Red Plastic Plates and Coat Hangers.

Coat hangers! They’re the perfect armature-making material for my cardinal dress — and here I was going from store to store trying to find the ideal wire to use. But I am not into soldering so I have to figure out how what joinery material I am going to use.

Viewers of my dresses react to the surface. That’s what they are supposed to do, but it is what you don’t see that is always the greatest challenge: I have to find a way to provide access and egress and, at the same time, design the structure of the dress so that is retains its form.

Cardinals are not showy like peacocks. They are sleek passerines (from the order, Passeriformes). Passerines are songbirds; they are one of the most diverse vertebrate orders on the planet. There are over five thousand species of Passiformes and that’s twice as many as the largest mammalian order: Rodentia.

Passeriformes have three suborders; the passseri (oscines) have the best-developed syrinx muscles so they are the best-known vocalizers. Passerines include ravens/crows and some of the most admired birds in the world: lyrebirds (for their capacity to imitate the sound of almost anything including the chainsaws that are destroying their habitat) and birds of paradise (for their extraordinary plumage).

I chose the cardinal I know best: Cardinalis cardinalis. (Say that out loud and try not to think of Claudia Cardinale.) They are the most common cardinals seen around here and they are striking birds, tall and proud looking due to the crest on their heads. And their black masks add drama to their appearance.

One of the things I like about the things I make is the certainty with which I land on ideas in spite of my inexperience. I am addicted to discovery, to problem solving. I don’t do any research; everything idea of what to use and how to use it comes out of my head.

I try things and most of them work because I think things through. All the time I was making the feathers for the peacock dress (about twenty hours) I was thinking about three things: How to build the armature, what to use for the substrate and how to make the plumage.

Armature: Check; coat hangers. Plumage: Check; red plastic picnic plates. Substrate: I’m not certain yet. I’m thinking cardboard, some kind of stiff paper or papier maché.

Here are some shots of my first paper constructions.

You can, by seeing them, understand why I am diving deep into colour this time. The obvious place to start for me, was the peacock. Because we have them here, I fell instantly and passionately in love with them as a child.

I’m doing the cardinal dress so I can work in red. And, as with the peacock dress, making the plumage. My favourite part of every dress is the plumage. I am in a state of bliss when I am a feather making machine. I love the routine; I love the detail; I love red.

To where? To what?

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. It is also the six-month anniversary of the day my life changed dramatically, the day I started having seizures and stuttering badly.

When Steve left me, he moved in with his friend, Bob, and over the next several months we negotiated the dissolution of our assets and our changing relationship and that often required phone calls. Today, I am thinking about one of those conversations.

He called and asked me to come over. I can’t remember why; he was probably asking me to come over and bring something he wanted from the house. But when I hung up, I somehow became convinced he wanted me back so I bathed and chose nice clothes to wear, thinking we might go out for a meal together to celebrate. But when I got there, nothing had changed.

I’ve had two days of conviction that my stuttering was miraculously cured. Sometimes I want something so badly, my brain (temporarily) allows me to believe that what I want is going to happen. But then, I crash to earth again.

I’ve been wondering: When do I stop fighting this condition? When do I stop hoping to speak normally again? Should I stop hoping to speak normally again? Or should I accept my condition and just get on with living?

I feel myself slipping into acceptance. The Stuttering Foundation magazine/newsletter I that came in the mail is the reason. I see myself on every page. I hear myself in the words of every contributor.

My name is Chris and I’m a stutterer. Let’s move on. Okay, but to what, to where?

First: I have to get the arrhythmia fixed. (I can spell that word now. Another step towards acceptance.)

I look ahead. I have plenty of cash in the bank but don’t want to travel. I have quarterly HIV and asthma clinics on different schedules, I have weekly physiotherapy and psychiatric sessions and soon I start speech therapy. And if/when I get a pacemaker it will mean another quarterly clinic.

Then there is the PTSD; the anxiety disorder. It’s the worst. It’s the reason I stay indoors.

Six months tomorrow. Six months with Dr. Shoja and over those months I have learned how to stop seizures. Since committing myself to house arrest (notice the change in the title image for my blog, above?) they’ve stopped. And I have another eighteen months with the good Doctor and I have no doubt whatsoever that with her help that I’ll completely recover from the PTSD crisis and symptoms.

But I don’t necessarily expect to stop stuttering. The Stuttering Foundation spokespeople talk in a way that reminds me of alcoholics. Alcoholics still call themselves alcoholics even after decades of sobriety and that’s what stutterers do because if they stop stuttering they know it will come back without diligent adherence to an adapted lifestyle. Alcoholics have to avoid alcohol; stutterers have to avoid stress.

So back to “Let’s move on; but to what, to where?”

First The Flame and then I have an idea for a project. It’s an idea for a show called Making Lemonade I could produce. Doing it would bring purpose to my bird dresses and other costumes I could make. I’m a decent writer, a good paper costume maker and I’d have an answer to my questions: “To where? To what?”

The image above is the one I used as inspiration for my peacock dress. It's this image that showed me the variety of colours, where the colours change and variety of patters. )his bird is greener on its tail feathers than the blue peacocks I see here.)

In Rajasthan one morning, I went up on the roof of my hotel and noticed peacocks everywhere — all of them on top of other buildings and I sat there for over an hour so that I could see a peacock fly. It was something I had never seen and worth the wait.

Mirroring

It’s absolutely pouring outside. The air is blue with rain. I went to the Farmers’ Market and it was sparsely attended; vendors thanked me for shopping in the rain. But the thing is, I wouldn’t miss it. The markets make life feel similar to when I lived in France and we’d go to market every week.

I’ve no ambition today. I neither want to memorize lines nor work on the Cardinal dress. I just keep wanting to slob out. But may go to see The Dressmaker at six o’clock. It stars Judy Davis and Kate Winslet; I can’t lose.

For the past two days my speech was really bad — so bad, I had to use my phone or Rand voice to speak. I suspect it was due to the shock/stress of hearing about the pacemaker. I love that I can now use my phone like a mirror to speak. It's such a great trick.

Another thing about my phone is this: I’ve been reading about how the phone is used to monitor pacemakers. A person with a pacemaker can use the app to make the pacemaker print out a record of your heartbeats and you can forward all the data to your monitoring clinician.  I am rather amazed.

The View from Trump Tower

Pacemaker: No Problem; Speech: No Problem

I don’t have family or a partner with whom to talk things through. When I suddenly started having seizures and stuttering badly, writing about it here was like therapy. It lessened the burden of support on my friends.

Seeing my electrocardiograms yesterday was shocking. The “oh no, not another fucking medical problem” felling came right away. I would not blame friends for dumping me; this is ridiculous.

However, Mr. Glass Half-Full is happier today after reading about how ridiculously simple the fix is. If I get a pacemaker, I will only be in hospital overnight. Also, the “surgery” is done under sedation and not under anesthetic.

Another thing Mr. Glass Half-Full is happier about is Rob. He texted me yesterday when I was in the waiting room and throughout the rest of the day. And then he came over in the evening.

•

There is a Centre of Tackyness close to the hospital: Michael’s, the arts and crafts store. I went in to see if they might carry some kind of flexible and light-weight wire in their floral department and they did so now I have the wire I need to finish the armature for my Cardinal dress.

•

I cut two pages from my Flame speech; now there’s less to memorize and more cohesion to the story. Also, this new way to speak without stuttering — see the video above — really works!! I cannot believe it; another handy tool.

Bombshell

UPDATE:  Getting a pacemaker is a walk in the park. You are in hospital for only 24 hours and its done under a local anaesthetic. Anxiety over.
______________________________________________________________________________
My doctor’s office called today and asked me to come in. Bombshell. The two ECGs I’ve had recently have revealed an arrhythmia of concern to my GP and now I am at home waiting for a callback from him to know whether I will go to see the cardiologist in his office or if I am to be admitted to VGH right away. There is talk of a pacemaker. And here I was planning on seeing the movie, The Dressmaker, today.

I hope I am not going into hospital right away. Dear God spare me from that. But I am on the threshold of some kind of medical intervention it seems.

I need a fucking break!

Link: Orchis Italica