Porker

OK, folks, it's Restaurant Week. Josh and I went to Justus Drugstore last night and the chef danced on our cheap little tongues. I'm just kidding. My tongue isn't little. It's short and fat like a garden spade. But the food and the drinks! I won't tell you all we ate. It was pork one way or another. Pork in every dish, even dessert. There was bacon brittle on our chocolate tart. It doesn't deserve more words than that. It just deserves that you get to Smithville and eat it.

What I really fell in love with was the bartender. I loved him as soon as I saw him. He was wearing suspenders and looked like he'd just hopped off a velocipede to mix our drinks. The wind was still in his arm hair. He had these jars full of plants and syrups and I felt like I was watching a true nerd and genius do magic for a bunch of rubes. I was too in love to say anything much, but I hope he saw how I licked the egg white out of my glass like I was digging holes for garlic.

I got rid of my hair last week, mostly on accident. I was trying to give myself a mohawk. Who do I think I am giving myself haircuts? My head is smaller in proportion to my body than I ever remember. The story ends there and isn't much of a story. I look like a Pringle with a Tic Tac balanced on one end. Someone do me some good and knock that Tic Tac off.

If you see me at AWP, you'll tell me I'm tall. Duh. I will have the mohawk by then and you can say if it works or if it doesn't. Tim Jones-Yelvington will probably have a mohawk, too, but his mohawk will be made out of lit taper candles. He will be naked but for the dripping wax that forms his outfit over the night. It will definitely work.

In college, I was a fiber art minor. The fiber studio was full of men wearing heels and women wearing ballet flats. We all ran around screaming about fabric and t-pins. There was a weaving studio, too, but it was across campus and no one screamed in there. You opened the door and the slam of the looms sounded like cars having sex. Being in the fiber studio got me over the fear I used to have of taking my shoes off in a dressing room. There are always pins on a dressing room floor. In the fiber studio, there were pins everywhere and still, there were never enough. People would steal them right off of mannequins, and I'm going to admit something right now--I was one of those people. I never bought a t-pin in my life. I owe my former classmates at least a nickel each. Forgive me.

I haven't had pizza since September. I'm nostalgic for a time.

Weekend Junk

We went out to Kansas yesterday to celebrate the second birthday of some twin boys. Josh and I sat in the back of a truck with our knees to our chests like we were hiding under a table. There were more birds sitting in roadside trees than I have ever seen at once. My friend was identifying them with the savant focus you get from people obsessed with math. She was calling out birds like they were numbers flying in front of her face. Starlings, mostly, but also grackles, geese, gulls, and hawks. Bird + bird + bird. It was fascinating. With the smaller birds, all I see is a ball with wings, but my friend knows them every which way.

The birthday party was at a church, but in an adjacent fellowship hall, not the actual church. I'm told the church is precious inside, like a Catholic cathedral in miniature. It's in the middle of the country like it fell from the sky. We couldn't go in because there was an afternoon mass. I wanted to see the painted statues, but maybe some other time.

I met a ginger man at a bar this weekend who was...opposite to me in every way. By the end of the night, he had a crush on me in the way straight guys sometimes do with gay guys. I fought most of what he said, from beer on down to pop music. That seemed to surprise and irritate him. The first thing he did was push me out of the way because he didn't realize we were with the same party. I knew I was in for an obnoxious and delightful evening. When he left, he shot me with finger guns and a wink. So.

My first rejection of the year was pleasant and painless. No acceptances yet. I'm mostly working on the book. I can't tell you how hard it is. I mean, physically, I can't. When I talk to people about the book, I act like it's a weekend of knitting. I belittle the process to get the attention off of me. You wouldn't know I take it seriously at all. But I am terrified. People ask what the book's about, and the only thing I can muster is, "It's about a guy."

I don't think I ever told my parents this, but when I was in college, some people with guns came on campus and stole computers. No one made better art because of it. Also while I was in school, some of my friends were mugged. The first time it happened, one of my friends laughed at the mugger because she thought he was joking. Our studio building was near a gas station and we used to walk down there and buy vodka for the long nights at the end of the semester. Vodka and Fritos and Twizzlers. I went in a gas station recently with some of those friends. One of them bought a bag of Doritos. No one else bought anything. My friend said, "What? No one eats shit anymore?"

Anyway.

Guts and Glory

It's 2012, so I can start freaking out. There's a reading next month at AWP. I've only done a couple readings and those were a hundred years ago in undergrad. I would read my story like I was ordering food at a drive-thru and people would laugh and I would think, "But this story isn't supposed to be funny." Ha ha, Casey Hannan. Ha ha.

The AWP reading is at a bar in Chicago. I will drink a little something before and try not to think about the hot guys all around me. They will read stories, too, and I will probably not hear a single word. Some other people will read after that and the roof will be on fire with how good these people are at reading in bars. The people in charge of this event will let the motherfucker burn. And then who knows? Don't look at me to put out any fires. There was once a grease fire in my kitchen and I made a mess with the fire extinguisher instead of just throwing a lid on the pan. You live, you learn, you pretend to be a smoker for a little while, but you really can't stand cigarettes on yourself even if you love them on other people. It's a big world and we're all stupid about a few parts of it.

This time last year, I was having my first stories published and it was blowing my little 2011 mind. I didn't even have it in my head that alt-lit demi-goddess, xTx, would be the best thing to happen to me all year long. But here we are. She knows all my names. She says if you say all my names at once, I sound like a serial killer from the Midwest. It's good that I'm not.

The only thing I've ever killed was a lizard in Florida. It was a very small lizard and I plucked it off a wall with my brutal kid fingers. The poor little sucker popped in the middle with the pressure. The whole thing was uncalled for. I tried to make myself feel better by saying there were a ton of lizards in Florida anyway. I kept picking up lizards, but only the one was so delicate as to explode in my hand like a hot berry.

We are on the subject of things we cannot change. As to 2011, I have no regrets.

Round Out, Cut Back

The holiday fiddle-faddle is as follows: Josh and I went up north and ate and drank and ate and drank before, during, and after Christmas. At a party at Josh's sister's, I met a man who had such a gap in his front teeth, I couldn't quit looking at him. It was like the dark space of his mouth was a cave and my future was inside. His skin was red and warm, and when he shook my hand, he said, "You're so cold." It was a wonderful Christmas moment for me, to be sure, but the man is straight and wily, and there is no way on this earth, ever, ever, ever. Ever?

Another wonderful Christmas moment was when Josh dropped what was left of my pie on the floor in a house where the air was so clogged with cat hair you had to pick it out of your teeth after you smiled. Sad for the pie, but my God, one of the cats was the most beautiful white beast I'd ever seen. There was so much perfect beauty over the weekend that when Josh and I got back to Kansas City, we couldn't speak for a while.

A package I sent before Christmas was sitting on the porch when we got home. The post office didn't give the package sufficient postage, even though I paid for sufficient postage. I guess I'll have to raise hell, which will consist of me printing my own label and pretending like it never happened.

I'm obsessed with this video. It's like the time Josh and I were at a friend's wedding and Josh shameless danced up on a chair and untied his tie and just did all sorts of sweating sexy moving. The bartender gave him 20 dollars. He was like a lizard who had just lost his tail and the dancing would grow it back.

We can talk about where I get all my ideas, which is in the shower. It's too bad my shower has curtains, not walls, because if it had walls and I had those special markers, I would be a fool for writing in the shower.

It's been a while without rejection talk, but I got a BIG rejection last week. I believe in the story, though, so I'm working its belly away. There won't be any muffin top left. I'll eat it. I will also eat the story's ass. The story will be dizzy and pleased the next time I send it off. I'm just kidding. A story isn't a person. You can't do those things to it.

2011 was a good year for me. It's been the fullest year of my tiny adult life so far. I made a bow tie for every shirt I have. I wrote a book. I was close to people and then I was far away. I hope to be close again one day.

This Beard's on Fire

There was some sort of doctor/healer at the Indian buffet Saturday. He was a crusty old white guy who took brief appointments at his table. Another crusty old white guy came in and got down on one knee in front of the doctor and received a cross between a massage and a blessing. Our server stood there and watched like she was about to see sex or a miracle. Neither at all, it turns out.

I saw a miracle once when my friend pinned a spider to the wall with her hand. The miracle was that the spider was crushed before it got a chance to bite my friend. I inspected the little body. It was a brown recluse. Their venom can necrotize flesh. My grandmother was working in her garden once when she was bitten by a brown recluse. I saw the bite after it had a while to spread out and eat. It was a black, sunken space like the skin on a bad peach.

I know I already said, but I'm in Kansas City for Christmas, not Kentucky. I'm still going to make sausage balls, though. It's a Southern thing. You either get it or you don't. I'm not here to convert you. I try to keep my roots to myself. I don't speak with an accent, though sometimes Josh says I sound like molasses being poured from a jar. That's about as antebellum as I get.

My literary mistress, xTx, has a book that won't stop. It's called Normally Special and I told you to order it when it came out, but you probably didn't. I bet you're just looking for a reason. At The Lit Pub, I give my reasons.

Wherever you are, I hope you're doing all you can not to succumb to winter ghosts. It's pretty hard because they're everywhere. What you do to survive is you watch anything with Michael Fassbender in it. He's the ginger beard we've all been waiting for.

Your Beauty Is Beyond Compare

Josh's sister and some of her people came over Saturday. We had beer, mostly, but Josh had hard cider. There's not much reason to get drunk in front of strangers, so I was done after a few. Someone wanted more, though, so we walked to the liquor store in the cold. There was a woman at the counter paying for a brand of vodka she'd never tried. She promised the clerk she'd report back. She said, "I drink a lot of vodka, so I'll see you tomorrow and tell you how it is." The clerk said he didn't work Sundays and the woman looked destroyed.

There are sometimes attractive clerks at that little store. I can't imagine what they'd be like without the glass divider, though. They all have red eyes and dirty fingernails. It's this attraction to really dingy people that tells me everything I don't want to know about myself. Josh isn't dingy unless we've been eating Indian. Then his fingers are orange from the tandoori chicken and both of us have body odor like curry. It's a controlled sort of dinginess and it works, but sometimes I see a man smoking a cigarette and I want to know what it's like to have that sort of kiss, too.

It snowed this morning. The road was slick as snot even though there wasn't much snow. It's possible I need new tires. It's possible I need a new car. The other day when it was raining, I tried to brake at a yellow light but my car just slid on through. I think Josh thought we were done living. Ha ha! We are still alive.

I have a friend who is being paid a little to go crazy in the woods. I'm so jealous, I cannot tell you. This friend is writing a novel in a cabin and getting her lunch delivered in baskets. I'm writing a novella in my house, laid out on my bed like I'm sick, and my lunch is usually a fried egg. Sometimes, the big dog upstairs barks and walks around and I think someone has broken in so I grab the scissors.

If you paid me to knit something, I'm knitting it today. There's only one of you, so you know who you are. The hints to your identity are as follows: pizza, pizza, pizza.

I have two stories out. I imagine it's like when your kids go to summer camp. The longer you don't hear from them, the less they seem like yours.

Butter Not Shortening

I don't do this often, but I'm going to do it now. I'm going to tell you something I'm good at. I'm good at making pie crusts. I'm better at it than anyone I know. I'm sorry. You're all just doing it wrong, bar those ladies down in Westport. They've got it, too. I love the rest of you, though. You're probably good at making money and impressing your families.

Thanksgiving was with Josh's family this year. We didn't go around and say anything we were thankful for. I think we assumed the usual. Thankful to be alive and so forth. I wore a bow tie and Josh's sister said, "I like your neck situation."

I had a neck situation circa Christmas 2005. Josh gave me a hickey and I had to drive all the way to Kentucky with it. I tried to wear a scarf indoors. When that didn't seem plausible, I just kept putting my hands on my neck. The hickey faded before my family could ask about it. I will not lie, I was kind of disappointed there wasn't a confrontation. This was also around the time I was making scarves that were multi-pronged. They were like veins or antlers or something. They were not well-received. I'm going to try again and see what happens. I hope someone I love makes fun of me.

The book, my book, you guys. I hope you all read it when it comes out in a little over a year. If you do and you see yourself in it, well duh. If you don't like what you see, just remember I am an awful person and all my dreams are about unfulfilled sex and venomous snake bites. All my stories, too.

I crushed around with this guy some years ago and I woke up the other day with the realization that we never ate together. I don't know what he looks like when he eats. I don't know if he makes weird noises. I don't know if the sound of him chewing would make me sleepy. I mean, I also don't care, but no wonder that crush turned to sand. Eating together is important.

The more confident I get about what I'm doing with my life, the more I find out no one knows what I'm doing with my life. The people closest to me get presumptuous about offering alternatives. Like, "Casey, you're good at making pies. Open a pie shop."

Just so you know, I would run a business like that into the ground. I would eat all the pies. I would keep important documents in a grocery bag. And then I would throw away the grocery bag because anything in a grocery bag automatically becomes garbage. That said, if you want a pie, I guess I'll make one for you for the tiny price of just hanging out with me and letting me have a slice of the pie I made for you.

If you're getting me anything for Christmas, get me an apron. I would use an apron. Also, more pie plates. Pyrex, preferably. But don't get me anything, really, because I'm not getting you anything but paper in an envelope.

To Shut Up About It

I've been quiet lately. There are stories I've been working on. And the book, too. It's coming together. I say that every time, but it's true. It's in so many parts, it can only come together now. I'm still far from finished. People ask what it's about, and I want to say, "What's the last year of your life been about? Neatly now. Be pithy." I don't say that, though. I just say, "It's about a ghost."

Otherwise, I've just been thinking and mourning. Three people in my family have died over the last month. I haven't been back to Kentucky since April, and I'm not going home for the holidays. I don't know why I treat Kentucky like a foreign country. Maybe it's because I made my home elsewhere. Still, I romanticize my hometown. It's the only place I can be sad and then leave that sadness for a year or so at a time. It will be there when I go back. When I need it again.

I know I've said this before, but I don't think you can be happy unless you're fine being unhappy. I just think you need a good place to put it. Another person is probably a bad place to put your unhappiness. Put it into something you can hold and destroy.

Good stuff happened and I'm trying to appreciate it for what it was rather than what I built on top of it. It's hard for me not to write a story over the life I have. One of my friends pointed out I'm getting more white hair. I guess that's age and stress, but I like it. White hair is good stuff, too.

I'm going to Chicago at the end of February/the beginning of March for AWP. I'll be reading at the Beauty Bar with some very talented people. I don't know what I'm going to read. If you have any ideas, shoot, I'll take them.

I'll tell you a Kentucky story. My mother's family lives in the country. We were at one of my uncle's for a birthday. That uncle hunts, I know. We were eating on the back porch, and a fawn walked in the backyard. My uncle got up and fed the fawn from his hands. We watched the fawn play in the backyard all afternoon. It became normal, like when someone has a dog with three legs and you start thinking it doesn't seem so bad. The dog seems happy. The fawn seemed happy, too. A cousin said the fawn's mother must have died. My uncle put his head down.

One of my friends called, and I said I had to go. My aunt asked if it was my girlfriend. My mother said, "He has so many girlfriends." I looked at her and I knew she couldn't help it. I said, "Yeah, one of many." I was out then, but that took longer to become normal. That took years, and Josh, and hearing stuff I pretended not to hear. That took not wanting normal at all.

Parks and Divination

There have been a lot of dogs barking lately. I keep thinking there's going to be another earthquake. There were earthquakes last week in Oklahoma. People here said they felt the aftershocks. We ate potatoes and felt nothing.

I saw two friends and a baby today. One of the friends said she didn't recognize me because I was so skinny. She said she thought I was a clone of my other friend. My other friend has been skinny from birth. The first friend is right. I have lost weight. I didn't know how to respond, though, so I just said, "No, not true."

Josh and I saw the fox again. She was standing on the curb like she needed to cross the street. I said, "I bet that's a good omen," but then I felt stupid because I never say the same thing for squirrels or opossums. A squirrel has never made my day better by running out in front of my car.

A couple of my stories were published this past week in great places. The first story is in Annalemma. The second story is in HOUSEFIRE. I'll let you guess which one has my sex dreams stuffed in it. (The answer is: both of them.)

There's so much more I want to tell you, but it's all stupid and embarrassing, so let me tell you this: I'm going to have the last beer in the fridge.

Hallowiener

Josh and I went to a Halloween party on Saturday. We went as the demons of homosexuality. I did the thing where I got drunk too fast and turned stupid. I talked to a lot of people. Some of those people make comic books. I read an X-Men comic book last week and the guy who wrote it was at the party. That was fun and weird.

There was a couple at the party I know pretty well. Somehow, they didn't know I was a writer. They said they thought I just sat around all day and played with toys. I have no idea what their reference is for that, but it's not reality. They are the sincerest couple I know. I told them I was working on a book and they acted like I'd hit it big. I let them think that.

I should have left my phone at home. It's a problem when I'm drunk. If I drunkenly sent you a text message, I just want to say I'm sorry, and I love you, and don't judge me.

At the party, someone was wearing a costume that had gold tinsely shit all over it. The gold tinsely shit kept falling off. The host's cat ate some of it and then threw up this ridiculous tinsel ball. Poor cat.

I'm in PANK Magazine's second annual Queer Issue. My story is a couple shades away from being the color of non-fiction. Chew on that, you little weasels. It just got real in here.

Call Me Hannan

I just forgave summer for ending. It's fall and I need to get used to it. It's a good fall, though. I had the best weekend I've had in a while. Josh's show is over. An opossum walked in front of my car and peeled a flattened squirrel off the street like the squirrel was a fruit leather. I got drunk and made fun choices I've wanted to make for a while. I was called "Hannan" a lot and I really, really liked it. I submitted two stories. I read a magazine. I read a book. I helped Josh find the right pair of jeans.

Saturday night, I was at a party and this guy tried to talk to me about writing. He wanted to talk about how much he struggles to get anything written. I said the process of writing is different for all of us. The guy repeated what I said but in different words. Then he was like, "You know what I mean?" I just looked at the thickness of his legs and thought about his lucky girlfriend. His lucky girlfriend was standing there not saying anything. A drunk woman came up to this guy's lucky girlfriend and said, "Your job must be to stand there and look pretty." The lucky girlfriend did not respond in any way.

At the next party, I sat on the world's smallest porch and listened to a cute guy play guitar. The cute guy had a gap in his two front teeth, so I forgave him for everything he said. There was a banjo, too, but no one could play it. I drank a lot of beer and wine to catch up with everyone else. All the glasses were dirty, so I drank out of a coffee mug. It had a big A on it. A is for asshole. I don't know anything I said at that party, but I know everything I said after. One of the things I said after was, "Hello," to the toilet. I said this about three times.

It's that time of year when big, black snakes cross the street and look like pieces of animated tire rubber. I beg you to keep your eyes open. I ran over one of these snakes last year, and just today, I saw the remains of another poor snake. I have a heart for snakes, which probably means I'm evil. So be it. Wrap me in snakes and see if I don't ascend to a higher, shadowier plane.

Speaking of evil, I have a black dot on the bottom of my left foot. I think I'm marked for death. A few centuries ago, my lover would've seen the black dot on my foot and called me a witch. We would've been burned at the stake together, because duh, gayness wasn't allowed then. I'm so grateful to live in a time when you can be gay and a witch. You can be a gay witch. Or a gaywich, which is a pastry that resembles a macaroon, but when you eat it, it tickles the roof of your mouth.

Since all the leaves on the ground are cracking, I can hear whenever someone walks between our house and the neighbor's house. I'm usually in the shower when I hear it. We open the window when we shower to discourage the growth of mold on the walls and ceiling. Because of this open window policy, I would wager someone has seen me naked on accident. We have curtains, but they're thinner than tissues. If you've been creeping outside my house, I must ask you this: how did I look?

Fox Parts

I've seen the same fox a few times on the way to Josh's work. It looks like it's waiting for us. I want the fox to mean something, but I guess it doesn't. Sometimes, there are deer in the same place as the fox, and once, I saw a bobcat there, too. It's just a park, but it has all these animals in it, right there in the city.

Someone's going to tell me there aren't bobcats in this city and I'm going to tell them there are. But don't ask for a picture, because I didn't take one.

As for foxes meaning something to someone, there's a man in town who dresses like a yellow fox everywhere he goes. When I see him, I try not to make an event out of it even though it's a very special occasion. The man is not like a fox in any way. He's maybe more like a fox on the inside. He wears jeans and t-shirts but also fox parts and makeup. I would like to know if he wears fox eye contacts, but I've never looked him in the eyes.

We had some mice in the kitchen this summer. Two of them. Abbi named them Chester because we thought there was only one. I set out some live traps, but Chester was uninterested. When Abbi left for Oxford, I put out the meaner traps. I don't have problems killing mice. I feed dead mice to my snake every two-ish weeks. Before my snake eats the mice, I have to thaw them in warm water. I like how simple that is for me and the snake.

My great-uncle died. We used to visit him every summer when I was a kid. He lived in Tennessee. Once, he lived in this big, old house with his wife and her daughters. The house had so many rooms and it seemed like they were always changing. My cousins and I went into a room once and there was a hospital bed with an old woman hooked up to some machines. No one told us to look out for that. I don't remember who the old woman was, but her bed was sitting in the middle of this huge room. I think there was a piano and a chandelier in the room, too. Everything is bigger when you're scared. My grandmother tells me that house burned down. She has different memories of her brother, of course.

Last Christmas, my family got me home even though I resisted. They rented a car for me. I drove on ice the entire 600 miles. No one knows this, but I was on the interstate going down a hill and my rental car spun across the median and into the opposite lane of traffic. I've only ever thought I was going to die in a car.

When I got home, I stayed at my grandmother's and so did my great-uncle. Our bedrooms shared a wall. Sometimes, I could smell my great-uncle smoking a cigarette early in the morning. I would wake up and feel like a kid. My grandmother's house is the house I started growing up in. My grandmother bought it when we moved. There has never been a house that smelled more like home to me, like cigarettes and soap.

Speaking of home, I'm more and more tangentially related to people from my home town than I ever thought I'd be. I'm now "related" to some people I crushed on in high school. That's how it is, I guess.

I looked for the fox again this morning, but we were thirty minutes late, and the fox has a morning routine, too. It wasn't waiting for us. There were just people and their dogs, and they were standing around like they might see something other than each other.

Don't Be the Bunny

Josh is going to be in a musical down by the river. It's not the part of the river that smells like sleep breath. It's the part of the river that smells like coffee. Like, coffee all the time. It's a place for young, urban professionals and the people who go through their garbage. I saw someone chasing a cat down there, and I thought, what is that cat running from?

You can buy tickets HERE if you're in KC and want to see my boyfriend act like a singing and dancing corrupt senator. If you don't want to see that, I don't know what's wrong with you. What are YOU running from?

I sat on the porch last night and smoked a single mentholated cigarette with my friend and sister-like equivalent from Arkansas. We watched an opossum cross the street. The opossum did not look both ways. This is probably why I've seen the inside of an opossum more times than I can count.

It's been a while, but I have a couple stories coming out. Neither one has a ghost in it. One of the stories is sexy and the other is funny. They're both pretty gay. Pretty, pretty gay. And the book! The gay ghost book! It's the gayest, ghostiest book you'll ever read. If you're uncomfortable with ghost penises, maybe don't read it. Or do read it. Challenge yourself to face your ghost penis fears. They're just ghost penises. They'll go right through you and you won't feel a thing.

You should know I'm about to go make one of these fake sausages.

The Scales of Just Us

The one good thing about allergies is when you're all dried up you get to pick the lizard skin off your nose from where you rubbed it raw with tissues. That's what I've been doing the last couple of days. It's less satisfying than peeling sunburned skin. Sunburned skin is thin and stretchy like dried glue and jock straps. Picking nose skin is like prying the scales off a dead fish.

I have a few friends who are disgusted by fish--not as a food item but by the creature itself. Maybe it's the dead eyes and the weird mouths and the snaky slick bodies. Maybe it's seeing one fish nibble the corpse of another fish. Maybe it's knowing there are fish out there that grossly outsize humans. I don't know. I'm not offended by fish like I'm offended by opossums, and even then, I think I'm just jealous of how opossums can be so shameless about their ugliness.

I was at a restaurant the other day with Josh and a friend. Every server was male and attractive. I developed three distinct crushes. One of these crushes had a gap between his two front teeth and incomprehensible tattoos up and down his arms. I kept drinking all my water so he would have to bring more. When he would reach across the table to fill my glass, I would stare at the almost perfect squareness of his fingernails. Then he started talking and I got over it.

PANK interviewed me about my crushes and my future second husband, Sufjan Stevens.

I want Ariel Hart to create a tumblr called GIF SERIOUS where she posts all the GIFs she's found/created. Ariel Hart is biracial, which means she's part mermaid, part heir to the Blacula family fortune. It's almost true we knew each other in college like it's almost true we know each other now.

No Good

Let me tell you this: I would give you all my money if I could. I can't, though, so I promise you I won't buy useless candy with the money I do have.

I saw aerated chocolate the other day, which is just normal chocolate with a million tasteless little air bubbles in it. When I want airy and tasteless, I'll eat one of those chocolate wafer cookies or watch anything in our collection of TV on DVD. Chocolate with a million air bubbles in it seems like a factory mistake that was so large Hershey's had no choice but to package and market it as something new.

Speaking of chocolate, I made a chocolate cream pie today. The meringue was out of control. It was so tall it was reaching for the stars. I was like, "Reach for my mouth instead!" and it was like, "No," and I was like, "I made you. I eat you." And then I burned my hand because I always burn my hand when I stick it in the oven.

Did I tell you the story of how it's been kind of chilly here and I'm not ready for it? It's the worst story you've ever heard. I've been rolling my jeans up all summer like I ride a bike or something (I do not), and now I have to wear socks and boots and I can't show off these legs. How will men know I have these hairy legs? I'll show them is how. Even though it's chilly, I'll pull my jeans up to the knees like I'm going to show these men a scar or a tattoo, and I'll say, "Yeah? Yeah?"

Anyway. I won't do that.

Josh tells me I need to do more research for the gay ghost book. If you want to go any gay places, let me know. Like gay bars. Or my gay pants. Ha ha. Just kidding. My gay pants are really just skinny jeans. When I wear them, people ask if I've gotten taller. The truth is I've just gotten skinnier, but I feel weird saying that. There's no good way to say you've lost 40 pounds in the last year. See? I just said it and it was no good.

That Butter Mess

Abbi and I went to the grocery yesterday. I saw a male model. He was taller than God. I think he was holding lettuce. I was holding two bags of sugar. There's no good way to hold two bags of sugar. They were like giant, granulated balls, and I'll tell you this: the balls almost dropped. I wanted to shake the male model and say, "You don't belong here," but then I would've had to touch him and my hands would've melted into the fabric of his very nice shirt. I like my hands. The male model likes his very nice shirt. I kept my hands to myself even though my arms were popping like rattlesnakes.

I was buying sugar for desserts. Josh's mother was in town. I cooked until I felt gross, and then I cooked some more. The meat of roasted eggplant looks like octopus parts. The seeds are like little suckers. I made an eggplant quiche. I tried to make a fancy pastry crust for it, but I was impatient and didn't let the pastry crust chill. It collapsed into a sad, flat biscuit. Abbi said it still looked delicious, but when she left the kitchen, I threw that butter mess away. I made a quick oil crust instead. I'm a wizard at the oil crust.

All of this is to say I've been restless, and cooking forces me to slow the fuck down. I've been working on the gay ghost book and a longer short story about a demonic possession. I started a short short this week, but it's getting chubby too. When I cook, I put a lot of work into something and then I get to eat it THE VERY SAME DAY. I won't see the end of this gay ghost book for another six or seven months. And that's how it should be, of course.

I'm trying to be social again. I get like this around the full moon. Let's be friends. If we're already friends, let's be friends again. I made peanut butter fudge yesterday. I'm trying to limit my consumption, so please, come over and sit on my porch and eat this shit. I will watch you eat it while I drink a glass of tap water.

Have This Pizza Instead

Someone cute on the internet was saying he didn't know why people write novels anymore. I think he was saying something about money, but really, all he said was he didn't know why people write novels anymore. I put the money thing there. Writers are so cute.

Another person asked me when I was going to be published "for real," which is to say "in print." I don't know. Whenever I get around to it. In the meantime, I've been published online in some pretty stellar places. I was asked to write a book because I was published online in some pretty stellar places. I want a pizza instead of all this explaining.

I received a rejection this morning. I submit to this place three or four times a year. I love this magazine so much I'm a subscriber, which is saying a lot because I'm dirt poor. It's a magazine for weird, beautiful fiction. The stories I send are either too weird or not weird enough, depending. Always beautiful, though (if I may). The editor remembers me from submission to submission, and she always says the nicest stuff, but nowhere in that stuff is, "We'll take it."

One day.

Enough about writing. I made peach salsa yesterday. There's a good amount left. If you want peach salsa, come to my house and eat peach salsa. Bring beer.

I had a dream I was hanging out with this girl from college. We were eating nachos in my kitchen, and then my family came over en masse. Each member of my family asked this girl an inappropriate question, and after each question, this girl covered herself with a blanket. She became a mound of blankets with a face. My family sat on her and told me how much they liked her. What. I am so sorry about that dream, girl from college.

Some of you are tough-timing it. Let me know you're OK.

And That Is Why I Wrote This Blog

People are having a reaction to THE HELP. I had my reaction to THE HELP about a year ago when a friend told me the last sentence of the book goes a little something like, "And that is why I wrote this book."

No one wants to hear me talk about racism, but whatever. I grew up in Kentucky. Someone in my family did the genealogy, and in their own words, "We got black blood some generations back." It's still treated like a weird family secret. I was first told about it after I turned 18, which I hope was coincidental and not an example of "Now he's old enough to know."

Roxane Gay, who once sent me boots to lick, had THIS to say about THE HELP. I can relate. There are times I can't stand to be around straight people. I'm talking about weddings. If you're getting married, at least have a cake iced with something that doesn't taste like ground aspirin. Might I suggest a simple buttercream frosting? Yes, I might. Also, forgo the kiss and give each other high fives, or just go ahead and have sex right there on the altar because we're all wondering what you look like naked anyway. I'm only sort of kidding about that.

I'm in dark moods again this week. I can't decide if it's because I've eaten too much hummus or not enough.

At a party Saturday, someone said, "It's not art if I could do it." That's the worst thing to say to drunk people who went to art school. We showed collective restraint. It could've been worse. We could still be in art school.

The government is tearing up the street outside. Our house is shaking. It's an old house. I'm worried about its foundations. I'm worried about my ugly couch and the one penis cushion I sold this week (I was featured on Regretsy again). The woman who bought the cushion is a long-haul truck driver. She bought the cushion for her grandmother.

I'm becoming weightless. The dark moods are lifting.

Basil Seasonal Affective Disorder

You may not know I met John Lithgow. When I was working at the museum, John Lithgow came in. It was all anyone could do not to tear their hair out. Kansas City is a simple place. I was in a vegetarian restaurant once, and Moby came in surrounded by his posse. Servers dropped plates. Glasses exploded. Tofu transmuted into roasted suckling pig shapes. I said, "That bald guy looks familiar." I didn't recognize him outside of the space suit.

Anyway, John Lithgow asked me for directions to the American paintings. He was already standing in the American paintings. I have no idea why he was in Kansas City. That's pretty much the story of anyone who comes to Kansas City. It's a good place, but it's not the best place. I wanted to shake John Lithgow and say, "Why aren't you in LA filming a Campbell Soup commercial?" None of the visitors in the gallery recognized him, which made me feel like I was having my own precious moment.

Here's another precious moment. One of my writing friends was talking about her lesson plans for the coming semester. She mentioned some of the writers her students would be reading. I was one of the writers she mentioned. One of my stories will be required reading. This is me raising the brag flag. Brag, brag, brag.

This past weekend was a steaming pile. It was a full moon, so it's best EVERYONE FORGET EVERYTHING. I drank so much stupid beer that when I was making bread today, I smelled the yeast in the dough and I got a little dizzy.

OK, fellow fatties, I'm making potato gnocchi with three different sauces for dinner. This is mostly because I feel like showing off, but also because Abbi doesn't like basil. I know, I know. Is she human? No, she's English, or will be very soon when she's at Oxford rubbing herself all over with musty books. I hid some basil in a recipe the other day, but Abbi could tell it was there. I could tell she could tell. Neither of us said anything about it, but she's been looking at me sideways ever since.

In the Heart of Transylvania

I used to wear a mood ring, like a really big mood ring. In one of my school pictures, my hands are folded in my lap, and that damn mood ring is front and center. I got it one year for my Dracula Halloween costume. Someone's father complimented me on it while I was trick or treating. It stayed on my finger for another two years. It left a green band that took at least another year to fade completely. All I'm saying is my parents had so many clues to my absolute gayness.

I started reading a series of books this week. It's a fantasy series. There are funny names and maybe dragons, but not yet. No dragons yet. I want some dragons before this book is over. Please tell me there are dragons, because for some reason, I need dragons this week.

I was asked to write a thing for a thing. I'm terrified. I'm a fearful little creature, which means my terror is cute, except that I'm 26, I'm actually pretty tall, and my beard looks like it's been glued on (not cute). I don't know what that has to do with anything. Weird moods this week. Like the red-black color on my old mood ring. It's a color you only ever see on bruises and t-shirt stains. It signifies fear.

Sean Lovelace was very nice about one of my stories. I pulled on my ears when I read what Sean had to say. You know, because my ears were burning.

Traditional wisdom is to recite the alphabet as soon as your ears start burning. The letter you're on when your ears stop burning is the first letter in the first name of the person talking shit about you. I don't know what you do after that. Guess away, I guess.