Strong Verbs Are Just Better

I have found the correct genre of music to sing along to and gently stretch out my vocal range: sea shanties.

In December I freaked the FUCK out as my voice started breaking: my spoken pitch was about the same, but I *couldn't project* anymore. And I had lost the ability to speak or sing in chest voice; I could SPEAK in head voice, but not sing.

Christmas carols I used to just... know, I could no longer sing along to. And I also couldn't pitch down to project across a room! It was really distressing.

My voice has stabilised - speaking wise it's a little lower than it was, but not drastically. It's a little more resonant, and it's going through another round of sounding like I need to clear my throat - but since I dropped the dose, those phases are less marked.

What's alarming: I might be in danger of becoming a crap baritone. This is a problem: as a crap alto, I could sing along to lower-pitched women's pop songs AND mediocre tenors. As a crap baritone, I can't keep up with a lot of the male voices I *think* I ought to be able to, but also can't transpose them down because I don't have the bass range.

Example:



I was having emotions about the Halifax Explosion the other day, and discovered I ... can't sing along to this anymore. My voice just goes completely silent at "Bound for the fighting"! Not even squeak, I just ... no noise comes out!

So I had to test this on other songs. Of the Longest Johns oevre, the sea shanties are all comfortably in my range - EXCEPT the Wellerman. I *can* sing along to the Wellerman now without having to transpose, but it's still an effort to hit "leave and go" AND some of the higher notes. Some of the comic tracks, like Moby Duck, or Hoist Up That Thing, tangle me - I can't change notes FAST enough.

In the GBS oevre: I cannot keep up with Sean McCann's range. Songs in the English folk style, like Captain Wedderburn, are completely out - which probably explains why most Christmas carols were beyond me.

Alan Doyle's pop-folk lead tracks are either too fast or too high for me, but a lot of the shanties are fine. I think that - with exceptions, like The Wellerman - shanties must be, by design, in the "crap barritone" range, ie, the overlap zone for most standard men's voices; and they don't usually execute feats of vocal sliding, because who has time to be Harry Styles when you're working?

I'm having a lovely time singing along loudly in my flat.

Particularly fun with my current vocal range:









In other news, The Longest Johns are coming to Switzerland THE WEEK AFTER I LEAVE.

Not Covid. Yes sniffle. So much snot. Just. Snot. Constant snot.

Also ear-aches, although once I finally thoguht to take anti-inflammatories as well as paracetemol, that's gone down a bit.

Mercury's rations have been reduced, as he's not been finishing his kibbles before the next meal, and it's getting difficult to bribe him with Dreamies.

The fact that there were kibbles in his bowl did not stop him attacking the new kibble bag and causing a kibble fountain.

On the other hand, he's currently Sulking asleep on the opposite side of the cat tree to his usual spot, because I took the nest down off the tower to wash it. If he hadn't wiped his daggy butt on the fluffy nest, we wouldn't be in this position, would we?

I've had a sore throat and erratic cough since... Friday, i think? I tested negative on a self-test on Wednesday evening; negative on a clinical rapid test on Thursday; negative again on a self-test on Friday and Saturday. Saturday I felt fine so did a masked and brief grocery-top-up, before my major online order arrived from the other store.

Sunday I was just tired, faintly sniffly. Someone pointed out that it's hazel pollen season - I don't normally get noticeable allergies (although I do sniffle through winter), but a few times when I've changed location (eg, from Sydney to home) the sudden re-exposure to a pollen that doesn't bug me if it GRADUALLY comes on will knock me around.

Today, though, I woke up at 4am with a definite Sore Throat, headaches, etc. Used the time to get up and call the MyGov helpline in Aus, not that they were any use to me; I eventually troubleshot my own way to re-making my account and linking my medicare record to the new one. Discovered my booster is on the vaccination record but my Swiss vaccines - I specifically went to a PAYING DOCTOR to get them entered! - are not. So I have an Australian certificate saying I've had dose 1 of 2, not the half-size booster dose I actually got. Hopefully the Bernese will let me enter that in *their* records, somehow. I'll work on that tomorrow.

Fed the beast early breakfast and went back to bed, and up again to go get a work-supplied PCR. With my symptoms I'm ELIGIBLE for a government-funded one, but there's no walk-in government testing centre, and afaik the nearest private lab is on the same street as the uni, and more crowded. Figuring i pose less risk to the public on an empty campus than a busy testing lab, off I went. I did not get the gargle liquid up my nose this time, at least.

In a truly mysterious development, i was hit suddenly at 11.30 by ... menstrual cramps? Enough to make me lie down and sulk until painkillers kicked in? (Not terribly bad, I'd have powered through them in the day, but I'm out of practice and already feeling grunky.) Baffing, given I've just gone *on* the mini-pill. Probably not plaugue-induced, although I suppose it could be the not-verified-in-cohort-studies-but-anecdotally-widespread-post-vaccine-menstrual-oddities*.

I am GRUMPY.

* The reason none of this can be verified is that menstrual oddities are very common, and people interpreting any weird shit post vaccine as vaccine-LINKED weird shit is also very common. Also I'd hazard that there are OTHER situational things that will have increased in prevalence at the moment that cause menstrual weirdness (weight gain or loss, and stress, being the two obvious ones).

I'm feeling better in mood, although not tip-top in body and barely scrambling to keep up with... everything. Got next to nothing done last week, have had to pull out of one conference. May or may not do same with the other, depending on what I can do tomorrow. Will not be finishing the dirty mind essay for the Guernica call, but I will look for somewhere else to send it.

Things what happened:

- the ADHD meds round 6 problems I noted in last entry continued: I'd go from not hungry to, in the crash, feeling woozy and ill.
- Somewhere on... Monday, I think, I ate a corn chip and dissolved into hysterical, excruciating pain-crying. Just. Unbelievably bad. And I was fairly sure I could taste infection, but the dentist had LOOKED at my gums, and argh.
- On Tuesday I found I couldn't get into my GP before the following Monday. I researched the city urgent care, with a plan to go there the next time I was in visible hysterical pain - feeling like neither the doctor nor dentist really take me seriously when I say how much it hurts because I'm pretty stoic right up until the hysterical crying phase, even if it is interfering with my daily life.
- Reported to the dentist, booked for a fitting for a night splint. However, I begged her to check again for an infection, and mentioned my brother had had misdiagnosed TMJ pain that was actually a problem with the root of his tooth (I'm sure this isn't genetic, but we don't tell the dentist that). She poked my face, noted my swollen glands, decided I might have MUMPS (mumps!), and then peered some more at the x-rays from December. Took two right-side x-rays (to get the deep gums), and GUESS WHO HAS WISDOM TOOTH FUCKERY AGAIN? She asked me if I still had upper ones and I said every dentist I'd seen said I either didn't have them at all, or they were rootless and wouldn't grow. (Shoulda known better: that's what they said about the lower ones, until the fuckers snuck up on me).
- Turns out upper right bastard had just slightly broken the gum, enough to get infected. Thus the excruciating pain. Ergo, I was given antibiotics and prescription NSAIDs and will have to have the sodding thing out. Since then the pain level has come down a lot, although the radius is still wide: my sinuses hurt, my eardrums hurt, and the roof of my mouth is swollen. I suspect, when I report back this Tuesday, that I will still need further antibiotics.
- I ended up having to give myself a break from ADHD meds round 6, I couldn't tell if the reason I felt terrible in the drop was side effects, or that stimulants were disguising my feeling terrible status. I slept a LOT for the second half of the week.
- Mercury continued to regard my sleeping, being in pain, and crying a lot as a personal insult. I for my part kept breaking and snarling at him because he *touched me* when I HURT, etc. His little life has been so stressful lately I haven't been able to sneak up on him and clip his claws, so that's been an additional problem.
- I emailed my Australian dentist to get them to email my records to my Swiss dentist. Her 360 x-ray machine is broken, so having the 2019 scan will help her decide if she can do the extraction or not. Then I get the fun of figuring out what, exactly, my insurer covers (the law seems to suggest wisdom teeth are NOT covered, but my insurer's app suggests they are; what happens if I need surgery under general, though, given I have neither dental insurance nor supplementary private hospital cover, I do not know).

I was pretty peeved to find that I'd been 'oh dear your ladybrain / existing Madness''d over WISDOM TEETH, ffs. I mean, yes, I clench my jaw. Especially when I'm in pain from, as it turns out, wisdom teeth.

By today I feel... a lot better. I've settled on titrating the ADHD meds up in *one* dose per day only (supplementary doses seemed to increase the chances of weird side effects, rather than smooth them out). They've been fine since Friday, so I think the stimulants were in fact covering up 'being in pain and feeling wretched'. The thing on Wednesday where I took three small doses at 4 hour intervals and ended up feeling like my skin was buzzing has not transpired to mean that I freak the fuck out at what seems to be the 'standard' adult dose once per day for this drug. Unclear if said standard dose is *effective*, because I spent most of this afternoon cuddling the cat. I do, at least, feel a lot more normal in mood than i did.

Speaking of cats: Himself has had the dark night of his furry little soul. He was locked out of the bedroom last night. I heard him do a little Screm around dawn, but he gave up unusually quickly. I went back to sleep. He did not come and scream at my door when the alarm went off. I went back to sleep.

I got up at about 8.30 and he was... nowhere. I called him. He did not come. I opened the kitchen door (his favourite nose), no luck. I looked in all his hideyholes: no cat. I checked, and all the windows were shut. There was some evidence he'd been in the bathroom over night, but no sign of him in the living room. I sat on the couch and puzzled. I started to freak out. I sat on the step and tried calling Shiny for a sanity check: how had my cat disappeared??

I heard some scrabbling of claws on lino. Peeked into the living room and he was wriggling out from under the couch, looking absolutely wrecked.

Here he is wobbling into the bedroom, all fuzzed up, checking for spooks under the bed:

Ich habe schreckliche Dinge gesehen und die Erfahrung überlebt. pic.twitter.com/5Lp3NsZazw

— mightbe_mercury (@mightbe_mercury) August 29, 2021

I have NO IDEA what spooked him, but while he accepted breakfast, he didn't try to steal mine. It took hours before he forgave me for not protecting him, and then he became incredibly clingy, wouldn't leave my side until... maybe an hour ago.

My operating theory is that either:
- something spooked him around dawn and he fled under the couch, yelping, and didn't come out
- something spooked him and he ran under the couch, and got STUCK, and that was the yelping
- the Screm was his dawn screm as normal, but then he ran under the couch for fun / to chase the empty treat box that he'd pushed under there, and got stuck, and I didn't hear him struggling, and he gave himself up for dead.

Either way, the poor little lad has been through an Experience. I expect much screaming if I shut him out this evening.

So it goes. My mood profile is up, my work productivity is up, but I feel like I'm struggling to stay on top of things all the same.

Work: Had a productive mentoring meeting with MF on Thursday: sketched an outline of the first chapter I will write (which, I discovered in verbally sketching it, should be the second chapter of the book) and a more vague sense of the book as a whole. Book of PhD is not coming along as fast as it ought but I AM working on it in small but steady chunks, and have found new ways to be interested in it.

This week MF and I have a series of 'advisor chats' with the external project mentors that were part of the project proposal. Today's meeting was with the prof who was her mentor for her Marie Curie, and went I think very well? I liked him a lot, and although his research field is not very related to my specific section of the project he had a lot of cool stuff to say.

Teaching prep for next semester continues to roll. I need to get back to updating the project website. And I have paper proposals - not MANY but enough - for the remote study day, so next task is to organise them and make a schedule.

Health: Physically... better? Guts seem suspiciously non-drastic although by no means ideal. Fewer aches and pains of late - I've been a bit better at regular meditation if I'm not running, and the new mattress (memory foam) clearly agrees with me.

Psych wants me to see a different specialist (a psychologist, not a psychiatrist, so i think I won't be covered - that's a supplementary insurance thing and I can't get supplementary insurance because I have A Preexisting Mentals - but I can cope with that). Today I called the person she recommended; he got back to me via text with a different recommendation of someone taking new patients who can work in English. So far, so good. Tomorrow I try THAT guy, I guess.

I have figured out the confusion with filling my scrips in Bern: when my psych writes in fr. 'valable 6 mois' i'm pretty sure in geneva they used that for six month-packets, but in bern they mean they will only dish out during that period - so the first one was 3 months and, due to finding some of my Aus supply, I didn't refill it, and that's that. Also the Bernese pharmacists have real trouble with my pysch's handwriting. But that's fine, now I understand HOW it works I can put that in my to-do-list app.

Today I achieved Going Running, and using music as my interval, 4 running-interval-songs instead of my usual 3. Next week I guess I'll switch back to... actually maybe it wasn't C25k i used last time, I think i gave up around the same point I did this time, and switched to Runkeeper, which just tells you timed intervals and distance. Switch over to 3 minutes but two-on one-off.

Social: Yesterday I attended a remote birthday party for a cat. The cat in question did not seem to care about his celebrity, but he did enjoy his birthday tuna cake. Also called R.F., who had useful perspectives on psych situation. Also I've never been in the habit of calling them and perhaps I ought to be, I miss them!

Called Shiny on Saturday, and Saturday afternoon was zoom playreading. Oscar Wilde's 'The Duchess of Padua' sure was an experience.

Did not call my parents, have been avoiding that for some weeks. I had been calling them during the week, when procrastinating, but between having Some Shit To Process and doing less procrastinating, I have not done so. Dad sends me occasional screencaps of the Linux fortune cookie cow.

Tomorrow a mission to the office, and coffee with the medieval junior assistant (the professor's lackey - quite literally fetches and carries. It's... odd, but hey, at least someone gets paid and it's not dumped on the phd students).

Crafts: Sewed another hem on the tablecloth. No I don't know why this is taking me so damn long, it's very simple. Continuing to crochet A Square, have not started the new coaster patterns I want to try (for making coaster/doilies to go under vases).

Other: The house is not as messy as it was, but I have also not assembled even the easiest of the furniture that arrived last week. Or COMPLETELY unpacked the trolley I brought from Geneva. So it goes.

I did repot the petunias, and put the fern into a proper pot, and the i don't know what or why I bought it exactly into a bigger plastic container (a tomato punnet, I think). The petunias, I hope, will be happier and better able to defend against bugs in a bigger pot with smaller drainage holes - they were constantly very thirsty, and some bugs specifically target thirsty plants.

The COVID situation here continues to seem... okay? Case rate is up, but still well below the 300-benchmark the health minister described as What We Can Cope With. There was a "super spreader" event in a Zurich nightclub, a great many people are in quarantine. Canton Bern's rate remains low - the highest in the past two weeks has been 5 in one day - so I'm not overly worried. Geneva likewise in recent weeks, despite the initial surge. The weekend's bump seems to have been Zurich (that night club) and a few other cantons with rates between 5 and 10 on the weekend days.

I have a COLD and i object SO MUCH

the end

I'm back from the UK! Many things have happened, some good some bad some ???. Instead of any of them I wish to report:

I have a wisdom tooth. It has come through behind my existing molars, instead of underneath them, which is nice. It's not straight (about 20 degrees off upright) but it's not perpendicular or driving straight into my other teefs, so that's better than expected. There's not really enough space for it back there, so it wasn't ever going to come out straight.

However: ow. It's currently not completely out (3/4 corners are free), and the teething pressure/pain is still hangin' around. I realised a while ago that was one source of my frequent 'aargh everything hurts, no, wait if I think about it I don't actually have a headache or an injury?' elusive pain thingies. I'm just so acclimated to jaw pressure (thanks, braces) that it legit doesn't register as a sensation I should pay attention to, until it gets quite severe.

I'm hoping that now the tooth is free it will settle the fuck down; I realise it's much more likely that there's just not enough space in my jaw for it and I will have this pain until I woman up and see a dental surgeon. In the meantime I have baby teething gel.

Also, new tooth means NEW WAYS TO BITE MY MOUTH. It's not fun.

New glasses arrived! New glasses are spiffy lookin'.

New glasses are, however, making me dizzier. Suspect this is because I haven't yet learnt to filter out peripheral vision, so clashing input at two different resolutions. Also, everything is BIGGER. It's WEIRD. The font sizes are wrong! I can't deal with font sizes being wrong!

New glasses are going to improve my posture, though. If I try to lean in to the screen, everything is WAY TOO CLOSE. And I can't look down at my hands while typing, or I look under the glasses and make myself dizzy. And if I squirm and put my head on one side, the glasses frame makes a sideways line which is very distracting.