What do you mean I have a flair for boredom?

Let's talk about my voice.

For most of my life, I could blissfully ignore my teenager way of turning every phrase into a question and the way I sometimes sound like a tight rope on estrogen.

But in radio, I have to broadcast this 1980s jukebox to other people. While being taped for eternity, and posterity, so my grandchildren can know why they sound like teenage boys when they're 23-year-old women.

My newscast went great. Until it was time to say my name.

I looked in horror through the glass where the producer and my classmates smiled at me and I heard the click of the intercom.

"Say your name again, please."

I don't usually aim to sound like I'm wearing a loin cloth and leaping from vine to vine.

"And the food bank is having trouble during the transit strike.

LaurAHE-AHE-AHHH,

Radio News."

Oh my God. It sounds like my voice box is in a wrestling match with Jonathan Taylor Thomas. How the hell did he get in there? Fucking Tom and Huck. I should never have memorized the script to that film.

I fudge my name all the time in writing - but that's because cursive is all disorientating. I have to concentrate. Visa understands that Laura and Laara and Larua are all the same person.

Just as Laura and LaurAHE-AHE-AHHH are one and the same.

But spoken word is different. I can't say my own name into a microphone?

Later on, while practising my script, I was told by my radio mentor to brighten up my voice.

"You just have one of those voices that sounds naturally bored all the time."

That's just great.

I prefer sarcastic. Or deadpan. I do not want to be known as Margaret Atwood. There is a woman who sounds bored all the time. She can barely lift her gums to say "hell no."

But maybe Margaret understand why kids always thought I was making fun of them in elementary school. I'd say something nice, and they'd throw sand. They probably didn't even hear what I said. They were being lambasted by the sound of boredom. Poor kids.

Because of my self-consciousness, I'll be compensating for weeks, smiling while I talk, and making everyone wonder why I'm showing off my teeth and not blinking. As long as I can keep my voice steady while I'm saying my own name.

This isn't the first time I've had to compensate with my expression. There was that time my hairdresser chopped my bangs an inch above my eyebrows and I was forced to look surprised for weeks so others wouldn't notice. I'm sure everyone wondered what kind of lobotomy the hairdresser had given me behind the bangs.

The crazy smiling? It's so I don't insult you, prematurely. When the smile comes down - so does the guillotine. I have a weapon to wield and it's about to ruin the mood.