Chip Off the Old Block

I used to stutter.

I still do, but I used to too.1

It’s pretty crazy that we have a president, Joe Biden, who stutters. To be sure, he likes to say he “overcame” it in childhood and often tries to hide it in ways that any stutterer will be familiar with. I long ago recognized many of Biden’s verbal gaffes as the types of things stutterers do to work around our stutter. So it was been disappointing to see his speech, in general, mocked by political opponents.

Still, tribal political identity is a hell of a drug—and whatever was going on with him at that debate can’t be attributed to his stutter. So it’s understandable that most Republicans wouldn’t be inclined to accept his mumblings and stumblings as byproducts of stuttering.

At least, I used to understand it.

It is pretty crazy that our president stutters. But it’s much crazier that we have a former president, and current presidential candidate, who does this:

Trump had danced around mocking Biden’s stutter before, but the example above—from after this year’s State of the Union—was the most explicit I’ve seen. And the reaction from his supporters across the country was incredibly illustrative. Because the reaction was precisely nothing.2

My family and friends who support Trump—people who were understandably filled with righteous indignation when a substitute teacher stupidly mimicked my stutter in class—suddenly take a more nuanced view when confronted with the same behavior by their preferred leader of the free world. People who, in any other context, would be disgusted by, and refuse to be associated with, this juvenile bullying now insist that this is—for some reason—an exception.

What a character

I actually don’t consider this stutter mockery to be especially offensive relative to every other example of Trump’s insults, bullying, lies, selfishness, et cetera. This instance is just in greater focus because, hey, that’s me! But, in my mind, Trump disqualified himself long before he started mocking a trait that I happen to personally relate to.

As someone who voted Republican in every presidential election of my life before 2016, I never believed a petulant, pandering, name-calling liar was worthy of the presidency. And I think his term in office, and beyond, has clearly demonstrated his disregard for anything or anyone but himself. Regardless of his policy views or other beliefs, his character disqualifies him from such a position of power and respect.

“It’s reprehensible, but…”

Character is something my family taught me to value as a child. Some things were more important than winning, I learned. Things like honesty, compassion, integrity. I learned this from people close to me, many of whom now wholeheartedly support Trump.

It’s jarring to see those people say, essentially, “Hey, you know that character flaw that I’ve always said was completely unacceptable? Well, it’s actually totally acceptable if I like the person for a different reason.” (Nobody overlooked my substitute teacher’s mockery because he was really good at teaching math. Some offenses, if not rectified, are truly disqualifying—like, actually for real.)

Sleaze vs. sleaze

In the 1990s, my Republican family made it very clear that Bill Clinton’s sleazy behavior disqualified him from serving as president. It wasn’t about the policy disagreements. It wasn’t even about potential criminality. Those were separate issues. This was about the moral quality of the leader of the free world. Someone who should be a role model. Someone whose behavior should set an example.

There’s no categorical difference between Clinton’s sleaze and Trump’s—other than the “D” or “R” after their names. The only reason to hold them to different standards is if character isn’t really the issue. If Trump’s moral failings don’t disqualify him because other issues are more important, then Clinton’s didn’t disqualify him either. And that means character as a value—as a requirement—is just not very important after all. Telling kids that good character is essential for respectability is a lie.

Truth…

It’s possible the people who told me, as a child, that character mattered were lying. It’s possible they really were secretly supportive of bullies all along. But I don’t think that’s the case. I think, and hope, that powerful and unfortunate psychological forces are at play. Our motivated reasoning leads to accommodation: we surrender pieces of our deeply held principles, bit by bit, for the sake of “the greater good”, to the point we don’t even realize when the past us wouldn’t recognize who we are now.

If we really believe that a president’s character is an essential qualification, we can live up to that principle by not voting for Donald Trump. Or we can admit to ourselves that we don’t care about a president’s “character”—we only care that he’s on our team.

…and no consequences

The irony is, the people I’m talking about—the ones who would undoubtedly stand up for me against Trump-style bullies, yet still support Trump—live in California, a state that voted for Biden by 30 points in 2020. It’s not like their support, or lack of it, is going to change the election outcome one way or the other.

So there’s no electoral consequence of withholding support based on principle. The only effect of admitting Trump is a piece of garbage unbefitting the presidency is one of identity. It means going against one’s political tribe. Admittedly, that’s an extremely difficult thing to do. But it’s the kind of thing we all like to imagine we would do—if we had to—to do what’s right.

Tribal political identity, man… hell of a drug.

  1. All credit for this paraphrase goes to Mitch Hedberg. ↩︎
  2. In reality, most supporters are probably unaware of it, because it wouldn’t have been mentioned at all in Trump-friendly media. But even when I’ve shown it to Trump supporters, the response has been to say it’s horrible and then immediately try to dismiss it by pointing out other things they think are horrible. ↩︎

What’s Missing

This blog is going through some growing pains. I’ve temporarily removed most of the previous years’ posts as part of an ongoing reorganization effort. Stay tuned.

9 Facts About Life in NYC

Several months ago, at the end of 2019, I moved to New York City for a new job. It was a big change after living most of my life in the sprawling suburban Central Valley of California. As you can imagine, it’s taken some getting used to. I’ve noticed a few particular peculiarities about NYC, and I thought I’d share some of them here.

1. New Yorkers love to honk. Everywhere I go, people in cars are honking. Where I’m from, people usually only honk when there’s a hazard to be aware of. Here, honking is a way of life.

2. People honk more than their car horns. Speaking of honking, I’ve noticed that New Yorkers honk their noses when they’re blowing them. I don’t even know how to make the muted trumpet noise these people make when they blow their noses — right out in public, like it’s no big deal.

3. Public transportation isn’t crowded. This one isn’t a difference so much as a surprise. Where I’m from, I didn’t take public transportation much, but after hearing about the famously crowded NYC subways, I was pleased to discover that I can almost always find a spot to sit down.

4. Personal space is important. Although seats on the subway are plentiful, I have found that I get dirty looks if I sit too close to anyone. In fact, in most public places in NYC, people are very serious about their personal space. Some will even tell me to move away from them if they feel I’m too close — with a healthy dose of New York attitude!

5. Stores are open weird hours. Most of the stores I pass by are always closed during the day, and even at night. I don’t know how they expect to make any money that way. But really, how can anyone make enough money living in NYC?

6. Restaurants are all takeout. With rent prices so high, there aren’t a lot of big restaurants in terms of square footage. Even so, the little restaurants that are here all seem to be exclusively takeout and delivery. It’s like they don’t even want people inside the place.

7. Everyone wears masks. Where I’m from, hardly anyone covered their face in public. But here, nearly everyone is walking around with some kind of cloth, paper, or medical-style mask on. New York is a diverse place, so I’m guessing it’s for religious purposes?

8. Most people stay home. I expected the city to be more bustling than it is. It seems most people elect to just stay home most of the time. (It makes sense, I guess, since all the stores and restaurants are either closed or takeout only.) There are still people out and about, but it’s not at all like the TV shows and movies led me to believe.

9. Way more people have the coronavirus. Last year, when I lived in California, practically no one had COVID-19. But in NYC, thousands of people do. The guidebooks didn’t say anything about that! Only in New York!

It seems there’s a new surprise around every corner, and I’m soaking it in as part of the full New York experience. I imagine I’ll get used to it all over time — except for the nose honking. That’s just weird.

After Blocks

A lot of people have been asking me about the short anecdotes at the beginning of my stuttering post two months ago1, so I thought it would be fun to expand on them a bit.

By including those short snippets in my original essay, my intention wasn’t to garner sympathy or arouse indignation; I just wanted to give a snapshot of some situations in which my stuttering has come into play—and to convey the fact that it’s been an issue over many years of my life. I purposely didn’t flesh out the stories to their conclusions. It would have taken too long and detracted from the overall point I was making. But now—for the first time—all will be revealed!

The Bar

The bar is crowded. I rest my elbows on the counter as people press themselves around me. The surly bartender finally gets to me and asks what I’ll have. I stare at the beer taps behind him and open my mouth.*

He looks at me and says, “Spit it out!”

My brow furrows slightly. My mouth stays open. After half a second, he moves on to the next person waiting at the bar.*

I can’t speak for other stutterers (pun intended), but, for me, “spit it out” is pretty much the most frustrating thing anyone can say to me when I’m stuttering. Because that’s precisely what I’m trying to do. In fact, as someone who stutters, talking often feels as if I am trying to literally spit out the words that are trapped in my throat. Telling me to “spit it out” is like telling a depressed person, “just be happy!” Not only can they not “just be happy,” but reminding them of this inability just makes the condition worse.

The bartender, of course, didn’t know any of this. He didn’t even know I was stuttering. He just knew he had 20 other people waiting to buy a beer and I was standing there silently, holding him up. After he served another person, he came back to me and I was able to order my pale ale.

The Baccalaureate

It’s my high school baccalaureate ceremony. I stand at the podium in front of a crowd of parents and families. My fellow graduating seniors sit behind me. I’m introducing the ceremony’s main speaker, my favorite teacher. I read my brief remarks off a small notecard in my hands.

After the ceremony, a classmate comes up to me.

“That was really funny,” she says.

“What was?” I ask.

“During your introduction, when you sounded out the words like you didn’t know how to read.”

I said, “I wasn’t being funny. I was nervous.”

She said, “Oh,” and that was the end of the conversation.

Interestingly, my senior year in high school was the period of my life when I stuttered the least—to the point that I didn’t even really think about it.

Until then, I hadn’t been particularly involved or popular at my school. But, thanks to a fun class and some new friendships during my junior year, I was encouraged to become more involved the following year. I signed up for a leadership class (which helped organize all the extracurricular student events), and I even ended up co-hosting one of our annual talent shows. Looking back on it now, it seems ridiculous that I’d ever agree to do that, stutter or not.

I’m sure I still stuttered during this time, but it was definitely minimal and it wasn’t something that defined me. I’ve spoken to people who knew me then, and they say they had no idea I stuttered. I wasn’t trying to hide it; I simply wasn’t stuttering very much. And I don’t really know why. My hypothesis is that, at the time, I just felt comfortable and accepted. The insular world of high school—where, as far as I could tell, I was universally liked and considered funny and nice—provided a safe little cocoon where I could just be myself, which ended up relaxing my vocal chords somehow.

The interesting thing is, I can pinpoint the precise moment when that feeling of safety evaporated; it was during the baccalaureate ceremony introduction. If you want to get psychoanalytical—and I know you do—you could say that it was at that moment when reality really hit me: I was leaving the safe, comfortable world I’d constructed in high school, and now I had to start all over again in the much bigger, more complicated world of college (and the world in general). Or maybe it was just a coincidence. Whatever the reason, I started stuttering more, and more. Since then, the intensity of my stuttering has varied, but I haven’t yet experienced a period like that senior year, where my stuttering was such a non-issue.

The Substitute

I’m in third grade. Our class has a substitute teacher today. I’m getting hungry, so—during a few minutes of free time—I walk up to him.

“H-h-how long until lunch?” I ask.

“T-t-twenty minutes,” he mimics.

I walk back to my desk, embarrassed.

Throughout all my schooling, I wasn’t teased regularly about my stutter. I mean, I’m sure it happened a few times—because it seems impossible that it wouldn’t have—but no instances stick out in my memory. I was teased a few times for other things, but it’s safe to say that, with regard to my stuttering, I grew up in a generally supportive and understanding environment. Which is why the teasing from this substitute teacher, an adult in a position of authority, really caught me off guard.

I don’t remember if other classmates overheard the exchange or if I told them about it when they asked why I was upset, but some of them urged me to “tell on him” to the principal. I said no, because I didn’t want to make a big deal about it—my ego was bruised but not broken, and I just wanted to forget about it and move on.

Later, during recess, a girl in my class ran up to me. She explained that a group of my classmates had reported the incident to the front office on my behalf.

Twenty years later, I’ve come to appreciate how unbelievably caring their act was. These were third graders we’re talking about. When nine-year-olds gather in groups and are left to their own devices, they’re supposed to be—at best—up to no good, or—at worst—exceedingly selfish and devious. But here these third-graders were, showing compassion for a fellow kid, in direct opposition to an adult who should have known better.

My parents were called and, at the direction of my principal, the substitute apologized to me. He was young. (Of course, at the time, he seemed very grown up—as all adults seem to a nine-year-old—but I bet he was only in his mid-twenties.) He was inexperienced. And, just like my high school classmate and the bartender and all the others years later, he probably didn’t immediately realize that I was someone who actually stuttered.

The principal told my parents that the substitute would never teach at my school again. If that’s true, it’s a pretty harsh penalty—but I bet he never made the same mistake again.

  1. No one has actually asked me about them. ↩

Block After Block

The bar is crowded. I rest my elbows on the counter as people press themselves around me. The surly bartender finally gets to me and asks what I’ll have. I stare at the beer taps behind him and open my mouth.

He looks at me and says, “Spit it out!”

My brow furrows slightly. My mouth stays open. After half a second, he moves on to the next person waiting at the bar.

It’s my high school baccalaureate ceremony. I stand at the podium in front of a crowd of parents and families. My fellow graduating seniors sit behind me. I’m introducing the ceremony’s main speaker, my favorite teacher. I read my brief remarks off a small notecard in my hands.

After the ceremony, a classmate comes up to me.

“That was really funny,” she says.

“What was?” I ask.

“During your introduction, when you sounded out the words like you didn’t know how to read.”

I’m in third grade. Our class has a substitute teacher today. I’m getting hungry, so—during a few minutes of free time—I walk up to him.

“H-h-how long until lunch?” I ask.

“T-t-twenty minutes,” he mimics.

I walk back to my desk, embarrassed.

I stutter.

I always have. My stutter—manifested most obviously in the verbal “blocks” I experience on various words and sounds when I speak (“block”, get it?)—has been a part of me for as long as I can remember. The intensity of it varies, from day to day and year to year. At times I hardly stutter at all. Other times I feel as if I’m stuttering on every word—as if I literally, physically, can’t speak.

Quiet, please

I’ve alluded to this part of my life here on the blog a few times, in deliberately ambiguous comments or opaque references. Stuttering isn’t something I talk about much online—mainly because I don’t stutter online.

But in my daily life, it’s not something I’ve tried to hide.

Not exactly.

Well, it kind of is.

Actually, it absolutely is something I’ve tried to hide. Just because I know I can’t hide it doesn’t mean I don’t try to.

For reasons of shame, frustration, or anxiety1, I engage in tactics that anyone who stutters can relate to: feigning ignorance, replacing words with synonyms on the fly2, and mostly just plain not talking.

Plus, stuttering is hard. Physically. In fact, physical tension and struggle is part of what defines it. Saying it’s “hard” isn’t just a metaphor. It’s like wrestling with your vocal cords (OK, the wrestling part is a metaphor, but the physicality of it isn’t).

I’ve become fairly adept at “passing” as fluent during short interactions, and even more adept at keeping most interactions short. Because of these avoidance techniques, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that many people I’m acquainted with (and certainly internet people who I’ve never met in person) don’t realize that I’m a person who stutters. But at the same time, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they did know. The fact is, it’s nearly impossible to completely hide from someone over any extended period of conversation. (Although I recognize that I’m surely more aware of it than the people I’m talking to are.)

But I’ve never talked about stuttering like I’m doing right now. Even with people who know I stutter, around whom I stutter (relatively) openly, and who accept me (generally speaking), I still don’t talk about stuttering. And most people seem hesitant—if not outright afraid—to bring it up first.3 And why would they?

What my stuttering isn’t

I keep relatively few “active” secrets about myself. By which I mean, there’s not much about myself that I wouldn’t tell someone, if they asked. But what I’ve learned is, people don’t usually ask. I’m pretty open here on my blog about how and why I think in certain ways about certain things. Most of it is told through a prism of comedy, because I think that’s a fun and appropriate response to serious things. (Comedian Rob Delaney wrote an interesting essay about the seriousness of comedy that you should check out.) But when I’m not being purely absurd (and sometimes especially when I am being purely absurd), I’m saying what I really think. I’m telling the truth—at least as I see it. Sometimes that comes in a satirical or ironic form where I actually say the opposite of what I mean, so I understand that it’s hard for readers to keep up, truthwise. I don’t expect you to completely understand everything I write. I just want you to know that, in my own head, I’m not trying to misrepresent who I am. I try very hard, in fact, to be as transparent and honest as possible.

That meandering paragraph was meant to introduce the notion that I’ve got a lot of issues, like most people, and I don’t mind if you know that I’ve struggled with depression, anxiety, and other annoying things like that throughout my life. And when I say “I don’t mind if you know”, I actually mean “I do kind of mind if you know.” It makes me uncomfortable. Part of me is afraid you’ll think I’m weak or crazy or really, really good-looking—even though science suggests it is much more complicated than that. Ultimately, I just don’t think it’s worth the energy to try to pretend that I’m different than I am.

Beyond the obviously negative stuff like depression, I’m also an introverted and shy person. And I don’t think either of those things is bad. A real psychologist—versus my armchair version (although I bet a lot of psychologists sit in armchairs)—can explain more about how our personalities are almost innate; no amount of nurture can completely override nature. It’s what makes us different, and interesting, and cool, and assholes.

My overlong point is, I’d still be very much the same person—depression, anxiety, introversion, itchy beard, hilarious twitterer—whether I stuttered or not. The stutter certainly interacts with, and complicates, those things (especially the beard), but it doesn’t cause them. Nor is it caused by them. Again, this isn’t just my opinion; the science backs it up.

The good stuff

That’s not to say stuttering hasn’t had any effect on who I am. When you have an impediment to something as fundamental as talking, it’s sure to have an impact. A lot of it sucks, but I hesitate to dismiss it as a total negative.

I believe my stutter has helped shape the way I think. And I generally like the way I think. I like my skepticism and my thoughtfulness and my ability to see an issue from multiple angles. After you’ve struggled—impossibly—to get your own mouth to produce the thoughts inside your own head, it’s not a far stretch to think, “Hey, maybe the stupid/mean/evil thing that other person said wasn’t really what they were trying to say. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and ask for clarification.”

I don’t know if I would have developed such inward thought processes if it had always been easy to say the first thing that came to mind. My stutter forced me to think more about what I actually wanted to say. Because, if I was going to struggle through the mental and physical contortions to actually say something, I wanted to be damn sure it was worth saying.

Struggling with stuttering every day continues to teach me empathy for others. It reminds me that we’re all dealing with our own issues, and that there’s often more to a person than what’s on the surface. I like my empathy.4

These are good qualities to have. They make me a better writer and, I think, a better person.

Why am I writing this?

I realized recently that I’ve been holding on to a hope that, even after almost three decades of stuttering, one day I’d become fluent. I thought that at some point—through psychology or chemistry or statistics—I wouldn’t have to deal with stuttering anymore. After all, most children who stutter grow out of it. And some adults who stutter seem to find ways to pass as fluent. Hell, there have even been periods in my own life where I stuttered so infrequently that it became almost a non-issue. So maybe—maybe next year, maybe when I get a good job, maybe when I’m married, maybe when I retire, maybe when I buy a new car, maybe when I lose 40 pounds—maybe it will just go away.

But guess what? (Spoiler alert.)

It won’t.

Science (by now you know how much I like science) suggests that my stutter is here to stay. It will likely vary in intensity, as it always has, but it won’t go away completely. And I’m not particularly interested in developing new and ever more convoluted ways to hide it. Like I said, it’s not worth the energy to pretend that I’m different than I am.

So instead I’m coming out of the stuttering closet, so to speak.

I’m not saying I’ve suddenly accepted and am completely comfortable with my stutter. But that is my goal. I want to give up my heart’s yearning to be “normal”, and hopefully accept that there’s really no such thing as “normal”.

That’s my goal. This is a first step.

What now?

Now, I stutter.

Sometimes naturally, and maybe sometimes on purpose, just to let myself know it’s OK.

To be honest (as ever), this is gonna be weird for me. Wondering who has read this. Worrying what people are thinking when I talk to them—if they’re wondering why I’m stuttering or why I’m not stuttering, why I’m talking or why I’m not talking. But here’s the thing: I worry about that shit anyway. My stuttering doesn’t create my social anxiety; it just adds to it. And I’m less anxious when I’m not pretending.

Also, I’ll just tell you now: you can talk to me about it. Online or off. But I don’t particularly plan on talking about it a lot, especially here on the blog or Twitter—mainly because I don’t think it fits my self-imposed criteria of entertaining, interesting, or original. I may just refer people back to this post. But it’s out there now for the world to see, and especially for me to know that the world can see it.

Well. Here we are.

  1. None of which, as I’ll explain later, cause stuttering. ↩
  2. Great for vocabulary building! ↩
  3. In early 2011 an acquaintance approached me at a social gathering. “Now, don’t hate me,” she said cautiously. “But what did you think of The King’s Speech?” How many movie review requests do you suppose begin like that? (I thought the movie was a pretty accurate representation of what it’s like to stutter, and I liked it quite a lot.) ↩
  4. Usually. Sometimes the shitty ways people treat each other affects me so much that I have to make a conscious choice to “turn off” my empathy for a while. It’s weird. I already explained that I’ve got issues. ↩

Recipe for Resolutions

A lot of people think New Year’s resolutions are for losers. “Hey,” they think, “Why do I need a new year to make a change in my life? I don’t even know what month it is, anyway. I love frozen yogurt any time of year. Should I call it ‘fro-yo’ or ‘frogurt’? Both names are great! I’m so lonely!”

Well, I have good news for those people: You should call it “fro-yo”.

Also, New Year’s is a good time to reevaluate your life because it is a time. It’s completely arbitrary, and that’s what makes it work. All the best, most effective stuff is arbitrary. Take the U.S. Congress… please!

You’re probably thinking, “OK, Conlan. You’ve convinced me that New Year’s resolutions are a good idea. But—I’m embarrassed to admit—I don’t know how to make a New Year’s resolution. Can you help me?”

The answer is no, of course. I don’t even know you. (Or, if I do know you, I probably don’t want to know you. So the answer is not so much “no, I can’t,” but more “no, I won’t.”) But I can help you help yourself. Here is your recipe for success:

Ingredients

  • 1 pencil with eraser (everybody makes mistakes!)
  • 1 spiral notebook, wide-ruled
  • 1 pack of 3×5 notecards, blank (for “resolution-storming”)
  • 1 cupcake (for ritual cupcake sacrifice)
  • 1 roll of duct tape (just in case)
  • 1 garbage bag
  • 1 butcher knife (for chopping)
  • 1 large bottle of bleach (for destroying the evidence)

Directions

  1. Spread out all the ingredients on the drafting table in your bunker.
  2. Take off your pants (leave your underwear on). You can resolve better when you are unencumbered.
  3. Assume the “thinking pose”: clasp your hands together, but with your index fingers extended. Touch your fingers to your lips. Alternately, if you have a beard, stroke it gingerly. I said, GINGERLY.
  4. Think. Consider the different areas of your life (work, family, TV, Facebook, and breakdancing) and think about how you suck in each area.
  5. Write down all the ways you suck in your spiral notebook (henceforth known as your Life Inventory Journal).
  6. Think about the ways you can suck less in each area of your life (fitness, bathroom etiquette, shoe size, Chinese finger traps, and healthy eating) and then—here is the tricky part—write down these resolutions on the notecards (one resolution per card, please).
  7. Arrange each solution notecard in a circle on your table.
  8. Place your Life Inventory Journal in the center of the circle, and then place your cupcake on top of your Life Inventory Journal.
  9. Violently smash the cupcake with your hand or hoof.
  10. Chop something with the butcher knife.
  11. Brush everything on the table (notecards, journal, smashed cupcake, broken dreams) into the garbage bag, and set the bag aside.
  12. Pour the entire bottle of bleach all over the table.
  13. Bask in the cleansing destruction.
  14. Put the garbage bag into your escape chute and blast it off into outerspace.
  15. Live your BEST LIFE.

And that’s how I help you help yourself.

Happy New Year, everybody.