Yesterday I went with a huge amount of other foreigners living in Japan to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. A few parts of it I spanked around like a fine young ass. Others had their way with me. So be it. At the time, I had but a sniffle. The test room was freezing, and perhaps it helped keep me aware for crucial parts of the test.
But I got home last night and my throat had devolved into this scratchy I'm-Tom-Waits-and-I-smoke-three-packs-a-day kind of voice.
Today I was supposed to teach again at the local school for disabled children. I called in sick because my voice had gone from sounding all husky and sexy (?) to sounding like a fourteen year old boy in the throes of puberty. I could sound kind of normal (if scratchy) when I spoke very quietly. But put any stress on my voice (trying to talk fast, or raise it to teach a class) and I sounded like what I imagine a eunuch sounds like.
Tonight, even those sweet painfully rare baritones of puberty (can you remember that time...when you were just begging your voice to behave?) have been replaced by a steady bad crossdresser falsetto.
I never thought my voice would be this high again.