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.