Books: October 2004 Archives
Anyone who knows anything about me knows I get totally hard for Augusten Burroughs, author of "Running With Scissors", "Dry", and his new memoir, "Magical Thinking". A good friend actually accosted him at a publishing convention last spring and got an autographed early copy of "Magical Thinking" for me along with a CD of him reading the book. It's on the shelf next to my bear porn and is interchangeable, for all intents and purposes. My questions to my friend about meeting Ausgusten were never about his writing or that nonsense but always about how he looked and acted. He is the embodiment of the word "humpy" and "snack" and while I'm not into breaking relationships up, I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish Augusten's partner, also humpy and snacky by the way, would go the way of the Dodo. I'm that shallow and jealous. Augusten just makes being mad crazy so fucking sexy. It's definitely his slant and it's working just fine for me.
Which is why, since I've known he was having a reading and signing in New York last night, I've been planning on attending. I didn't need the autograph and I know what he sounds like reading his stories, but I did want to go and just be that pathetic voyeur. I wanted to watch him and imagine I'm his best friend and I'm the one he calls to bitch and complain. I have room for some fun, humpy best friends like that. That's why I'm such a doofus to let something like my statistics class best me and keep me from going, preferring to continue my strive for excellence and finish my article analysis paper on profiling the distance learning MBA student. Bo-RING. I missed Augusten for a fucking paper? A paper about nothing? That's totally, totally wrong.
My only consolation is that in the real world, I'm deathly sure Augusten and I wouldn't mix. He's who he is and I who I am and in my mind's eye, those to worlds don't seem to intertwine. I have a much better sense of someday becoming good friends with Oprah than I do with Augusten, strange as that sounds. So I'm fine with using him as pornographic fodder and damp daydreams and will maybe catch him on his next tour for the next book. Who knows.
