Editor’s note: The views expressed in I Am So Popular are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the outlook or beliefs of anyone else in the IST network.

Back in the old days, when I still drank, I’d finish up a bartending shift on 6th Street, by which I mean throw back a few cocktails. Then I’d float, heavily buzzed, on down to the 311 Club to see CJ. The 311 was not really “my” kind of place. Except for CJ, a bartender so amazingly skilled I would go just to watch him. Okay, well that and get a little drunker.

The thing about CJ was that he could make any customer—big, small, young, old, stupid, suave—feel like his one true love in the few moments it took him to mix a drink, run a charge card, and wink like he meant it. Maybe it was an act, all this showmanship, but I had the feeling that CJ genuinely liked people and wasn’t just shaking it for tips.

I hadn’t thought about CJ for maybe a dozen years until last week, when, for the second time in my life, I was blessed with getting to see and hear David Sedaris read at BookPeople. Before I tell you about that though, a brief recap of the first time, which was in 2004.

Back then, I stumbled upon the fact that, the very next night, DS was going to be in town. I told my friends at BookPeople—and I know a lot of the folks who work there—that though I loved Sedaris’s writing, I thought he might come across as whiny or otherwise not so pleasant in person. I’d been through that with other writers. I didn’t want to be disappointed.

The BookPeople people informed me that I would be a total idiot to miss the reading. This kicked my FMS (‘Fraid of Missin’ Somethin’ syndrome) into high gear. Which is how it came to pass that I was, in fact, the first person to show up for that reading. I got there many hours in advance, brought a bag of cherries and a knitting project, and waited for them to set up chairs. When they did, my ass was in the front row, and I saved seats for my kid and his friends, too. The place was absolutely packed, upstairs and down, and for the poor folks downstairs they set up speakers.

Let me resort to the overstated here and say we were not disappointed. Not one bit. DS showed up early to sign books pre-reading, then he read until we collectively peed our pants about seven hundred times, then he did a signing which he began by inviting smokers to come to the front of the line.

This time around, anticipating an even bigger crowd, the BookPeople staff resorted to the old buy-a-voucher routine. They sold five hundred of these, and you needed one (or a press pass) to gain access to the second floor. No chairs would be set up.

Though I knew I could sashay in right at 7 thanks to my press pass, I wanted to check out the crowd lined up to get in, so I arrived a little after 4. It was, according to KUT, 96 degrees out. Thanks to the bushes around the parking lot, I initially thought that not so many people had yet congregated. Then I started to walk along the line, which actually snaked from the front of the store near the intersection of 6th and Lamar all the way up to 9th Street. I was counting, and got to around 250, when the line started moving. Not forward, but out into the street, where Happy Mercado, the clever marketing guy for Sweet Leaf Tea, and his partner in crime Jeff Dobecka, had pulled up with a truck full of free, so-cold-they-were-sweating bottles of tea for the masses. Up at the front, I chatted with the first and second fans in line, who’d arrived around 11 a.m. Melanie Letendre and Leslie Rush came independently of one another, but spending six hours together in the heat turned them into BFF. Melanie was especially cheerful, noting that she’d left her two year-old at home and so standing in line was actually akin to a vacation.

The staff of BookPeople—did I mention how kickass they are?—had just about everyone ushered in by 5:30. Because I was waiting for my young, hot boyfriend, Warren to arrive, and because I felt I should do a little penance since I didn’t really have to wait in line, and because I knew I had a spot reserved, I opted to stay outside in the heat a little longer.

BP CEO wandered out and even he seemed a little surprised at how smoothly crowd control went. Not that Sedaris draws much of an angry, drunk biker crowd ready to fall to fisticuffs or anything. But this group was so high with anticipation they just floated in. Also, because less than 500 people gobbled up 500 vouchers, there actually was a teeny bit of breathing room and some stragglers could get in at the last minute.

Upstairs, on the second floor, after reminding us numerous times that we’d get our asses seriously kicked if we took any photos of the photo-phobic DS, we were granted the first of countless climaxes. The man himself descended from the third floor, a little apologetic even, announcing, “I would’ve been here sooner,” before explaining his delay. Then he set to the task of signing for an hour before reading.

Now, when David Sedaris signs a book, he signs a book. He chats up his readers, asks them questions, and extracts answers, which, we found out, he sometimes uses for anecdotes at future readings. I didn’t seen one cranky person in the place, unless you count the twenty-something sense-of-entitlement kid who weaseled his way into the media area (My Area!) and stood—STOOD—directly in front of me with a smarmy look on his face. (I forgave him. Sort of. I mean, there was too much happiness in the place for even me to hold a grudge.)

DS left for a few moments, retreating back upstairs, then re-descended to yet another thunderous round of applause and again opened gently. “Thank you so much for coming. It means the world to me.”

So here’s this rock star of the literary world who could demand no green M&M’s and no yellow M&M’s. He could insist we stick our thumbs up our asses and recite Atlas Shrugged in Polish and we would find a way. But, instead, he was Mr. Humble.

And this is where I get back to CJ. It is possible, I suppose, that DS has developed this awe-shucks public persona, behind which he seethes with hatred for each and every one of us. But monkeys would have to fly out of my ass and waterboard me for some days to get me to believe that. I mean, you can’t fake that kind of nice. And my Huggy Bears at BP tell me the same thing over and over (I paraphrase): Some authors are total assholes. Sedaris is beloved by every staff member in the place.

He read from his new book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, a piece called Of Mice and Men which, totally Sedaris of him, starts out so absurdly funny and then winds up with a lesson learned but no moral shoved down our throats. He read from his diary. He read a piece he’d never read before about ants that milk aphids’ asses. I wrote repeatedly in my notebook, like a schoolgirl, He’s so cute! He’s so cute!

During Q&A, someone asked him a question I guess he hears a lot. How does his family feel about him writing about them? And he made the great point that we think we know his family better than we do, illustrating this point by pointing out that, sure, we might know one of his sisters has a crippled tortoise, but we don’t know who she sleeps with.

And this is key to the success of Sedaris. Warren and I, in the days following the reading, spent big luxurious chunks of time lying in bed listening to the audio version of Engulfed. As we had at the reading, we nudged each other when a part made us think of our own lives. Let’s see—gay man living in France and England with a long-term partner, and he spends a lot of time in long weird conversations with drivers and traveling the world reading his work to the screaming masses. And we have what in common with him?

But as he reads and writes, as you take it in, there are moments when you feel like you have everything in common with him. Okay, maybe not the setting, maybe you’ll never live in Normandy or Paris or London. Well, and okay, maybe you’ll never befriend a mutilated child molester neighbor with a plate in his head. But the feelings he both expresses and evokes—now these dovetail perfectly.

We might not really know David Sedaris. But like CJ, those brief moments we are with him, there is no way to think anything but this: David loves me!

Spike Gillespie is not as popular as David Sedaris but she’s perfectly okay with that. She blogs regularly for LaunchPad Coworking and at www.spikeg.com. She is also head mistress for the Dick Monologues. The July 2nd is sold out, but email her today at spike@spikeg.com to reserve seats for the August show.