Early Reviewers

Thirty-three essays about a man who noticed everything and fixed nothing.

He built a haunted house in the basement at ten and charged admission. Published a neighborhood newspaper with eleven subscribers at nine. Organized and won the Neighborhood Olympics at eleven — because someone had to win and he was also the commissioner.

By adulthood, the pattern was obvious to everyone except him: the kid who catalogued every room he walked into became the man who still can't stop. A steakhouse floor, a cookware booth, the Ritz-Carlton standards binder, a thirteen-year-old daughter who has already optimized most of his systems without asking permission.

In his thirties, he was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder — a very specific type of generalization, and he didn't appreciate being in the general category regarding anything.

A Perfectly Normal Childhood is the first book in the Still Noticing series. It's the evidence file. The pattern comes later. The verdict comes after that. The lesson never comes at all.

For fans of David Sedaris, Sloane Crosley, and anyone who has ever been right about something and had it help them exactly zero times socially.