I Found My Diaphragm!

Not that diaphragm, you dirty bird! I've always been far too put off by the idea of retrieval... And all the ways that could go wrong, terribly, terribly WRONG, like, "Dr... Um... It's still in there." wrong, to use one of those. Ew.

No, the other one. The anatomical one! It only took me 30 years, 11 months and 8 days, but I am SOOOOOOOO EXCITED!

I can't sing. I can warble, I can make my own mother say things like, "You should NEVER do that in public!" or, "Did that sound just come from you?!" it's pretty bad. Which only hurts deep down in my soul. A lot. But that's okay, God. *sniff*

When you are a person who can't sing like *I* can't sing, and someone catches you doing it anyway, you sometimes receive advice on how to maybe make it less blood curdling or skin crawly or brain blowy-uppy. This advice usually contains the sentence, "Try singing from your diaphragm for GOD's SAKE!" and to be honest, usually ends in, "Or not at all. That would probably be best."

Well, I tried. I tried singing from my gut, I tried singing from my heart, I even tried singing from my appendix, which only resulted in those bastards removing it! I tried singing from my naughty place... TWICE! At least the second attempt was fairly quiet. -I don't even think it would have helped if someone had handed me a road map to it. I'm just inept. Sometimes the sound changed, but it was just another layer of "Is this hell? I don't remember dying... But surely I'm in hell."

From time to time I'd be watching a movie or show in which someone was singing, and some brilliant coach or teacher would grab them in the belly, making them go, "whoo-hoo!", and telling them to, "Sing it from HERE!" and I'd tilt my head and poke myself in the belly, go, "whoo-hoo!" and then try to make a sound from way down there... Nothing. Still coming from the throat region. Still sounds like the torture scene from Braveheart. (*spits in Mel Gibson's general direction* That's a story for another day.)

My friends did not believe me, which lead to The Karaoke Episode of '02, in which I sang a Blink 182 song to a room full of Country fans at a shitty bar, dead sober. ON MY BIRTHDAY, and when I tried to make it comedy... They didn't get it. So... There was this angry mob, and well... I never would have escaped if they'd followed rule number one of Angry Mob Prepairedness: "Keep the lighter fluid handy!" My stupid ass friends forgot that I was the designated driver, probably because it's SO WRONG to make The B-day Girl the fucking designated driver, and tried to skip out on me.

I only made them jog along behind the car for a mile or two. Fuckers.

So there has been strife. Is my point.

But yesterday, as I careened down the road all alone with Pearl Jam vibrating my side mirrors (amongst other things...), something totally crazy happened.

I was blowin' out State of Love and Trust, because that's what I do in the car when I'm alone, I blow it the fuck out, and I realized that a bunch of muscles that aren't located in my throat were... Uh... Moving and clenching and doin' stuff! So I started the song over, and there it was, and I almost wrecked because I was so, "YIPPEEEEEEE! There it IS!"

I turned the stereo down a bit so I could hear me, and it still sounds pretty fuckin' fucked up, but still, I found it... And I found something else, too...

When you sing from way down in yo belly... A lot of muscles start twitching... Including the hoo-hah muscles... Which means that while I still cannot sing, I have found a much funner way to do my kegals!

Yay for tight snatch and singing!

The end:D