Natasha

@natashajconti

actor, educator, cardamom lover

149 Following219 Followers710 Posts

Bluesky

Is this your profile?Claim it and natashajconti.dirty.social is yours.Claim profile

Natasha@natashajconti· 7d

Read @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social’s divorce memoir over the last week. It was excellent, especially as I was prepping for my current project. I say sometimes (as someone who works weddings) that all weddings are the same wedding—only the details change. All divorces might be the same divorce, too.

A kindle screenshot that reads:

How I picture it: Marriages are nesting dolls, too.

We carry each iteration: the marriage we had before the children, the marriage of love letters and late nights at dive bars and train rides through France; the marriage we had after the children, the marriage of tenderness but transactional communication—who's doing what, and when, and how—and early mornings and stroller walks and crayon on the walls and sunscreen that always needs to be reapplied; the marriage we had toward the end before we knew there was an end, the marriage of the silent treatment and couch sleeping and the occasional update email.

Somewhere at the center is the tiniest doll.
Love. The love that started everything. It's still there, but we'd have to open and open and open ourselves—our together selves—to find it.

I can't bear to think of it in there somewhere, the love. Like the perfect pit of some otherwise rotten fruit.

Another kindle screenshot:

FATHOMED

My mind runs constantly. If I'm quiet and still, I can almost hear the old-appliance hum of it. Maybe you can hear it as you turn these pages. Is that whir the sound of rumination?

The mind chewing and chewing on a thing, unable to swallow?

I worry about money, work, relationships.
I worry about the future, which seems shrouded in dense fog. What will materialize out of it that I can't yet see? But mostly I worry about my kids. What are they thinking, feeling, absorbing? What are they carrying? I can't imagine what it would feel like to have a parent choose to move so far away. It's still unfathomable to me. Fathom from the Old English, meaning "outstretched arms." Once the verb fathom meant to encircle something with your arms as if to measure it. Once fathom was a synonym for "embrace."

Looking at the word fathom, you might think it shares a root with the word father. It doesn't.

I have to trust this: If what I give my children is love, then they're receiving it. If I seek to understand them, then they will feel understood. Embraced. Fathomed.

Natasha@natashajconti· Jul 11

A Sonoran hot dog—specifically BK’s: wrapped in bacon, nestled in a soft & slightly sweet bolillo, topped with whole pinto beans, grilled and fresh onions, fresh diced tomato, mayo, mustard, and jalapeño sauce with a side of grilled yellow pepper.

It’s a photo of the Sonoran dog described in the skeet, on a sheet of wax paper. It looks fucking delicious.

Natasha@natashajconti· Jul 5

The national weather service issuing a severe thunderstorm warning right over Terry talking about what’s coming up next is excellent comedic timing.

A photo of the tv screen. Closed captioning is showing Terry, center with a mic, saying “this team has outdone themselves” while a ticker across the top reads “service has issues a severe t-storm warning for Hunterdon, Somerset . . . “

Natasha@natashajconti· Jul 4

It’s a good day to post Langston Hughes. He wrote this in 1935.

A screenshot of the poem, part 1:

Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek— And finding only the same old stupid plan Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

Middle part:

I am the young man, full of strength and hope, Tangled in that ancient endless chain Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today-O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream In the Old World while still a serf of kings, Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true, That even yet its mighty daring sings In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas In search of what I meant to be my home-For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore, And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea, And torn from Black Africa's strand I came To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed . . .

Last part:

. . . And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay— Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine—the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME-
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives, We must take back our land again, America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states-
And make America again!

Natasha@natashajconti· Jun 12

I wrote a Postcard (www.postcardsfromny.com) about the thunderstorm last night and sent it out this morning with this photo of myself from high school. A friend said it looked like a David Hockney painting. This was obviously the one she meant.

A scanned photograph. Foreground is a concrete patio, with a low crème stucco wall that angles off to the right and takes a right angle. Behind the wall, a mass of green desert foliage, the edge of a mountain angling down on the left, and the foliage making a parallel angle as it grows taller on the right side. A mass of nearly black thundercloud fills the inverted triangle of those angles, and lighter, closer lavender grey clouds curl across the top of the frame.

I am standing barefoot in center frame, in a white shirt and light blue jeans, balanced on the low wall, body facing the storm but head turned over my left shoulder toward the camera.

In composition and mood it is very reminiscent of the David Hockney painting in the quoted skeet, Portrait of an Artist (pool with two figures).

Natasha@natashajconti· Apr 11

(Proof of cat)

Roo, née Tess, a brown tabby with a lot of white, asleep on a knitted blanket with her paws all in one spot and her nose tucked amidst them. She looks—and is—very soft.

Natasha@natashajconti· Mar 9

Proof

Natasha@natashajconti· Jul 6

So . . . the old subway map wasn’t to scale/proportion either, but this is ridiculous.

A close of Central Park on the new subway map. It is almost square, slightly longer horizontally.

Central Park on Google Maps. It’s vertically very long and thin.

Natasha@natashajconti· May 20

It offends me to the soul.

Natasha@natashajconti· May 19

By @kellygracethomas.bsky.social

A screenshot of a poem:

Maybe That's My Problem
In Ohio, my friend's backyard is on fire
with green. Pulsing emerald, the way only something this far from home can glow.
She's upstairs, putting love to bed, as I wait on her deck, scribbling and sipping champagne.
The older I get, the more of me I want. Silent car rides, wind riding shotgun, slipping into new cities like a song. Oysters and airfare. A few bites of passion left on my plate. Maybe that's my problem
I'm always too in love to choose. I want to be holding my daughter back home. And this poet on the porch.
To chase every chartreuse chance. And I know, I know, it's past my bedtime. I could use the sleep, but the champagne's still cold. And I'm greedy for all this green. The sun taunting through trees.
Each moment, mine and bright enough to burn.
—Kelly Grace Thomas

Natasha@natashajconti· May 5

I’ve got one. ☺️ (This is staged, I don’t actually smoke)

Me (a dark curly-haired white woman), in a crème silk nightgown from the 1930s, exhaling a plume of smoke, holding a cigarette in one raised hand and a glass of whiskey in the other. My “so it goes” script tattoo is visible on the outside of my wrist that holds the cigarette.

EB Gallardo was the photographer.

Natasha@natashajconti· May 4

Lots of really concerning stories in this article, but the last one about a guy who was using it for work is really a doozy, especially bc it such sounds like OpenAI is violating its own terms of service.

Screenshot from the linked Rolling Stone article, which reads:

In that sense, Westgate explains, the bot dialogues are not unlike talk therapy, "which we know to be quite effective at helping people reframe their stories." Critically, though, Al,"unlike a therapist, does not have the person's best interests in mind, or a moral grounding or compass in what a 'good story' looks like," she says. "A good therapist would not encourage a client to make sense of difficulties in their life by encouraging them to believe they have supernatural powers. Instead, they try to steer clients away from unhealthy narratives, and toward healthier ones. ChatGPT has no such constraints or concerns."

A second screenshot from the linked Rolling Stone article, which reads:

Sem was confused when it appeared that the named Al character was continuing to manifest in project files where he had instructed ChatGPT to ignore memories and prior conversations. Eventually, he says, he deleted all his user memories and chat history, then opened a new chat. "All I said was, 'Hello?' And the patterns, the mannerisms show up in the response," he says. The Al readily identified itself by the same feminine mythological name.

Natasha@natashajconti· Apr 8

Hey folks, just a reminder that alt text is not a caption. Don’t use it to title the photo, use it to actually describe the image. Bluesky also has a handy feature to copy any of the text visible. Use that but also add context.

The classic how to alt text meme, with a capybara image on the left side and the alt text on the right:

WRITING ALT TEXT
IDENTIFY WHO
COLOUR
EXPRESSION
DESCRIPTION
INTERESTING FEATURES

A capybara
looking relaxed
in a hot spa.
Yellow yuzu fruits
are floating in the water, and one is balanced on the top of the capybara's head.

Some of y’all are out here just writing “capybara meme” or “capybara, 2025,” which does not communicate anything about the image.

Natasha@natashajconti· Apr 7

Anyway, here’s a picture of my perfect cat to ward off the horrors.

A brown tabby with legs, shoulders, tummy and nose all white is sleeping on her side on a white and grey wool blanket. Three of her paws are stacked together and her bottom front paw is curled around the top leg while she sleeps; her black-tipped tail is wrapped around her back legs. Tiny pink nose and two pink toe beans on a back foot are visible.

She’s the softest, sweetest thing, and her 11th birthday was yesterday.

Natasha@natashajconti· Mar 31

These came home with me:

Two metal plates lie on a wood floor, both by artist Ian Trask. He takes found slides and double-layers them to print on a tin plate. The top one is a square 4x4, called “Honeymooners”: it’s a shot of the moon in waning gibbous, but in place of the white moon is a beach and waves with a couple walking along the shore, and that shot is from very high and far away, so they look like they’re walking on the surface of the moon.

The second piece is a vertical 4x6 called “Inner Fire;” the top image is of a woman standing on a block with a light patterned fabric wrapped around her, and she’s looking down at her hand holding out the edge of the fabric. Her other hand is resting on her chest. The second image is of a rocket launch over water; the rocket lines up perfectly under her hand, where her heart would be, and the flame runs up the center of her body. The whole image is washed in red.

This piece is a 12x17 screen print called “Sea Beast” by Keren Hasson. It is a black print with gold accents on white paper, and shows a large, many-eyed sea serpent with two tails and a long thin beak that almost looks like a narwhal horn rising out of choppy water. There is a very small boat with very small figures in the foreground shooting arrows at the beast, and though some of them have stuck, you can still see their points and there is no blood, so maybe the beast is mostly okay despite the attack. There are stars and a moon above.

I paid $30 for this print, which seems like a crime.

Natasha@natashajconti· Mar 31

Partner and I wandered over to the Brooklyn Art Print fair yesterday. It was EXCELLENT. Lots of affordable pieces, younger crowd, not stuffy at all, some really innovative pieces. And then we got pierogis after, and it was a perfect Sunday.

A shot of one of the aisles of booths at the Brooklyn Art Print Fair. It’s located in Powerhouse Arts, which is an old power plant covered in graffiti that they turned into an event/art space, so it’s very industrial-looking, with red metal beams, brick walls, and a concrete floor. Lots of people in the foreground of the photo and cool art hanging in the booth in the background.

A shot of an incredibly complex print by Annalise Gratovich. It’s coral red and cyan blue with black outlines, with a big diamond shape in the middle. Volcanos in the lower corners, planets in the upper corners, snakes and beetles and fires and moths and dice around the edges. Four rotating comets at the top. The center image is kind of a vegetal peacock? The whole thing manages to pull from Native American and Scandinavia influences but also looks like an Indian block print.

A close-up of two double-layer wood block prints by Susan Goethel Campbell. The top one is pale turquoise blue with holes in the thick paper that allow a dark green to peek through; the bottom is mossy green with brighter turquoise green peeking through the holes. There’s a line of the white backing paper that looks like a river in the bottom right.

They look like textural topographical maps, or what flying over densely vegetated land or a lake would look like. There’s perspective in the way the holes are patterned, like you’re seeing the earth or water from an angle rather than directly above.

Natasha@natashajconti· Mar 16

#Caturday timeline cleanse: Roo makes the very best little spoon.

A cat who is mostly white from this angle, with a grey face, is on her side, lying on top of my arm with her head tucked almost under my chin (as I am also lying on my side). She is clearly smiling, and she was purring like a diesel truck. The edge of the blanket is just visible, and she’s tucked under it. You can’t see much of my face (it’s out of frame) but you can see me smiling too.

Natasha@natashajconti· Mar 11

Apropos of absolutely nothing at all, @eleriward.bsky.social on Sondheim’s most profound and well-crafted lyric:

Natasha@natashajconti· Mar 2

Finally made it, (thanks @tdfnyc.bsky.social for the excellent seat). Some truly lovely moments. Sanders as Falstaff was excellent (as @thehighsign.bsky.social said), as was Udom as Hotspur/Pistol. The gender balance noticeably sucked, though. Who casts Shakespeare basically as-written anymore?

The program for Henry IV held over theater seats, with fake rose petals scattered on the seats and floor.

Text of program reads:

THEATER FOR A NEW AUDIENCE
a full digital program— including cast and creative team bios, essays on the production, and interviews with the artists-—read our 360 Viewfinder by scanning the QR code to the right

HENRY IV
William Shakespeare
ADAPTED BY
Dakin Matthews
DIRECTED
Eric Tucker

Natasha@natashajconti· Feb 22

Timeline cleanse.

A single human figure is silhouetted almost at the horizon line on a beach, with a seagull and a smaller bird closer to the foreground. The bright blue sky is dappled with fluffy white clouds, and the sand is covered with a thin layer of water that reflects the sky, so the whole thing feels surreal, as though the figure is walking on water. Sea foam is scattered across the sand and the waves are white-capped in the background.

Natasha@natashajconti· Feb 13

Hopefully just the website and not the actual monument—but luckily they haven’t yet taken down the feedback form at the bottom where you can yell at them. (@altnps.bsky.social, wtf is this)

A form screenshot from the bottom of the NPS Stonewall webpage linked in the quoted post.

It reads:

. . . Stonewall uprising, the LGB rights movement and Stonewall NM today!

Last updated: February 13, 2025

How could we improve this page?

And my comment in the comment box:
Put the T back, you cowards, stop capitulating to fascism.

442 characters left

A big blue Submit button

An official form of the United States government.
Provided by Touchpoints

Natasha@natashajconti· Feb 13

Normally I hate Valentine’s marketing, but this tango shoe company really nailed this email. (Click in for full text.) 💃🏻 👠

Natasha@natashajconti· Feb 12

Current view/timeline cleanse: The world may be terrible, but at least there are cats and handmade quilts and mugs and a space heater when the boiler goes out. (That’s a @samirahsteinmeyer.bsky.social mug, and the quilt was made by @kathleenconti.bsky.social.)

A brown tabby sits very curled on the lap of a person (me) mostly out of frame. On the left is a hand holding a stoneware mug that has desert sand colored mountains with a turquoise sky; there is a carved 3D prickly pear cactus with pink blossoms on one side. In the background are a white wool blanket with fringe and the back of a quilt with a turquoise floral pattern edged with a dark blue fabric that has pink and blue and green cactus.

Natasha@natashajconti· Feb 1

Happy #Caturday ~

A brown tabby with a lot of white is lying on her side on a grey and white blanket. She’s stretched along my legs under the blanket, though you can’t really tell that from the photo. Her eyes are closed and she’s smiling, and her front paws are tucked up close to her face in a way that you can see some of her bright pink toe beans. Some back paw toe beans are visible too, and her tail is wrapped around her thighs and tucked under her belly. All in all: unbearably adorable.

Same pose as before, but a closer crop on her face. She’s sort of turned her head so it’s half buried in a blanket fold and you can mostly only see her chin and the underside of her face. The toe beans are now hidden, and she’s smiling.

Natasha@natashajconti· Jan 30

Roo as a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

A cat, about half grey (actually brown, but looks grey) tabby and half white, is curled in a ball. She’s on a bed covered with a teal bedspread with gold satin pillows behind her. From the top right of the frame, a single beam of sunlight angles across her and the bed, echoing the photo of the earth that inspired the Carl Sagan quote I’m referencing.

Natasha@natashajconti· Jan 25

For #caturday, Roo looking angelic in the sun.

A brown tabby with a lot of white lies at the edge of a bed with a teal bedspread, in the large rectangle of bright sun streaming in from a window out of frame to the right. She is lying on her side, three legs and the end of her tail dangling over the edge, and she’s looking up toward the window with ears forward and her eyes big and green.

My kid took this photo, so my legs are visible on the bed behind Roo, knees up, striped pjs bunched around my thighs. It’s kind of ridiculous, but the cat is cute, so we’re posting anyway.

Same basic photo, except Roo is further on her side, all four legs visible, and she’s closed her eyes and is lifting her face toward the sun. There’s a fingerprint on the camera lens now so she’s got a kind of grease halo effect.

My hand is on my leg, now, and my torso is more visible, so I look more ridiculous—but I’m in the shadow, so hopefully folks aren’t paying too close attention.

Natasha@natashajconti· Jan 20

So . . . retweeting a post that was not any of these things has gotten me added to some interesting blocklists, simultaneously, by users with no posts, that are the opposite of what I retweeted. Some weird and concerning bots afoot, @safety.bsky.app.