Playtime

Josh and I are very into theater right now/always and forever. We went to see a production of Death of a Salesman here in Kansas City. At intermission, a woman sitting behind us said she didn't know the play would be so heavy. Ha ha. The title's no joke. That play's heavy as cream sauce. Later, during the last act, the woman sitting behind us leaned over to her companion and whispered, "I don't know what's going on." I do love admissions of defeat. More than once during the play I was defeated by a performer's wonderful ass. Another patron was defeated navigating the stairs in the dark. I heard a tumble, then, "Whoops!" Everybody hurts sometimes.

In March, Josh and I are going to a writing conference in Boston. We're excited. I have to be honest, though. We're mostly excited because we got tickets to see this production of The Glass Menagerie in Cambridge, Mass. with Zachary Quinto, Cherry Jones, Celia Keenan-Bolger, and Brian J. Smith. I'll give you a moment to drink the milkshake of that cast list. If it had a flavor it would probably be raw and eggy like cookie dough.

The weather's been warm enough this weekend for night walks. Josh and I were passing a dark porch the other night, and a woman's voice shot from the shadows (offstage). "There's a full moon tonight," she said. Her little dog barked at us through the chain-link fence. We looked up, and duh, the full moon. I saw a UPS guy drop off a package on that woman's porch once. A man came out of the house and yelled, "What is this?! I didn't order anything! What is in this box?!" He looked at the box. "Oh," he said. "Her."

I have a new story at wigleaf.

Dennis Cooper has me all day at his blog. He has me at all ages. He has me at a family pie recipe. He has me with an old sample of my handwriting. He has me through my book, Mother Ghost. You'll have me soon, too, I swear.

Animale Cruelty

                                                                        (Casey Hannan, 1990-something)

I had a pet snapping turtle. That was a long time ago. It was a baby snapping turtle. It looked like a rock with eyes. I kept the snapping turtle in a shallow fish bowl on the back porch. The gravel shifted in the turtle's bowl during a thunderstorm, and the turtle became trapped and drowned. I was bad with animals, but I loved them. There was the one time I squeezed a wild lizard, and its stomach popped out of its body and onto my fingers. There was the dog we fed too much microwaved popcorn. The vet said the dog's body was "riddled with cancer," like the dog was posed a question it couldn't answer. There were all the times grasshoppers peed in my hands and vibrated their wings apart. All of that was unfortunate discovery. I'm very careful now. I keep a snake alive.

My friend was in town. She stayed with us a hair over a week. We rang in the New Year by drinking tequila and talking about I don't remember. The rest of the week we learned about Tennessee Williams and the choices people make when adapting his work for the movies. I watched Marlon Brando and Paul Newman take off their shirts, and it was like seeing men for the very first time.

One of my teachers called me a cartoon once. I'm trying a mustache.

It snowed while my friend was here. We went walking the day after. A woman on the street told us to be careful. She yelled about a storm coming. No storm came. I hope that woman is OK. She seemed not OK. I told her we would be careful. I promised her. She made me promise.

A man walked by the house the other day. He was singing like he'd been trained in it. I'd seen him before, but I'd never heard him sing. It was a good moment. It was dark and windy, and my friend had left earlier that morning to catch her train. I needed a man to walk by my house and sing. Sometimes a nurse walks by on his way to the hospital. When the weather is warm, he walks on the balls of his feet. When it's cold, he's flat-footed. I wonder if he knows he's doing it. Josh tells me when I'm talking, I look into the distance and my eyes move side to side like I'm reading a teleprompter. Now I notice it every time.

My book officially releases this coming week. If you pre-ordered a copy, you'll receive it soon. If you didn't pre-order a copy, I will never know. Your conscience is dirty, but your hands are clean. You've committed the perfect crime.