belinda

Hello Belinda,

I know you do not know me directly; however, we met many years ago at Masterpiece in a Day. My fiance was a HUGE fan of yours and we always talked about getting a piece of your artwork. Sadly, he unexpectedly passed away last Tuesday. I'm trying to honor him in every way possible. He always was an artist and supported local artists. I know this might be an unusual request but would you consider painting an urn for him to rest in or add some artwork to an urn. Could you also let me know what you would charge for something like this? I know he would feel honored if you would do this for him. He was amazing and he deserves something amazing to rest in. However, I do understand if you cannot. Thank you.

I responded that I would do it free of charge and gave them my phone number...but its making me cry

Woke up to go back to work
Dreamt of eating large spiders
And pulling their eggs out of my mouth
Went to the bathroom
'Why am I wearing a hat?'
'I don't have a hat that color"
Forgot my hair was blue.
Sat down to pee
Cat under butt
Good morning

I also posted this to my friend's list on LJ


A few nights ago, my dad called me. He had spoken to me a few times about 'wanting to talk to me about why I may be so messed up' and how our whole family is 'messed up', and how I got two mentally ill families coming together to make me or something.

Well the other day I told him if he wants to talk, he can come anytime, so he did, around 2am.

He started off talking about how when he was young, his father spent a lot of time with him, but he got sick, and he was tested positive for leukemia (or so they thought at the time apparently) and suddenly his father stopped spending time with him (I think he said he was around 4/5 years old). My dad said that he took this as his father not wanting him or him being bad in some way, and he internalized that into anger at himself. He said that he hated himself, and at the time, even though he was somewhat agnostic, he believed that he didn't have the right to kill himself, so he said that every night he prayed that he didn't wake up, and every morning he woke up more angry.

His father was abusive, and an alcoholic, as well as his mother, but this was only after his childhood that they started to drink, fight and his father beat on him, including hitting him in the head with a hammer when he was 7. His father was also a vet, and had some pretty serious issues regarding that (which I was privy to very young when I first met him)

He said that until he met my mother, he still prayed every night to die. He said that falling in love with my mother healed him and made him a different person.

They had been together for a good amount of time before he realized everything she says is basically a lie. She slept with other men, yet said she loved only him (same behavior I have witnessed from her throughout all of her other relationships), and used emotional blackmail and manipulation tactics to keep him placated.

He said that he knew they were bound to split, but once she was pregnant, he thought that there was some possibility I could be his new reason for living, even though he knew there was a good possibility I may not even be his child, he didn't care. (I still may not be his child) so he said he wanted to marry her. He said that he married her to:

1. Keep her from aborting me. (She had already had two abortions and he knew that if he married her, my grandfather wouldn't let her have another one)
2. Make sure I had his last name.

He told me that the night before I was born, he spent around 30 hours with his best friend at a hospital while his wife had her baby. He said that he got home, showered and then my mom went into labor not long after, and he took her to St Francis, where she was in labor with me for 27 hours. He said that he was with her through it, but in the last few minutes, she had him removed from the room. She had done it to wound him.

It was not too long after I was born that my mother left, married Ron and nearly immediately went to Germany.* My dad said he went through the court systems because her taking me was technically illegal, but there was nothing they would really do about it since it was international, and after all, he was just the father.

He said that after she took me, he tried to kill himself with every kind of drug and alcohol. He had a vasectomy, stating that he never wanted kids again.

We didn't see each other again until I was 9 years old. I wasn't a person then, and he could see that. I was buried under years of emotional/physical/sexual abuse and he said that when he met me, he felt terrible and that it was his fault that he let me go with her. He explained that as his reason for emotional distance.

He explained his relationship with Darlene (which up until that time I didn't understand or really know, other than I was somewhat cited as the reason she left him) but what he said the other night is that he made her leave because he knew that ultimately she would decide to have children and she would destroy him (there's a lot more to this on my end but that would take up an entire other post). The truth is that she destroyed him all over again anyway.

So basically, he found out about the abuse and tried to have me, my sister and my brother removed from my mother's home. He used a court program called 'Guardian Ad Litem' that does a lot of research and then reports it to the courts. He then explained how I could use it if I wanted to help the family get Alyshia away from my mother.

He told me that one reason he was telling me all of this is because he wanted to while he still had time, and he didn't realize that all those years he was angry. He has always been severely depressed since I have known him. He's the type of person that would get angry at himself for something and then physically hurt ...

So, I just realized today that my 10 year anniversary on Camwhores is next month, on the 16th. I'm thinking of doing something special so any suggestions would be welcome, but I can try to put on my creative hat again.

=)

So, I've been crying off and on most of the day.

Some breakdowns...

1. My Cymbalta costs around 350.00 a month. It is not the only medicine I take, but its by far the most expensive.* My other meds cost approximately 150.00 a month, putting me at around 500 a month for meds.

2. A full psych visit is 325.00, and follow ups are 100.00, which would be a monthly occurrence until I am where I need/want to be med/brainwise. If I _wanted_ to start getting regular therapy, my weekly sessions would be around 75.00 a week.

3. My psych has been great and provided me with samples, and I signed up for Lilly Cares, hoping I could get on their deal...Well, they called me back today and said I make too much, despite the fact that I am paying for medical out of pocket.

*I have looked into personal health insurance. Not only would they cost me a lot, they do not cover mental health, and the amount they would discount drugs if I got on a scrip plan would only help with the cheaper ones. Many of them don't even cover doctor visits. I have been told that insurance will cover preventative care, but even if I get insurance now, most of my meds would be out of pocket on top of my mental health stuff, costing me even more.

I take Cymbalta, and have for 2+ years now I think for my panic disorder, depression, and also importantly, hip pain. My doctor thinks I am not on the right amount of it and that I need to be on the amount she just started me on (120mg). If I have to go off of it, I will have to try something else, and possibly lose my fucking mind in the process.

Between that and dealing with some leftover bullshit from Korea that turned me into a puddle of feeling worthless and terrible, I am not having a good day. In fact, my brain has been shit since about the 14th of December. I've had my strong face on, and I am losing the ability to keep it up.​

How to destroy someone's self esteem in 10 easy steps.

1. Discuss mutual interest. (having met)
2. Build trust,intimate knowledge of the other person for several months. (via web/chat)
3. Plan to act on mutual interest and gained trust. (meet again)
4. Once meeting, act as though 1, 2, and 3 never happened.
5. When questioned, express disinterest, citing 'its not you, its me'
6. Do none of this face to face.
7. Be oblivious to other persons obvious severe emotional distress,
8. Ignore/miss messages and other attempts to communicate, until the other person gives up.
9. Openly flirt/cuddle with someone directly in front of the other person in their home. (couple weeks later)
10. Act surprised when the other person is upset and messages you,(still having not seen the other communications). Expect that the person who is severely emotionally distressed would just be able to tell you when you had been drinking and had already been ignoring other attempts at communication.

All-righty then. my luggage was separated from us when we had to change flights (one plane was late, making us miss our connecting flights, so we flew through Japan instead of through Cali)

My luggage is still not here, so today I started out with a list of 'NEEDS' that I told Brian and Jon I needed.

I NEED UNDERWEAR.

I pretty much hate underwear. I especially hate wearing underwear for more than 5 hours. I had been in those for nearly 20 hours by the time I got to take them off, 16 of which were spent sitting on a plane, and the rest sitting at airports. I considered burning them.

So I wandered around Songtan with Brian on the search for underwear. First thing I learned- 'underwear' here is long underwear. Its called 'innerwear' here. There was only one shop (other than a closed lingerie shop) that I could find that had underwear, so I bought some. It barely fits, as I am an XL here, and these are L, but it has little bears on it holding pillows. It'll do.

I NEED DEODORANT.

I had already bathed twice by the time I went out today. We got on the airbase and I got cash out. The first thing I did was to purchase some Old Spice high endurance, which is all they had besides lady speed stick.

Little note about my body- My sweat is toxic when mixed with any female deodorants that are not prescription strength. It smells far worse than my regular B.O.

I NEED A CLEAN SHIRT.

Next, I looked for a clean shirt and something warm. It is winter here, and my nipples were proudly announcing to the world that I had naught on but a thin t-shirt and an even thinner cardigan from Land's End.

I got an army green sweater thingy, and a turtleneck (that turned out to be super thin). I decided I wanted a pea-coat. I have always wanted a pea-coat, but I have never been able to find one that fit me in a flattering way. Every other shop in Songtan is a custom clothing shop. I opted for a custom tailored pea coat. They told me to take off my sweater, and my nipples were pretty much completely visible (color and all) through the turtleneck I bought. When they measured me nipple to nipple I thought I was going to bust out laughing. The coat only cost me 140.00 which is AMAZING.

I also bought a custom suit, which I was fitted for in the same manner, but at least that shop was empty aside from myself and my male counterparts. I love suits and the fact that it was only about 180 bux is really amazing.

We ate at a Brazilian Churrascuria, and the food was fantastic.

By the time I got back to the AF hotel, where I am now, I was disgustingly stinky again. I bathed a bit ago and had a nap. It was freaking high endurance, and its less than 40 degrees here, there is no excuse for that crap.

That was DAY 1. its 8pm here, and my luggage is slated to arrive at 2am.

*fingers crossed*

At 6am I fly out to Korea. This will be the first time I have been out of the country since I was 9 years old. I'm going to be visiting a friend, and my brother who is stationed there. I'm pretty nervous. Those of you that know me pretty well know that even though I go places a lot (lately) I am still the type to hideout in the hotel. I'm hoping that I can get over some of my issues for at least long enough that I can make it an experience.

Hopefully I'll be able to post from there at least a couple times. =)

Its going to be 325 bux for my intake at the psych (note that I do not have insurance and I've been looking into it for months. Personal insurance does not cover psych). That doesn't bother me as much as the fact that I have to fill out 16 pages of shit for my intake, and there are some pretty hard to answer questions and they only give me a line to go into detail. She probably wont' even read it and will just make me go over it again so that she can forget it each time I'm there like my last three psychs (psychiatrist, not psychologist, I'm sure that will be separate and extra)

After I made the appointment, I spent the last hour freaking out trying to figure out how I will handle this yet again.

I wish I had more to say but I'm overwhelmed.

Having been poor most of my life, I understand very well that necessity is in fact the mother of invention. When it comes to art...nothing brings out creativity like having, well...not much, or something that is completely free.

Now I don't call any of my art ~~~++**Up-cycled**++~~~ but I will admit freely that I saved a lot of the acrylic glazing from the garbage bin, or that I got a bag of crap that would have been useless to anyone else. I had to do this because I needed to create and I had no money. Many people already know that it 'takes money to make money' in art, but I wasn't concerned with making money, but rather being creative and pushing myself. If I created a new style or assembly process, I felt like it was a successful endeavor.

At the Star Trek convention I attended this weekend, one of the creators of the series said exactly what I try to tell artists I come in contact with. Less is more. If you have a budget of 100 million, you will use it, unless you are incredibly frugal. If you have a budget of 10k, you will use it, but you will be forced to be more creative (and yes, this usually means more grunt work) and by doing so, you will generally create new ideas/concepts/production designs than you ever thought possible, just because you didn't have exactly what you wanted.

How I apply this to myself: I try to never buy everything I'd _like_ to have. If I go in a craft store and I have 100 dollars to blow, I try not to buy anything 'standard' like a paint set, fancy brushes, stretched canvases/etc, because I know myself, and those things will just collect dust. I go to dollar stores, hardware stores, grocery stores, toy stores/etc and things trigger me to think about what/how I create.

Nothing proves this theory more than the annual 'Art vs Art' in Indianapolis. They throw a bunch of artists in a room, and everyone gets primary colours, some brushes, a pencil, and some tape. Anyone who happens to be an acrylic artist turns out the same shit that they always make, whether its a friendly robot, a killer bunny or something easily recognizeable as their 'style'. I have only seen a select few artists deviate from this.

The (good) artists who are not acrylic painters often turn out things more creative and interesting, because its not a medium they are familiar with. They play with paint viscosity and texture, they play with substance, design, and framing. Some of the best art I have ever seen has come out of that four hours.

What it breaks down to is this: If you give an artist exactly what they want, you'll get the same product most of the time, because some people just won't break out of their comfort zone. If you give them random things to create with, they often become brilliant, and even if they try to make what they are used to, it will generally turn out far better, because everything has to be thought of differently.

I'm not saying anything many people don't know, but its something that many artists just don't understand.