MY AUGUSTENIA

I’m a literary late bloomer, perpetually behind the curve. I know this. It is part of who I am, just like a temper and freckles.

I read The DaVinci Code a full six months after almost everyone else I know had, and then only because it was relevant to my “beat.” I arrived late to the game on Eugenides, Joyce, Wolfe, Foer and a whole host of other authors, some of whom I’ve had the mortified pleasure of meeting and faking conversations with. I read the lovely and gracious Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire on the flight from New York to San Diego to interview her for my own book while simultaneously listening to her Blood Canticle on CD. I still haven’t read Christ the Lord.

So it’s not exactly a shock to anyone who knows me well that I’ve only recently discovered and become entirely obsessed with Augusten Burroughs. And no, it wasn’t because I’d seen the movie. I haven’t. And I won’t because Running With Scissors (the book) is magical and because I’m still traumatized from watching “Cider House Rules.” (Why John, why?)

In the last month, I’ve wrapped myself in Burroughs’ work and world, hiding underneath it as if it were a soft, down duvet in front of a perfect fire on a cold February night. He’s marvelous. I won’t hear a word of anything to the contrary. And no, I don’t care if it’s fiction or non-fiction, true or “true” or “made up” or “exaggerated.” It’s wonderful.

And now, I’m almost done with his published works and am starting to worry what I’ll do when there’s nothing Augustenian left to read. He’s like Harry Potter for the neurotic adult set. (And I’m equally obsessed with Harry Potter — whose tales I started reading after, ya know, the third book was published — so I know whence I speak.) I love him.

Anyway, I’m about half-way through Burroughs’ Magical Thinking: True Stories, and I just read something that made me stop, back up, read it again several times, then aloud, then contemplate designing a T-shirt at CafePress.com and then blog about it instead.

In the chapter titled, “Beating Raoul,” Burroughs writes:

“I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.”

YESSSSSSSSSSSS.

Oh, my Augustenia, how wise and wondrous is your wordsmithery.
I myself am a coffee-stained moth-eaten patchwork quilt of flaws and good intentions, with cat hair stuck to the front in a large spot where a cat named Mousie sleeps.

Bless you.