"A bowtie annouces to the world that you can no longer get an erection," says a friend of Sedaris'. Photo: PJ McNally/Wiki
I’ll have to admit, it took me a moment to try and remember exactly what this essay was about. All I got was a picture of a bowtie in my head. Must have been late at night.
When I did go back through the story, I remembered the funnier parts about it were a ‘buttock enhancement device’ that Sedaris winds up wearing for a year (really?!). And then, consequentially how he ends up giving it away.
Lots of great notes about how he thinks his calves are the best looking part of him and some notes about glasses and fashion style. “In 1976 my glasses were so big I could clean the lenses with a squeegee” seems to sum it all up.
Perhaps at this point the essay, I was thinking more about how hard it is to hold the hardcover in bed. Especially after my mother christened it with a glass of water. Now the pages are rebellious sheet music. They don’t lay flat and every one wants to be an individual. I know the book is called When You Are Engulfed in Flames with a really cool drawing of a skeleton smoking a cigarette on the cover. Was this just too much subliminal information for my mother to deal with?
I am renaming my book, that now I cannot sell to the secondhand store, When You Are Drowning in Water.
My name is Britty and I'm chief bottle-washer at this site. I'm a book-lover, student and freelance writer when I'm not being a mom of three and wife of one.
