What Happens When A Christine Loses Her Voice? Blood.

I’m voiceless. Speechless. My larynx has gone on strike, possibly in support of the WGA. This is the third year in a row this has happened, right at the New Year, and I’ve gone from resigned-to-my-fate to pissed off. A total of 9 days over the past three weeks I’ve been without use of my voice. Laryngitis in a building full of radio people is like the biggest cosmic farce you can imagine. No opinion is kept to oneself in this business, and people say a lot of ridiculous things that I, of course, have to then shame them for; voiceless I’m like a eunuch, or something less graphic but just as symbolic. A rudderless boat?

“But Christine,” you say, “you’re a vivacious and smart woman with a bevy of talents that have nothing to do with speech.” And this is where you’d be mistaken. You know those people that you love to death for one specific trait that they have? It’s the thing you always mention when you’re describing her to others. “The one with the funny laugh,” or “the one with the rich family who still lives in that VW bus,” or, “the one that always has weed.” Well, I’m the one with “the voice.” Or, “the talker.” That’s what I do. It’s all I’m really good at. If I can put together a halfway amusing or coherent blog post it’s because I can hear the words, in my voice, in my head first. My life and my identity are so closely tied to what I can talk my way into or out of that I can’t begin to think about separating them.

So what do I do? I lie in bed at night wondering if my throat is covered in polyps (I’m trying to get in to see a doctor, but I’m kind of a hypochondriac sometimes); I get up, I write this blog post, in silence. I wonder what I would do if my future on-air ambitions went up in smoke. I’ve been in radio for 11 years. All of my adult life, really, and I’m not a strictly off-mic type of girl. So what if I end up way past Kathleen Turner and more into Bad-Tranny range?

And what about my husband? I’ve spent 8 years modifying his behavior to respond to my verbal cues. How in the sam hell am I going to be able to get him to pick up his stuff if I can’t use my terse voice?

Originally written 1.08