This is the only picture I could find on my computer of the two of us together. It was taken while I was doing yoga the morning after a party in Napa. We slept in a tent and held each other all night tangled up in blankets and sleeping bags. I could never get him to talk much. I didn’t think it could hurt this much after all the other times I’ve been hurt but it still does. I don’t believe in soul mates and I don’t think love is something that just falls out of the sky and hits you on the head one day and never goes away. I think lasting love is something that takes a lot of time and work, as boring as that sounds. It would be so much easier if I could just say “Aaron was not my soul mate” and move on.

Going to New York with my fabulously mature little sister in two weeks. Excited to see the city and Amy. Going to be very poor and single. By then at least I probably won’t be as sad as I am right now and I will be with two of the women I love most.

What I wish I always knew

I've been figuring things out about sex and love over the past few years. It might not seem like it, but I have been. I know none of these are really that revolutionary or anything, but they're all super important points that have helped me get happy as a single gal.

1. Everything is normal. Consensual sex, although not always healthy, is normal. Even the kinky shit. So before you go around saying what's repulsive and what's sexy, try that shit out.

2. There are a million different kinds of relationships. Probably a lot more. Some of them aren't healthy, some of them are disgusting and abusive. But there are a variety of types of relationships that ARE really healthy, and they don't always come in the package you expect. Forcing your relationship to emulate what you recognize from all those romantic comedies you've seen is way more tragic than being single. Believe me, I know this from personal experience.

3. Just because someone loves you, that doesn't mean the sex is going to be good. Alternately, just because the sex is good, that doesn't mean that somebody loves you.

4. On that same vein, the way that love manifests itself is different for every person you fall for. I continually notice myself falling into this pattern of playing along with what I recognize as love (according to my experiences) as opposed to letting it form itself according to the specific person I have those feelings for. It is incredibly stressful to keep trying to force something to fit into your plan.

5. This one is really the most painful realization: There is no such thing as a soul mate. It is all up to me to pick my relationships, and that is totally fine. There is a possibility I will someday get married, and also a possibility that the man I marry will turn out to be a coke-head that eventually runs off to Thailand to fuck 14-year-old she-males. But he might turn out to be a totally great father and maker of excellent sandwiches. I have no idea at this point. There is also a possibility I will fall madly in love with a 70-year-old lesbian. Maybe I will be alone for the rest of my life. Or maybe I will meet a nice group of turtles and want to spend the rest of my life taking care of them. I have no idea what, where, how, why, or when I'm going to find romance. Or if. And that is completely normal.

P.S. Let's use condoms to keep it extra normal, okay guys?

love letter

My darling,
I hate myself for loving you, Acne Atacoma wedge ankle boots. You are so delicious. It's times like this, staring into your leathery goodness, I feel like I could change the fucking world upon slipping you onto my feet.
Together, you and I could fight crime, rescue kittens from trees, feed the hungry... I'll tie your marvelous little laces down by my ankles and I'll just know nothing bad can ever happen.
Oh God, Acne Atacoma wedge ankle boots. Why is the world trying to keep us apart? What's wrong with loving each other so much it makes us want to karate chop people in the face and jump off of buildings onto other buildings?
But don't get me started on your band of silver... that fucking silver is so beautiful I want to never look at anything ever again. Sure, maybe people will think it's gaudy, and it probably is a bit too much. But honestly, when you and I are finally together, and I'm staring down at you from an uncomfortably high altitude, we won't pay attention to what anyone says. We belong together.

Forever yours, Natalie

Drove to Reno on a whim

My only photo from my mini vacation to Reno this weekend is this one of my friend Ed pulling a wagon with a flower behind his ear. I started to think I should be taking more pictures, but then I remembered this: "A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also a way of refusing it-- by limiting experience to a search for the photogenic, by converting experience into an image, a souvenir." Susan Sontag, On Photography

This is your brain on redbull

Finals week... stressed as fuck but still making myself laugh. I've got my priorities straight!

I'm Brogging

Brogging = Blogging in your Bra

Sometimes you just gotta take a picture

Freaking awesome still life!!

These Diesel ads continue to baffle me. Stupid has balls? Shut up!

Fried chicken curing cancer-- WTF

I've got my nattypack right here!

Because you totally want an explosion near your eye, am I right?