In further trying to “expand my horizons” and cross an item off my bucket list, I signed up for improv classes at The Second City. Reading Tina Fey’s Bossypants really inspired me to get outside of my comfort zone (Oprah is like my religion and Tina Fey is my spirit animal) and push me into getting into an environment that’s all about thinking on my feet. Improv is a great way for funny and unfunny people to hone their skills for both life and the workplace, at least that is what Bossypants indicated.

So far, I’m two lessons in and I will try to blog in a series my experience as a newbie in improv.

The Daily Show’s Samantha Bee has a new book out, a kind memoir of her childhood memories of growing up in Toronto. I’ll be updating this post as soon as I’ve finished reading the book and have coherently written out my thoughts of it (so far, it’s been an entertaining read with many literal “laugh out loud” moments) but for now, I’ll post my meet and greet story as well as some pictures taken from her book signing in Toronto on June 10th.

So, first, what is The Secret?

I shall quote for you the summary from the book version of The Secret:

• It’s the Law of Attraction. Like attracts like — so when you think a thought, you are also attracting like thoughts to you.
• Thoughts have a frequency. When you think thoughts, they are sent out to the universe and they magnetically attract all like things that are on the same frequency.
• Everything sent out, returns to the source – YOU.
• If you want to change anything in your life, you need to change the frequency by changing your thoughts.
• Your current thoughts are creating your future life.
• What you think about the most or focus on the most will appear as your life.
• Your thoughts become things.

– Rhonda Byrne, The Secret

Well, what’s better to do on a Friday night than line up for hours outside a bookstore to meet your favourite author? And that is exactly what I, the big ol’ nerd that I am, did to meet David Sedaris.

I thought there would be a reading as well, and a David Sedaris reading is something not to be missed if you’ve ever listened to his audiobooks, but it turned out to just be a book signing. No matter, I thought, it was just exciting to finally meet someone whose work I admire so much and who inspires me to be a writer too. I had heard from a David Sedaris group on Facebook that meeting him, you should expect quirkiness and a conversation that can be out of left-field. It’s nothing like the autograph signings I’ve been to, which were by and large for musicians and such, where a typical conversation runs something like this:

Me: I am such a huge fan of yours! (Maybe insert some remark about something specific about their work that I like so much)
Them: Thanks so much!
*signs whatever it is I’ve just handed to them*
Me: Thanks for signing this. It was great meeting you.
Them: You’re welcome. Thanks for coming.

And that’s basically it. That isn’t the case when you meet David Sedaris, no sireee.

I attended the PostSecret event in Toronto last week, so far the lone Canadian date. Frank Warren, the website’s creator and “The Most Trusted Stranger in America”, gave a lengthy but engrossing talk on the origins of the project, the behind-the-scenes look into how it works, amongst other things, and showed a multimedia presentation. After everything, he signed books for people (yours truly included!). It was quite a turn out!

As a fan of the humorous memoirs genre (with such writers as, most notably, David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs), I honestly loved this book. In Dry, you’ll read about Augusten’s stint in rehab for his alcohol addiction and his subsequent “life after rehab”. The beginning starts off with how his life is, working at an advertising agency and being a drunk (sometimes suffering from a hangover at work, noticeable by his co-workers). Eventually, his boss tells him he should check into a rehab centre. He chooses a “gay friendly” rehab and there, he meets all sorts of interesting characters. One of which is a doctor who stole Valium from his patients and Paul, “the first pregnant man [Augusten] has ever seen”. He also meets a British guy named Hayden, who’s also an alcoholic and a crack addict on top of that, and the two soon become fast friends.