There's been a document open on my desktop for a year and a half, and now that document is closed. I turned in my first book tonight. I was told by one of my editors to sit there quietly a few minutes after I pressed SEND and absorb what I'd just done. When I was through absorbing, I got up and went to the kitchen and ate a handful of cashews. I looked at the floor. I store onions on a shelf in a mesh bag, and the onion skins still escape the bag and get on the floor. If we talk about my book, and you say, "What's next?" I'll tell you I'm going to figure out a better way to store my onions. And then I'll say I'm going to write a novel.
Josh and I take walks most nights. It's getting a little cooler, and the large crickets are coming out. They sound like lizards in the dead grass. There's one block on our walk where people smoke on their porches and fan their faces and stare at us like we just stumbled onto their farmland. That's my favorite block.
I have a story in the last issue of Dark Sky, but Dark Sky closed before they could put up their last issue, so you can find my story at Barrelhouse. It's like when you see your friend with her ex, and she's drinking with him, and she's kissing him, and she sees you looking, and she says, "Shut up, Casey Hannan. It's complicated."
I shaved off all my facial hair the other day. I looked in the mirror and said, "I look younger." Josh said, "No, you look older." I looked in the mirror again and I saw it, but that's OK.