I don’t use my voice very much and I’m not even used to hearing it anymore. I open my mouth to speak and am often surprised at what comes out. My mom is always alarmed when she hears me: “Why do you sound like that? You sound like you have no energy, or bad energy, or bad chi. You aren’t eating, are you? Or sleeping? What do you do all day, anyway? Are you worried? Are you stressed?” So when I see people I use my throat so much that it buzzes by the end of the night. It’s a warm, fuzzy buzz, with none of the good connotations of “warm” and “fuzzy” becuase I know it means that I’m ripping my cords to shreds, that they are red and inflamed, that I might as well (may as well?) be reaching in with a razor for all the care I give them. I am terrible to my cords. I am a slave to my excitability. I remember that in high school, the F just above middle C was one of my possible breaking points between “chest” and “head” voice–the long last note of “as rain” was on that note and I could never decide to push it to chest or leave it floating in head. In the last few years, it’s felt like I couldn’t go above that F in “chest” voice at all, and not above the next C/D/E above middle C in any kind of voice and it made me really worried. Now I don’t sing for months at a time and F to B and even C above middle C feel soft and weak in “head” voice, which is strange, and oddly transparent in chest. Sorry I’ve been erratic about “quoting” either head or “chest” voice “sometimes” and “other” times not “doing” it. Ummmm… yeah. So I can’t decide how far to push it. I don’t know how to sing.

I don’t know how to study, either. Or write essays1. Or subtract 49.16 from 56 and get a number to write in the “tip” spot2. Or make friends. Or do anything.

Or about the ASHBRINGER!!!!

1I call them essays. Everyone else calls them papers. On one hand, the argument could be made that using “essays” makes me sound like a high schooler. On the other hand, you call what you read in your reader “critical essays,” not “critical papers.” So there!

2We went to Home of Chicken and Waffles tonight. It was delicious. I even have some takeout candied yams for tomorrow. Happiness.