Oh Katie what a wonderful story! Thank you for sharing it. I too am a devotee of Mr. Sedaris and listen to Santaland Diaries every year. My friends and I know most of it by heart now. He is close to me in age and I feel like we grew up together in a way. His thoughts in Calypso on aging and family really resonated with me.
I'm so pleased for you that you got to meet him!

Well, I did actually sit next to Grace Jones in an airport waiting lounge in Miami about 25 years ago.....but she was so intimidating that I didn't dare utter a peep. And then there was the time I ran into Ken Burns on a beach in Grand Cayman and was so overwhelmed that I stood there slack-jawed and mute for a good five minutes. The only time that I acquitted myself more or less gracefully around a celebrity was the time I was running, very early in the morning, on Pike Place, turned right on Pine and slammed right into Henry Winkler, who was coming the other way around the same corner. He was very nice about it, but if literally running into a celebrity and apologizing is the best I can do....

@3 Wow...Grace Jones!!!

I wish I had that story to recall...

Katie - clearly you are channeling David Sedaris with this missive; very personal and revealing and funny and clever and awkward (in a nice way). I hope someone (your girlfriend?) will make sure he sees it.

Well, at least Ms Herzog's second meeting with Mr Sedaris went better than Heather Badcock's second meeting with Marina Gregg in The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side.

Perhaps Herzog he might have recognized you (stalking him!) and in terror asked Hugh to FLEE and Hugh drives like James fucking Bond, of course, and they barely miss the elk herd milling about near Sequim. but they finally Escape, to parts unknown.

I'm guessing Forks.
For the weather.

Love his work, Santaland Diaries is a treasure (David belongs in the Smithsonian)!

And then next time you're in post-Brexit Jolly ol', just out, picking up the trash and when David (where'd HE come from?!) goes to grab a nice piece of trash, your SO blocks him with her picker and says "Not so fast, little man," and plucks it into HER bag, and you instantly appear and make all things perfecty again and she hits it off with Hugh and you guys start a Gang. Or a Movement.

It could happen.

Oh Katie, this was almost as good as finding a new David Sedaris essay! I am a huge fan too and would have reacted exactly the same way. I read your piece aloud to my husband and we chuckled all the way through. What a great gift you gave him...I'm jealous that you got a thank you card. You're damn right it would hang in my house too!
Thank you for sharing...you are a great writer too!

My favorite David Sedaris and Dan Savage story is that Dan, while at a book signing, apparently autographed some copies of David Sedaris' "Naked" with the inscription, "I am not David Sedaris, but I have the same initials. Dan Savage."

Why is the Stranger publishing this self-obsessed girl-crush drivel?

@10: Probably just so they could imagine how you looked like you swallowed a penny when you typed that.

This is creepy, and sounds like stalking/obsession.