty. I don’t know how to mourn here. Being there helps, because I am adding back to the vitality of the city. I am repaying its loss with my own presence and with my own life. I am somehow repaying the debt that it took for me, that it does not hold me accountable for, that it no longer requests payment on. I can repay it every day.

And here I can do none of that.

And I accept the blame I am given because I am American. But I don’t want to do that anymore.

***

But I don’t know what to do instead.

***

I walk through the streets here and it is different. It is a foreign country, even if they have our food and our clothes and our language.

But in many ways it is older and it is wiser and it has been through more. It is the New York to our Los Angeles (3). It is our big brother. It still sometimes makes mistakes, but it seems to avoid them with more deftness too.

And I’m learning more and more each day.
***
FOOTNOTES:

(1) Woyzeck

(2) My friend Briana wrote about feeling cultural guilt much more eloquently than I could ever hope to. Please read these, I think you will find them, as I did, truly beautiful and moving:
The First One
The Second One

(3) For more on the relationship between New York and Los Angeles, the city of my current (yet somehow former) residence and my former (actually former) residence, read Steve Martin’s touching tribute printed in his book “Pure Drivel.” Here is a link to puchase that book:
Pure Drivel @ amazon.com

A really big thank you in advance to Briana, Elisheba (twice!), and Shaun for allowing me to mention them. I hope you didn’t mind too much.

Hello, my friends.

And so is sent the first note from across the sea. Huzzah!

I loved seeing "updates" from my friends whenever they went abroad, and I thought now that I'm here I could get it on the fun.

Here's the catch, you see... at least the few times that I've read these updates from others they've at least used, generally, proper grammar and the occasional punctuation mark. If you're looking for a less self-indulgent write up you've come to the wrong place.

For yea, this is as far as they get to that side, I worry to say. However I found it much more interesting to write than if it was "and then we saw Buckingham Palace, and then we went to some old church with windows, and then we..." I figure you'll find it significantly more fun to read than a log of my daily sightseeing activities, even if it is just to have a laugh at my expense.

"Wow, that guy is a tool!" you might say to yourself. And perhaps you're right... but strong men also cry. Strong men also cry...

Look I'd love to hear from everyone. I am having much fun, I'm really loving it over here. The coin system is a mess, but that's a small price to pay.

I hope to hear from you all soon. Forsooth.

And now, onto the first "update" of my trip, complete with a shout-out to the Vikings, a journey into my psyche during insomnia, and a short summary of my first ever tea party.

***

The visual image I get is straight out of Fight Club, it’s straight out of Drop Zone. The wing is torn off with a terrible wrenching sound, the plane falls quickly to the right, crashing hard, torrential wind, a freefall into the cliffside.

Or maybe a tiny hole begins to open in my window, larger and larger, about to burst. The window shatters, a maelstrom of noise, oh the cacophony! the wall is torn away amidst the shrieks and screams of the women and children. My chair is sucked out, and somehow against all odds I don’t hit the side of the plane. I don’t pass out from fear, or shock, or lack of oxygen. I am completely contented and falling 37,000 feet through the clouds that appear so solid, through the bottom layer that your mind tricks itself into believing is a separate level between you and the ground. You could walk on these clouds, if you really had to,, you know it.

I try to work out how long that would take, a fall of that length. And even though the math seems simple the solution is ever elusive, and

Holy shit I just need to go to sleep.

***
You see, I can’t sleep on airplanes. To combat this problem, I stayed up for all but a few hours of the night before I left.

This of course backfires. I still can’t sleep at all.

I have been up for too long, two straight days now. Push on, push on.

***
It comes back to Fight Club again, as I talk to this Single Serving Friend next to me. She was on holiday, to Las Vegas and Santa Monica. She loved the long desert drive along the 15 that she and her friend took to get from one to the other.

“Area 51!” she exclaims, and asks what I think about that. She is honestly excited.

“I think it’s safe to assume that there are military bases that we don’t know about. I also think it’s safe to assume that they don’t contain extraterrestrials.”

She continues on, excited by the possibility, cannot wait to get home and read all about it.

“What about the moon landings?” she says, hoping for a better answer.

I gesture out the window. “I find it hard to be skeptical of anything involving the mastery of flight when I’m seven miles above the surface of the earth.”

Again she hums and haws about this and that, and I discreetly return to my book. I am done with her.

I long for sleep, I crave it.

***
“Greenland” is, as far as I can tell, the longest running practical joke in history. Notable false things have been passed down as wisdom through the ages, but these were mostly passed on in ignorance. The name “Greenland” or whatever the hell it is in ancient Norse was intended from the very beginning as malicious. It’s an amazing tribute to the savvy of the Vikings that the name has persisted for almost one thousand years. I mean the fucking landmass appears to be made of solid ice, with a little snow added to spice of the monotony.

Yup, there it is. “Greenland.”

I bring this up because I am pissed that we are flying over it. “Direct” from LAX to LHR does not mean, obviously, shortest route. It means instead “without stopping anywhere else.” Why the hell are we flying over Greenland?

It is hours later before I realize that the Earth (no it’s true!) is a sphere. It is not the flat map I see on the four inch screen in front of me. Surely the curve of the Earth makes this a more reasonable route than I imagined. I close my eyes to help visualize the curvature of the Earth against the map in front of me, and little light patterns flash inside my eyelids and undulate, and I cannot sleep I’m so tired did I mention, so tired so tired so

Below me in the water around Greenland, there are tiny specks. I think they might be boats, in which case I am jealous. Trolling the northern seas! Avast!

Then, it really could be ice bits. But I’m miles up, so ice chunks, masses, bits of glacier. I hear it might get a little chilly ‘round these parts. You know. The Arctic.

That looks like a piece of fucking driftwood…

Probably ice. Well, fuck it then, I guess.

***
Smoothest landing ever.

Boring, boring, boring, boring… look I’m at my dorm!

Umm... flat?

***
Go through the door to the trashroom. That’s where I live. I live next to the fucking trashroom. My room is off the trashroom alcove. Bliggity bliggity blah.

Time to pass out but there’s an orientation, no a mixer, a tea party in the park. If I can only make it that long I can make it can talk to people and meet people gotta start off on the right foot gotta do it right can’t just hide in the room. Remember what Elisheba said, “have some fucking confidence, McGee.” She screamed it at me “Have some fucking confidence!” I told her I’d try, I’ll try, I dress better now. I got some new clothes, I don’t always dress like shit anymore. I threw all that away. I just need to unpack a little, and shower a little just need to clean up and it’s almost time. Feel like I’ve been wearing these clothes forever. Shower and new clothes. I feel better, just want to pass out, to lie down. Time to leave now. The tea party.

The tea party is great. I make fast friends with a group of people that sort of haphazardly sat down next to one another. I knew her, and she knew me, and the other two of us talked on the way over here, and he recognizes you from class even though you never talked to each other at least you were entertaining…

The tea is fucking good.

We agree to meet up later and go to the pub but who I am I fucking kidding? I pass out and sleep hard, hard into the next morning.

Now that’s what I’m talking about.

***
The narrative returns to a more rested state. Soon it will scatter back into chaos again because that’s what happens later.

***
This is the part where I go grocery shopping and stuff.

We now return to our previously mentioned chaotic narrative.

***
You see, we are at the bar later and our group is over there, but here we are together. Alone and isolated with her sitting here on top of this thing, whatever it is, and me standing here by her. Close, and closer, she is beautiful, truly beautiful. She laughs when she speaks sometimes, and I have only known her for these past two days, and here we are.

She is so beautiful, and she smells so good, and I didn’t have that much to drink did I? Why am I suddenly so intoxicated.

It is half the drink and it is half her, her smelling so good and looking so beautiful right here in front of me and talking like this about things like this and I start to pull away, always conscious, always planning.

Surely there must be another way! Surely somewhere is someone who is not constantly aware, constantly judging motion against motion, and what does that clue mean, and what does the move mean, and should I put my arm here or be too forward and why am I aware of this all the time, just want to relax, want to let go, I see people letting go they just live they don’t have to constantly be aware of their life but do I want that and do I she’s so beautiful here she’s right here and we’re this close and we’re even closer and I’m sure you can, you can do it, oh fuck Elisheba is gonna be so mad at you, you fucking cowardly son of a bitch can’t you just not think about it this once you can do this just do this just

dammitdammitdammitdammitdammitdammit

I pull away, and I stand back, and we say goodnight later and I walk back down to my floor to a restless night of nothing dreams.

***
I just finished reading Eggers, and my mental flow is imitating his. Because I am a hack.

I did this same with Barry, all those years ago. And when I read Foster Wallace, and then with Sedaris. The writing so good that it makes me change the way I think about things, the way I process my thoughts. A writer so good he affects my patterns of thought, damn that’s good.

And then I think about it. And it’s David Eggers. And Dave Barry. And David Foster Wallace, and fucking David Sedaris. These writers that change me and help me and affect me so much.

Are there any not named David? Am I searching for my identity among these men that share my name?

It seems unlikely. But it’s a pretty big coincidence at any rate.

Am I among them? Do I share this love for them because I am one of them?

For surely I too am a great writer! I too can be beautiful! Maybe not as wildly odd as that early Barry that I love, and certainly not that utter brilliant like Wallace or as articulate as Sedaris or as pitch perfect as Eggers. But I too can be great I think, I hope, I feel I know.

I mean, we’re all named David right?

Is this some kind of fucking joke?

***
And I read this, and find that it hasn’t happened in London at all. It’s happened in me.

I just needed to get here to start learning this.

Is all.