Sorry

Definitely buy lots of copies of the delightful Dave Bry’s Public Apology: In Which a Man Grapples With a Lifetime of Regret, One Incident at a Time [and then ruthlessly profits from it in book form] (via Amazon | Indiebound). All earlier Public Apologies can be found here, plus there’s now a Tumblr for people to post their own public apologies.

Dave was kind enough to answer a few questions about his lifetime of regret over email.

Dave, why should people buy your book?

Dave Bry: People should buy Public Apology because it will be enjoyable for them to read. Also maybe something different than “enjoyable” at some parts. But hopefully, overall, enjoyable. Also people should buy Public Apology so that it makes enough money so that the Grand Central Publishing company might be inclined to publish another book that I write.

What’s the last apology you made in person? (That you can tell me about?)

I apologized to my wife yesterday for saying in an interview with the Associated Press that “I do more parenting, hours-wise, than my wife.” I did say it. And it is technically true. (I guess. Jesus. And now I will have to apologize for repeating it here.) But I certainly didn’t mean to imply that there was an imbalance in our allotment of domestic duties. Or that I was unhappy with the situation. Or to criticize her parenting in any way (!). But I realize that that’s the sort of thing that looks bad in print. It looked bad to me in print. So when I saw it I told her to brace herself, and I read it to her and apologized when she shrieked.

I was being pressed. I think the interviewer had some sort of agenda. (I’m just kidding, she was nice.) It was a set up. I was set up. Like Marion Barry. Exactly like that.

Have any of the people you’ve publicly apologized to in Awl columns ever come out of the woodwork to get in touch?

A couple of people I have apologized to have come out of the woodwork and gotten in touch with me, yes. No one has gotten mad. Well, actually, that’s not true. Someone did get mad. It was a person who has a job that makes it not so cool that he or she was in an apology that included reference to people smoking pot. (That’s apparently still illegal in some states?) I don’t mean to be flip. I felt really bad when I heard this person was uncomfortable. That’s the last thing I would have wanted to happen. This person is a great person in every way. And so I have changed his or her name in the book. I do think it’s stupid that smoking pot is illegal, and that people should need to keep the fact that they’d ever smoked pot a secret from the people they work with. But I don’t get to decide how the world is.

Did you do anything you want to apologize for today?

Yes, I do things I want to apologize for pretty much every day, I think. I feel ambivalent about a lot of things I do. And I still do them because, you know, you make a decision about worth-it-ness or something. But a part of me is always thinking about what’s wrong with this thing that I’m doing. And that goes for other people, too. I’m judgmental. But I usually don’t say the stuff I’m judging other people for. Because that’s rude. So I’ll point out a thing that I’m doing that I think is not so great, and it might be a thing that other people do, too. So maybe people will GET THE HINT. (This is true. But only a little bit. I don’t usually think all of this out as I’m doing or feeling things.)

Like, today I would want to apologize for all the self-promotion I’m doing around the book coming out. It’s distasteful to me. I think its unattractive when people toot their own horns, and here I am doing a lot of just that today. On the other hand, I realize that this is how it works. The world we live in rewards horn-tooting. I do want people to buy the book. I didn’t write it so it would sit on a shelf. So I have to — or, I choose to — send out a Tweet with a link to its Amazon page every 10 minutes. Not really, but thats the way it feels. It feels like I’m all like BUY MY BOOK BUY MY BOOK, NO ONE TALK ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE TODAY!!! It feels gross.

Thanks, Edith.

I really appreciate you helping me hate myself.

Anytime, DB. Everyone should go buy one to three copies of Public Apology today!