Stalking Finn

I haven't had too much experience with famous people. For the longest time my best story was that as a deli girl at Eagle Market, I made Josh Brolin and Diane Lane their sandwiches twice. This was well before Josh's resurgence as a real movie star with No Country for Old Men, and an Oscar nomination for Milk... I knew him from Goonies and Thrashin'. (What is Thrashin', you ask? Well, my friends, here's the synopsis given on IMDb.com: "Two skateboarding gangs battle each other for supremacy, and a member of one gang falls in love with the sister of his rival." I think that's all you need to know. Oh, also, it was made in 1986. Yup. I own it if you want to borrow it.)

I didn't know who Diane Lane was. When the pair chose Eagle Market for their sub sandwich needs and stopped in, I thought she was a child (she's extremely short and wasn't wearing any makeup) and Josh looked like a confirmed Lake Rat. Tattered boardshorts, a foul wifebeater, and greasy long hair made for a "celebrity" that I just wasn't too impressed with at the time. (If only I'd kept his sandwich order form... I'd have his autograph!)

This all changed the night my friends Jasmine and Erin took me out for my birthday a few weeks ago. We spent a pleasant afternoon in Cambria and planned on finishing the evening at Erin's apartment in San Luis with a low key dessert and TV watching spree. In the car on the way to the coast, I suddenly remembered something.

Me: "Oh! Lynnea told me that a band is playing at SLO Brew tonight named Bonnie Dune... one of the guitar players is a guy we knew in high school, and their drummer is FINN."

Jasmine: (confused look) "Like, he looks like Finn?"

Me: "NO. HE IS FINN. Cory Monteith is THEIR DRUMMER."

Jasmine: OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD WE HAVE TO GO!!!

Erin: (thought bubble) My friends are certifiably retarded. And who is Finn?

If you don't watch Glee, you won't know who Finn is. Glee has become one of my favorite shows over the last couple years... as over-the-top ridiculous and at times inappropriate and unrealistic as it can be, I think the underlying message is sweet. And I'm a sucker for musical theater. Finn is the male lead in the show's high school Glee club. His character is dense, but cute, and he is a talented drummer. And he was GOING TO BE PLAYING AT SLO BREW IN MERE HOURS.

After deciding to head straight to Downtown SLO to see if we could finagle some tickets to this no doubt epic show, we drove past SLO Brew to find a line almost around the block, full of high school girls, waiting to get in two hours early. At that moment, we changed our plans and proceeded to Erin's abode, where we figured we would partake in our originally scheduled, tranquil girls' night in.

It only took about fifteen minutes in Erin's apartment after tossing down our purses and lounging on the couch/chair/floor before Jasmine said, "So... maybe we should go get dessert downtown and walk around. Maybe he'll be down there."

I immediately concurred and felt my pulse rise at the thought that we could just run into a famous person downtown. Not just any famous person, but the male lead in one of my favorite shows. Luckily Erin is up for anything, and despite not being a regular Glee viewer, and not knowing who in Zeus' name Finn was, she thought dessert sounded like an excellent idea.

Frozen yogurt is always my dessert of choice, and since it was my birthday celebration, I got to choose. This turned out to be a providential selection.

We had just arrived at the foot of the brick staircase leading up to Sephora, Yogurt Creations our end goal, when Jasmine and I both looked across the street at the exact same time. Three boys, all dressed in slim jeans, hoodies, and hiding their faces behind dark sunglasses were strutting abreast down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. They were the only people on that side of Higuera, we were the only people on our side. They must have noticed us gawking.

One of them stood out because he was a head and shoulders taller than the other two.

"That looks like him!" Jasmine hissed through clenched teeth.
"It DOES look like him!" I hissed back.
"Should we follow him?"
"Let's follow him!!!"

At this point we knew we were stalking Cory Monteith, but that's all we knew. To where would we end up following him? Would we say something if he turned around and noticed us? What if he filed a restraining order against me? On my birthday?

None of these questions were important enough to abort the mission. We crossed the street as quickly as we could and kept about a block between the band posse and us. At one intersection, the big red hand started counting down obnoxiously at us. I was a few steps ahead of the other girls (my enthusiasm getting the best of me), and there was no way we'd all make it across in time. "Go!" they yelled at me, "We'll catch up!" (Thank goodness it was my birthday or my friends may not have put up with my ridiculous teeny bopper antics.) I ran ahead, and soon enough Garden Street was upon me. SLO Brew was around the corner, along with the doubled-in-length line of amped up sixteen year old girls. How ironic, I thought to myself, he just walked by all the girls who would trade their iPhones to see him up close, in person, and they don't even know! *evil mind chuckle*

Then: "Heather!!" From the middle of the line, two girls were calling my name. I stopped in my tracks, and squinting into the crowd, I noticed two of the Junior girls I counsel at church waving me over. I sprinted up to them, and panted, "No time!... I'm... stalking... FINN!!" They looked at me with "Whatever" looks on their faces and said, "Oh yeah, look at this," simultaneously shoving their phones and cameras into my face. They had already found Finn and taken pictures with him in line at Firestone! That's where he had been coming from when we spotted him across the street! "Well, FINE, I've gotta go!" I screamed at them, with just a tinge of jealousy.

I took a few lunges down the street, and spun on my heel as I approached Bubblegum Alley, frantically trying to pick up the scent once again. There, standing in the most disgusting tourist attraction known to man, was Cory Monteith with a group of four girls who had obviously been stalking him just as silently and jungle cat-like as I had been. Jasmine and Erin had caught up with me by now, and Jasmine was pushing me into the gum-encrusted alley, "Go ask him for a picture!" I tossed her my camera like a hot potato and as the other girls walked away giggling and twittering (so immature), I walked up to him and asked quietly, suddenly feeling like a 13 year old girl with a crush on the most popular boy in school, "Can I take my picture with you?" He gave me a lopsided Finn grin and said, "Yeah!" and proceeded to put his arm around me for the photo op. Jasmine made a funny quip as she took the picture about what a nasty place we were standing in, and even had the presence of mind to ask if he'd been to San Luis before. I stood there smiling silently like a developmentally delayed moron until it was time to say dumbly, "Thank you," and watch him walk away.

I was on a high for hours following my first experience as a true-to-life creeper, unable to process the fact that I had not only seen Finn, but followed, cornered, taken a photo with, and touched the love handles belonging to Finn. I had been closer than I'd ever been to famous person... a famous person I cared about! One I watched sing, dance badly, and misunderstand big words EVERY WEEK!

The night ended with Jasmine and me attending the Bonnie Dune concert (along with all the boppers we'd seen earlier, but added to the mix were 45-year-old moms with telephoto lenses... Finn would much rather a girl like me stalk him, right? Right?), which turned out to be a fabulous show.

Needless to say, I have a much more exciting "famous person" story now, but as my brother-in-law Dave pointed out, people like me are "why he was wearing a hoodie".