Disclaimer: This WPSH episode is chock full of tangents. Be advised, and buckle your seat belts if you plan to follow along.
I like TV sometimes. Funny coming from someone who worked in TV advertising for 5 years... but it's true. Aside from the handful of shows I like to watch, when given access to the remote I usually scroll through the movie channels for some commercial-free cinematic distraction. I am one of those weirdos that can watch movies I like over and over again (hence the DVD collection that is starting to get out of control and grow out of its pen). If anyone knows a good trainer, let me know.
Last Monday I spent most of the day down at the state capitol attending some seminars. Since my office is only a few miles north of downtown, I decided to use the bus system to get down there and back rather than figure out parking. For those of you unfamiliar with downtown Phoenix, just stay away for a while. We are undergoing massive change, most notably for construction of a light rail system that still has 2+ years before estimated completion. What does this mean for li'l ol' me? On a normal day, it means dealing with Central Avenue reduced to one or two lanes between my office and Mike's. But on that day it meant jackhammers, dust, and missed bus connections. Not to mention it was really hot that day, over 100 degrees, as one of the last holdouts of the summer weather. (Honestly, that's not fair. It's October, just give it up and you can return in May, okay?)
Anyone who really knows me (by this, of course I mean anyone who has slept in the same room with me at any point in our lives), knows that I am a super-deep sleeper. When I was a hefty 3rd-grader, my uncle struggled to carry me from the bed in the pink room at Grandma's house into the basement in the middle of the night because he couldn't wake me up. Luckily the house survived the storm, and I don't know for sure if we had a tornado on the farm that night. But this storm marked the beginning of the end for the two ginormous trees in the front yard, with what seemed like a branch one-third the size of one of the trees lying on the ground. I awoke with no recollection of how I got down there and slept through all the noise and commotion.
When I became pregnant I lost my official status as "super-deep sleeper." In fact I can't even call myself a deep sleeper anymore. I'm sure my husband is glad about this because I wake up as much as he does throughout the night. Last Monday night I woke up feeling like my throat was swollen. Sure enough, I've been dealing with some sort of immune system disturbance ever since. I thought it was just all the crap I must have inhaled while trying to improvise bus transfers and avoid that skitchy meth-addict-looking guy who called me "Beautiful" (as in, Hey there, Beautiful, is that the Route 0 Central bus, or the Blue Line South?).
This Saturday I saw my in-laws and sister-in-law. And this cold or whatever it is had begun to wreak havoc on my voice, such that I became the voice of Kathleen Turner, no exaggeration. It was really fun for the evening, especially when I laughed, or when I did the "woof woof woof" part of the Georgia kickoff (as in "Gooooo, Dawgs! Sic 'em! Woof woof woof!"). It would have been even funnier if I was alone with my husband... I could have pretended to tease him with my newfound phone sex voice. hee hee (that's a high-pitched giggle, not Kathleen's laugh)
My mother-in-law gave me some herbal tea and told me to try it with lemon. I did, and it was soothing, but now I just sound sick. I have quickly observed that I exhibit a typically female pattern of speech: when we ask a question, the last word is higher in pitch. Right now I have no voice when I try to use my normal register. It just disappears as the pitch goes up. I found myself saying: "Hey Mike, did you remember to bring your ____?" "What time are we supposed to ____?" "Did you know my name is _____?" (just kidding, he knows my name)
Alas, here it is Monday again. And being grateful because I work for the government and therefore have Columbus Day off, at the same time I feel totally ripped off because I'm sick. If I felt good, I could jaunt up the street to the Desert Botanical Gardens and see the butterflies, look at the tons of merchandise they sell for Dia de las Muertes, go shop for a pumpkin, or some other equally cool-sounding activity for a Monday off in October. But no, I'm stuck with feeling crappy and searching for anything worthwhile on TV. Ugh... TV. Too bad I don't have any DVDs with Kathleen Turner in them.
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