David Sedaris is a national treasure. Over the past few years, I’ve grown fond of his writing. I like that he chronicles the day-to-day, the normal stuff. Sometimes I like to follow along his stories comparing them with my own life.

Most recently, it was a particular dynamic and scene that caught my attention. Sedaris was in Hawaii in his essay titled, “Why aren’t you laughing?” His partner, Hugh, was checking his manuscript for typos. Aha! This was my life, or something close. We aren’t in Hawaii, yet, but as I finished my first book, Embrace That Girl, Jaime could be found reading my manuscript. I could be found asking him why he was (or wasn’t) laughing. I needed to know which line did it and which fell on deaf ears. Was it a coincidence or an intentional zinger? Was it good, or total crap?

Eventually, Jaime learned to acclimate to my need for acknowledgement, so he began to make notes of what he liked, as well the edits my story needed. So, I had the typos he caught, the corrected catch phrases I never get right, and then smiley faces and notes of praise with multiple exclamation points (if it was really good, and sometimes, it was).

Pickles come in jars not cans, his notes began. I love this line!!! 🙂 Also, the expression is food for thought, not fruit for thought… how don’t you know this?

Jaime is a talented editor, in fact, he had such a significant role editing my book, I formally gave him credit for it. He was surprised, which shocked me. He read Embrace That Girl multiple times, cleaned it up and knew it better than anyone, except me. At one point, he became so close to it, he didn’t stop at copy editing and gave me bigger notes for the story and characters.

“It would really help move things along if you add this,” he said. Or, “That’s not how it really happened. Try this instead,” if it was a chapter that included him. Sometimes I took his advice. He’s a solid editor. Other times, I kept it as is. We make a good team.

What I love about David Sedaris reads are the anecdotes about his relationship and family. Luckily, like him, my family is okay with being the subject of my stories. They remind me of his family a lot, actually. My family, too, has always laughed more than other families. In fact, my mother recounted many a time she was telling a story to her coworkers as they lost their minds, laughing so hard they cried sometimes. “You could write a sitcom with your family stories,” many of them would tell her. She would relay the message to us, which made me proud.

Laughter, I just found out recently, is my second most important value to live by. How do I know this? Jaime and I are taking a coaching course with our good friends. This week, we were tasked to choose 10 values that stood out to us from a list of 150 words. We only had about 10 minutes, but I managed to do it. It was interesting going through the list and picking the ones that resonated. I have a tendency to be an aspirational chooser in life, always electing where I want to be rather than where I am, but I chose honesty this time. I learned something in the selection process. For all the worry I’ve ever had about money, earning it was not a top-10 value for me. Go figure.

Although we chose our values, we would not be ranking them ourselves. Our trainers designed a better way for the truth to come out. We answered a series of questions, all along the lines of: “You have a chance to feed every hungry child in the world. The personal cost to you is one value, put that one in the pile.”

My eyes shot up violently. Are you joking? No, they said flatly. So one by one, I gave up something important to me to save a bunch of kids, and eventually the planet. They were hard questions if taken seriously (and I did take them seriously). Laughter made it all the way to my second spot. It surpassed spirituality and well-being.

Being funny as a child was never on my radar, but as I became an adolescent, I discovered my aptitude for storytelling and humor. People would laugh as I recounted an experience, and so I began to get into it, often recognizing a really good one just seconds after it passed and holding onto it so I could tell someone. Making someone laugh became a small goal of mine throughout conversations and I would light up if it happened. Or that’s how I imagined it, I must have been beaming from the butterflies I felt in my stomach.

Eventually, when I discovered I was a writer, it made its way here, onto my page. Not intentionally though. At first I wasn’t a funny writer at all. I was so serious. And then, once I relaxed, and simply told what I knew, the humor made its way in. It informed my characters and situations just as it does when I tell stories to my friends.

“You’re a very funny writer,” my editor said. “I like the way you put a situation on its head. Actually, you remind me of David Sedaris.”

If I thought I had been beaming when someone laughed at my joke, I was wrong. This compliment and comparison made me glow. Me, a mere mortal, being compared to David Sedaris? Get the fuck out.

And so, I became an even bigger fan. I guess that makes me vain? I don’t care. Each time I read an essay by Sedaris, I look for the similarities. And you know what? I love that he’s honest. Yes, he crafts a line like no one else can, it is an enviable skill. And yet I believe his greatest talent is his courage to be truthful. His writing is real, and it pushes me in my own writing to go one step further and reveal a truth, to be vulnerable… that’s where all the juice is. It’s in our ability to be seen.