Letting the eclipse tell his side of the story

A lady walked up to me recently, shook my hand, and stared deeply—searchingly—into my eyes. “I just wanted to see the other half of your face,” she said.

I was taken aback. I didn’t recognize her,so I couldn’t narrow down which two-faced lie she might have caught me in.The list seemed endless.

But wait—if she thought I was two-faced, she wouldn’t have said “the other half” of my face. She would have said “your other face.” Maybe I wouldn’t have to apologize or confess after all.

In fact, maybe she wasn’t being figurative at all. Maybe she literally meant “the other half”—the top halfthat had been blanketed with hair when I was young, before my “male-pattern face enlargement” really got going.I removed my hat to show that I’m not just losing hair, I’m gaining face.

But that wasn’t it either. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean the part that’s always hidden by the world.”

Ah. My picture at the top of this column.Of course.

She studied my right cheek, my right ear, everything normally eclipsed on this page. She seemed surprised that the right side of my face is no more hideously deformed than my left side is. Or at least, no less so.

She shook her head. “Why do you hide behind the world in your photo?”

A logical question.After all, most people would love to see their face in the paper, right? Some folks go so far as to commit a crime in hopes that the coparazziwill hand their mug shot over to reporters.

I could have blamed it on my editor, explaining that he wanted to exploit the “Planet Kerth” wordplay to its fullest. But that would be a lie, because it was my idea, not his.

I could have taken the high road and said that in my columns I was trying to call attention to important issues like global warming, but that cheesy loony-eclipsed look on my left-half face would make me the poster boy for global smarming. Besides, it really would be two-faced to claim that anything I wrote had any merit at all.

So what kind of moron would want to tuck his mug behind Asia when he gets the chance to show the world what he looks like?

I used to have a column photo that showed my whole face clearly, and the result was that people came up to me often on the street or in a store and said, “Hey, I know who you are.”

“Yeah,” I would say, “I’m that guy who loaned you twenty bucks, and you’ve been searching for me to pay me back, right?” But it turns out that readers of this column aren’t stupid enough to fall for a line like that. Go figure.

So why the planetary veil?

Well, to be honest, though it’s flattering to be recognized by a stranger on the street, I just don’t feel comfortable when I meet someone who recognizes me, but I don’t recognize them. I like meeting folks on an equal footing, and the footing never seems quite equal at moments like that. In fact, it seems slippery and slanted, at best.

Have you ever been somewhere with your spouse and you run into somebody you probably knew in grammar school who calls you by name and comes up with a smile and a hug, and then it’s time for you to introduce your spouse to…um…was it Carol? Or Carla? Or…maybe Josephine?Or maybe it wasn’t from school—maybe this was your old insurance agent? Or the nurse who shaved you for one of your surgeries?Until they ask you how Aunt Lorraine is doing, and you realize it might be your second cousin from Bemidji…um…Alice? Or maybe Sue?

Well, that’s sort of how it feels whenever I meet someone who knows me from my column’s photo, but I’ve never met them.

Slippery and slanty.

Look, it’s not as if I don’t know you. I know you pretty well. In fact, you might say we’re friends. It’s just that I don’t recognize you, and that makes me uncomfortable.

Let me explain: The most important consideration in all writing—any writing—is audience. Whenever I sit down to write a column for you to read, I have a clear picture of who you are. Every word I write is an intimate, one-on-one discussion with you. There’s only one of you, and you’re the one.

Oh, there are plenty of others who will turn the page, because they will know that I’m not talking to them. They will hear it in my voice and go away, and I’m fine with that.

But not you.You’ll still be there at the end. And if I crack a joke along the way, you’ll smile.

I know you will, because I know you—even though we’ve never met.I have an idea what will make you laugh, cry or sigh. I know, because I laugh, cry and sigh at the same things. And that’s what friends do, right? They laugh, cry and sigh at the same things.And all it takes for the laughing, crying or sighing to begin is to open up and be honest about what’s on your mind or in your heart.

Those other people who don’t see the humor, sadness or nostalgia in it? Let them go. I’m not talking to them. I’m talking to you.

And as pleasant as it would be to finally meet you face-to-face, please understand my discomfort if we run into each other on the street or in a store, and only one of us recognizes the other.Because then I have to come face-to-face with the slippery, slantyfact that our conversation has been a bit one-sided all along.

But if we ever do meet and we somehow get past that awkward moment, don’t be afraid to say, “Gee, I always thought you’d be taller.”

It’s OK, because I always thought I’d be taller, too.

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