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Writer David Sedaris is ready to face middle age, if only he could find the perfect outfit
作家大卫·塞达里斯已经准备好面对中年了，前提是能找到合适的衣服
By Eliana Dockterman
文/伊莲娜·达克特曼
DAVID SEDARIS IS ON THE HUNT FOR A SPECIFIC type of shirt.
大卫·塞达里斯在找一种特别的衬衫。
“I’m old now and can’t wear anything too thin,” he explains to a store clerk.
“我现在老了，穿不了太薄的衣服了，”他对店员解释道。
“It accentuates my man-breasts.”
“不然我的胸部会显得很尴尬。”
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.
塞达里斯带我去了45R，这是他最初在东京发现的一家日本时装店，后来发现纽约美世街就有一家分店。
The front of the store smells like soothing incense,
在店外就能闻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.
店内靠里的位置却放着一尊雕像，那是一个赤裸的小孩，小孩一手拿着一块水果，一手欢腾地在空中挥舞着。
It’s just the kind of playfully bizarre decoration that Sedaris loves.
塞达里斯偏偏就喜欢这种充满趣味又颇为奇异的装饰。
“Is your father still alive?” Sedaris asks the young clerk.
“令尊还健在吗？”塞达里斯向年轻的店员问道。
Yes, the clerk says. He just turned 58.
是的，店员说。他刚满58岁。
“So he has breasts, doesn’t he?” asks the writer.
“所以他也有胸的对吧？”这位作家又问。
The clerk nods and laughs.
店员笑着点了点头。
When Sedaris, 61, shares intimate details of his life,
通过分享自己私密的生活细节，
he forges a bond with millions of readers and audience members, including now this clerk who busies himself finding a flattering shirt.
已经61岁的塞达里斯同数以百万计的读者和观众，包括这位正忙着帮他找一件讨巧的衬衫的店员，有了特殊的纽带。
In his early essay collections, Sedaris wrote about the homophobic speech therapy he was forced to endure as a child,
在早期的随笔集中，他就写到了自己小时候被迫接受的恐同语言治疗，
his experimentation with drugs and his stint working as a Santaland elf at Macy’s.
他做过的毒品实验以及在梅西百货兼职，扮演圣诞精灵的时光。
He recorded his unusual obsessions with taxidermied owls and foreign swearwords.
他还记录了自己超乎寻常地痴迷于标本猫头鹰和外国脏话一事。
He always carries a notebook with him, and scribbles down observations that he later crafts into humorous stories.
他总是随身携带笔记本，把观察到的东西先草草地写下来，之后再把它们变成幽默的故事。
(He even tests out the notebook in various shirt pockets during our shopping trip to make sure it will fit.)
(就连我们购物时，他都要拿出笔记本反复测试那些衬衫口袋能否装下他的笔记本。)
Sedaris has mined his past for eight memoirs’ worth of material,
他的过去足够他挖掘出写八本回忆录所需的材料，
including a collection of old diary entries published last year under the title Theft by Finding.
其中，有一些旧时的日记条目已经在去年整理成册，以“拾遗不报”为名付梓出版。
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》的立足点变成了现在和未来。
“Though there’s an industry built on telling you otherwise, there are few real joys to middle age,” the book begins.
该作一开篇就写道，“尽管告诉你中年没有乐趣可言的书数不胜数，但事实并非如此。”
He has found some perks: he spent his 20s broke but now lives in the English countryside with his boyfriend Hugh,
他发现了一些中年的好处：20多岁时他还身无分文，但现在和男友休住在英国乡下
in a house with a guest room, the kind Sedaris fantasized about as a younger man.
一栋带有客房的房子，还是他年轻时幻想拥有的那种客房。
The couple also recently purchased a cottage by the seaside in North Carolina and named it the Sea Section.
二人最近又在北卡罗来纳州购置了一间海滨小屋，取名“海区”。
Much of Calypso takes place in this new beach home.
《卡利普索》讲述的大部分故事都发生在这里。
There, he and his siblings clash with their father over politics,
在那里，他和兄弟姐妹因政治问题与父亲发生了冲突，
and at one point Sedaris feeds a benign tumor he had removed from his body to a sea turtle—just because.
有一次，塞达里斯还把从自己身上取下的良性肿瘤喂给了一只海龟——仅仅因为他能。
But there are many downsides to growing old.
不过，变老也有很多坏处。
Sedaris’ body is slowly deteriorating, which perhaps has led to his fanatical obsession with his Fitbit.
赛达里斯的身体已经开始走下坡路，或许，这就是他疯狂痴迷于他的Fitbit健身手环的原因。
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.
当天，我和他是临近中午时分会的面，那时他就已经走完近9000步了，他的每日推荐步数才1万步。
“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.”
“我要是一个懒人的话，我会再走1000步，然后说任务完成了，”他说。“但我不是。”
His record is 91,000 steps in one day.
他的记录是一天走9.1万步。
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.
住在英国时，他完成任务的方式是在家附近一转就是几个小时，一边走一边捡路边的垃圾。
Sedaris is the first to admit that he easily becomes consumed by routines.
赛达里斯也是第一个承认自己容易墨守成规的人。
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.
在芝加哥上学时，他就经常每天同一时间到同一家IHOP的同一个桌位喝同样的咖啡。
Now he has channeled his self-described obsessive-compulsive disorder into a green, if dangerous, project:
现在，他将被他自己称之为强迫症的习惯变成了一个环保，虽然也有些危险的项目：
as we walk alongside busy Houston Street, Sedaris spots a trash bag filled with Styrofoam tumbling into the road.
我们沿着熙熙攘攘的休斯敦大街散步时，赛达里斯发现一个装满泡沫塑料的垃圾袋飘到了马路上。
He runs into oncoming traffic to grab it.
为了去捡那袋垃圾，他想也没想就冲进了迎面而来的车流里。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
