This is How Dreadful I Sound

 

This film reveals my new ‘voice.’ As you can hear, it is not really stuttering anymore. I now think of myself as having a severe speech impairment. One thing I like about this short film clip, is that at one point near the end I laugh. I’m proud that I can find humour in my impairment. It is not a tragedy. 

When I tried to say “students” when I was Facetiming with Bruce yesterday, we both would up laughing. It sounded like I was saying “nunents.” It’s impossible for me to say D, S, and N. A big problem is a lack of control of my tongue. On Saturday night, my tongue was completely paralyzed, and I was nervous about eating and drinking.

Today is the fifth day of sounding like this. I find this new form of speech defect to be far more embarrassing. I’m not sure about staying with my stuttering groups anymore. My peers, I’m sure will encourage me to stay, but I just don’t feel comfortable enough to participate.

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Sunday was not my usual day of rest. I took Sheba for a walk early in the morning, then I came home to do some reading until lunch time. After lunch, I hauled the new wood splitter out of the garage and took it to a flat place on my driveway to split some wood, but after using the machine for about 10 minutes, I noticed oil leaking from it.

I am not a useless twit. I am chuffed to report that I undid all the tubes and fittings where the leak was and reattached everything adding plumbers’ tape to the places where parts screwed together. And it worked. I moved the splitter to a new place so I could see if there was any new oil leaking, but there wasn’t any. Not a single drop.

I did an hour of work and split enough wood to last me for a few weeks. I’ll do another hour when next we have a dry day. We must run the machine for 5 hours, then change the oil. I have learned so much lately about machines and lessened my anxiety about using them.

I am thrilled not to be using my axe and maul. It was just a matter of time until I had an accident. I’m very glad that we got the splitter and even happier we got it for half the price we expected to pay. It was a great, great decision to get it. 

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I’ve been promising John and Bunny that I will come to the city for a visit, but I’m not keen. I’d rather FaceTime and keep ‘conversations’ short. I was fearful, when this change occurred in my voice, that my friends would abandon me, but I think it’s more likely that it’ll be me wanting to limit my exposure to friends. 

Voila, the splitter.

I take my large pieces of wood, place them on the splitter and
I reduce them to several smaller pieces. The smaller pieces are
in the wheelbarrow.

Here you can see the large pieces on the bottom
of this stack, and the small pieces I split yesterday
on the top of the stack.