SORRY NO PASSENGERS

Groggy-looking small almost supernaturally odd-looking man wearing an open Hawaiian shirt and slowly drinking a canned soda at Happy Donuts at 10 AM. Some people age and just look like an old version of their younger self, but others, like this man, get a cartoony exaggerated look. Their face, their shoulders, their eyes—everything pops out.

Since I normally don’t go out in the morning, it feels like a whole secret world.

I think I used to see the same man sitting around in coffee shops when I lived in Glen Park. I’m trying to keep him in mind as a role model. The other day I had a headache, tried to nap, woke up in a jolt of panic—I’m so old. Looked at myself in the selfie camera obsessively, holding my face frozen so I wouldn’t see the lines.

It’s stupid but a bunch of stuff just happened to me at once, and I feel like I missed everything. I’m no longer pretty enough to get anything with my looks (just ignore the fact that I’ve thought I looked like a frog my whole life, and it’s only when looking at old pictures of myself that I’m like, “wow I guess I was actually pretty and getting by on my looks back then”).

I’m 33 and a half, so older than Jesus. More relevantly, I’m older than Stockard Channing in Grease—probably the go-to example of a woman pretending to be a teenager when she’s not.

I think if I could jump ahead to my 60s I would probably feel normal again. I could definitely be a certain kind of senior-cusp person. But my hobbies—wandering around the city, riding buses, flea markets, eating at deserted cash-only diners—just feel wrong on a 33-year-old. When I was 23 it made sense that I am always alone and sort of confused but curious, standing around listening to conversations and impulsively swerving off my route to investigate alleys and garden paths. I was exploring. I had my whole life ahead of me. Now it feels like I should probably be doing something else.

Growing up, when I started beating up on myself I would meditate on my hero Edward Gorey. Ace by modern standards, beautiful shingled house, crabby. When he lived in New York, went religiously to the ballet every week; when he moved to Cape Cod, went religiously to the same deli every day for lunch. I can relate to that. But he’s someone who is universally regarded as impressive and weird, not sad and weird. It’s like through the sheer force of his style, people don’t have any of the reactions you’re supposed to have when talking about someone who spent most of their time alone.

His house is a museum full of stuff that is only cool to keep if you’re famous—deli receipts, his raccoon fur coat that he kept to make a point after he realized it’s unethical to have a raccoon fur coat. My parents and I went a few years ago. There’s this photo of him holding a friend’s baby and just kind of gaping at it in disapproval. Couldn’t be me.