Monday, Aug. 22, 2005 10:11 am
Treatment next week
Today is an interview with one of the local hotshot artists. He's been on my nerves lately. Not him so much as his management. They are having a big CD release this weekend that cost $100 per person where you get to be up close and personal. Big deal. I got a special emailed invitation Friday saying that I get to come for only $70! Right. You bet. When they got the word that we were making fun of them for making us pay for this, we quickly got the "nonono, you don't have to pay, you just got the group email" disavow. I'm not going to go to it anyway. I have a gig.
I didn't have a great weekend. Not a bad weekend, just nothing to remember fondly. I need to learn to make something of a weekend AROUND the stuff I have to do. I had a remote Saturday afternoon in the heat at the lake and that was exhausting, even though the remote was easy and no one came. I got home from it and laid down for a three hour nap. Didn't see Mark all day because he left for errands soon after getting up and then went to Houston for a gig at night and came in super late.
On Friday afternoon I am informed I have to do stage announcements for a show on Sunday. I had really looked forward to a Sunday completely off. So, that blown out of the water, I spent Sunday just waiting for this event and then went out and spent three more hot hours on our first 100 degree day in over a month. This was a big music festival, but not particularly fun since I was basically there alone (me and the interns) and I didn't want to drink. I stayed long enough to do my introductions and listen to 15 minutes of the headliner and then I came home. I was super cranky when I got home, too. No way to spend a Sunday night.
Then, I watched Six Feet Under and had to cry and cry over all the happiness and all the deaths that it ended with. That gave me a headache.
So much for the weekend.
I am going back to the doctor one week from today. I hope that the treatment lasts longer this time, or has a longer period of good voice in the middle. I think I had about one month of good voice this time. I'm trying to guage it so that I don't mess up too much of my airtime. Checking the diary from last trip I think there were five days before my voice started going to atmostpherically high. I will be on the air five days before my vacation and then I'll have nine days for it to be high and goofy before I'm back on the air. That probably isn't enough, but maybe it will be the worst of it. There is no way of knowing.
I want to keep a better record of the changes this time, too. What am I feeling now? Just choked down all the time. It is very frustrating that people don't understand what I'm going through. I realize it is good that people don't hear this like I do and I can make it sound "fine" on the air, but it is also frustrating. Last week I told my co-worker Cotton I was getting the treatment this week. He said, "Why, you sound fine, why bother?" My blood pressure goes up. I may sound fine on the air, but I am SUFFERING with every sentence. I am just exhausted after every break and I go home worn out. Casual conversation is much harder than announcing, though. I can do the announcing thing and be louder and clearer, but I can't just 'talk' and do it easily. Talking on the phone is the worst. No one seems to be able to hear me and it wears me out. No, nothing hurts and I don't have a sore throat and no one seems to "hear" this the way I do, so those things are all good. I just really miss being able to throw in a comment or a joke without having to think about how to get it said loud enough to be heard. Nothing is natural about speaking anymore.