Moving Right Along

Barbie's had some work done. You can tell.

So between September 2007 and December 2008, it turns out I lost 50 lbs. (nearly 23 kg).  Before you say something fatuous such as "Oh, gee, I wish I could lose 50 lbs.," please remember that I only lost about 10 lbs. in autumn/early winter 2007 via improved diet and exercise; I lost the other 40 lbs. on the world-famous Life-Sucking Cancer Diet.

(Please forgive me if I don't care to reveal the regimen.  Ask a movie star.  I'm sure one of them is having a book all about it ghost-written even as we speak.  I'm sure it will be full of recipes, inspirational stories, and tips on barf bucket hygiene for when company visits.  It will probably also be packaged with a CD, a T-shirt bearing an appropriated Asian symbol intended to telegraph serenity and hope, and an awareness ribbon of some sort.  But I digress.)

The important part of this story is that, once again courtesy of the good people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (thanks, people; really great Christmas present), brilliant and fabulous Bob Emerson and his team have provided me with a new suction socket.  This means I can walk again, and quite well, something I haven't been able to do for about three months.  ("So why didn't you go in three months ago?" you may wonder.  And the answer is that I was just way too ill.)

Action Barbie's new svelte shape is shown in the photo above right.  You also may notice that she has undergone another transformation:  a new wardrobe.

I wanted to stay with the "ars gratia artis" ("art for art's sake") theme; it suits my life just now.  However, as much as I enjoyed my last experiment using a lettering style based on a commercial script font which I hand embroidered in cobalt cotton thread over rhinestone-studded pale apricot-colored synthetic satin, and as much as I enjoyed the bright orange result with all the backwork of the embroidery showing through like so many roots and vines, this time I really wanted something more exuberant, yet more controlled, and above all more my own.  So I returned to the use of my original freeware font Summertime and created a pattern based on its lowercase letters and floral graphics.  I rendered the pattern by hand embroidering with a light satin stitch (letters) and line stitch (flowers) in white thread on pale lilac synthetic satin, but this time I doubled the fabric, embroidering through two layers, in order to see if I could effectively mitigate the translucency that develops when essentially plastic fiber melts during the lamination process.

This is how my work looked before Bob's crew got busy with it:  (Click to enlarge.)

And this (below left) is what it looks like now.  Notice how the fabric has darkened to a delicious grape popsicle color.  I knew it would darken; I just didn't know to what exact hue, nor did Bob.  I am very pleased with this result.  The double layering did the trick, opacity-wise, but was no doubt helped by the fact that I used a less vehemently contrasting thread this time.  The overall effect is subtle and elegant (sez I) while still funky and handcrafted-looking and, of course, totally original.  You won't see anything like this walking around just anywhere.

This new socket cost the Commonwealth's taxpayers approximately $7,000, give or take a few hundred.  Custom lamination of provided materials is always free of charge at Bob's joint, and I appreciate the opportunity to collaborate experimentally without feeling guilty about costing anybody anything extra.  It's as close as I'm ever going to get to being tattooed.

I hope I don't lose a significant amount more weight between now and shorts season.  Maybe I just imagined it, or maybe folks around here are just getting used to me, but when visible, the bold presentation of Action Barbie's bright orange socket and various shiny black and royal blue components really did seem to result in a significant reduction in the number of expressions of pity and fake (objectifying) admiration vomited forth upon me by random strangers over the summer.  Of course, I was pretty much down for the count for much of both July and August, but when I did manage to crawl off the couch, I do think the orange, blue and black made kind of a fierce looking presentation, a blatant visual clue.  If I'm still walking and this new socket still fits come May or June, I'll be very interested to see what, if anything, this more subdued color scheme will bring.

Art!  Science!  Risk!  Truth!  Whee!

Right?  Right.

True, Sad Tale of the Rhinestone Pegleg

In early July, my true love presented me with a surprise gift:  a "Bling Kit."  What, you may ask (especially if you haven't clicked the link), is that?  This is what:

Yes, more cheap crap from China, this time comprising two sheets (one silver, one black) of plastic scrollwork and gothic letter stickers, and dozens of sticky-backed rhinestones in five colors, including some in preset shapes, all for just $9.99.  My true love was being naughty with his money at a computer game store, saw this product -- which was designed especially for people to use embellishing their gaming consoles -- and thought of me, even though I don't game.

The day he gave it to me, I was terribly busy trying to finish some commissions for my Etsy shop, so I said, "Thank you," put it aside, and went back to what I was doing.  My true love was perplexed.  He thought I didn't like it, and this surprised him because, you know, sticky-backed rhinestones?  And me a person who must never, never, never own a Bedazzler?  And then me not being interested in this?  Yeah, what gives?

But truly, I was just busy.  The Time of the Bling came soon enough.

One morning I awoke early -- hours earlier than my true love, anyway -- as is my wont.  I had finished all my projects.  I picked up the happy, happy box of Bling my true love had so kindly purchased for me.   I opened it and pondered what to do with it.

Well, my computer was right there.  I thought the shiny, black, plastic drive slots could use a little silver.

Then there was my monitor.  For the first time, I regarded the used DeCordova admittance sticker from another day and the little fisheye stick-on mirror I use to primp and to avoid being snuck up upon as lonely and unbalanced.  A red rhinestone stick-on star would help, as would some black scrollwork, and maybe a few more red rhinestones on top of that.

Okay, very nice, but enough.  What else could use some decoration?  What else?

You know, our telephone set came with three different handsets which all look exactly alike.  Being middle aged and increasingly senile, I am not above answering the phone in my studio, taking it with me into another room, hanging up in that room, and then having no idea which phone I should take back to my studio.  I thought maybe I could just put a little something on my studio handset to distinguish it from the others.

Maybe I got a little carried away.

Just a little, though, right?  I mean, I wanted to be able to recognize it from all angles.

Yeah, mission accomplished.

My true love awoke, and came into my studio.  Like a five-year-old who's just learned to paint a tree, I proudly showed off my handiwork.  He expressed dismay!  He never thought I'd use his gift in such a way, to -cough- decorate something he kind of thought was perfect out of the box, but I explained about the suffering my absent-mindedness was causing me and he began to see the merit of my actions.  He was still confused about my choices though.

"Why?  What did you think I would do with this?"

"I thought you would use it on your leg."

"OH.  My LEG.  OH!"

"Yeah, you're always talking about how one day you're going to 'pimp it out.'  I thought this would help."

"I can't believe I never even THOUGHT of that.  What a great idea!  Thank you, honey!"

I got busy.  First, I thought the shiny, black, carbon fiber bits could use some silver.  I put some on the front.

I put some on each side, the larger of a pair of otherwise identical stickers on the outside, the smaller on the inside.

After that, it's possible that I may have gotten carried away, but -- damn!  Looks good, right?

Check it out close up!

Ow!  Smokin'!  You know, if I do say so myself.  (It's not like I made any of this from scratch, you know.)

Now, none of this is quite what I've had in mind all this time, and I really had no idea how long it would stay on, or even if it would stay on.  But it thoroughly delighted me to play around with it, and then I just went about my business as usual.

July 4 arrived, and we got on our cycles and headed over to the park for the annual Town Picnic, just to see what it was.  When I got home, my leg looked like this:

Well, pooh!  I didn't think the blinginess would last forever or anything, but I did think the adhesive was good enough to hold for more than a couple of days.  I also thought it was odd how just those specific rhinestones had fallen off, all in a line.  But then the next time I got on my trike, I noticed that if I let my leg relax at all while I was pedaling, the unused right pedal would come up, scrape the back of my prosthetic, and thus clean off whatever might otherwise adhere in just that space.  Mystery solved, disappointment explained and thus assuaged.

My sister came to visit this weekend for the first time in five years.  There is nothing to buy in Concord that she cannot buy in Northern California except the odd cheesy tourist item, and she has had her fill of those by now, so the best way for me to entertain her was outdoors.  On the river.  In a canoe.  (Oh, shucks.  Might as well toss me in a briar patch.)

My plan had been to wear my new L. L. Bean mary janes so that I could report how well they function as boat shoes.  However, one thing I had already discovered wearing them in rain was that water comes up through the purposely perforated soles but then doesn't exactly wick away immediately and doesn't fully drain.  It takes a good 12 hours minimum of not wearing the shoes for them to dry out after stepping in so much as a single puddle .  And Saturday, it rained briefly, in little spurts throughout the day, but certainly enough to form deep puddles quickly, so I decided to wear my rubber boots instead.

I didn't think about the state of bling on my leg until I took off the boots that night.  At that time, a sad sight greeted my eyes:

Not tragic, no, but I do wonder what this says in Morse Code.  Does it telegraph "is" to people, as in "I is still here," as though I am a giant LOLCat?  Or does it say "si," when I might really mean "no"?  Is this going to be a problem?

I'm not too worried.  However, I present this somewhat sad and silly tale that others may learn from my experience.  Clearly, stick-on rhinestones of the sort provided in a $9.99 Universal Bling Kit are not a long-term pimping solution for the active amputee, and thus whatever messages I am or am not telegraphing will probably not have many more opportunities to be read before they fall off my carbon fiber billboard forever.

The silver stickers, though, are holding on pretty well.  Maybe I'll replace the rhinestones with barbed wire.

I wonder what message that will telegraph.