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.