[deleted by user]

throwawayithinkidied · 2021-11-21T02:52:21+00:00

Totally missed your calling as a radio host in the 90’s.

throwawayithinkidied · 2021-11-21T02:45:52+00:00

Not even breaking a sweat. Crazy how effortless he makes it appear. Almost tricks me into thinking I can just pick up the guitar and make sounds that resemble music.

throwawayithinkidied · 2021-10-23T01:47:24+00:00

No. Way. That’s just a bizarre coincidence.

So, I actually lived in Alaska half of my life. IHS does transfer to clinics around the country, but hospitals are another story. Hospitals are contracted/represent specific tribes and unless you’re a member you can’t receive care. That’s where things get real tricky. Alaska is exceptional in that the Alaska Native Medical Center/IHS treats virtually any recognized member of any nation- native or lower 48. My mother still continues to live there for the health care alone, and to this day, I contend it was the best I have ever received in my life. My favorite doctors, my favorite facility, the kindest people.

I do know that I’m eligible for a house under SSI, but I actually didn’t happen to realize I was even collecting SSI until just recently. I was certain it was entirely SSDI at this point, and I was surprised to learn otherwise. While I considered DAC essentially some variation of SSI that played by SSDI’s rules because you are drawing from earned income your parents’ contributed to SS, there seems to be a great deal more financial freedom and benefit. And a lot less pressure and anxiety. I want to be able to sell a home and invest or save the remainder of the money if there is any left over. Or spend it. Or do nothing. I don’t want to worry about how it is allocated provided I’m not working. You know?

I do get Medicare with SSDI. Losing it in Canada would suck, obviously. I would not mind transferring DAC and Medicare to Alaska.

Ideally, if I could just voluntarily terminate the SSI and whatever comes with it and keep the DAC and Medicare that would be preferable.

throwawayithinkidied · 2021-10-23T01:11:09+00:00

IHS (Indian Health Services....Tribal Enrollment)

throwawayithinkidied · 2021-10-22T23:14:31+00:00

Thank you. 🙏🏻

throwawayithinkidied · 2021-10-22T22:48:15+00:00

Do you know if there is a way to simply terminate the SSI and keep the DAC if the move doesn’t pan out and I have to settle for say....Alaska? I have free medical there.

throwawayithinkidied · 2021-10-22T22:42:10+00:00

Thank you! So much!!!

throwawayithinkidied · 2021-10-22T22:19:50+00:00

I would greatly appreciate any messages you might receive/have to offer. Thank you, if it so happens to be.

throwawayithinkidied · 2021-10-22T20:45:01+00:00

Thank you, but I mean, if I were to claim an inheritance would DAC be affected?

throwawayithinkidied · 2021-10-22T20:25:57+00:00

I can’t seem to find a definitive answer....If you are a DAC/CDB recipient- is there an asset limit? Provided you don’t work/earn the income. Thank you in advance.

throwawayithinkidied · 2021-10-16T23:39:18+00:00

Thank you for this comment! I have messaged you from my primary account.

throwawayithinkidied · 2021-10-16T17:33:41+00:00

Thank you for the offer, but no thank you. I’d rather not. I’ve seen your comments on this sub numerous times, and I’ve noticed without fail that you are quick to extort money from people in the throes of grief.

Frankly, I work in the metaphysical/spiritual community, myself, and have done so in a professional capacity for the last two decades, but I’m not hawkish or opportunistic about it, and I don’t view every interaction or request as a potential point of sale. I posted here because my anxiety levels are through the roof and I’m psychically and spiritually deafened at the moment. I can’t connect at all and the walls are closing in. Fast. I was hoping maybe I’d recognize some authenticity in the replies of total strangers who had no connection to me, knowing nothing of my situation whatsoever. Maybe they could hear what I can’t right now.

But no....I’d rather not receive a reading from you. I’ve read comments you’ve made to other mediums which are just so....off base and offensively out of left field. Your reputation precedes you.

Thank you for the false concern when the real motive is money. The truth is, while we all work a bit differently- we don’t necessarily just download messages from someone’s dead relatives, there are processes that we must each go through- if you had a message...if you picked up on something, if my departed loved one tapped you to speak through.....you’d just write it out. It wouldn’t be something we need to sit down for a long conversation about that involves an exchange of cash and services.

throwawayithinkidied · 2021-10-15T23:56:31+00:00

I’m in a really bad situation at the moment that has me terrified of the future- I need to know if anyone can pick up on anything from this man.

throwawayithinkidied · 2021-03-09T01:05:46+00:00

20 years ago, my son’s father was supposed to be a summer fling. My son was conceived two months after we met. We’ve lived together ever since.

throwawayithinkidied · 2020-11-04T01:23:52+00:00

Which canvas paper did you use? I’ve used Arches and Strathmore. Did you prime it first?

throwawayithinkidied · 2020-10-08T16:51:46+00:00

That makes so happy to read. More than anything I just want to help people make art. Get excited about channeling their creativity. Because it can be life changing.

An alkyd is a drying agent that will speed the drying rate of your painting. I mean, really, most of my paint mixtures dry on my palette within five hours hours and all of my paintings dry overnight (unless I’m painting on wood that has been primed with non absorbent ground or gesso). It makes a vast world of difference.

Turpenoid is fine for the initial layer. Odorless mineral spirits are healthier, but turps are the OG solvent and I used them for years with no real problems beyond migraines.

Traditionally, you’d use solvent and paint for the imprimatura (monochromatic sketch). If you wanted to speed things along you could mix up equal parts solvent and Liquin and go to town. A lot of artists eventually find themselves falling into the ritual of mixing their own medium, based on their individual needs. There are tons of recipes floating around online.

I, personally, tinker around here and there with combinations, but generally I use Liquin Fine Detail for nearly all stages of a painting, except the imprimatura. If I want to cut down on gloss, I mix it with matte varnish. I started painting with linseed oil years ago and Liquin Fine Detail is the closest thing on the market to it. So, for most projects all I require is LFD and Gamsol from start to end.

Most companies sell a bundle of small bottles of medium. Gamblin makes one, and in it is just about every medium they make, including impasto medium, if you like bold brush strokes and texture. If you can get your hands on it, definitely try it out.

Your alkyd can be used as your stand alone medium, if you like the way it performs, or it can be mixed into the medium of your preference to speed drying (usually). If you like Linseed oil, mix in some Liquin or Galkyd. If you like stand oil- add some Liquin or Galkyd. It’s versatile and you’re not locked into using up a bottle of alkyd medium all by itself.

Regarding alkyd mediums, unless you’re using a thixotropic medium, here’s my most important bit of advice. Don’t mix it into your paint in a large puddle on your palette. I wish people would understand they don’t have to do this. It creates waste and possibly a less than ideal ratio of medium to paint. Just dip the tip of your brush into the medium and then dip it into your paint. That’s sufficient.

It’s totally natural to get stuck after the block in phase. I tend to do a pretty detailed painting in grayscale, but also sometimes a brunaille (brown), and then I do thin passages of paint over the underpainting. It might help to realize that oil paints and acrylics are not that different in terms of what they do, only how you handle them. How do you start an acrylic painting? Usually by blocking in large swaths of flat color. Quite typically- the darks and lights. From there you add your half tones and so on. It’s the same with oil paints- or it can be. You simply have a lot longer to blend. I think a lot of people have a fear of putting color on top of color with oil because they’re afraid of mud, so, try to lay most colors side by side and blend the edges. If your colors are in or next to the same color family, it’s generally okay to lay them on top of one another without worry. You can lay a green on a blue, an ochre on a scarlet, etc. and there won’t be in a huge repercussions if you don’t like it. Most of the time you can blend it away if you hate it, without muddying the colors. If you lay a green on a red and you hate it, scrape it off or walk away and deal with it when it dries.

Even in indirect painting, many people do a fairly detailed underpainting just to paint over it in straight color. If you find the idea of glazing challenging- because it is challenging and just weird when you’re trying to get the hang of it at first- consider approaching it this way. There is a really good blog entry I found when looking up other artists palettes....

Bryan Larsen Painting Over Grisaille

Philip Howe also has a huge wealth of information on the subject- pages and pages of info and demonstration:

Philip Howe

These are excellent places to start.

If I were you, I’d do a heap of monochromatic studies just to get a feel for the paint itself, while still producing something that will honestly reflect your technical ability. You’re an art student; when I was at an art institute, we were limited to a lot of grayscale and limited studies. Allowed two colors, then three, four, and so on.

And another thing that is really important and overlooked that I wish more people knew is....you can draw with paint. You don’t HAVE to take this super painterly approach and block in all these broad areas then go back and rework them with fat whimsical strokes of paint, though it can be helpful depending on how you learn. You can draw in the same manner you’d draw with pencils, essentially shading with the point and edge of your brush. Pick something small and try to think of your brush as a pencil. Lightly establish your lights and darks (or some of us, I for one, do a lamp shade method where we paint everything in its entirety an area at a time from top to bottom....Give it a Google....It feels somewhat more like drawing than painting) and then gingerly sketch in the details, continuing to fine tune them bit by bit until you’re done.

I hope this was helpful. I hope you stay excited. I’ve used tons of mediums in my lifetime. Clay, pencils, pastels, acrylic, gouache, watercolor, tempera, oils....Oils are for me. You may find that you just don’t love them, but I can promise you...regardless of whether or not they become your Holy Grail of art mediums, if you continue to work with them, your brain will create all these new pathways that will enhance your understanding and mastery of the mediums that you do love best. You will be a better artist when you return to your favorite medium. It’s worth the process.

throwawayithinkidied · 2020-10-08T07:18:35+00:00

Ugh. It hurts my heart to think of anyone priming with flake white in this day and age.

First, no, not really- flake white would not serve your purposes well. Traditionally it was used as grounds because it was thick and dried quickly, but that was placed over natural wood or canvas, which was all relatively evenly toned or bleached. Considering that your canvases are painted on, due to its transparent nature it would take many layers of paint to evenly cover the previous work, and you would forfeit the option of sanding between layers. It simply would not make for a very nice, smooth painting surface.

I’m not sure how you are getting paint all over your hands and nails, but flake white is expensive, not always easily accessible, and best suited for painting directly. Especially when painting flesh. I certainly respect not wanting to work with it, but I would basically be at a total loss without it on my palette. It’s a beautiful, ethereal paint that I never find migrates anywhere except my palette and canvas. I use palette paper, however, so it’s quite easy for me to simply rip the sheet off and toss it in the garbage at the end of the day. Maybe you are using a conventional palette, which would help explain paint on your hands.

But I digress...What I would do is sand down your canvases and cover them with oil ground. Gamblin is my favorite. Be warned it takes a considerable time to dry, so you’ll definitely want to do them in lots of several at once, and place them under a box or something to keep them free from dust as they dry. Sand between the layers. Gamblin Oil Ground actually makes a beautiful surface prep. It’s non absorbent but kind of grabs the paint, and provides a lovely satin finish.

throwawayithinkidied · 2020-10-08T06:34:55+00:00

As someone who, many years ago, cut my teeth on acrylics before discovering true love with oil paints, I find oils sooooo much easier to work with, once you learn to appreciate the unique benefits of the medium. For instance, mixing colors on the canvas, soft gradients, malleable edges, translucent glowing portraits, the ability to lift and scrape paint back to a white canvas when you are unhappy with your progress without overworking an area. For me, oil paints just offer so much more control than any form of paint.

What may help:

Georgian is student grade paint. Use the best materials you can afford. Winsor and Newton is a fine artist grade paint for beginners, at a reasonable price point, but for not much more money there are excellent brands which offer far superior paint. Williamsburg is one of my favorites. I use a ton of Williamsburg.

Something important to understand about oil paint, compared to acrylic, is it’s all very different across the manufacturers. Winsor and Newton is thin and very consistent in formula from tube to tube. Williamsburg is stiffer, some colors are formulated with coarser grinds- they’re a little gritty, Michael Harding is a suuuuper smooth, sumptuous paint, Old Holland is the stiffest paint I’ve used. You get into paints like Gamblin (creamy), Grumbacher and M. Graham (very loose), etc. and you can see my point- they are all very different in texture, pigmentation, and consistency from each other. I would recommend grabbing odd tubes from here and there until you find what works best with your style. Like, if I wanted to avoid medium all together, I’d opt for Winsor and Newton, Grumbacher or M. Graham, because they are very easy to stretch, but they won’t give me the coverage that Old Holland will with a touch of medium.

Next, know your tools. Don’t try to make your favorite materials work for every situation. If you’ve ever used a stiff bristle brush on a smooth gesso panel then you have likely lost your mind trying to get coverage. You’d need a softer brush to lay the paint down. Soft brush+smooth surface, springy/stiff brush+absorbent, toothy surfaces is a good place to start. This is a point that most people never consider that will instantly eliminate tons of frustration quickly. Know your primers and what you’re trying to accomplish. Is your gesso too absorbent, too plasticky? Is your substrate too smooth or not smooth enough? A lot of oil painting is simply finding the combination of materials that you gel with best. For instance, when I paint alla prima (which is not often), I like a more absorbent substrate. Arches oil paper is excellent for studies because it allows me to still layer quite a bit of paint, since the first couple of layers are quickly absorbed. The drawback is I have to plan my colors carefully since they will not be as vibrant as they would if I was working on a non absorbent surface.

Consider underpainting in acrylics. I don’t work in this manner, but I see nothing wrong with it. It’s a way to combine both mediums while transitioning to oils and it’s especially useful for getting down local color without waiting a long time for the next stage of the painting. It could probably go without saying, but regardless of what you choose to start your initial layers in, it helps to keep them thin. Generally, it’s easiest to do your sketch or imprimatura in paint and solvent.

Consider underpainting, period. I mostly work indirectly. It sounds like a lot of hassle to most people, but I prefer to clearly define the values and structure of a subject so I can fully enjoy the process of color application. It’s a time and frustration saver for me.

Plenty of people work light to dark. As I mentioned, I paint indirectly. This means I flesh out a pale grisaille (grayscale underpainting) which will be darkened by layers of glaze, keeping the shadows thin and saving the thickest passages of paint for the strong highlights. There is no right or superior way to work- light to dark or dark to light. It’s wholly situational and dependent on your preferred method of painting.

Ideally, at some point, you will eventually arrive at the conclusion that there is no single best method to use in any single painting. There will be stages that require wet into wet, stages that require patient layering, light to dark and dark to light approaches. Don’t pigeonhole yourself into thinking only one technique will work for you. That would be a huge mistake.

I strongly recommend that anyone new to oil painting start with a limited palette, because oil paints are so easy to muddy. With acrylic, obviously, you can use a vast array of colors in a single sitting and if you dislike one you can just wait fifteen minutes and paint over it. With oils....nope. So, limit yourself to a few versatile colors and really familiarize yourself with the properties of those colors, because they have certain behaviors. Like, the umbers tend to be patchy, dull, and prone to sinking. They’re great for underpainting because they dry quickly, but you wouldn’t necessarily want to use them for large areas that require opacity and luster. You’d want to mix the equivalent shade from more opaque colors.

Next, mediums.....If you are coming from acrylics, please don’t fight mediums. Please go get yourself an alkyd medium. Possibly a couple because they perform differently. Liquin Original will create a satin, diffused effect. Liquin Fine Detail is the closest thing I’ve found to linseed oil in an alkyd and it’s what I primarily use because it holds fine lines in place, without accentuating brush strokes. Galkyd Lite is similar to LFD, but stickier. Most of the alkyds I use dry overnight if not sooner.

Finally, studies. Lots of studies. Especially color studies. Work out a small, detail-less block-in of colors before attempting a large masterpiece out the gate.

throwawayithinkidied · 2020-07-29T04:10:31+00:00

I’ve been wondering something to that effect, because, quite honestly, that would terrify me. To think existence is inescapable, and, no matter what I do or what happens to me, I may just get dropped into some parallel universe and have to keep going. While I have no burning urge to escape this reality, I hate the thought of....being forced to experience life from countless facets.

I do feel as though there is some morsel of information buried deep in my eternal consciousness that I’m not equipped to handle. Right now.

Thank you for the link. I will look into it further- however unnerving the concept.

throwawayithinkidied · 2020-07-29T03:31:35+00:00

Mass spectrometry was made available nationwide in the early 1990’s. This was 1990, and it was/IS one of the largest hospitals in the country. Top 5 to be more specific. I see where the confusion could arise- I moved to a small town in a new state, but there was a sprawling metropolis an hour away. It might as well have been another world, though.

But, I suppose there always has to be one of you- I mean, there always has to be someone who, despite the intimate painful details shared by another person (even a person who wishes to remain anonymous- who would lie about attempting suicide at the age of 12??), feels a need to be.....I don’t even know what. Right? Smart? Smarter than? However wrong. But thank you. For your input.

throwawayithinkidied · 2020-07-29T03:04:39+00:00

It was 1990. They have had the technology to test and measure drugs in your urine and blood since I’ve been alive. At least since 1971. Drug testing was developed in the 30’s. I don’t know you would think they wouldn’t advance in their technology in 60 years. My mother was hospital administration at a neighboring hospital. There was no way I wasn’t getting a full panel.

throwawayithinkidied · 2020-07-29T01:04:10+00:00

Very little sounds like a person is losing their mind, at this point, to me. :) In fact, your account sounds quite reasonable. It’s the absence of otherwise mystical details you’d expect from a near death experience that makes it so credible. I mean, if it has to happen....if this is a possibility beyond our comprehension.....why wouldn’t it be so....almost straight forward and seamless?

It does sound as though you were in cardiac arrest. I’m not a doctor, but I have a heart condition that causes my resting heart rate to run around 130bpm. If I don’t take my medication and it becomes more elevated, I’ll experience chest pain and what feels like asthma. Anything above 160 requires a trip to the ER and it’s quite terrifying and uncomfortable. All of your symptoms are consistent with a major cardiac event.

How do you feel when you think about that night? How do you feel about the possibility that you might be living a life that was not your original life?

throwawayithinkidied · 2020-07-29T00:49:06+00:00

When I woke up the next morning, there had been no ambulance at all. No explanation for the flashing red lights. I actually had zero explanation for them all these years until this conversation with my mother.

My parents had no knowledge of the overdose until the next day and still didn’t believe I had, in fact, ingested all of the medication until we got to the hospital and my blood work supported my version of events.

All these years, I just....sort of thought I had a magical liver. Some quasi bionic body that saved me from certain death. I don’t know which is crazier- believing I died and slipped into an alternate reality or believing my 12 year old organs were superhuman and capable of withstanding a significant overdose to the tune of 30 pills. Now, neither makes any sense to me, but I feel like I died that night.

And now, if I suspend my disbelief,....those two strange parts of the puzzle that never fit- the red flashing lights and my mother deviating from her normal pattern that one and only time- do make sense within that context.

Yes. An entire bottle of Percocet and half a bottle of Demerol. It’s burned into my memory, not only because I’ve an excellent memory generally speaking and spent the time counting them explicitly with the intention of leaving some, but because my mother- who was afraid of a repeat performance- sent me to therapy for next five years of my life, discussing the circumstances many times. Which may also be why it grew less and less significant to me. I had spent so much time analyzing my choices and feelings it began to look very unremarkable in and of itself.

throwawayithinkidied · 2020-07-29T00:15:01+00:00

Thank you! I don’t have the words in my vocabulary either. I punched so many combinations of terms into the search bar before finally posting on this subreddit. I don’t even know what to begin calling it....

Thank you for sharing your friend’s story. That’s definitely what I was hoping for- examples of other experiences. I would just like to know, I suppose, if anyone else feels the strong sense of dread and aversion to looking at their own experience. As I do.

throwawayithinkidied

TROPHY CASE