The drugs don't work...

A funny thing happened to me a few years ago. I lost my voice. "Hilarious", I hear you say, "You've really hit on something with this biting social satire"... Yeah? Bite me!... No. I don't mean I lost my voice in the 'suck on a Fisherman's Friend' type way, I mean I simply had nothing to say. For me this was both unexpected and a little bit scary, I seldom keep my opinions to myself and I certainly don't come across as shy and retiring. But, nevertheless, lose my voice is what I did.

Since I last put virtual pen to virtual paper there have been a few changes in my life, mainly concerning work. I was working in the public sector before I caught this strange form of finger laryngitis. The job was frustrating, often dull, and generally felt like a waste of life, but I could go to the pub occasionally and have a right good bitch and moan for a few hours, have a laugh about what a moaning old fart I was and then go home and pour vitriol out into the Internet and feel better about life by passing my take of hate out on people I didn't know... Happy times...

Then one day it stopped.

There was no warning. I certainly didn't stop having a moan, but it was unformed and undirected. I had no reason to write it down and, if I had, there was no reason for anyone to want to read it. My words were just gripes. My thoughts were just whinges. I had lost my voice in all but sound.

The job was consuming more of my energy and the office politics became real politics, I had less time to expel my bile on the page and, as a result, life became about work. So, I made the decision to change my job and that was when the sore throat became a serious and full blown medical complaint. I ignored my instincts and took a job I didn't want, doing work I didn't believe in for a company I didn't respect with people I didn't like. The reason I took it was for an increased salary but even before I took the job, I suspected it would be shit. I saw the money and thought "how bad can it be?". I soon found out.

It would be difficult for me to say how much I hated the job without writing it in smeared excrement on the wall of a padded room. I threatened to post a turd to my boss and I would have done it if I could have gotten the stamp to stick. I spent every hour in life in my office achieving the sum total of fuck all. My family and friends were neglected and I was boring myself with my own fuckwittery.

Then it went downhill. I became ill because of it. I collapsed in the office, I collapsed on the train and I collapsed in the shower. No warning, the lights just switched off and I would wake up in a heap. It happened about a dozen times and I was scared. The doctor's didn't have a clue what was causing it, but suspected it was probably my heart. I confess I have never taken very good are of myself - I am obese, drink too much and never get any exercise, and as for sleep, I have generally considered that cheating - but there was a learned professional telling me I was killing myself with stress at the ripe old age of 37. Well done, what a dick!

I then learned an interesting life lesson. I'm generally very good at my job, I work hard and I am generally respected by my peers, but I had become difficult to employ. I had made the mistake of choosing to leave 3 jobs within a 5 year period and that makes employers nervous. I had interviews, but there were few people interested in taking a gamble on a flight risk employee with a (potentially) dodgy heart during a recession.

However, I persevered - I'm nothing if not a stubborn bastard - and I succeeded in landing a new job, admittedly for a lot less money, but there appeared to be the potential that I might not kill myself or anyone else in the new role. As soon as I took it a weird thing happened. It was as though I'd just had a full packet of Strepsils. My voice came back. Suddenly there were a million things to say if I chose to. It was as though someone had taken lifted the gauze from my eyes and and pointed back at the old bile and hate filled arsehole that I was previously and said "go forth and spill your bile into the emptiness of the Internet, it can't all be about pornography so you may as well amuse yourself writing stuff that no-one will ever read unless you tag your posts with 'teen', 'anal' 'fucking', and 'Justin Bieber'...".

So, there we have it. It's been a long time, but hopefully my dry spell is over. So, is there anything new in the world to get sufficiently annoyed about that I feel the need to throw words at a page? Oh yes! I just hope my poor vocal chords can carry me through...