Many people can talk hours on end without getting boring. They have this innate ability to say the right things at the right time, said in a manner that sounds witty and articulate without crossing over the line of arrogance or pretension. They can make the corniest of jokes into something actually funny (I can't tell a joke to save my life). They can make you hang on every perfectly uttered word and every perfectly enunciated sentence. I, to my great dismay, am not one of these people.

You can't help but wish you could speak as seductively sophisticated as Cate Blanchett (her monologues in the first LOTR movie still gives me the chills) or maybe talk as charmingly as Ralph Fiennes or Paul Bettany (I have a thing for british accents), or the soothing voice of Morgan Freeman or Ellen Pompeo, or the commanding voice of Anthony Hopkins. Truth... I have a squeaky voice that always comes across as anxious or constipated. Whenever I hear my own voice on a video or in a voice call, I gag. I sound like Karen Walker (Will and Grace) only with less charisma. I also have a tendency to speak too fastly blurting all my ideas at once and getting only a "huh?" or a puzzled expression from the person I'm talking to. It's sad.

Thank God for writing. A medium I can express myself in, not as good as a lot of people but a whole lot better than me opening my mouth. Whenever I type, I hear my "head voice" reading what I'm writing and it sounds a whole lot better than my "mouth voice". You can never take back something you've already said, in writing/typing your best friend is "Backspace". You can spellcheck... If there were only such a device for your vocal chords that corrects how you pronounce words before they even come out of your mouth. I have embarassed myself too many times by mis-pronouncing words, and later trying to speed up the conversation hoping nobody noticed.

The pen is indeed mightier (and more fool proof) than the s(poken) word.

Labels: blah (3x)