The true story of Mr. Earfinger

Names have been changed to protect the innocent.




I walk to the upscale-ish restaurant/bar in my neighborhood, arrive exactly on time, belly up to the bar and order a well bourbon with a beer back. I'm wearing something cute but not risque; jeans, T-shirt, cowboy boots, leather jacket. It's a lovely evening, for winter. The door opens a few times and I keep turning to check. The third time, it's unmistakably the guy from the ad... 40 pounds heavier and a lot less attractive. I am tempted to bolt, but instead I smile and greet him politely with the requisite Portland half-hug (I greatly prefer a handshake, but everyone here seems to think hugging is the way to greet strangers).

He orders, pays for my drink, we go to the back and sit near a window. I am internally steeled for a polite hour of being pleasant and interesting. We chat.

He is actually not so bad to talk to. Quite nice, actually, fairly interesting. Kind of funny. He pre-emptively orders me another drink (a good reason to insist on going dutch on the first date) and I figure, oh, what the hell, I'm having a decent time. Shortly thereafter, though, the conversation starts to become decidedly less interesting and funny as he begins bloviating about the hospital he works in and how being in a hospital gown is the great equalizer of men blah blah blah. Then I register what it is he actually does, and where; he's an MRI tech in the same hospital my friend Surfer Boy works at. "Oh hey," I say, I don't suppose you know my friend Liam, do you? He's a film librarian there."

There's a pause, and he looks deliberately thoughtful in the way people only look thoughtful when they know immediately who you are referring to, but want you to think they don't.

"Liam? Hmmm. I don't know, there are a lot of people in my department... Liam... what's his last name?"

"Sandusky", I say, "Liam Sandusky".

More pretending not to remember. Then, a snap of the fingers; "Liam! Of course! He works my front desk sometimes when one of the ladies is out. Cocky little guy... really full of himself. He thinks he's the cock of the walk, doesn't he?"

Is this fucker really saying this about someone I just told him is my friend?

"Um. No, actually he's quite shy and self-effacing. He's a creative guy, writes poetry. He's really smart."

"Well he sure comes off like he thinks a lot of himself, the way he struts around flirting with the ladies."

I can see very clearly what the problem is. This bloated old fuck sees Liam's youth, his gentle quietness, his good looks, and the fact that women like him, and he's envious and threatened. Then he asks the obvious next question:

"So, how do you know Liam?"

"I met him online and dated him for a while, about a year ago."

"Oh... so, it just didn't go anywhere?"

"No, it went somewhere... he just realized he liked me too much to keep it casual, but isn't into kids, so we decided to just be friends."

Faux-sympathy. "Awww. That's too bad!"

"Not really."

Pause. Then he starts in on a story.

"You know the funniest thing? You know how Liam has those sideburns? Well, I used to have big mutton-chop sideburns, and it wasn't until I grew mine..."

"Oh, actually," I say sweetly, knowing exactly where this was going, "It's funny but I hounded him for MONTHS to grow those. He didn't want to but I was relentless."

Pause.

"I'll be right back," he says, "I need to use the restroom."

I sit in kind of mild disbelief at his rudeness for a couple of minutes, and then he returns... and oh FUCK, he's bought me another drink. FUCK FUCK FUCK. OK. I can live through one more. He sits down, sliding onto the bench next to me instead of the seat opposite.

"One more," he says, "I hope that's OK."

"Oh, sure... but this has to be my last one."

"You know, when I walked in I couldn't believe how cute you were. You're so... tiny. You're just really, really tiny and lovely. A tiny, tiny lovely creature."

WTF? What is this "tiny" shit? Is this supposed to be seductive?

"Um, thank you?"

"I really just couldn't believe it. It's like, you could fit in the cup of my hand. Is that perfume I smell?"

He leans in and sniffs, and then, suddenly, he is KISSING me. I fell for the oldest fucking trick in the book. We are in a restaurant, with people, and he is kissing me in public, in front of people, and I am contemplating how I am going to get away, and his hand is on the back of my neck, and then...

He puts his finger in my left ear.

Not like, a caressing fingertip. He sticks his dry index finger into my ear canal. I freeze, stunned like a deer in the headlights. Is this weird? I think. And then, the other finger inserts into my right ear. Fuck YES this is weird! Break contact! Break contact!

I don't really know if I jerk away, turn my head, slump into my seat, but blessedly, both lip and ear contact are broken.

"Ohhh, that was so lovely" he says with a little smug smile. "You know what? Those hipsters over there keep staring at us."

I turn to look, and sure enough, three young hipsters are looking right at us with combined expressions of amusement and disbelief.

"Wow, I really ought to head home! It was nice meeting you." I say, getting hastily to my feet and putting on my jacket.

"Hold on, I'll walk you to your car!"

"Oh, I didn't bring my car, I walked." OSHIT why did I say that? WHY?

"Well, you can't walk home alone in the dark! I'll drive you home!"

"NO um I actually really want to walk and it's my neighborhood and really very safe also I was um, planning on going to buy cigarettes first."

"I'll walk with you, then. I insist."

SHITFUCKDAMN.

I'm thinking, rolling over plans in my head. Can I go to the bathroom and call someone to rescue me? Or wait... maybe I'll just go to the mini-mart in the exact opposite direction of my house, so that he'll be tired out when we finally get back here, and he'll ditch. OK. Try that.

He settles up and we set off, me walking a bit faster than normal, him huffing and puffing to keep up. He tries to make small talk, but I don't really reply. At one point, though, he thinks we will hold hands, and his palm and fingers are eerily dry and scaly feeling, and warm like a lizard that's been basking in the sun. Repulsed, I pull away. Not one to take a hint, he tries again a couple of times, and I start walking faster. He's struggling to keep up, his great bulky body sweating and wheezing in what would otherwise be a lovely crisp night.

Three goddamn stores. The first two are closed, and I renew my suggestion that we go back to his car and I walk home alone but, inexplicably, he refuses to take a clue and follows me doggedly around my neighborhood until I finally score a pack of cigarettes at the Chevron five blocks from my house. Thankfully, by now his efforts at impressing me by talking have ended, because he doesn't have the stamina to walk and talk at the same time.

We get to my house. "Well, here I am" I say, extending my hand. "It was nice to meet you, have a good night!"

"Oh, it's been wonderful! Do you mind if I sit and catch my breath for a while?"

By now I'm past any pretense at being polite. "Uhhh fine" I say, and lead the way to the front porch, choosing to settle into the fortress-like rattan chair in the corner. This leaves him the bench, from which I am untouchable. I light a cigarette and offer him one. I know he doesn't smoke, but I was hoping that he would take it out of peer pressure and it would give him emphysema. He's shivering from the cold; he didn't bring a jacket.

"Would you mind terribly if I use your bathroom?"

Oho. He thinks he can get me inside. Think again, Earfinger.

"Sure, it's straight through the kitchen, to the right. Don't mind the dogs, they're harmless. Try not to scare my housemate."

It's an awkward moment, and I don't care. He goes inside, into dark and unfamiliar territory and barking dogs, and emerges a couple of minutes later. Unfortunately, he sits down again. I have to pee, but I am not going into my house until this behemoth potato on toothpicks departs.

I smoke. And smoke. I sit in my impenetrable rattan fortress for three or four cigarettes, and at last, after what feels like an hour, it finally seems to filter through his dense mass of cluelessness that he is absolutely not going to get anywhere with me, and that I will gladly keep him out on the porch until dawn.

"Well, I'd better go I guess. I had such a great time, it was so wonderful to meet you."

He stands up and I extend my hand from my fortress. "'Night" I say, and he pauses in one pathetic confused moment, then accepts my hand, says good night, and like a portly, oppressive cloud, blunders off into the night.

I still love him

like I loved him yesterday.

Many years ago

When Madonna released her "Sex" book, and my friends were saying, well, what could she do next to shock the world? I said, she could have babies, and settle down and be a really good mom. And they laughed.

Novelty.

Today I learned

Or re-learned

That I am very tired of being a novelty.


I feel self-conscious when I talk about this, or even think too much about it, because of the us vs. them dichotomy, but at the same time I have realized that it's healthy for me to recognize it because I need to protect myself from getting emotionally engaged with someone who will inevitably, ultimately, tire of me.

I am not holding freakishness up as a higher state of being, because it often comes with drawbacks, sometimes major ones. Being high-strung or struggling or just plain crazy are not really things to idealize, and frankly, being weird in ways that permeate your life is not usually something that makes you feel good all the time. It's hard on you, and hard on your loved ones. And you get down on yourself, especially after the hundredth time you really liked someone and thought you had a connection with them and then they tire of your amusing antics and find someone else to spend time with.


Straight guys or girls like my ex, who think they're edgy or alternative because they wear funny clothes and/or like the art/music scene and/or open relationships and/or dick meet me and think "oooh, eccentric girl! Look how funny she is, with her quirks and cones and lard and her thing about some obscure Greek goddess! This will make my life fun and exotic and cool." But they don't get that actually at the end of the day they want to go home to something comfortable and not be challenged by someone different and gradually they start to realize that it's 24/7 and not just a new kind of hipster, and I start to grate on them. 


Because I'm still awake making something that's not even serious in Photoshop, and I am seriously going to leave those traffic cones on my roof forever. Not because it's funny, but because I love them. And maybe, just maybe, I really am going to wear a moustache to a party, and how embarrassing is that? Plus the weird shit on my walls. It's funny at first, but it's so cluttery, and am I really going to leave that up for the dinner party?


They're like perverts... just because they're perverts doesn't make them freaks. They just think freaks are neat, you know, so they want a pocket one to take to parties. For a while. Or, sometimes, they have a whole stable of them they rotate through and invite to parties. You gotta check this guy out, man; he's such a trip.


It took me about 4 years of absolutely adoring my ex and doing whatever he wanted (or thinking I was) for me to realize that for him, the novelty had simply worn off. And another 2 of realizing that it wasn't ever coming back. Because the thing is, I didn't get him, either.

But I'm starting to recognize it in advance, and learning how to cut it off at the pass. I will not be collected. Like a goddamn Beanie Baby.


Now is probably a good time to stop being down about it, and look around in the world at the other freaks, and realize that we're totally okay, and not collectible novelties. We're not cute. We're not funny. We're just regular people who don't quite fit in with the other regular people.


When you're weird, you're going to get weirder as you get older, because all the weird just accumulates. In layers. Because it's your normal.

My friends, the ones who have stuck around and are there for me, have never treated me like a novelty. Because they are also freaks in some way. You get it. I need to stick to my people. I'm lucky to have some.


Holy shit, this post makes me sound like such an utter wanker. I hope I can at least excuse it by being drunk at the time. 

I am ungrateful

I realize that. And also grateful. And also very, very confused. Because I am nothing special, I really am not. Maybe my lack of social graces makes me more accessible, but if anything, that is all it is.

The quiet

You are my own rude grave.

I had buried myself within you

and to unearth myself from that

shallow hole was unthinkable.

A brother in sorrow and love,

you were my kindred spirit; you;

you understood everything I said.

You never took me for a novelty.

There is no way to tell you now,

nothing in the freedom you held

to be the shy, the quiet, the wild

listening bird you gave me to be.

Some thoughts I had on a Tuesday in December

Something occurred to me today that seemed impossible; I've known him (that one, yes, you know which one I mean) for 2 and a half years. How? I am trying to do timelines in my head, and thinking of one friend I’ve known for going on five years, and another friend for over ten. Friends I just met, like you when I just started hanging out with you that one time, when that one guy you were in love with was sleeping with her too and you decided you would keep her and dump him. Also, you, remember that time your girlfriend threw bottles at your head, screaming in the street, because you told her I was a better kisser? That was a dick thing to say, by the way, but you know what, I’m glad you did because she was crazy and bad for you, and I got to keep your friendship even after all of that.

Time goes by so, so fast. Impossibly fast. And now it is winter of 2009, about to be 2010.

I was looking at him (that one) in my office today and we were laughing about something, and he said I should change my avatar on some networking computer site so I did and then I realized that I had changed it to a picture taken almost exactly a year ago, when I first bought my favorite big black coat and my heart was completely, utterly broken over him, and I thought at him, I was so in love with you, how is that possible? How is it possible that I can be so comfortable with you now, just barely a year later, and yet not have that old yearning? Not even any, at all?

I suppose these things are good. Hopeful. Time moves on and while the feelings never stop being as overwhelming as they were when we were new, healing is still inevitable, even as we get older. And yet, it won't be that much longer before we'll be so old, and all of the compromises that we made because we felt like we had to will be all there is in place of the opportunities we didn't take. So there is a sorrow, as well a sweetness, to looking at that fuzzy-headed, lovely man with his wide warm laugh and feeling only the softer love of friendship for him, in place of what used to be an all-encompassing need to be with him always. Only affection, and a very small sorrow that the safe road he chose didn’t lead to anyone’s happiness, least of all his own.