The (Stage Whisperer) Voice... Part 1

I’m currently a little bit sick of being sick.  It’s boring.  I’ve recently enjoyed a tour of some of this winter’s most fashionable cold and flu symptoms – from acute laryngitis to a chest infection, I may never truly know what’s hot, but I can tell you definitively I am currently not (metaphorically speaking, on the literal side my temperature is all over the map).  My body has been busying itself brewing some sort of super bug.

The only highlight so far was the brief interlude in which my voice graduated from pre-op onto something I decided sounded a little like Karise Eden singing.  When I pointed this out to my mother she looked at me blankly and replied “What’s a Karise Eden?”.  I had better luck when I rang Fi and performed a Celine Dion number.  “I think you mean Cher?”  Yes.  Cher.  I’ll take it.  All this was brought to a crushing halt when Mother Painefull demanded I stop calling people to sing to them if I wanted any chance of getting better.

So a return to the boredom, with nothing to revel in but the gobsmacking range of soups mum can cook.  Yes, I reverted to a sick 6 year old child, went home and lay really still while my long-suffering parents cared for me.

I also spent a week communicating in stage whisper.  Turns out, when you start whispering, other people feel the need to whisper back.  Which makes conversation stupid and oddly secretive.  Suddenly mundane things feel confidential, furtive, deserving of security clearance.  Maybe that’s the fever talking…

And so as I ponder phlegm and recall my taste buds with longing, I remind myself this could be worse.  It could be a Man Flu (that’s life and death I hear).  Health, like voters and the print media, is a fickle creature… and always in possession of superb timing.

Thus, without further ado, I give you my Top 3 Most Memorable Dalliances With Illness*.

3. This Is Starting To Burn

One of my various skills (joining the category that includes things like ‘Singing like Karise Celine Cher’) is the art of sunburn.  It’s my thing.  It doesn’t take more than 5 minutes on an overcast day at 4pm for me to light up like a fat man on a treadmill.  That and my aversion to stakes might be why some people suspect I’m a vampire.  They don’t, but it would also explain the hours I keep and the irrational enjoyment I get out of not catching sight of my own reflection in mirrors.

Of course this means the beach is my natural enemy.  I have to roll in sunscreen and double dip in clothing before I even step on to the sand.  But a few years ago, one fateful family Christmas holiday at Hyams Beach, I made the Rookie Error of missing a fundamental spot.  I burnt the backs of my knees so thoroughly that I was unable to walk properly for 2 weeks after.  It’s a devastating thing to arrive half an hour late to a meal when you feel the way I do about food**.

To be continued… (with an ill-timed international incident, a strong case of denial, a total eclipse of the heart and the mysteries of silent laughter).

Painefull Out

* = Let the record show, if nothing else this list reminds me I have been supremely lucky when it comes to general wellness.  Also when it comes to family holidays.  And scar tissue.  Not to mention parents.

** = Perhaps the personification of a First World Problem.  Woe is me.