RAIN!

Beth took the photos above of Sheba and I in the rainy day 
position and some kitty porn of Fred and Ethel below.

Last night I woke up because of the noise of the rain. It’s let up a bit now, but all morning it was banging down on my tin roof like a symphony.

Poor Beth, here for such dreadful weather! She, however, has many things to do and the studio in which to do it, and this afternoon Patsy is picking her up to take her to an event and then they are going to have dinner at her place.

The rain will help me complete the re-write of scene one.

There’s an aspect of having C-PTSD that is very hard to explain. Dr. Shoja and I understood it as an extreme sense of vulnerability and it had me disinterested in maintaining relationships with some acquaintances. Dr. S. called my choice a preference for authenticity.

That word — authenticity — has great meaning to us and is key to understanding my relations with friends now. I am not surprised to discover that this concern for “authenticity” has spread to my characters in The Defiant Dressand I could not be happier. It’s not another simple read-through I’ve done, making minor corrections; I’ve done a serious re-write and I’m rewarded with increased confidence its merit.

I cut a lot in order to “clean up” the through-line. The plot advances more quickly now — at least that’s my sense of things. The last draft moved far too slowly; there was a lot of repetition.

My script is simple but unusual. Scene one is the set up: The show we’ve come to see has been cancelled and we’re present as the artist and the gallery director battle it out over whether or not to let us see the show. Scene two is the strange one: The audience is left on their own to wander through the set undisturbed — just as they are at an art gallery opening. They have thirteen sculptures and their letters of provenance to view. Scene three is the denouement: Although Charlotte has failed as a curator, she emerges as a very successful artist. She’s transformed just like the thirteen women honored by her sculptures.

It’s two one-act plays separated by a silent scene, really, so having people read scene one is valid and I want to have it working before I re-write scene two.

•

On Thursday, Beth and I went into the village and as we were checking out of the food store I was objectifying the remarkably handsome hunk of a man who was ahead of us in line when he suddenly turned and stared right at me, hard, without saying a word.

It took a second, then: “David!” I almost shouted his name and then we had a great hug. I remembered a face from the 19880s when we met at Emily Carr University when I introduced myself to “the new guy.” offering to help him avoid some of the shite of academia that I’d just been thorough.

He lives on Gabriola now and has my contact information. I hope I’ll hear from him; I could not be happier to discover there’s another person here, like Paula, with whom I share some history. He’s a seriously kind and gentle man.

•

Somehow in our bajillion emails prior to her arrival, I missed noting the date of Beth’s intended departure: April 18^th. So when I asked about her leaving on the 16^th, I took her by surprise. But she made her arrangements and is, in fact, departing on the 16^thand that means I have two days before Allan and Larry arrive. 

I think chilling is important before twoguests come — two very animated guests who are lots of fun. But boy am I happy with my mental health. I am can be suddenly overcome by spells of badly broken speech and trouble breathing, but now they are short controlled “times out.” I believe myself to be in the final stages of these momentary losses of control. I expect that come August seizures will be out of my life. 

My only remaining symptom will be stuttering. Monday is the second anniversary of my disfluency; my last day of fluency was April 8^th, 2016.