push it.

i push myself too hard. this is fairly common knowledge, but it's one of those truths that i typically prefer to look at only sideways, through a squinted eye. i only really stop to think about it on days like today, when i'm home from work with yet another mystery illness. it has finally dawned on me that the (probable) reason i've been so sickly all year is the fact that i've been running myself absolutely fucking ragged. and it's starting to show.

backtracking a little, last week was not a good week. friday to friday were pretty much seething piles of stress, which meant that by the time i woke from my hour and a half of extremely distressed slumber on saturday morning, i was in no fit state to do anything, much less sing my wee broken heart out--a fact confirmed by the later revelation that i showed up at rehearsal looking like i'd been beaten up. but show up i did, and sing like a banshee in a pitiful effort to exorcise my demons. really, what i should have been doing was sleeping. this was doubly reinforced at yesterday's followup rehearsal, wherein i had no voice of (or with) which to speak.

naturally, that's the day we decided to record vocal scratch tracks for rehearsal purposes. i'm listening to them right now and cringing at the broken, plaintive edge on my voice.

i also cringe at the memory of how fucking difficult it was to coax even those rough shrillings out of my throat yesterday. i am accustomed to my voice being a responsive instrument; doing what i ask it to do with little fanfare and minimal resistance. and i hate the way i feel when i can't control it; there are too many times when i feel that it is the *only* thing i can control. which might go a long way to explaining why i am feeling so burnt right now; burnt on work, on people, on love, on continuing to fight the good fucking futile fight in this stupid, difficult city.

with my voice gone rogue, i am not in control of anything.

and no good has ever come of that.