My Life with Functional Neurological Disorder

It's like re-tuning a clock, coming back to my more solitary life and a life more at home. It seems like ages ago I was walking for several hours every day, but since David left I have had so many things to do (including recover from the worst asthma attack ever) and the weather turned to warm but cloudy. Here, sometimes, the seasons change as though someone has thrown a switch.

The change has mead me think about "what to do" in the Fall. Normally I, Mr. Project, have a writing task at hand. Not only that, my projects (books or a play) usually provide me with two years of "something to do." But when I came home from South Africa this past January with the end of my huge task of writing, producing, memorizing and appearing in my play before me, I vowed that when May came, I would try to live a year without a major writing project.

Instead, I am taking on teaching a charity "to fish"(for money). I have been giving this charity "fish" for a decade but teaching them how to raise money—creating the right infrastructure and changing the societal mind set—has become my goal. To that end, five colleagues and I are offering them a three-year commitment to carry out a plan we are proposing this week. I am head of the team. This is the name and logo I designed.

The Heron rookery in Stanley Park is abandoned now.

I planted this Silk Tree outside the office building where I worked when Steve and I split up in 1994. It is now huge and when David, the owner of the building to whom I gifted the tree went to prune it, a neighbour came out and chastised him for damaging a "heritage" tree. Am I so old?

That project will keep me busy. So will re-writing my play if it is selected for inclusion in season 2014/15 at Pacific Theatre. And so will teaching—one section of my course this Fall is already a go and the other is building in attendees. And last of all, and most important of all, my feline pal Leon and our new aquarium (Fish TV for Leon; aqua porn for me) will fill up my time.

My aquarium has one red shrimp (Tin Tin) whom I see all the time and two miniature spotted shrimp (Chip and Dale) that may be dead—eaten by one of my two lobsters (Bruno and Spud). I have seen one twice but they are reclusive. I also have 3 beautiful blue something-or-others (S-O-Os—I need to write the names down; they are The Blues Sisters and James Blue) that are the same (larger) size as two orange ones (George & Gracie) and one remaining black one (of two; Aretha). I also have one very showy Beta (Liberace), a school of five red-headed S-O-Os (Lucy 1-5) and eight mini-Guppies (The Brady Bunch).