more to come, more to reach for, more to hurl at the door

You can't clearly define who's LGBT. Even someone who could pass as 100% cishet in their everyday life could be LGBT. Someone in an opposite gender relationship could be bisexual. Someone could be questioning their sexuality, even slightly, or maybe they did in the past or will in the future. It also isn't just people who identify as a non-assigned gender or have romantic or sexual attraction to the same gender that are oppressed. Even those who simply deviate from gender roles while still technically being cishet can be oppressed for it.

Requiring LGBT status as a condition for entry to LGBT events requires LGBT people to be out. And being out can be dangerous, so it should never be required.

For reference, I was a senior in HS when gay marriage was legalized in the US..... It was not good here for a while. Still is shaky, but better than it was.

Our third annual pride festival is this Saturday.

The first year we had some out-of-state hate group email a death threat to the leader of our local pride organization. (This lady basically built the local pride community from the ground up. She's the sweetest person I know.)

Day-of the event, someone stole the signs leading to pride. There was security all around the perimeter. And there was a faith/freedom event that scheduled their event same day/time as Pride to try to compete. (They have done so every following year.)

Our first pride, we had over 1,000 people attend. (The faith/freedom event, despite being in the center of town, only had 30 attendees and 2 booths.)

To note, my hometown has under 9,000 people. Over 1,000 people is DAMN good for the size my town is.

Second year was about the same, the faith/freedom group tried to go around with sign-up sheets to local businesses. (Basically saying that the business agrees to support the faith/freedom fest that day and no other events.) My coworker said that our support was with a different org that day and refused to sign it. She threw their flier away as soon as they left. (Did I mention they tried starting to advertise the DAY BEFORE their event took place?)

Other than that, last year we had no issues. No death threats or stolen items. We still have security present.

We're approaching our third year. They've gotten big enough to list local businesses who are sponsoring this year's event. My workplace is one.

This year my boss hung a small garland of rainbow flags out front. He said there were two people in here shopping and he said they'd thanked him for flying the flags/carrying pride merch. (Because they said they'd felt safe here.)

Pride is incredibly important in communities, like mine. Even if someone is cishet (see above bullet points) - who fucking cares? And why is it YOUR job to police who is and isn't welcome?

In communities like mine, SHOWING UP is more important than cherry picking who can come. It shows others that you are a safe person to be around.

We NEED more people to show up and be safe people. Showing up to pride is one of the easiest ways to show that.

My local pride organization isn't limited to those in the community, but they do still highlight voices within the community.

There are also two offshoots of the pride org. A support group for adults and one for minors. Both support groups have booths at pride. (Along with churches, small businesses, etc.)

Yes, I do think we need to continue to center queer voices within pride, but I do think having cishet individuals attending pride is NOT a bad thing. It is a good learning opportunity and a good way to show support to marginalized voices.

Rosemary chicken ingredients:

5-6 cloves of garlic or like measure with your heart basically

Big handful of fresh rosemary leaves again measure with your heart

2 tsp course salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/4 cup lemon juice

2/3 cup olive oil

A bit of corn starch or flour, maybe a tablespoon

Water as needed

Large package of boneless chicken thighs or whatever cut of chicken you wanna use but I use thighs

Method:

Mince the garlic and rosemary together very well. Don’t make a paste or anything but do mince it very fine if you can

Put your garlic rosemary mix, salt, pepper, onion powder, lemon juice, and olive oil in a sealable container and shake together really well to make your marinade.

Let your chicken marinade in this for at least an hour but up to 8 hours is fine if you wanna do this in the morning or something. I usually do this bit during lunch and let it go for four to five hours.

To cook the chicken get a large flat pan on medium high heat and sear your chicken on both sides. Once you’ve done this, add the remaining marinade to the pan, cover it with a lid and turn the temperature down to medium low.

Let the chicken steam in the marinade for 15-20 minutes or until it reaches an internal temperature of 165F. Set your chicken aside to rest while you make the sauce.

To make the sauce, leave the remaining marinade and chicken drippings in the pan and turn it up to medium high, whisking constantly.

Mix a bit of corn starch or flour with water to make a slurry and add to the sauce. Continue whisking it into the marinade constantly until it reaches the consistency you want. I usually go until I start to see the pan through the sauce a bit as I whisk and the sauce sticks to the back of a spoon.

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

birds 6 and 7: American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, male and female

BIRD NUMBER 8, (yellow shafted) NORTHERN FLICKERRRRR, Colaptes auratus

genuinely made me start questioning my sanity around day 3, it's half the size the of the goose, WHY did it take me 4 days to finish??

Bird number 9: Red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis

my chains are broken i am FREE. although i did have a great deal of fun with this, the barring on the wings itself took me like four days and i am READY to move on

this was a week and a half of continuous work so please excuse me for getting a little emotional in the bg 🙏

BIRD NUMBER 10!!! The Male Mallard Duck, Anas platyrhynchos

the male and female ones are gonna be posted separately bc they're taking a lot longer lol but yea! super happy i was able to capture the iridescent green of the head, i found metallic green and blue paint at a craft store that really made his head POP. it looks better in person i promise

ALSO!! As this is the 10th one, BIG announcement. The end is in sight!!!!! I plan to finish within the next 3 weeks and there will be a small dedication ceremony/ unveiling happening at the library to commemorate its completion on the 16th of May. If you live in the Western New York region and want to check it out for yourself shoot me a dm!

aaaand another one bites the duck,

we're movin right along with bird numero 11!! The lady Mallard!! Anas platyrhyncos

power couple that they are, here's bird number 12 and 13,

the Northern Cardinals, Cardinalis cardinalis

and NOW that they are complete, ITS GO TIME, in the next five days (library's closed for mother's day 😭😭) i need to have the GBH fully rendered, the names of the birds vectored, weeded, masked, applied to the wall, and then painted, plus additional cattails throughout. I may be able to get away with just getting the GBH done in time for the unveiling and then just have the names and cattails added later, but i'm gonna really try to get it all done in time. BUT, i have a plan. Part of why i take so long on these is because i really am just figuring it out as I do it lmao. there have been many a time where i am sitting on top of the ladder googling "how to paint birds" but I think if i take the time tomorro to do all that figuring out how to approach it beforehand, this will go a lot faster. I may also recruit some of my artist friends to help with the placing of the names... hrmm we'll see.

Anyways, shout out to the librarian who tracked down exactly the thing i needed so i could figure out where to place the highlights in my birds eyes, ur the real mvp

Bird number 14 out of 14,

The Great blue heron, Ardea herodius

thank you to everyone who reached out or got excited about this project, it genuinely gave me the fuel i needed to keep going. In total, the 480+ total hrs it took me to cover this wall pales in comparison to how long its expected to spend on there, hopefully imparting a sense of beauty and love for the natural world to the next generation and here's hoping i'm only getting started with these.

Doing a final project in my stats class, we have to pick a subject and collect data on it. We need at least 100 data points, and I figured this blog is big enough that a poll on here could get to that pretty easily!

Doing my project on if it’s more likely to be born in certain months :]

me: Are you fucking kidding me Larius I told you to do that outside, now it's gonna smell like ass in here all day

my elf roommate: *puffs a perfect ring of smoke* What Is A Day In A Life That Lasts Centuries?

me: not everybody lives as long as you dude. put that thing away

my elf roommate: That Is Not What Thy Mother Said

me: hilarious