David Sedaris in 2 days!

This Friday, David Sedaris will be reading at Zellerbach Hall at Cal Berkeley. I have been waiting for this day for a long time -- ever since I first heard him at UNCW. I have had these tickets since the first day they were available, and it feels like I've carried them with me in my Franklin Covey for 6 months. At first I did not believe it would be too difficult getting tickets, but little did I know. There are probably hundreds of people out there coveting their copy of Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, waiting for him to sign it, as with all over books, with some silly message or picture.

At his reading in Kenan Auditorium at UNCW in 2003, Sedaris had me laughing in the aisles (embarassingly, I might have needed a "stadium pal" if he'd kept it up longer than he did) with my stomachs knotted in laugh pains. By the end of the evening, hundreds of folks lined up waiting for a signature -- some sort of memento of the evening, perhaps connection to his world, his reality.

I too lugged my copy of Me Talk Pretty One Day to the stage, all the time thinking of some witty remark to prove that I wasn't just a tongue-tied klutz trying desperately to impress a humor writer with my poetry skills. Of course, nothing could have prepared me for the moment he asked for my name. Naturally you'll need my name to sign my book. Of course, thanks to my parents, I have the delightful opportunity of explaining to Sedaris how my parents named me not Sue, not Amy, not Stephanie, but H.

"Uh, no, it sounds like "wh" but it's not really, and you need the "ng" in there, too."

"Correct. That's N-G first, and then it ends with N-H. Right, it's hyphenated. Er, no, my parents didn't run out of names."

I will never forget the TO DO list that David Sedaris assigned me that day:

1. Get a nickname
2. Get married

I have done neither of those things. At the time, it was really funny that David Sedaris culled someting so clever out of the monotonous routine of spelling my name to strangers -- something he knew I'd done too many times before and will continue to do unless I heeded his advice.

For some folks, H. is too difficult to pronounce. A name too unfamiliar to spell. It takes too long to get through the initial introductions at meetings. At job interviews, it doesn't make a sharp, smart impression. This is a "challenge" that I can overcome by getting a nickname -- something quick and easy for others to use. I can ease their awkwardness with something short and funny like... HAT, for instance. It rolls off the tongue without any hiccups and there's no polysyllabic tongue-twisters to confuse folks. This is then one opportunity to ease others' pains -- in a way.

The second way, naturally, is to get married and acquire myself a different surname. And since my current surname isn't that difficult (being only 4 letters long), I'm assuming the married name should be something easy, not like MacIntyre or Klabbik or Ng. Naturally, being the woman, I would change my name to that of my husband's and obligingly assist the world with an easy to manage first and last name.

Looking back on that day, I was a bit naive, unschooled, unsuspecting. I didn't know how to retort to something so funny. But after considering this over for the past several years, isn't it interesting that it is my problem (small problem that it is) that folks can't figure out how to pronounce my name. I can't, and actually won't, blame this problem on my parents, either. It's not a cultural thing, or rather it is a cultural thing. It's about a culture of exposure, about the double-consciousness of being attuned to differences - linguistic or otherwise.

In these kinds of moments, it is easier to ease the awkwardness with a bit of laughter. It is equally easy to use humor to dismiss some larger issues undergirding these situations. I find it exceedingly interesting that both of Sedaris's suggestions -- getting a nickname, getting married -- involves the problem being resolved by me, but by me assimilating, conforming, accommodating.

Surely I am exaggerating this into extreme proportions, but I hope that there is some truth to all this senseless talk. It isn't just about names and naming. Oftentimes it is the un-named that deserves our attention.