I'm here for a fun time not a long time

You are not going to pass a skillcheck against a rip current once it has you.

Waves will not bow to your physical prowess no matter how impressive.

Shock does not care that you used to be on your school swim team.

If you hit your head, being good at swimming isn't going to turn you face-up while you're unconscious.

So, it is actually pretty dangerous to leave the house and be in public while seriously psychosocially disabled. Cops routinely assault people for shit like "acting strange," and the common line when they do so is "well I thought he was high on something." They are almost always cleared in court and seldom if ever even suspended with pay for being like this.

I was once slammed to the ground, pinned, handcuffed, dragged to the station and almost charged because I mistakenly thought I had the legal right to use a bus while schizophrenic.

See, I was pacing around talking to myself, as one does, and some nearby white woman called the cops on me. You MUST understand, there is always a Nearby White Woman. I wasn't threatening anybody, getting up in anybody's business, nothing like that, I was a fair distance from everybody else. I know because she fucking filmed me the whole time she was waiting for the cops to arrive lol.

Then old mate in the uniform comes right up, hand on his gun. "What have you taken? What have you taken?" The thing is, psychosis often comes with disorganized speech, and he's interpreting my answer as evidence that I'm high. Uh oh.

Then for forty eight hours I'm in the psych ward. Blood tests, invasive questions. Explain to me why Dr. Densecunt had to ask me about my sexuality. Explain to me why Dr. Densecunt is asking me if I masturbate. Explain to me why even after a blood test came back clearing me Dr. Densecunt is asking me about if I'm on The Substances. Explain to me why Dr. Densecunt is refusing to call my family when I tell him to. They have no idea where I am. My grandma's losing her mind. Explain to me why Dr. Densecunt's answer to "when can I leave?" is "when we're confident you're safe," as we're the only demographic it's legal to hold captive indefinitely without the violation of any crime on suspicion alone.

You don't see schizophrenics outside unless we're homeless because you are a danger to us, Heather. Our safety depends on your comfort, Heather, and you are never fucking comfy, Heather.

And the thing is, I tell this story in leftist circles, and some fucking Melany, some Susan, some Cassandra or her wannabe boyfriend Mark always slithers out to tell me that I need to be sympathetic becuase wh wh what if she had trauma.

What if the sight of a disabled man fifteen feet away from her existing in public really triggered her tr tr tr trauma. Her mental health, defined as her comfort, is more important than your mental health, defined as a right to exist in public spaces, because you are ontologically a threat. Does this actually keep Heather safe? Fuck no it doesn't. Mate, the shit they do to disabled and especially schizophrenic women. You call the pork patrol on a schizophrenic woman, you have almost guaranteed she's going to be sexually assaulted, but what's worse? A disabled woman's rape, or Heather being expected to share a fucking sidewalk. Goddamn

#hello again martin and bosco!! sending you boys round for another go :)

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.

So I tell Jane to bring her boy over to a bbq I'm having and she can tell him she's trans at my place surrounded by queer and trans people who love her and will support her if he ends up being awful.

She waits till the end of the bbq to tell him the news, by which point the rest of us have learned that Jason is a kind, friendly, empathetic, hard working, dummy. So we sit down, all of us a little worried about this gym bro's reaction when she tells him she's trans, and that she understands if he doesn't want to keep dating her it's no big deal.

He's baffled, so we explain what trans is, and after the disclosure that she hasn't had bottom surgery yet...

"Oh you have a dick?"

"... yeah."

He look's around at the room full of people with baited breath, his clearly a little afraid girl friend says

"Oooohhhh! I get it! You think- don't worry Babe! Watch this!"

And ya'll this man jumps up, runs into the kitchen and returns with one of the bratwurst we had for grilling and proceeds to tilt his head back, put it down his throat, hold it in his mouth for a moment, and spit it up without even a whisper of a gag and then looks around at the group absolutely beaming with pride.

"Honey, I must tell you, i am in fact trans and I have not had bottom surgery."