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.