From Manhattan to Morristown: Meeting David Sedaris

He’s my all-time favorite writer. I have all his books and I’ve enjoyed them again and again. I devour the pieces he writes for The New Yorker, I listen to his audio books, his NPR segments, his podcast guestings. I love his humor, his sharp wit, his writing style. He’s a master of storytelling, of weaving anecdotes effortlessly, and I am always happy to come along for the ride.

David actually came to Manila in 2006 for a book signing but I didn’t get to see him. I’ve always hoped to make it to one of his readings and so for years, every time I was about to travel, I’d look up his tour dates to see if we would be in the same city. No luck.

Did I really just run into him in the streets of New York? I thought so.

But wait, doesn’t he live in England now?

Green chinos

The man was wearing green chinos and I know David likes cool, unusual pants. He was carrying a white backpack. Does David carry backpacks? I racked my brain, trying to remember if David Sedaris had ever written anything about backpacks.

We crossed the road, still heading towards hot chocolate—and still going in the same direction as the man who could be David.

Catherine, ever the kunsintidor, said, “Just talk to him.”

I shook my head. What if it was just a random New Yorker? Or worse, a random grumpy New Yorker?

While walking, I opened Google and typed “where does david sedaris live.”

The search results told me that he divides his time between England and New York. He and Hugh have an apartment in the Upper East Side. We were in the Upper East Side!

Holy crap! It really could be David Sedaris!

“Just go talk to him!” Catherine said for the nth time. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

I took a deep breath and got ready to approach the man who was still walking slightly ahead of us. He slowed down, pulled out a notebook, and that’s when I knew for sure that it was David Sedaris. He’s famous for carrying around a notebook and jotting down his observations.

He was writing something when I finally got the courage to approach. He looked up as I spoke. “Hi, are you David Sedaris?”

“Yes,” he replied slowly, in that voice I know so well. I have listened to it for countless hours. And now that voice was talking to me.

“I can’t believe I’m meeting you,” I said to him.

We had the loveliest conversation, right there, on the corner of 90th St. and Park Avenue. He was kind, warm, funny.

Nice to readers

The encounter made me so happy. It’s become my favorite New York moment of all time (and I’ve had a lot of great New York moments).

And it didn’t end there. Because this is David we’re talking about.

He’s known for being really nice to his readers. His fans know that when they go to his signings, they need to be ready to patiently wait in line because he doesn’t just sign books, he takes his time to connect with each person who comes. 

If David had just said a quick hi when I went up to him, that would have been more than enough. Just seeing him brought me so much joy. But no, he spent time talking to me. He asked about my trip. He joked about Jollibee. I got to tell him how much I love him and his work. He talked to me about his new tour.

And that’s not all.

David said, “How long are you staying? I’ll be in Morristown, New Jersey tomorrow and I could give you tickets—but I don’t know if you could make it there.”

My jaw dropped. I clutched my chest. “Oh my gosh! Thank you so much! Of course, we’ll go! We’ll find a way!” I said, confident despite not knowing where Morristown is.

He wrote my name in his notebook (my name’s in his notebook!) and said that he would leave two tickets for us at the box office.

Then he flipped to another page, wrote down his email address, tore it out and handed it to me. “If anything comes up, if you can’t make it, if there’s a problem, let me know.”

“No no no, we’ll be there,” I said.

“Okay,” he said, smiling. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Pam Pastor.”

Dazed and in awe

I walked away from the encounter dazed and in awe that it even happened. It felt like a dream. Somehow, we ended up at the right crosswalk at the right moment.

Had we done just one thing differently, we wouldn’t have met David. If the guy who took our order didn’t delay lunch by forgetting to ring up our wings, if I hadn’t insisted on taking multiple photos of every cherry blossom tree on Roosevelt Island, if I hadn’t gotten lost on the way back to the tram, if we had decided to wait for the next tram like I wanted to, if Fifi had not asked me to buy her moisturizer, if I had squeezed in a visit to Tiny Doll House like I was tempted to, if we had gone for hot chocolate on a different day, if I had even stopped for a bathroom break, we wouldn’t have seen him on that street.

Catherine thinks it happened because we had frozen hot chocolates at Serendipity that morning. Maybe she’s right. Because what happened really was serendipitous.

I tried to explain to Catherine just how huge it was for me. “It’s like how you’d feel if you met Kim Kardashian on the street and she asked you to go to Calabasas.”

It was a done deal. Just like Catherine wouldn’t have turned down Kim’s invitation to Calabasas, there was no way I was missing the chance to see David Sedaris in Morristown.

Over the past few days, I’d been entering every online lottery for discounted Broadway tickets. An hour before we ran into David, we found out we’d won the chance to buy tickets to Death Becomes Her—for the 2 p.m. show the next day instead of the 8 p.m. one. It felt like a sign: we could see the show and still make it to Morristown. (But let’s be real—I would totally give up watching a Broadway show to see David.)

Off to Morristown

The next day, Catherine and I went to Penn Station and got on the NJ Transit train to Morristown. As the train started moving, I brought out the card I had gotten for David. On the front is a little mouse clutching a bagel, looking up at a pigeon. They’re in the middle of what I assume to be an unusually clean New York bodega. Beneath them, in yellow letters: “Thanks for everything!”

Somewhere between Secaucus and Orange, I wrote a message to David. By the time I was done, Catherine was asleep.

Eleven stops later, we reached Morristown.

“David Sedaris Tonight at 8 p.m.!” read the electronic board outside the Mayo Performing Arts Center.

Inside, at the box office, a nice lady handed me my tickets.

Catherine and I walked into the lobby which was packed with David Sedaris fans. My kind of people, I thought. Many were at the concession stand ordering drinks while others were perusing his books that were for sale. I already owned all of them except for the children’s book Pretty Ugly. I bought it and put it in my bag next to the copy of his other children’s book The Selfish Sister that I had picked up at The Strand.

David has a new book coming out in May, The Land and Its People, which will feature new essays. I grabbed one of the bookmarks with the QR code so I could preorder it.

“Paper tickets! That’s unusual!” said the cheerful usher who led us to our seats. They were great seats—orchestra left, towards the middle. We were seated next to a stern-looking man with white hair—one half of an elderly couple.

The show

Soon, David was onstage, greeting the audience while wearing white layered Dior cargo pants. (What did I say about him and cool pants?)

He introduced his opening act—a young writer named Christopher Crespo who read a funny piece about helping his sister write a letter to her accountant. 

Then David returned to the stage. It was time for him to read. 

In New York, I had said to him, “Your readings are the best. I love listening to you read your work.”

Smiling, he said, “Tomorrow night will be horrible. I just started this tour last night so I have new material and I don’t know how to read it. It’s gonna be awful.”

“No, it will be amazing,” I replied. 

And it was. I spent the entire hour or so smiling and laughing as he read his new essays—about attending the Oscars, about feeding animals in the wild, stories that took us to unexpected places and pulled us in from beginning to end.

Catherine, who had never read his work, instantly became a fan.

Before he started taking questions, David said, “There’s someone very special in the audience today…”

I craned my neck, wondering who was seated among us… Maybe one of his sisters? Then he said my name. Catherine and I stared at each other, mouths open, our eyes wide in disbelief, as David told that full theater of people about me—how I’m from the Philippines, how we met on the street, and how he invited me to New Jersey.

I waved limply, shyly to the crowd, again feeling like I was in a dream.

He mentioned me again minutes later, when someone asked him about encounters with fans.

Book signing

When the program was over, we joined the line for the book signing. I stared at the stacks of books available for sale, tempted to buy copies of titles I already own so he could sign them all. But he had already done so much for me. And my baggage allowance couldn’t handle all those extra books.

As the line moved, I kept watching the clock. There was one last train leaving from Morristown and I was a little worried we’d miss it. We couldn’t—Catherine had to catch her flight back to California in just a few hours.

She went off in search of sustenance while I waited in line. I watched David talk to people as he personalized their books—at one point giving a gift to a little girl who had come with her parents. In between signing and talking, he took bites of his dinner. Soon, there were only two people ahead of me.

“I’m getting to Pam!” David said, spotting me. 

I grinned at him. 

As the woman in front of me walked the few steps to the signing table, he said, “Did you know you were standing in front of Pam?”

She smiled at me. They talked, he signed her books, and then it was my turn.

“How were your seats?” David asked.

“Great!” I said. “Thank you so much, this has been wonderful.”

We chatted as he signed my books—about our train ride, about the show, about my newfound obsession with pigeons.

I handed him a gift bag—it was covered in pigeons. “I wish I could have brought you something from the Philippines but I didn’t know I was going to see you.”

Instead, I gave him a miniature Magic 8 Ball I had won at a cruise ship arcade.

Cookies

“Did you eat dinner?” David asked. When I said no, he offered me cookies. “Take one for Catherine, too.”

And when he found out we had 20 minutes left to catch the last train, he asked, “Oh gosh. Will you be okay?”

“Yes,” I assured him, thanking him again. Knowing there was still a long line of people waiting for their moment with him, I said my goodbyes. 

“I’m so glad you could make it. It’s so nice to meet you. I’m glad this worked out,” David said.

I floated out of the Mayo Performing Arts Center, buoyed by the kindness and generosity of my favorite writer. It was freezing that night but I felt so warm.

Outside, I handed Catherine her cookie and the copy of The Best of Me that I had asked David to sign for her. She flipped it open and laughed when she saw what he had written: “Back on the train, you.”

Oh sh*t, the train!

Memorable encounter

Don’t worry, we made it—with seven minutes to spare. Safe in my seat, I opened my own signed books. “We met on the street!” he had written in one. In the other, “To Pam, a lady journalist and a swell person.”

As we rolled back to New York, I thought about my friend Kimi who also had a memorable encounter with David Sedaris some years back. 

She had traveled to Poughkeepsie to go to his signing and she didn’t just meet him—she rode back to Manhattan with him in his car.

I reminded him of that moment and he said matter-of-factly, “Oh yeah, she didn’t have a ride so I offered her one.”

That struck me: the ease in the way he said it, how naturally kindness seemed to come to him. There’s something magical about discovering that someone you admire is as great a person as he is a writer—and to get to experience it firsthand is such a privilege.

I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes, grateful that, in this messy world, David Sedaris exists.