Stupid Casey Hannan

(Guest Post by xTx)

Casey Hannan is a gin and tonic with eyebrow ice. I drink him poolside. He is effervescent. His bubbles cloy my throat and I don’t even care. I take him in. I take him in my throat. I swallow him. Until he is gone. Wedges of lemon and lime yin yang the bottom of my glass; pulpy, citrus abortions.

When Josh is gone, I take over. Casey is my bottom. He doesn’t care. He thinks I’m pretty, even when I’m angry. I make him cook for me which isn’t even really “making” because if someone has an obsession, they would do it anyway. But still, I threaten, because I know he likes it. “BAKE ME A PIE OR I WILL TURN OVER THIS TRASH CAN FULL OF COFFEE GROUNDS!” “MAKE ME A QUICHE OR I WILL PUT THIS GLASS COVERED WITH ICY CONDENSATION ON YOUR NICE COFFEE TABLE WITHOUT THE USE OF A COASTER!” “LASAGNA FROM SCRATCH OR I SPILL NAIL POLISH!” and “CHUTNEY BITCH!” He cowers, scuttles about, yes ma’ams, puts on a show of one abused and scared but I can see his smile reflected in the black gloss of the microwave door when his back is to me. Oh, that Casey Hannan!

You can see what I like about him in the creases of the day. How his beard grows in uneven and patchy. The upward tornado spiral of black pubic hair, the way he hangs his towel over the shower glass, how he hums made up songs while he sifts flour, how he calls out to me from the kitchen just so I will answer, just so he can know he’s not alone, the morning smell of him and how he hugs like I am something keeping him alive. I now know what Josh knows and it’s like we’ve read the same secret book and it’s our favorite.

I put up with the snake. I put up with the ghosts. I am fine with both. One night he takes me to see the Ghost Light. While we wait he talks to me about water. His voice is like waves. We sit in the moonlight like it’s the sun. The night is backwards and our eyes cling the tree line eager to learn how one day we may have to carry the light.

One day, when I am drinking him by the pool, Josh and I will laugh at how imaginary it all is. He’ll tell me how he never thought Casey would bring someone like me home to him. Someone so much older. Someone so motherly and female. Another person to siphon his sugar water, his sweetness. I raise my glass to the word, “sweetness” and wink and sip in tribute. Josh laughs. Does the same. We both drink him. Casey just lets us. More of him in Josh’s glass than mine which is exactly how it should be should always be will always be.

Awwwgust

There was a moving van sitting outside our house yesterday. There was a hot guy in the driver's seat. The moving van was the most generic moving van I've ever seen. I like to imagine it wasn't a moving van at all but some sort of mobile surveillance sent by the government to monitor our house for ghosts/magic/aliens.

This heat, I tell you. I'm wild with dumb impossibilities.

One of my college friends was in town for the weekend. She lives in Chicago. She's used to the Midwest, but I feel like we still bored the shit out of her. Josh and I are the old gay couple who party once every thousand years to celebrate the mystic secret of our eternal youth. We drink the blood of raw summer tomatoes from a chalice made of shed cicada exoskeletons. There are pictures on Facebook of this rare occasion.

Some muddy people came to our house to clean up after they ran an obstacle course in a field near the airport. The women left their muddy panties in our bathroom trash. The men didn't shower together, though they should have. Instead, they took all the mud from their bodies and put it in the sink. One of our white towels is now gray. These people should be a little embarrassed to read this, but they've never been embarrassed by anything in their entire lives. You can't shame the shameless.

I got a rejection that was exactly the rejection I should have received. I'm working on the story. It's about a couple of men in a muddy field looking for the Ghost Light that manifests on a country road every night near Joplin, Missouri. I've been a few times to see the light. The first time, I didn't see it. The second time, I saw it, but the people in my car freaked out and demanded we leave. One of the people in my car actually said, "I have a bad feeling about this." All the other times blend together, but on one of those trips, I saw a ghost dog running alongside my car. No one else saw it. It was a white dog as big as a pony. I've had the insensitive thought that maybe the tornado killed the Ghost Light, and God forbid, that ghost dog too.

I have a story up in the August issue of Hobart. It's the one about a man living on the water with his cat. You guys are so understanding, so understand this: I don't want a cat. That's not what I'm trying to say with this story. What I'm trying to say is I want to die surrounded by jellyfish.

Diamond Brain

The internet connection I've been "stealing" is unstealable for a couple weeks, but be not afeared, dudes. I may not have access to the internet, but the library does. I'm at the library right now, "borrowing" the internet and not looking anyone else in the eyes lest they start recommending "beach reading."

Otherly, I need to look for a job that's exactly like the job I had at the museum, or preferably, the same job I had at the museum. "Otherly" is not a word. "Job" is a word I keep hearing every time I talk to my father.

My job right now is making dinner every night and taking Josh wherever he needs to go. It's not a bad job. It's not really a job, though. I don't want to ruin the illusion for you, but cooking's not really that hard, especially for two or three people. That said, Josh can't cook.

I had this daydream about a giant snake with a diamond in its brain. I really let the giant snake have it using a stick and some magical powers. Then I dug into the giant snake's brain with the stick and got the diamond out. I sold the diamond on the black market and lived comfortably near the ocean where I wrote a successful series of books about my battle against the giant snake. The battle only lasted a few minutes, so I had to flesh it out a little for the books. I constructed an elaborate mythology and invented some characters who would later visit me in a vision on my deathbed.

I'm in a constant state of daydreaming. This is probably evidence of my inability to cope with reality. REALITY-SCHMEALITY? I'm a Taurus and change is one of those things I deal with by flailing the arms in my head. Imagine I'm a bird and all my feathers are little arms. Flap, flap, flail.

I will see you soon. But first, I must make it out of this library alive.

Fox Street

I saw two foxes cross the street. I was drunk so the streetlight was red and the foxes were perfect foxes and the street itself was like a pillow. I said, "Hey, there's some foxes," and Josh said, "Huh, they are foxes." Josh wasn't drunk.

We were at a party where this guy kept singing a Christmas carol. It's July. Something about the joys of Mary. Each joy was numbered. The first joy Casey had was the joy of beer. A girl gave me some cigarettes. The second joy. The girl was nice, but of course she's moving to Nashville like tomorrow or something. She writes poetry but doesn't read it. I said, "I don't read poetry either," but I really do. I have a bookshelf full of poetry. Sometimes I lie to people I'll never see again.

I got an acceptance recently that made me almost sick with happiness. I'll tell you about in a week. It's the story of a man living on the water.

I'm writing the script for a comic book. Shhh. I haven't done this before. It's like the audiobook version of porn right now. No pictures yet. You may never hear about this again. It could be so awful. Go about your lives! Eat a box of toaster pastries and forget I ever brought it up.

It's only a matter of time before I'm tangentially related to everyone from my hometown.

Making Water

I'm having that sort of feeling where I need to see open water. I haven't seen the ocean in years. I see a lot of rivers. I don't care about rivers. I saw a lake last summer. Right now I see land and who gives a shit about land unless you can see the ocean from the land. I'm in the middle-ish area of the country. I wrote a story about being on a boat. I saw this guy in Miami who lived on his boat. He was hot, which made it easier to romanticize his life. He just sat on his boat and read a lot. He wore hats and open shirts. That seems perfect.

The Midwest isn't so bad, except sometimes the Indian food isn't spiced enough. Middle Americans are pussies, I guess. I cook a lot of Indian food. Well, I cook a lot of food, but it's mostly Indian food. I assume our house is just thick with curry, but I don't know. I don't smell it anymore.

I have to make Italian bread here in a minute. It'll make our house smell so good, but no one will say anything about it because I'm the only one here right now. Well, the snake's here, but snakes don't give one shit, two shits, three shits about bread. Unless the bread is made of mice. Like a mouseloaf.

We watched a movie last night and there was a high school reunion scene in it. My ten year reunion is coming up. I have a tiny, hardcore book coming out that year, so maybe I'll go to my reunion. I told myself I'd go if I had a book published. I don't care if my classmates have babies, because hey, of course they have babies. I just want to see how everyone looks now. I look pretty different. I don't wear hoodies all the time. My hair is mostly better. Anyway.

I have a guest post on xTx's blog, NOTHING TO SAY. Summer lovin' and such. xTx is my "online friend." The rumor is that she's a bearded lady in a traveling circus, but that's impossible because traveling circuses don't exist anymore. Maybe in California.

Secret Skulls

I used to shave my head maybe once a year, and my mother would say, "I prefer your hair long and artsy, not short and Nazi." This is when my parents got a divorce and I felt weird and powerless, but also powerful because HEY, I could get tattoos and shave my head and bake cookies whenever I wanted. I liked how not having hair showed off that I have a pretty nice skull. I feel like I have no secrets when I have no hair. Like I can't hide in my hair. Anyway. I'm not a Nazi.

The last Harry Potter movie is out, but I'll be quiet about my excitement because I believe magic and religion are very private matters.

Abbi is going to Denver for a fewish weeks to be a governess. I'm not kidding. She has a carpet bag that goes on for miles. One of my college friends is coming to visit while Abbi is gone. This college friend used to tell me I baked too much and didn't I know what sugar did to my body? Also, when I shaved my head, she said, "Maybe your forehead pimples will clear up now." Lest you think my college friend is evil, I used to tell her exactly what I thought of her boyfriends. We also peed in a jar as part of an art project. Another college friend helped us get enough pee in the jar. It was a large jar. The pee turned brown because it was in the jar for so long.

I have a story up in the July issue of PANK Magazine. I wrote it when I was obsessed with crushes. Right now, I'm obsessed with crocheting enough granny squares to cover the coffee table. The colors I'm using might induce seizures, which is too bad because I honestly do have epilepsy and I haven't been medicated for over three years.

Bugs and Birds and Boyfriends

It's my brother's birthday and it's xTx's birthday. We're all going to Chili's later. Except the Chili's here is closed and abandoned so we're going to break in and eat whatever we find and kill. I hope there are some booths left. I prefer the privacy and intimacy of sitting in booths.

Some people still call Josh my "friend." They are so close. BOYFRIEND.

I'm working on a gay story. It's so gay you'll want to roll up your pant legs after you read it. You'll want to wear shoes without socks. You'll want to get a fork tattoo given how much you'll want to eat this little gay story up.

I was involved in some hard-hitting internet journalism this week. Mike Kitchell, Tim Jones-Yelvington and I compiled this list of hot indie-lit gents for HTMLGIANT. I'm going to tell you a secret. All of these guys are hot, but the last three guys on the list are the hottest. I could write an article arguing why I'm right on this, but I'm not nearly that obsessive about people I've never met.

I'm reading some good books, including one that isn't even out yet. Shut the front door.

Seriously, it's summer and the outside is filthy with bugs and birds.

Gay Ghost

I spent the weekend with Josh and his family. I smoked cigarettes. I drank. I slept. I woke up. I ate. I ate. I ate. My lips are chapped because of the cigarettes. I wore those boots I was talking about last time. SOMEONE BOUGHT THOSE BOOTS FOR ME. The internet is a magical place with real people on the other end. I want to hug the real people and say, "I think you have to agree about these boots. They bring out my hair and my eyes and my moles, all of which are brown like these boots."

I just found a piece of raw garlic in a tooth crevice. The Indian lunch buffet just keeps on giving.

Here's the story about how I started smoking. It's probably a story I've told before, but I'm going to tell it again. A few summers back, I was obsessed with smoking. Not the act. The image. I bought a pack of Marlboro Reds in Virginia when I was on vacation with my family. The pack cost $6.66. The clerk asked if I wanted to buy anything else. I said, "What, why?" And she said, "Because of 666. You know, the Mark of the Beast?" I said, "Oh, I need a lighter, I guess." The clerk said, "Thank God."

I had that pack of cigarettes for like a year. All told, I've only smoked three or four packs of cigarettes in my life. I don't really like smoking. I do like leaving parties and sharing confidences with other smokers. I also like having something to do with my hands. I don't always know what to do with my hands. I've learned a secret, though. If you put your hands down by your side, it doesn't look weird. It feels weird, but it looks completely normal. I'm just a guy standing here not doing anything with his hands.

I'm being quiet about the book for now. I don't want to ruin it by saying, "The main character is a gay ghost." WHOOPS. The main character is a gay ghost. Not this Gay Ghost.

Unhappy Happy

Being happy isn't the reason you're alive. If you're unhappy, it doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. It's not always an omen. This isn't directed at anyone. It's directed at everyone. This is me being unhappy and being OK with it.

Now I'm happy again. I finally have a tea kettle that whistles. It's a sporty red. Abbi uses it more than I do, and that's OK. She needs the practice, going to Oxford and all. Josh never uses the tea kettle. He hates any liquid that isn't pure water. He'll sometimes drink wine, but only because everyone else is drinking wine.

Some quick announcements. Brian Oliu's going to be in Kansas City reading at The Writers Place Tuesday, July 5th at 7:00 PM with some other great writers (including super fine local poet, Wayne Miller) for Joplin tornado relief.

Also at The Writers Place, but on Saturday, July 2nd from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM, is the opening of Extreme 3-D Interactive Blog, "an exhibition of zines and art by Eve Englezos, Brigette Poniewaz and Alex Schubert." Eve Englezos is my only best friend who owns a bird. The first thing she said to me was, "You have really nice arm hair." She possesses the sight for that kind of thing, thank God.

I've recently discovered I want boots. If you have a fetish for buying boots for young gay men, buy these boots for me. I'll wear them while reading a book. I'll have my boyfriend take a picture. I'll sign the picture in the fluid of your choosing.

Sometimes, I think I say what I'm thinking, but it turns out I don't. I'll say, "Those were good," but I won't say what "those" were. I'll think I've been talking about cupcakes, but I won't have actually said anything about cupcakes yet.

Anyway, those were good. Those cupcakes.

No News Is This News

There's a man who grows spearmint in the strip of his lawn between the sidewalk and the road. I pick a sprig whenever I walk by. It's been growing there every summer for years. A man brought me a sprig once like you bring someone flowers. That seems like so long ago. I was writing poetry then. I wrote a poem about the sprig of mint and the man who brought it to me. Anyway, I write fiction now.

I'm in the sort of whimsical summer mood that will lead me to buy wine and drink it on the front porch alone or with others. I'm nostalgic and warm. My grandmother and my cousins are almost off to Virginia and North Carolina. I'm so jealous, I could do something stupid like buy wine and drink it on the front porch alone or with others. I'll put candles in the empty bottles and me/we can drink the whole night through. I'm jealous because my grandmother and my cousins are going to a lake. I have this thing about bodies of water, excluding rivers. I have this thing about the people at this lake. I love them all.

My other forearm is itching for a tattoo. One day, other forearm, I will give you the rectangle or blood splatter (or both!) you so desire. One day.

I tried to dress like a space cowboy in the fall of 2008. I had suspenders and dumb boots and a pair of cap guns. The space part is that I had a cell phone that lit up in colors when someone was calling. Josh has a pair of "special" boots. They're special in the sense that he's never worn them. I'd like to wear them. I'd also like to wear suspenders again one day. I still use the light-up cell phone. Maybe a few pounds down the road I'll try again. Maybe in 2012.

I'm crocheting a pink striated square to cover our coffee table. I think it's going to look like a geometric cut of meat. Oh wait, oh yes. I'll trim the edges in a way that looks like dripping blood. I'm mostly a vegetarian. Until I'm not.

Vine Climb Time

It's stormed here every night for the last week or so. Summer storms. I like a storm to get me to sleep. One night, I stood on the porch talking on the phone and watched a storm come in from the south. There was lightning first. It was the sort of lightning that makes night light up like day for less than a second. Then thunder. Then rain. Before the rain, I walked around my car and counted the skinny cockroaches on the roof. There were three. I told Josh about it when I went inside. I forgot he would be disgusted.

Our new landlords tend the yard. There's a growth of poison ivy on the back stairs. It's climbing up on the porch floor. I guess the landlords don't know it's poison ivy. It's the red kind. It'll only keep growing in weather like this. When it's at our door, I might say something.

Those two stories I submitted a hundred years ago are still floating down a lazy river somewhere. I imagine they'll come to shore and be bitten by a nest of water snakes any day now. I've been imagining that for a little while. I watch from a tree and worry about my own safety because certain snakes climb trees to hunt birds. I wouldn't want to interrupt that in any way. I wouldn't want to be mistaken for a bird with sunglasses. I watch my stories float on down the river away from me.

The book is turning into the ghost story I've always been trying to write. It's to the point where the book is all I think about, not just when I'm writing it or when I'm in the shower, but always. If I've been an awful friend, this is why. If I look at you but don't look at you, it's because I'm picturing words in place of your face. It's gross. Don't bring it up if I see you at the grocery store.

Abbi's been here nearly three weeks doing the things Abbi does. Mostly that's work on her computer and glow at the mention of Oxford. There's been some mail from Oxford. I hold it and pretend it's mine before I give it to Abbi. She reads it and puts it in a cute little mail rack. I wish Josh and I had a mail rack. We have a closet full of mail in plastic grocery bags. This is probably how hoarding starts.

I'm ready for tomatoes. I would hoard tomatoes, no problem. I would hoard them in my mouth, because God, tomatoes in the summer taste like they're full of the juicy Sun. Josh will be disgusted by this too. He hates raw tomatoes.

I know. I know.

I like xTx a lot.

Summer Cakes

I'm going to make a cake today. Eventually. It's going to be a cornmeal cake. I imagine it'll be a lot like cornbread but sweeter.

I don't have a writing desk. I want to shatter that illusion right now. I write on my bed. When you read anything I write, know it was written under the covers and I was only wearing underwear and maybe not even that.

I've started having dreams about specific writers. When I start dreaming about something, it means I'm getting comfortable with it. I had a dream Roxane Gay came to visit me. I made veggie burgers. Roxane asked for a bun and I didn't have any buns. It was so embarrassing.

I made hamburger buns once. They turned out more like biscuits. I like biscuits, so it was fine.

The other writer dream I had involved naked lounging. If you send me money, I'll tell you who the writer was and what their bathroom looked like in the dream. This is the second dream I've had where I lounged naked with this writer. I'm not a nudist, I swear.

I'm not going home this summer. I usually go home. There's a family reunion at a lake. All the cousins drive in and eat and drink and tell stories and trade pictures. There are boat rides and fireworks and bottles of wine. There's a midnight swim across the lake. There's at least one venomous snake. One year, my father and my uncle teamed up to kill a copperhead. They chopped its head off with a shovel. I got to be smart and warn everyone that snakes can still bite for an hour after they've been beheaded. We ate lunch. After lunch, someone threw the dead snake in the water.

I once saw a headless snake swimming in the lake, but no one believed me. My father, my uncle, and my grandmother once saw a bald eagle on the Fourth of July. No one believed them either.

The Fourth of July is Josh's birthday. He'll be a certain age this year. That age rhymes with "dirty." The big DEE-OH.

I'm going to make this cake now, and if it's good, I'll pretend it's an old family recipe. I'll say my mother made it for me every summer. I'll say how my grandmother made it for my mother. And so on down the line.

Beer Blood

Part of taking a shower is shampooing my hair and thinking about greater themes. In recent showers, all the Jakes became Johns, except the main Jake who is still Jake. The greater themes so far are SEX WITH STRANGERS and GAY MEN AND THE WOMEN WHO LOVE THEM. I don't know how fair it is for the female character I'm writing to literally be every influential woman I know slammed into one body. That seems wrong when all these different men get their own bodies. BOOKS! Ha ha. I tell you.

Two of my stories are still landing on editor's shoulders and biting them. Hopefully the stories will draw blood and the editors will be like, "What the fuck bit me?" And the story will be like, "Just this story by Casey Hannan, that's what." The editors will hear it like a whistle through a sleeping person's nose. I hope.

In other bite news, I was outside drinking beer with men who probably all have more chest hair than I do, and I caught a mosquito biting my hand. I smacked it and there was blood. I thought about whose blood it might be. I looked around at the other men drinking beer. I thought it might be his blood or his blood or his blood. There were also two dogs and I thought about how it was probably dog's blood. I wiped it on the arm of a chair and it never turned brown like blood does when it dries. Definitely dog's blood.

Poor Jakes

Abbi is here and safe and sharing her tiny room with a snake. So far, Abbi's had to endure my cooking, my drinking, and my unorganized closets. It's only just begun.

This week. Oh, this week. I made a quiche that was so green it was like taking a bite out of the ground. I found out I have three days left at work. I got pulled over for having a faulty brake light/an expired registration. I made bad margaritas. I had that brief moment of terror where I thought I might have to sell everything I own and disappear into the wilderness.

That said, I do make stupid things and sell them on ETSY. It's a small selection at the moment, but I can crochet anything on request. That's not a lie. Some of the recent things I've made: a gargoyle, a banana split unicorn, a human skull, a chesty blue mermaid, a harpy, a five-headed snake, an octopus lighting a cigarette. I bet you had no idea I was so frivolously talented.

I have a couple stories sitting on editor's faces. I should hear back about one of these stories any day now. The suspense is making me rapidly gain and lose weight. Just kidding. That's summer. That's ice cream and beer and walking and not walking.

The book is growing up right in front of me. This must be what it's like to have children. Other people can have children. I'll have this.

Right now, every man in the book is named Jake. There's Jake One, Jake Two, Jake Three, and Jake Zero. Jake Zero is the main man. I'll give these Jakes other names when I start dreaming about them. For now, I'll just be an awful father. No, I don't mean "father." I mean "god." I'll be ruthless to some Jakes and merciful to others. I'll take credit for thunder. Thunder is me pushing some of these Jakes down the stairs.

Tattooze

I have a little container I use to catch spiders. I study the spiders. I try to figure out what kind they are. If they're good, I put them back where I found them. If they're bad, I take them outside and put them on the white porch railing so a bird will see them.

I received a rejection this weekend. I made the story better and submitted it somewhere else. It's a story about a ghostly light, but really it's a story about failing to prove your parents wrong. One of the words in the story is "naked." Another word is "Facebook."

I've been getting asked about my tattoos a lot lately. By a lot, I mean a few people. By a few people, I mean two coworkers.


My tattoos mean nothing. I got them when I was in college and my parents were getting divorced. I shaved my head and got these square tattoos. When I'm 70 I won't say, "Squares are for young people."

If my tattoos mean anything (and they don't), they mean I'm a little sexier. Don't fight me on that. Tattoos are hot. I saw some bad tattoos on the back of a guy's calves the other night. They made him hotter. He was at the ice cream place with another hot guy. They got strawberry ice cream and sat outside. The ice cream melted under their hotness. They couldn't eat it fast enough.

I woke up this morning and I couldn't hear. I spent all day flushing black wax from my ears. I called in sick to work. This happens at the start of every summer. I have narrow ear canals. I don't know which parent to blame. Maybe it's all my fault.

I expected to find a bunch of spiders when I was cleaning house yesterday. I didn't even find one. I'm all spidered out.

Pencil Poisoning

Abbi is here in less than a week. There's going to be a woman in the house. I hope we all come through this OK. I think we will.

People are starting to get the letters I wrote them. I'm anxious for responses. Politely anxious. Anxious in the way of looking out my window hoping this thunderstorm doesn't become a tornado.

Book, book, book. Working on the book. I'm obsessed with rattlesnakes right now, so there's a rattlesnake on the first page.

I have snake bite dreams at least once a week. In these dreams, I'm always trying to catch some sort of snake. I never just leave it alone. The last snake bite dream involved a cobra launching itself at my neck. I'm always envenomated in these dreams, but I insist I'm fine. I go through the rest of these dreams refusing medical care.

In states with lots of rattlesnakes, there's special training for dogs on how to avoid rattlesnakes. Dogs are naturally curious/stupid.

I don't know anything about wolves. Are they smarter than dogs? In one recent dream, I did battle with a wolf. I tore his jaws apart. It was a gruesome dream. I was on my way to get pizza, dream pizza, and the wolf came at my throat. I'm having a lot of throat anxiety, apparently. According to something I read once, the throat is the power center for Taureans. OK. I'm a Taurus. I have a throat. Spooky.

I have a nearly imperceptible Adam's apple. Maybe I'm ashamed of its size. Maybe a snake bite would make it swell. Maybe I just made a smoothie with yogurt, prune juice, blackberries, a banana, and a little Kentucky honey. Maybe my bowels.

I have two pieces of pencil lead embedded in my right hand. When I was in elementary school, I put my hand in my pocket to grab a pencil. The pencil was sticking lead up and I was stabbed. The nurse went picking through the wound. She assured me there was no lead in my hand. When my hand healed, there was a little black piece of lead under the skin like a dead bug. I was convinced I would get lead poisoning at some point in my life. I tried cutting it out with a pocket knife, but I couldn't go far enough in. Then I found out pencil lead is graphite, not lead, and I quit worrying about it. My hand is now a sort of time capsule.

The other piece of lead is from working at the museum. We're supposed to have pencils in our pockets in case visitors need them. I had a pencil sticking lead up again. I was stabbed again. It's small, just the tip (ha ha), but it's history. It's there if a visitor ever needs it.

I have learned my lesson about pencils in pockets.

American Jackal

Oh, Beyoncé.

Josh has been gone all week. I've been home alone. I've been industrious. I made pesto. I made a quiche. I wrote like a dying deer, just me and my black gumball eyes. My novel(la) has grown a plot. Characters have names. Cigarettes have smokers. Museums have sculptures. Today, the story got away from me. By the time I caught up, someone was dead.

I wrote some letters using an ink that probably looks like dried blood. If you requested a letter, you're getting one. If you didn't request a letter, you still might be getting one. I went crazy, folks. Drawings and everything. And I cannot draw.

Josh cut my hair last week. My female coworkers finally noticed today. I'm not complaining. All my female coworkers have bangs. Like on-the-brow bangs. I hear you can catch bangs from kissing. I want to blow on these bangs so they sway like grass skirts.

I woke up the other night with the fear that my car would not make it to work the next morning unless I got gas RIGHT THEN AT THAT VERY MOMENT. So I got up and got gas. It was like when you have to pee in the middle of the night. It seemed so necessary. I came home and went back to sleep and had a love dream. I've been holding Josh's pillow between my legs every night since he's been gone. We've been together seven years. People tell me that's a long time in "gay years." I want to pinch their cheeks and say, "You are just so precious and stupid."

The septennial is traditionally celebrated with gifts of wool or copper. We could use some copper mugs. I have enough wool. I once went to a sheep farm to learn how to shear a sheep and clean the fleece. The shears get so close to the sheep's skin, they sometimes make the sheep bleed. The sheep farm had a guard llama. The farmers went out one morning and found the trampled corpse of a coyote. There was blood on the llama's toes. The farmers cleaned the blood from the llama's toes and the llama chewed on whatever it had in its mouth. Grass, probably.

Doing My Jobs

People are asking about the book I'm writing. They want to know what it's about. It's about a man named Jake. Jake is me, not me. Jake is going through some of the same things I'm going through. Jake has seizures. Jake likes men. Jake works at a museum. Jake has something living in the walls of his duplex. Jake is sure he wants to be alive. Jake likes bodies of water. Jake isn't afraid of ghosts or dogs. Jake is a person, not a place, but sometimes he is a place. I don't know what happens to Jake. When I find out, I'm not going to tell you, I'm going to show you. We will meet AT JAKE in 2013.

My favorite reaction about my book has been indifference. One of my friends said, "Writing books is your job. Why are you so excited about doing your job?"

Everyone has two jobs these days. This one and that one.

I hate it when people say they love their jobs, because then it means I can't trust anything else they say.

At my other job, the one I love, the supervisors keep saying they hired a hot new man. I haven't seen the proof, but maybe the proof is in the pudding, in which case I have to eat all the pudding and then maybe there will be a hot new man on the bottom of the dish.

Sally says hot new men are trouble. I say only if they open their mouths. Sally says they always open their mouths.

I would like an entire shelf of preserved animals in jars. I'd like to think the stillness of dead animals is beautiful. Maybe someone could draw me a squid in a jar. I would put it on my wall. I would like more art that's not mine. I don't need any of this, but I'd like it.

I've filled my fountain pen with a reddish-brown ink. If I've promised you a letter, you'll get it this week.

There's a tiny hair on one of the labels at the museum. It's in the display case with the Chinese porcelain rabbits. The rabbits are white with green glazed ribbons around their necks. They have precise little claws and red eyes. One of them has pink skin inside its ears. The other, blue. One boy, one girl. Ladybugs get in this case in the summer and I have to call someone to get them out. I want to call someone about the tiny hair on the label, but it's just a hair, after all.

Release the Beast

There's a painting at the museum of a woman rowing a canoe like she's going to row right out of the painting and bisect you with the tree bark looking mess that is her canoe. The canoe appears to have stitches, so don't ask me how that works, how the woman isn't sinking in the canoe she stitched together just moments ago. I don't trust the power this painting has over visitors. They stare at it as if they're seeing the future.

I do trust I've had a big, unbelievable week. I had a story at wigleaf. It used to be a poem. Then I quit writing poetry. People freaked out over this story. Eat it up, people. This story contains the precursor to venison. I don't know. Can you eat a deer you've hit with your car?

I also agreed to write a book for Tiny Hardcore Press. Oh my God, Tiny Hardcore Press. Readers, I have alerted you to the existence of xTx before. Also, Roxane Gay. They are writers I love. They are the writers publishing my book. xTx says some unfathomable things about me in her latest blog post.

I don't think about it very often, but I have moles all over my body. They're cute like brown marker dots is what I tell myself when Josh presses them like buttons. I bet it looks like chocolate chips have melted flat to my skin. Don't worry. You'll never see me shirtless. You don't have to know.

This is the season for shirtless men to run past my house. Bonus points for hairy chests and hairy legs and any sort of bizarre tan line. I like contrast.

One of my friends fetishizes Adam's apples, so I'm writing a story about one hell of an Adam's apple. Adam's apples remind me of the lump in a snake's body after it eats. Josh has an Adam's apple like a little fist knocking from inside his throat, like he's swallowed a baby who wants out. Oh, Josh, let that baby out.

Shapeshifter

The story is that I went away for almost a week and then came home for a couple days and then went away again for a couple more days. I'm home again, where home really is Kansas City. Josh is going to be gone next week. I'll pace the apartment a lot, thoughtlessly eating.

I don't have a concrete mental image of how I look. My weight fluctuates so much. Today, I look like this, where "this" is a slight chinstrap of fat. Tomorrow, I look like I can wear a t-shirt and be OK because the t-shirt won't strain at my belly. I'll exercise this evening. I'll eat vegetables, primarily, for dinner. I like vegetables. I'm sorry some of you don't like vegetables.

We have new upstairs neighbors who are also our landlords. They walk around like they own the place. Ha ha. They do own the place.

Josh got a subscription to Annalemma. I just read Salvatore Pane's story, "This Is How the Century Is Born," from issue seven. OH-EM-GEE, it's a good story. I cried. There's a scene at the end where a character who has died appears online available for chat. The narrator knows it's not his friend back from the dead, but he also wants to believe it's possible for them to chat anyway, death be damned.

When I was a freshman in college, one of my friends from high school died. Someone signed onto AIM using her screen name the night after her death. I knew it wasn't really her, maybe her roommate or something, but I sent her a message. All it said was, "Why?" There was no response. That's all I needed to know.

I need to know how I sound when I speak out loud. A girl asked if I was coming to her art show on Friday and I said, "Sure," but apparently it sounded unconvincing. I had no idea. I say everything that way. Only now, at 26, have I been made aware of my disingenuous voice. When I tell you I love you, I mean it. Even if it sounds like I don't.

We were in Josh's hometown over the weekend. He did some face painting for a school event. This one girl asked for a peace sign. Josh used the biggest brush. The lines inside the circle were too thick. They made the circle into a dot. Josh asked the girl if she liked her peace sign. She looked in the mirror and said, "Yeah, I guess." Josh shrugged his shoulders. It's just face painting.

One boy asked to have his face painted like an opossum's face. He was given a black nose and black whiskers. He went around hissing at people. I don't know if I've told you, but I don't like opossums. I'm sorry, opossums. It's your teeth, if anything.

I've finished the boat story. I'm sending it somewhere I trust. I'll let you know what happens.

All day I've been trying to track down four things I've ignored for too long. I may have found them. I need to make some phone calls. Hold please.