I'm at my husband's parents' house for the weekend.
I have to talk here... my husband's sister is a semi-professional vocalist, so people here know a great deal about the intricacies of vocal straining or whatever other tale I'd decide to weave.  My cunning would not last ten seconds. ;)  They're such nice people, though... but I am still choosing my words very carefully and only speaking when I absolutely feel it's necessary.

It took me a lot of effort to start talking again.  It's agreed between me and my husband that when we're alone, I can go back to not talking.  He's totally ok with this.  

Until today, he'd heard me speak exactly two words since last Tuesday... those were to his co-worker today before he left town, who said 'nice to meet you' to me, to which I replied "You too."

Ah well, Sunday evening I get to start over.... then no work on Monday.  Yay, safeness.

Well, officially all three of my superiors at work know there's something up with my voice.  When I've been required to speak for whatever reason, I've been doing so purposely very quiet and strained.

I was saying something to the boss and he looked at me and said "is there something wrong with your voice?" and I just looked at him and started blushing... then out poured the lies:

"Heh... yeah, I'm trying not to talk.  I'm an idiot." I rasped.

"What, did you drink acid?" he asked me in his typical sardonic manner, but with a glint in his eye that indicated he would not seem impressed had I agreed with such a silly notion, but expecting either answer.

"No... I hosed my voice screaming along to the music in the car. " lies, lies, dirty lies.

"Oh... wow, is it permanent?"

My heart soared at this point.  It could be my great escape, but my lack of quick wit betrayed me at the worst possible moment.

"No... I don't think so.  Give it a few days." I replied.

A few days... a few more days to come to the conclusion that it's tiresome being aphonic.  It's not.  I get a rush out of being in public, forced to tap out notes on my Treo, writing things down, gesturing, partaking in silent conversation with my companions... Am I an exhibitionist?  I don't know.

I am most comfortable when I am alone with one or two trusted people in a group of strangers, especially the ones I hadn't seen in a while.  Mike, my coworker, and I went to lunch at Subway today.  There was a young, lanky fellow (with gauged ears and kinda punky hair - he always reminded me of someone who would have the nickname Puck, like the Shakespearean fairy) behind the counter who we hadn't seen in about a month.  We got in line to give our order - I'd already written to Mike that I wanted my 'usual' (6" turkey on wheat, everything but jalepenos) and he agreed to order for me, kind soul that he is.  He proceeded to tell the guy what he wanted on his sub (mine was still in the toaster thing), and Puck looked me up and down... "Whoa, hey, cool hair!" he exclaimed, looking at me.  I looked at the ground and blushed.  My sub was delivered from the toaster and I watched him look at me again "Yeah, what do you want on yours?" ...to which I poked Mike and he completed the order.  Puck said "Haha! What, not even letting her speak?" to Mike, as he smiled a smile that looked genuinely kind... to which I glared in reply.  We got our food and sat down to eat it.

Mike was rambling on about something... I don't even remember.  I find it comforting how he's willing to have conversations with a person who doesn't speak back.  He thinks it's 'interesting' ... he said I can be his 'weird friend' XD (he has so many of those already anyway)  ...Anyway, we're sitting there eating, and Puck wanders by to drop a cup in the trash.  He passes by our booth, I see him out of the corner of my eyes and fixate my gaze on my sandwich.  He stops in front of us... "So... how come you dyed your hair?" he says to me.  I look at him, open my mouth, pull out my Treo, press a few buttons to bring up the memo pad... and suddenly he says "Oh, back to work" ... before I can even type anything out.  Bastard.  I don't know why I give a shit about what he thinks.  Again, I guess I just like the attention.

Prior to today, whenever he'd be behind the counter when we'd come in, he'd harass me about not telling him which videogame the creature hanging around my neck (it's a Rabite pendant from a Legend of Mana promo) was from.    I'd harass him right back giving him hints, and then telling him he'll never figure it out.   Well, he liked my hair, which is cool, I guess... sheesh, enough rambling about the Subway guy.

Anyway, my husband comes home from his business trip tomorrow.  He thinks he might have the flu still... he has some odd symptoms that might be signs of something else, so I'm going to continue to urge him to make a doctor's appointment.  I told him that I'm lonely here by myself with nobody around to not talk to... if he's feeling better, I'm going to urge him to share my bed... :)

I work each day in an effort to make the weekend come faster.  It is only during the weekends where I am genuinely "safe."

Oh today.
Today today today.

Today started with me going into my husband's room to kiss him goodbye... and he was all huddled up under the blankets.  He looked up at me blearily and said "don't kiss me, I think I've got the flu" and my face fell.  He has a really important job interview tomorrow that the company is flying him out for and everything, and he's getting sick... :( I nodded, gave him a hug, and left.  We were both really busy throughout the workday, so we didn't get much IMing in, but boy did we chat after work.  I'll get to that part in a few.

Today was the day that I needed to let Lee know what was up... because he, Mike and I were going to Subway for lunch (because Wednesday is officially "Subway day!") and it would be polite to give him a heads up before he found out from Mike what was going on.  He took it extremely well.  He's a very intelligent guy, one of those pot-smoking hippie types, but with a college degree, hehehe.  Yeah, those are rare.  He's very understanding and has a big heart, so I knew there wouldn't be any issues.  Yeah, he's the kind of guy you can trust.

The three of us went to lunch...  Lee sat in the back seat and Mike and I sat up front.  Mike has this big ass umbrella back there, and Lee brandished it as he always did and pretended like he was going to stab me with it.  They both were joking about "oh, she must like it, she's not complaining, see" ...and their light-heartedness really made me feel good inside, because I know they were just playing around.

We got to Subway and of course the line was nearly out the door, so I typed up "...um, mind ordering for me?  I'll pay for yours too" and he said that he'd pay for his own and of course he'd order for me, so I banged out my order on the Treo and showed it to him (I get the same thing all the time; he knows most of it) and he was cool.  As we were standing in line, on the other side of Lee's banter, Mike and I had a little conversation - him talking, me typing out on my Treo little responses.  I remember him saying something dumb about how his head looked like a tomato, (he's bald, and didn't bother with sunscreen when he was hanging out last weekend with his girlfriend. haha oops) then he started rattling off characters from Veggie Tales... to which I wrote "you're not a veggie, you're just a fruit" to which he turned another shade redder, if that were even possible.  heh ...ah making other people smile still lights me up inside.  He rambled on about some more stuff that I forgot, and I typed up "you guys sure are pricks... but I kind of like the attention" to which he laughed and said "Hahah! Typical female there!" - and he almost got a kick in the shin for that one.  I'm a little sensitive about my gender identity (yeah chalk one more up for the psychs to come after me about), and I'm a very non-conventional female, so he definitely said that just to raise my hackles, and he probably loved every moment of it. :P I was totally cool with it and knew he was joking... so it's ok, hehe.

When it came time to order, I just kind of hung out behind the two of them... the place was really busy and they had probably four or more people working the great sub assembly line.  Mike just ordered as if he had two orders, and when the order lady looked at me to take my order, I just shook my head and gestured to the guy behind me in line, then broke eye contact abruptly.  It was extremely effective.  Subway's a huge routine for all of their workers, especially during the lunch rush, so I'm lucky things worked out as well as they did.  I actually finished my food before Lee, which was a first.  Funny how you eat faster when you aren't talking. ;) (I had the Treo put away while I was eating, ugh, don't want to get food on its shinyness with my crumby fingers.)  Anyway, that was lunch.  

The rest of the day at work was rather uneventful other than me making a huuuuuuuge sale to the guy who came by yesterday.  Whew, now I'm over quota for the month and I can relax.  (The sale was basically half of my month's quota, in that one sale.  So so happy. :) )

Oh yeah, here's where the realization comes in that I have figured out my "out" to the question "why don't you talk?"  The answer:

"It hurts to talk."

It's exaggerating a little bit... but it's mostly true.  It hurts physically and mentally.  It takes so much more effort for me to say something than it does for me to type it.  Every time something happens at work where I have to speak, I feel like the words are tearing at my throat like knives as I force them out.  I think I touched on this in my previous entry... if so, there it is again.

I sent an IM to my boss at the end of a conversation we were having about work-like stuff, and he didn't mention it in passing, so I don't know if he read it, but it said something like "I'm sorry if I've been short to you or anyone lately; let me assure you I'm not mad at anyone.  I've only been speaking when I absolutely have to, and then, very few words.  It hurts to talk.  Don't worry, I'm not contagious."  ...I guess I will find out tomorrow if he actually got that message, because it's pretty important to our workflow.  If I could finagle some crazy crap to where I could just not have to talk at all, I would be the happiest person alive, but I'm not going to push my luck.  Perhaps if I am riding on the coattails of another gargantuan sale tomorrow, I will have a more open-minded boss to work with.  We will see.

Now we get to the heavy stuff.  I haven't mentioned much about my husband, because, hey, we don't work together, and of course he was on my mind the entire day; I encouraged him to spend as much time as he possibly could resting... and he did.  He had just woken up when I got home.  The plan was to go to Target so he could get some dressy clothes for his interview tomorrow (yeah yeah procrastinators) and then probably get dinner afterward.

The drive to Target was uneventful.  I whipped out the Treo and asked him some questions after we got there, mundane things like "do you need to buy a tie?",   "Mind if I wander in electronics while you look?" and other stuff like that... I feel that we were able to communicate our basic needs just fine throughout that trip.  Dinner, however, was in almost complete silence on his part.  I typed up my standard order again on the Treo (heh and saved it so I could invoke it at will; I eat there a LOT) and showed it to him... I then typed "I can show this to the dude or you can order for me... I will pay for your food if you order" to which he said "no" then I typed "ok, I'll pay for my own" and he said "ok" 
...Heh as he was putting in the order, the guy behind the counter (who knows us; we're very friendly toward him and he sees us there a LOT; my husband would eat lunch there every day during the week sometimes) asked "hm... vinegar on this one?   No, wait, she's the one who likes vinegar, right?" I nod.  "Heh, she can't talk?" he said to my husband, who kind of looked at me and rolled his eyes.  I don't remember his response, but... attention from the Subway guy was nice, in a demented "haha attention" kind of way.  Yeah, look at me, I'm one big attention whore.  The process of eating dinner was awkward.

The car ride home kinda sucked.  The radio was up a bit, and... he asked me something; I don't remember what it was.  He then reflexively turned down the radio, as if he were expecting me to answer, and he caught himself doing it and just kind of flipped the dial all the way down in frustration.  I don't remember most of the conversation in the car that happened after that, but I think I shed a few tears.  See, driving is one of those times that we used to have deep conversations about absolutely nothing, especially on long trips.  That is going to be the hardest thing... for us to deal with having lost.  Hold on, before you decide that your faithful author is an insufferable prick, keep reading, there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

We got home.

I grabbed the laptop, went out to the living room, and sat down in my recliner while my husband sat in his.
We conversed for about two hours - him speaking, and me typing.  The flow of the conversation was extremely natural, and as I can type like lightning, there really wasn't any frustration on not getting thoughts out fast enough.  Plus, as my husband could see me typing, he got the thoughts straight as they rolled off the top of my head.

Oh, the things we discussed.  We discussed what perked my interest in not being able to speak... we discussed what we're going to do when we visit his parents over Labor Day (and decided on a compromise of a modified 'work plan' - I'll speak when spoken to by his parents (technically my superiors, right?) and in the interest of courtesy, but other than that, nothing.), we discussed the fact that I may have found a part of me that makes me feel more "whole" - yes, I compared myself directly to transgender people and people with Body Integrity Identity Disorder (I just found that article and... I'm a little afraid that it describes me TOO well... but that's a topic for another time) - we discussed work, his interview tomorrow, haha, my car... how awesome our laptops are (we have the same model)...

And then we discussed the "three things"
This is the stuff that my husband has been churning about in his head for the past few days, and I am certain that this is what has been worrying him so much.  The three things are the three ways he perceives couples to interact romantically.
1. Intimate physical contact (this includes sex, things with private parts, stuff you would not do in the presence of your parents under any circumstances)
2. Affectionate displays... kisses on the forehead, hand holding, cuddling, non-sexual physical contact.
3. Emotional spoken discussions

Now... one thing about my husband and me that the readership should know, it's a very important thing - we're asexual.  Neither of us has a significant sex drive, and we have been married over a year without seeing each other naked, let alone fondling of the naughty parts.  Let's not dwell on this... so #1 is out the door completely.
#2... is something that we have been letting slide, unfortunately, since we moved here to Houston.  We've each been really busy with work and other obligations, and since we each have single person beds, we haven't slept together except when we're staying at hotels and his parents' house sometimes...
#3... well, that went out the window completely as of a few days ago.

Now it's clear why he's worried, and that list of three things put it into perspective very very clearly for me.
I took his hand, squeezed it hard... and let him know that "well, you see, the same number of chips are available... I have taken the ones from pile #3 and I will be putting them into pile #2."  I promised him.  From today on, my physical displays of affection toward him are going to increase tenfold.  This is going to be our compromise, and he was delighted.  I feel that we came a long way in making that decision, and I am relieved and thankful, and so lucky to have such a wonderful outstanding man as a husband. :)  

From that moment, his demeanor seemed to have completely changed.  He got his new clothes out of the dryer (dewrinkling) and said he was going to try them on. ... ... ... ... oh my god.... hahahaha.  He came out, and he was absolutely STUNNING.  I mean, he is a very handsome devil, but all decked out in a dark gray dress shirt, black slacks and tie... he looked like he was ready to sit down in the CEO's chair and purchase a few Internet startups.  I was enthralled, and I stood behind him giddily in my bathroom as he pulled a comb through his hair in so many directions, trying to get it to do something he liked after I pointed out that his part wasn't straight.  He looks the best with it parted down the middle... it just looks so... good.

He changed back into more comfortable clothes, and we just lay on my bed for a little while and cuddled.  I motioned to him to flip over, and I gave him a pretty long (by my standards anyway) back rub and back scratching.  He was grinning so much I thought his little heart would burst.

We then looked over the new Nintendo Power magazine that came today, and actually enjoyed reading it together, reading over the stuff that interested both of us, and glossing over the rest.  It was a neat interactive exercise. 

It was nearing 10pm, and he really had to be going to bed... long day ahead of him with the flight and interview and all.  We did the "goodnight ritual"  of tight hugging, kissing on the cheek, etc, probably a total of 3 times in the living room before I finally let him go.  He whispered in my ear "I think everything is going to be just fine" and I am so relieved and so thankful to have heard that.

It's a compromise, see.
I am happy. :)
If you read this far, please drop me a comment.  Once again, it is midnight before I get to sleep... I don't mind. ;)

Hello, world.

The purpose of this journal is to chronicle my journey through the trials of being voluntarily mute, as my username indicates.  There's a lot of backstory, but it's not important right now; maybe I'll write about it some later.

As of today, Tuesday, August 21st, 2007, I no longer speak, except in the interest of keeping my job.

Yesterday, I kind of gave it a trial run at work, and I made a rule that I can only speak when spoken to at work.  It seemed to work out well.  I alluded to my friend Mike, my plight, and he seemed more in awe than anything else.  There are no exceptions otherwise.  When I'm not at work, not a sound.

When my husband got home last night, I showed him my Treo 650 (which will come in very handy) with a message on it that read "hop on Yahoo Messenger, I need to discuss something with you" - we'd had a pretty indepth chat on Friday about stuff we'd have a hard time discussing face to face (hehe) so he... begrudgingly went over there.  I explained to him that I was going to undertake a trial to test my self-control and resolve,  choosing not to speak for a while... and... he seemed concerned that it would harm our relationship, in that our strong communication is the glue that holds us together.

I really had a hard time dealing with that sentiment.  As a result, I feel selfish and stupid.  My husband, on the other hand, did say that he'd be willing to participate (what good will this work without his help anyway?), but it may take him a while to get used to it.  
I love him so much, and I don't want to hurt him... we'll see how things are going after a few days.

After the Yahoo conversation took place, I messaged him "well, we should probably get dinner" and we decided on Taco Bell.  The meal was eaten in silence... I had him order for me; typed out what I wanted on my Treo, and he just ordered it as a part of his meal.  It wasn't that difficult.  On the way home, I noticed that he took the path into our apartment complex that passes by the mailboxes.  I tapped his arm and motioned to the right, and he said "oh, no mail?" and I shook my head.  I don't seem to have a problem communicating urgent things, but it has only been a few hours.

My husband said to me that it's going to be a while before he's comfortable talking to me without receiving more than a nod or a hand-squeeze in reply.  I kept urging for him to tell me about his day, but he refused.  I told him about mine over Yahoo regardless.

It's 12:30am here, and I haven't been to sleep before midnight in over a week.  I'll try to post more tomorrow when my fingers hurt less, and when I'm able to cobble my thoughts together better.

Oh yeah, all updates to this journal must be done from the laptop.  No exceptions.  Mm, more rules.

I hope my husband will be okay.  I'll cut the trial short if I have to, but I'd like him to take some time to warm up to it, instead of immediately dismissing the experiment as something that will shoot all of our communication down the shitter.  Time will tell.