Thursday night. Ohio.
I don’t do school speakings very often, or any speakings for that matter. Mostly because because schools don’t request to have me. Rare is the occasion that someone actually invites me to them. Usually it’s just me invading your local cafe with a rolling suitcase of underwear, black band t-shirts, and a handful of scandalous reading material. You know, the speakings where I practically beg you to come out and make me feel not so lonely?
This week, some amazing people in Ohio managed to convince their university to have me come run my mouth, as in, someone actually wanted lil old me. Strangely the night before I had to leave, my voice was slightly raspy and I had been coughing. I didn’t think much of it until I woke up in the morning and I sounded like Dicky Barrett from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. But things were already in motion and to cancel after all that it took to get me there would have been a slap in the face to all the hard work people had invested.
Now I’ve done speakings with 103 fevers (Rutger’s University), extreme nausea (Pittsburgh), and a walking MRSA infection (2010 UK tour), but I know as long as I have a mouth that makes sounds and a reasonably close chair to fall into I can make a speaking happen anywhere and anytime. So I said, well, I can either sit here on my couch and cough and complain or I can do the same thing while driving 7 hours and do my best for the small amount of people who show up.
I was supposed to speak at 6pm. At 4:30pm my voice was no longer raspy but completely gone. As in, I could barely even squeak out a sound. You know, I have lost my voice like 3 times in my life, what are the odds one of those would fall on the exactly DAY I have to speak? So I was trying my best to actually whisper to the CVS pharmacist who told me that outside of warm tea and honey, I was pretty much fucked. I asked her if she knew some weird remedy that could restore my voice for just one hour so I could not have to cancel and she just shook her head and told me Ibuprofen might help take down the swelling of my vocal chords. So I took a couple, got another cup of hot water and honey, and hoped it would help. Surprisingly, it did. Just long enough to squeak out a speaking and almost on cue, I stepped back into the car and lost my voice almost immediately.
Since then, I have been dying in a voiceless puddle of phlegm and coughing until I get headaches.
Thank you to everyone who came out to the speaking at John Carroll University and thank you to Nikki and Rebecca for making this possible.
This week, some amazing people in Ohio managed to convince their university to have me come run my mouth, as in, someone actually wanted lil old me. Strangely the night before I had to leave, my voice was slightly raspy and I had been coughing. I didn’t think much of it until I woke up in the morning and I sounded like Dicky Barrett from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. But things were already in motion and to cancel after all that it took to get me there would have been a slap in the face to all the hard work people had invested.
Now I’ve done speakings with 103 fevers (Rutger’s University), extreme nausea (Pittsburgh), and a walking MRSA infection (2010 UK tour), but I know as long as I have a mouth that makes sounds and a reasonably close chair to fall into I can make a speaking happen anywhere and anytime. So I said, well, I can either sit here on my couch and cough and complain or I can do the same thing while driving 7 hours and do my best for the small amount of people who show up.
I was supposed to speak at 6pm. At 4:30pm my voice was no longer raspy but completely gone. As in, I could barely even squeak out a sound. You know, I have lost my voice like 3 times in my life, what are the odds one of those would fall on the exactly DAY I have to speak? So I was trying my best to actually whisper to the CVS pharmacist who told me that outside of warm tea and honey, I was pretty much fucked. I asked her if she knew some weird remedy that could restore my voice for just one hour so I could not have to cancel and she just shook her head and told me Ibuprofen might help take down the swelling of my vocal chords. So I took a couple, got another cup of hot water and honey, and hoped it would help. Surprisingly, it did. Just long enough to squeak out a speaking and almost on cue, I stepped back into the car and lost my voice almost immediately.
Since then, I have been dying in a voiceless puddle of phlegm and coughing until I get headaches.
Thank you to everyone who came out to the speaking at John Carroll University and thank you to Nikki and Rebecca for making this possible.