My Life with Functional Neurological Disorder: Hi Ren; National Flags in Food

It’s so dangerous to make rules. I made one once, about cowboy culture. I couldn’t stand westerns on TV, so I wouldn’t watch any western movies. And I loathed country music and southern American accents. I couldn’t stand all the Stetsons and boots in Calgary, and all the guns and garters in the cars in Dallas. And then I read Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner. It became one of my all-time favourite reads.

When this video popped up on my YouTube home page, I clicked on it because I thought the title image was of an Indian man playing a musical instrument. Instead, I got the film below. As I started to watch the video, I quickly realized it was a young Caucasian man with a guitar, and when he started playing, the heaviness of his fingers on the strings told me we were in for an angry ride.

I was enthralled through every second of this film. And, as happened with Angle of Repose, I find myself thoroughly engaged and impressed by an artform outside my fields of interest. It certainly isn’t for everyone, but this is as intimate as I have ever heard in a song. This is music taking you inside of a place I can’t imagine. I think this young lad just might be a genius.

This ain’t background music. This is pay close attention music.

I am about to kind’a rap my story of illness (FND) in the monologue festival, telling my story using components of song, rhyme and rhythm, to achieve fluency. I feel kinship with this amazing young man who turns his experience with mental ill health into art.

I don’t go out much. I cannot attend a movie in a theatre or a concert or a play. There’s too much likelihood of being triggered to a seizure. I don’t want to be disruptive in public. So, I get my culture online. Finding this fellow and this film thrilled me.

I think I may have to get started on my Halloween costume for something to do. It will give me something fun and interesting to do on rainy days and on evenings. It will also give me something to write about and document with photos on my blog.

I plan to go ‘all out’ with this costume. It’s a chance for me to show off my paper costume skills. I’ve decided to build it as was built a suit of armor: a single costume built of component parts. And … both costumes require an assistant to don. If there’s dancing, my costume will be a convenient excuse not to dance. If there’s loud music, I’ll be leaving.

I’m building a costume for Flamboyo Narcissi, an Italianate dandy. The challenge involves creating all these component parts and engineering their cohesion invisibly.

Elaborate Crown

2 earrings

Elaborate fluted collar

2 shoulder pads

2 Upper arm shields

Breastplate

Backplate

Necklace

Breast ornament

2 sleeves

2 cuffs

Skirt – 2 sections

22 leggings

2 cuffs/shoe covers

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The weekend was a lovely slow couple of days, as was Monday. As I do so little now, I am not posting as regularly as I used to. I have nada to say, but come the good weather, I’ll likely have photos to share and things to tell you. Come Thursday, we expect a week of sunshine and temperatures in the low twenties. YAY!

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I’ve finally found someone who’s given me a date and time to commence work splitting my felled and bucked trees. He’s coming tomorrow morning. I’m a little worried that he will freak out and leave when he sees the size of the bucked pieces, but if he does, I’ll just ask him to do the smaller ones and see how much wood I get.

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I’m chuffed! I’ve very, very comfortably lost 8 pounds since I decided to do something about my weight three weeks ago. I’m losing 2.5 pounds a week and I feel really good about it.

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To promote the Sydney International Food Festival, Australia's largest food festival, the imaginative team of the Australian advertising agency, Whybin/TBWA, created a collection of 18 national flags using foods native to each nation: