The Affairs of a Sarcastic Bag Lady

I have recently been reading tons of sarcastic, hilarious, remarkably insightful pieces of modern literature. It amazes me that there are folks out there with such a talent that they can choose the exact right word for the exact right effect in their writing. I do not have that skill and am constantly throwing myself into the thesaurus to see if a different word "feels" right (this, in my brain, is what separates the amateurs(me) from the professionals (not me and damn!)). Anyway, I am shamelessly flirting with two writers right now, even in front of poor, patient Rich. This is sad to the point that I actually physically hug and kiss the books in public. People have pulled their children away from me in airports, coffee houses, doctor's offices (name any venue; I take my books with me wherever I go) etc. as I tend to sob, turn the page and laugh out loud, then close the book and kiss the cover. Yeah. Pretty silly and really me. If only I lived with cats to make that pathetic image of me as the crazy bag lady perfect........ Oh.

Right. So, I am having emotional affairs with two authors, one ironically introduced to me by Rich (and MPR). The first is David Sedaris who moulds the most common, and sometimes saddest circumstances into brilliant moments of laughter. He takes a "well, this is life, and sometimes it's shitty so we may as well laugh at ourselves" approach to existence which is how I actively try to experience mine. The other is a poet named Jeffrey McDaniel, introduced to me by the LitMaggers. The images he creates are often metaphysical conceits. In other words, he uses unexpected, interesting metaphors to create unique and sometimes unusual images that make complete sense. Maybe they'll be tomorrow's cliches. Sometimes I'm so comfortable with the comparisons that I can't believe no one else thought of them.
Anyway, I've linked them both (dirty). Enjoy and try to control yourselves!