my little buttercup has the sweetest smile

I had something really, really important to say. In my heart I did. But it is gone now. Gone like so many other very-important things that must not have been all that important if we are all still alive and well without them.

Today is Abraham Lincoln's birthday. Charles Darwin's as well. They were born on the same day. I wonder if they are cosmically connected, then. Do they hang out in heaven? Do they prank Robert E. Lee? Put his fancy General's sword in jello? Wait. I don't think they have jello in heaven, it's gross. No one actually likes jello. Not even Jesus.

I think I was supposed to notice and be excited that Laura and Mom now have matching bikes. She said, did you see, did you see? And I, playing the petulant daughter, said, "Yeah. It's a bike," like it was the least interesting thing I had ever heard in the entire world. I'll have to fix it tomorrow. "Wow, Mom. That's so cool that Laura bought you guys bikes (I know Mom didn't buy them or even one of them because she's totally broke right now) and now you can ride around together like the giant homos that you are."

I just suspended blog writing to go have an 11pm Cobb salad at Village Inn with Kate and Emily. It was great. We talked about boys. And stupid girl drama. And the inevitable robot uprising.

Here is a picture I took with my phone:


I call it "Washrags with I Voted Sticker." It is possibly one of my greatest works.

Also, here is one of Andrea, Dave and the cat all passed out on the new couch.


I might go to bed now. Goodnight.

things

This is the poster I bought:


It is a beautiful three-color silkscreen limited edition of either 45 or 100. It's awesome and I am going to put it in a nice black frame. Art school turned me into a black-frame-white-mat person. Does that make me boring or does it make me a Fascist? I haven't decided.

KCAI is having Alumni Weekend in May. Can you be an alum if you didn't graduate? Unimportant. There's no way I could handle going back there at this point in my life. That's actually a lie. I can totally handle it. Fuck. Maybe I should go. Maybe it would be therapeutic. Maybe it would just be humiliating. Do you show? No. Do you have any new work? No. Do you feel dead inside and heartbroken because in your life you have abandoned not one, but two of your true loves? Why yes, yes I do. *commence blackout drinking*

In other news, the Robert ParkeHarrison exhibit at the Nelson that I desperately wanted to go to is ending on Sunday. That's like a tiny knife in my crusted-over heart because it's my fault and my fault alone that I did not make that happen.

I think maybe I should be in therapy again. I hate therapy. But I have this self-loathing that I don't know what to do with.

Blerg, you guys. Just... blerg.

jon stewart is hilarious

From the Feb. 3 Daily Show:

"So maybe Obama cannot instantly drain the ethical swamp that is Washington, but can he at least bring hope that Republican and Democratic crooks can work together as some sort of bipartisan criminal enterprise?"

your gayness does not define you, it's your mexicanity

Sometimes I hate straight people. Sometimes I wish they would all just go away, and then gay people would be left to take over everything. Maybe this is what those stupid Christians mean by the Rapture. If that is the case, then bring it on. Maybe they should make a gay version of the Left Behind books where all the gross straight people go to "heaven," and then life is awesome for gays everywhere and we all live in peace and harmony forever.

It makes me think that Deaf people must hate hearing people sometimes because we have it so easy. And we don't even think about it. We don't have to. We move through life effortlessly with easy access to everything and basic stuff, like going to the doctor or going to a movie, isn't ever a battle. (Except I fucking hate doctors so I have to battle with myself to actually go. But making the appointment is usually hassle-free.)

I don't think anyone has it easy, really. America is not an easy place. Maybe for rich white men it is. Not for anyone else. Like Tom Petty says, "everybody's had to fight to be free." This is not a "Who's Been More Oppressed" contest. That's pointless and counterproductive. (And besides, the Gay Black Transgender Deaf Quadriplegic Jews win that one every time.)

Anyway. Some days I hate straight people. Those are usually the days when it sucks to be gay. Like around Obama's election I hated straight people for making it bittersweet. And I lumped them all together, even the ones who didn't vote for bigotry, because I fucking felt like it. Sometimes it seems like stereotypes and inaccurate generalizations are all we have left over straight people. They hold all the power. What do we have? We can call them names. Make fun of them for their penchant for sex resulting in pregnancy. Turn the tables and say they are fags because maybe that is the most insulting thing they can be called (because they are secretly gay inside and don't like to be reminded of it, *ahem* Rick Warren). And then maybe the word "fag" has less power because it stops making sense if straight people are fags, too.

Like I said, though. I don't feel like that every day. Just some days. Sometimes I like straight people because I know a lot of them, and some of them are good and nice. Like Dave and my sister, except I don't count them as straight because Andrea is my sister (which makes her half gay, genetically speaking) and Dave has a ton of lesbian friends. So that's gay by association. Adam, I think, is the straightest person I know, and I like him all the time, even on straight-hating days. And even he only partly counts because he's marrying into gayness.

And maybe you are thinking "labels, schmabels, get over yourself," but it's not about labels, it's about identity. Identity is important. Americans are very into searching out their own personal identities. And I am very much an American.

My interpreting class (still full of ridiculous idiots who don't understand what a paragraph is) has me thinking about culture a lot. Thinking too, about my own personal cultural identity. Also thinking about the similarities between Gay Culture and Deaf Culture. I should write a paper about it. At least it's interesting. I could be in a Traditional Grammar and Usage class that makes me want to stab forks in my eyes, repeatedly.

p.s. Please don't ask me how someone can be Gay and Transgender at the same time. They are two different things.

i love robots

I bought this shirt today:


Because robots are awesome. Almost as awesome as dinosaurs.

update

Dave made steak for dinner.

It was delicious.

That is all.

p.s. This is Tyler:


He is adorable. He is Dave and Andrea's new dog and we played fetch for an hour today. I am afraid my arm will be paying for it tomorrow. My wrists and hands are already all fucked and mad at me. Best not to think about it. Except that I should probably be getting massages regularly so my hands don't deteriorate into creepy claw hands before I'm thirty.

Nerds. Bodies and their stupid problems.

we are such silly creatures

Dear Mom,

Please get rid of that fucking orchid.

Love,
Natalie

johannesburg, the second greatest city after paris

by William Kentridge

radio war

by Iron & Wine

Did the wine make her dream
Of the far distant spring
Or a bed full of hens
Or the ghost of a friend

All the while that she wept
She had a gun by her bed
And a letter he wrote
From a dry, foundered boat

And the train track will take
All the wounded ones home
And I’ll be alone
Fare thee well Sara Jones

Now we lie on the floor
While the radio war
Finds its way through the air
Of the dead market square

And the beast never seen
Licks its red talons clean
Sara curses the cold
"No more snow, no more snow, no more snow"

with all the righteous rage, and all the bitter spite

I'm too angry. It's just the hormones. This is normal. It happens every month.

I still hate it, though.

I hope Krystal is ok.

I think I will go to bed early tonight. Maybe cry a little. I feel like I need to, like it's been building up. All the times in the past six months when I thought I was going to cry or wanted to cry I haven't really, but maybe finally there is enough, now, for me to cry about all the things I need to cry about. All those things that shouldn't be but are. All the frustrating bullshit. All the things in the world I can't fix because I'm just Natalie. Everything that is unfair and injust. All the things my friends have to deal with that I can't spare them from because that's just not the way life works.

I'd like to cry about that tonight, please. And I think then I'll be ok tomorrow.