I just said something out loud and scared myself. My voice is back. Way down low. It had been gone since the week of Christmas, when some Typhoid Mary (now there’s a nickname, though none of the earnest young breeders in my hetero’d neighborhood would understand) gave everyone at the xmas party the flu. Viruses are impressive, does anything alive spread faster? Actually no, dumb question, that is why they are so contagious. Indeed, it is debatable if they are even alive at all. At least the flu virus rarely kills anymore. Wait twenty years. That’ll be some christmas party. Octogenarians getting stoned and drunk and trying to remember the words to Blitkrieg Bop will drop like plague victims the next day. Maybe we’ll have a mass wake. But I am digressing, I was talking about my voice. It’s back and rumbling. I am a mensch again, finally. Basso profundo. Lesser voiced dudes shuffle out of the way. Barmaids give special attention. People assume I am a boss, or a movie star, or important. If only I could find my testicles.