Allyson, just throwing this out there, you are welcome at my place if you can get your ticket changed to an earlier flight through DFW. I would LOVE to have you and the house would be yours during the day - backyard and patio all yours to lounge.

Oh, so lovely to be back at work, where My Nemesis is back to her old tricks: just got an email chain forwarded through three other people that would have saved everyone some effort and confusion if she had just sent it straight to me. But that would involve recognizing that I have a role in this organization, and she can't bring herself to do that...

Like a woman can't project? I mean, some women can't, or don't; I've known several women whose speaking voices were almost impossible to understand unless they were "right up in your face", but I think that's because our culture teaches women to speak softly, and some women seem to really take the lesson to heart.

They asked me to keep it down, at krav. You could hear all my classes from every room, and one instructor told me I didn't have to "compensate", you know, I could just teach like a chick. It took him a while to understand that...lo...that was "like a chick". Because it was how I teach the martial arts, and I'm a chick.

There's a woman on one of our project teams who has a not just high, but squeaky high school voice. It really took meeting her to help get past it, because it's not the sort of voice I think people have naturally, and so I had to wonder what her deal was with choosing it.

Somehow, though, not over the phone, it seems a lot more plausible. She lends it more gravitas, and no longer sounds like she's nervous and 13. Poor thing. People definitely talked shit about her voice behind her back, although no one cast aspersions on the quality of her work.

Jilli, where is the sterling silver or pewter version of this, the bracelet on the right with the claws? They must be easy to find, no?

Haven't seen one yet, but do you want me to put the babygoths of Tumblr on the search?

do you want me to put the babygoths of Tumblr on the search?

I am sure they'd love a project from you, and I'd love to see what's on the market.

You could hear all my classes from every room, and one instructor told me I didn't have to "compensate", you know, I could just teach like a chick. It took him a while to understand that...lo...that was "like a chick". Because it was how I teach the martial arts, and I'm a chick.

That's like the inverse of the Iggy Pop quote going around where he's wearing a dress, and someone calls it a "woman's dress," and he's like, hell no -- this is mine, so that makes it a man's dress! And PS: Fuck you.

That's the one.

Figured, once I got out of the Jimmy James (which I still hear in Phil Hartman's voice) place my mind immediately went to.

And me, I went to Jonestown.

I have a lower voice than most women, and I still regularly get mistaken for a man. I know when I put more diaphragm behind a statement I can make people do what I want, even without raising my voice. It's odd, but I'm happy to take advantage of it.

Oh yeah. I can project. I can project like a motherfucker. It always startles people, especially when I was more wee than now. But I still have the ability to quiet a room full of people by saying, "All right, listen up." authoritatively.

But then, my voice is naturally a little low, anyway. Family legend has it that upon meeting infant me, my uncle leaned forward, looked at me in surprise, and turned to my mom and said, in his classic Japanese/Hawaiian throaty tones, "Sexy voice, eh?"