Theft by Finding - David Sedaris

critique, I have to come up with some sort of justification for this painting. Ted, the teacher, is one
tough customer and will chew me up and spit me back out again if I’m not on top of things.
October 26, 1985
Chicago
In the park I bought dope. There was a bench nearby, so I sat down for a while and took in the
perfect fall day. Then I came home and carved the word failure into a pumpkin.
October 28, 1985
Chicago
Critiques get depressing when you realize that everyone’s just waiting for his or her own turn. It’s
a monologue as opposed to a dialogue. “All of a sudden I realized that you don’t ‘arrive’ at Milton
Avery, you pass through him,” a landscape painter said today. This was after she’d pulled herself
together. Before this, she’d cried. “I don’t want to talk about it, I just want to do it.”
One guy, Will, shook his painting up and down, insisting that it was not a painting of a beer can but
an actual beer can. The longer I’m in school, the more exhausting these critiques become. I went
overboard, I think, but it wasn’t until later, getting high at home, that I realized how embarrassed I
should be. After presenting what I called “my line of products,” I read out loud something I’d written
about the IHOP. Ted said that my paintings are basically signs. “We do not enter their space, they
enter ours.” That seems about right.
December 5, 1985
Chicago
I ran up the stairs to the L platform this afternoon and reached it just as the train I wanted closed its
doors and took off.
“Sorry, but it just left,” said a guy who stood not far away, leaning against the railing. “You just
missed it.”
I nodded, huffing for breath.
“So, can you help me out?” the guy asked.
“Excuse me?”
“I did you a favor, now you do one for me,” he said.
“What favor did you do?” I asked.
“Told you about the train,” he said.
That’s like me telling someone who’s standing in the rain that it’s raining. I mean, what kind of a
favor is that? I told the guy to leave me alone. Then I sat on the bench, and he stood over me, cursing,
until the next train arrived.