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Writer David Sedaris is ready to face middle age, if only he could find the perfect outfit
作家大衛·塞達里斯已經準備好面對中年了，前提是能找到合適的衣服
By Eliana Dockterman
文/伊蓮娜·達克特曼
DAVID SEDARIS IS ON THE HUNT FOR A SPECIFIC type of shirt.
大衛·塞達里斯在找一種特別的襯衫。
“I’m old now and can’t wear anything too thin,” he explains to a store clerk.
“我現在老了，穿不了太薄的衣服了，”他對店員解釋道。
“It accentuates my man-breasts.”
“不然我的胸部會顯得很尷尬。”
Sedaris has led me to 45R, a Japanese boutique he first shopped at in Tokyo before discovering a stateside outpost here on Mercer Street in New York City.
塞達里斯帶我去了45R，這是他最初在東京發現的一家日本時裝店，后來發現紐約美世街就有一家分店。
The front of the store smells like soothing incense,
在店外就能聞到一股沁人心脾的焚香的香味，
but toward the back there’s a statue of a naked child clutching a piece of fruit in one hand while throwing the other hand victoriously into the air.
店內靠里的位置卻放著一尊雕像，那是一個赤裸的小孩，小孩一手拿著一塊水果，一手歡騰地在空中揮舞著。
It’s just the kind of playfully bizarre decoration that Sedaris loves.
塞達里斯偏偏就喜歡這種充滿趣味又頗為奇異的裝飾。
“Is your father still alive?” Sedaris asks the young clerk.
“令尊還健在嗎？”塞達里斯向年輕的店員問道。
Yes, the clerk says. He just turned 58.
是的，店員說。他剛滿58歲。
“So he has breasts, doesn’t he?” asks the writer.
“所以他也有胸的對吧？”這位作家又問。
The clerk nods and laughs.
店員笑著點了點頭。
When Sedaris, 61, shares intimate details of his life,
通過分享自己私密的生活細節，
he forges a bond with millions of readers and audience members, including now this clerk who busies himself finding a flattering shirt.
已經61歲的塞達里斯同數以百萬計的讀者和觀眾，包括這位正忙著幫他找一件討巧的襯衫的店員，有了特殊的紐帶。
In his early essay collections, Sedaris wrote about the homophobic speech therapy he was forced to endure as a child,
在早期的隨筆集中，他就寫到了自己小時候被迫接受的恐同語言治療，
his experimentation with drugs and his stint working as a Santaland elf at Macy’s.
他做過的毒品實驗以及在梅西百貨兼職，扮演圣誕精靈的時光。
He recorded his unusual obsessions with taxidermied owls and foreign swearwords.
他還記錄了自己超乎尋常地癡迷于標本貓頭鷹和外國臟話一事。
He always carries a notebook with him, and scribbles down observations that he later crafts into humorous stories.
他總是隨身攜帶筆記本，把觀察到的東西先草草地寫下來，之后再把它們變成幽默的故事。
(He even tests out the notebook in various shirt pockets during our shopping trip to make sure it will fit.)
(就連我們購物時，他都要拿出筆記本反復測試那些襯衫口袋能否裝下他的筆記本。)
Sedaris has mined his past for eight memoirs’ worth of material,
他的過去足夠他挖掘出寫八本回憶錄所需的材料，
including a collection of old diary entries published last year under the title Theft by Finding.
其中，有一些舊時的日記條目已經在去年整理成冊，以“拾遺不報”為名付梓出版。
But in his newest essay collection, Calypso, out now, he looks to the present and the future.
但他最新的文集《卡利普索》的立足點變成了現在和未來。
“Though there’s an industry built on telling you otherwise, there are few real joys to middle age,” the book begins.
該作一開篇就寫道，“盡管告訴你中年沒有樂趣可言的書數不勝數，但事實并非如此。”
He has found some perks: he spent his 20s broke but now lives in the English countryside with his boyfriend Hugh,
他發現了一些中年的好處：20多歲時他還身無分文，但現在和男友休住在英國鄉下
in a house with a guest room, the kind Sedaris fantasized about as a younger man.
一棟帶有客房的房子，還是他年輕時幻想擁有的那種客房。
The couple also recently purchased a cottage by the seaside in North Carolina and named it the Sea Section.
二人最近又在北卡羅來納州購置了一間海濱小屋，取名“海區”。
Much of Calypso takes place in this new beach home.
《卡利普索》講述的大部分故事都發生在這里。
There, he and his siblings clash with their father over politics,
在那里，他和兄弟姐妹因政治問題與父親發生了沖突，
and at one point Sedaris feeds a benign tumor he had removed from his body to a sea turtle—just because.
有一次，塞達里斯還把從自己身上取下的良性腫瘤喂給了一只海龜——僅僅因為他能。
But there are many downsides to growing old.
不過，變老也有很多壞處。
Sedaris’ body is slowly deteriorating, which perhaps has led to his fanatical obsession with his Fitbit.
賽達里斯的身體已經開始走下坡路，或許，這就是他瘋狂癡迷于他的Fitbit健身手環的原因。
When Sedaris and I meet in the late morning, he has already logged almost 9,000 of the recommended 10,000 steps for the day.
當天，我和他是臨近中午時分會的面，那時他就已經走完近9000步了，他的每日推薦步數才1萬步。
“If I were a lazy person, I would just walk another 1,000 steps and say I’m done,” he says. “But I’m not a lazy person.”
“我要是一個懶人的話，我會再走1000步，然后說任務完成了，”他說。“但我不是。”
His record is 91,000 steps in one day.
他的記錄是一天走9.1萬步。
At home in England, he meets his goals by wandering through his neighborhood for hours at a time, picking up litter on the side of the road as he goes.
住在英國時，他完成任務的方式是在家附近一轉就是幾個小時，一邊走一邊撿路邊的垃圾。
Sedaris is the first to admit that he easily becomes consumed by routines.
賽達里斯也是第一個承認自己容易墨守成規的人。
As a student in Chicago, he used to arrive at the same IHOP and sit in the same booth to drink the same cup of coffee at the exact same time every day.
在芝加哥上學時，他就經常每天同一時間到同一家IHOP的同一個桌位喝同樣的咖啡。
Now he has channeled his self-described obsessive-compulsive disorder into a green, if dangerous, project:
現在，他將被他自己稱之為強迫癥的習慣變成了一個環保，雖然也有些危險的項目：
as we walk alongside busy Houston Street, Sedaris spots a trash bag filled with Styrofoam tumbling into the road.
我們沿著熙熙攘攘的休斯敦大街散步時，賽達里斯發現一個裝滿泡沫塑料的垃圾袋飄到了馬路上。
He runs into oncoming traffic to grab it.
為了去撿那袋垃圾，他想也沒想就沖進了迎面而來的車流里。
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