save it for your ivillage blog, lemon

Today is the last day of 2008. It doesn't really feel that big or important this year because I'm in that place where everything is kind of normal and even and steady and non-dramatic and maybe even boring (in a good way). I got the tumult over with a few months ago.

I did the death/rebirth thing already this year. I feel kind of like I am coasting right now. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. I don't think I am stagnating. Krystal says I am not stagnating.

Things just are, and I am just doing. I don't know how else to say it.

And, I mean, maybe parts of me are hibernating, but only because they need to be. Specifically, in this case, the hibernating parts are my artistic self and my romantic (I don't know if that's exactly the right word, but I'm just going to roll with it) self. Both of these selves are still really hurt and scared and have cocooned, I guess. How does one go about coaxing them back into the sunlight?

The art part is most troubling to me because the whole school-falling-through thing happened two and a half years ago. I have to figure out how to heal that wound, and it is significant. I still feel it. It's like a death. I guess of part of myself. And my job is to Lazarus it.

So that's fun. I'll figure it out, though. It's what I do.

Merry New Year's to the two people who read this blog.

what's with all the christmastime homophobia?

First there was Rick Warren being not only homophobic, but a pervy skeezbag as well. (Video here. Transcript here.) Especially the part where he says "I'm naturally inclined to have sex with every beautiful woman I see." Susie Bright thinks he's going to be involved in a sex-with-hookers type scandal (her blog entry here). I hope so. I hope he get's caught fucking an underage male prostitute. That's poetic justice.

Anyway... I don't care how much money Rick fucking Warren has given to charity or whatever Purpose Driven bullshit he's involved in, I think he's a disgusting piece of shit. Just watch the video, I'm sure you'll agree. I also forgive Obama for having him speak at his inauguration. There will come a time when homophobia is as culturally distasteful and unacceptable as racism. We're getting there, I think, slowly but surely.

And then there's the fucking Pope, who I have always disliked. In his holiday address this year he said that defending humanity from homosexuality is as important as defending the rainforest from destruction. (Article from The Guardian.) Isn't that nice? I mean, I know it's not a surprise that the Pope is a conservative asshole, but still, I can be mad about it. Xmas is supposed to be about peace and love, not bigotry and bullshit.

Ugh. I know it's just backlash. And all this loudness is just a death knell for those fuckers. I get it. But, fuck. It's fucking Christmas.

This is not what Jesus had in mind, not at all. Sometimes I wonder if all these Christians actually know of Jesus, really. Like, maybe they have him confused with someone else. Like, maybe little Agnostic Natalie is more of a Christian than they will ever be and how sad must that be for them because they know it in the deepest part of their hateful little hearts.

Sigh.

when i was just a little boy i threw away all my action toys

Andrea and Dave got this for Kobi:

It is called a Roboraptor. It is a combination of the two greatest things on earth: robots and dinosaurs. It is really cute and it walks around and makes noises. I think Kobi will like it.

Dave loves that kid so much. It breaks my heart that Kobi's mom is trying to keep him away from Dave. He had to send Kobi his Christmas presents in the mail. I wish we could get Dave a lawyer for Christmas.

Oh, dads. My dad sent me $100, like he does. And a Christmas card with an angel on it. The kind you get in a pack of 50 and send to all your relatives and friends you kind of care about. So... Yeah. Merry Christmas. My relationship with my dad is so fucked. His lackluster efforts to communicate with me really make me not want to talk to him at all. And then on the rare occasions we do talk it's either neutral to awkward, or really, really bad.

I don't know why the card and $100 depresses me so. Probably because it is a sorry excuse for the love that I've always really wanted from him. Definitely because of that. And because it's so fucking Catholic, which is Rosie's influence. (She probably bought the cards. And the stamps that have Mary and the baby Jesus on them.) So my nonreligious father is off in Catholicland sharing his meager love and affection with his new (read better) family. The normal ones who are average (read stupid) and all have bastard children to fill his pretty house with.

Which came first, him rejecting us or us rejecting him? Who wins in this situation? Sounds like no one does. Except maybe I do. I win my life that I love. I win my sister, alive for now, happy, watching movies and dancing with the robot dinosaur. (It was an adorable sight to behold. I' m sorry you had to miss it.)

My dad is limited. He does okay in his way. But I know it is better for me and my sister to not be around him because he is not healthy and because he will never live up to the fantasy. It still feels like a failure on my part. I didn't try hard enough. Except that I did. I tried so many times for years and years to make it work and sometimes you just have to cut your losses. And move on. But that is so hard.

And there is a difference between saying you love someone and acting like you do. I know this in the core of me. And you can love someone but not know how to love them. Or you can love someone and not know how not to hurt them. And maybe you don't even know how you have hurt them because you do not have the capacity to understand.

And I can know that no matter how much someone loves me or claims to love me or is supposed to love me, that they are not good for my soul, which means I have to do that loving goodbye thing where I keep a sorrowful distance and live my life and keep myself safe. And I do that.

But Christmas brings things up. I am not starved of love. Not this year. Not anymore.

i am an all powerful amazon warrior
not just some sniveling girl
so no matter what i think i need
you know i can't possibly
have a need in this world

she's a cotton-candy cadillac driven by abraham lincoln with a beard made out of diamonds

Ah. Ten minutes of work left. And Monday is the Xmas Breakfast. I am bringing Crockpot oatmeal. It is going to be awesome. Loverly, loverly.

Tonight is a housewarming. Saturday is Andrea's birthday tamale-party. Sunday is Ornaments II: The Revenge.

Hot Christmas! I am in the Xmas mood today.

My sister is here to pick me up. I feel good.

Bye, suckers!

hot christmas!

Last night was Part 1 of the ornament party and it was completely awesome. We made some really sweet construction-paper ornaments and watched A Christmas Story and drank eggnog and this wintertime beer called Ebenezer. It was awesomesauce and funtimes.

Part 2 will be on Sunday. I am excited to make more. Yay.

Xmas is next week, kittens. Isn't that fucked? (I say "Xmas" instead of "Christmas" because on at least two separate occasions I saw or heard something about "Put the Christ back in Christmas," or "In Christmas, Christ comes first," or some such bullshit. Fuck that. It's Xmas, now.)

I hope your hearts are filled with Xmas joy. I know mine is. I have a heart on for Xmas.

And I will continue to call it Xmas until I forget and call it Christmas. It really is not that big of a deal. Still, though. Let's all try and take the "Christ" out of Christmas.

ornament party

Tonight is the ornament party!

And I only have 30 min. of work left. Then I will be off to Target for supplies and then on to Krys' for the ornamentstravaganza!!!

I am so excited.

Yay!

if looks could kill, you'd be an uzi

which one of you jerks poured coffee in my hat?

I think I am supposed to make a list of ten little-known facts about myself. I thought about it a lot while I was taking a shower this morning, so, here goes.

1. Sometimes when I yawn I sound like Chewbacca.

2. I wear a grocery sack on my head when I shower to keep my hair from getting wet.

3. I love the song "American Pie."

4. I go to bed really early.

5. My all-time favorite Disney movie is Sleeping Beauty.

6. I am philosophically against hair removal, but I shave my armpit hair and pluck stray chin-hairs because they gross me out.

7. I like the same Australian lesbian porn as Emily's husband (common law) Jim.

8. Large cities scare the shit out of me.

9. I have a deviated septum and a polyp in one of my nasal sinuses.

10. I was admitted psych inpatient once (in a scared straight sort of way) and it was horrible.

The end.

merry sinus infection

I'm sick and I hate it.

I'm going home and going to sleep.

christmas thoughts

So. I love my family, mostly. But I really don't want to see my dad for Christmas this year.

I'm hoping it'll be like last year and he'll want to just be with his new family and he'll have too much back pain to drive down here. Because I'm tired of trying to make it work with him. I hate going to visit my country grandparents and feeling like a fucking martian. I love my grandparents a lot. I just don't have anything to say to them.

They don't live in the same world I live in. It's like whenever I am around them I am constantly reminded of this vision of "normalcy" that I will never live up to. This phenomenon is magnified with my dad, who I want to see even less than my grandparents. And it's not that I don't want to see them, it's that I don't want to feel the sick-in-my-bones feeling I get when I visit.

I've talked about that feeling before. I try to avoid it at as much as possible. I don't think anyone, ever, should have to feel that. Even if it means eschewing familial obligations.

I hate that word, obligation. It implies that you owe people (in this case, your family) something, and I am of the school that you don't owe shit to anyone, especially not your parents. I do things for my close family and friends because I love them and helping them makes me feel good. It is enriching. Obligation does not drive me. Not in the least.

But. I do, at times, feel the pull of the family obligation. I think it's bullshit though because seeing my dad's side most often leaves me feeling empty, drained, sick, not-good. Mostly because of my dad. And then I feel guilty because as much as I see them (which is never) is all I can handle of them. So where does that leave obligation? Fucked. Which is right where it needs to be.

It makes me sad, the whole mess. The fact that my dad sucks and will never be Mr. Rogers or my old Psychiatrist or anyone besides someone who gives me money sometimes and activates my anger a lot. And I am ok with that, to a point. I try and have this superficial-type relationship with him. Talk to him on the phone occasionally, tell him I'm doing good in school, ask him about the weather in New Mexico (seriously). And I let go of so fucking much to be able to do that. But guess who lets go of nothing? Him. Like all that bullshit with the Presidential Elections and his insistence upon talking fucking politics with me. I've known for years that the last thing I would ever want to do is talk about

And my sister hasn't talked to him in two years, except for the time he came to Tulsa and we surprised her at work.

So what do I do with all that? I mean, shit. I try to have sympathy for him because I know he misses us and feels guilty about not being more present in our lives. But he shouldn't feel guilty because I consider his absence, sadly, a gift.

So, yeah. Layers. Upon layers.