Mumbling Me

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• April 30, 2017

Phone calls were always screened at our house growing up.  No one ever jumped for the ringing phone. I think my sheer contempt for the sound of the ring started then.  I couldn’t stand it.  There weren’t many times I was expecting or anticipating calls.  It was just an interruption.  I’m unsure what I was ever doing that was so important, likely nothing, but it irked me just the same.  It was rare the calls were for anyone but my Mom.  A large family means a lot of phone calls.  There were many family members and friends, who, if they called, the rest of us knew Mom would be on the phone for an hour.

One of our favorite family activities was listening to messages from my Dad’s twin sister.  I swear, we would sometimes all gather around the kitchen counter and belly laugh, they were so hilarious.  Because my Aunt is a notorious mumbler and goes on rants to herself.  So she would leave a message for us, and then there’d be another minute or so of her literally just mumbling to herself about going to the store, but has to pick up her daughter at this time, and then there’s something about laundry.  It made no fucking sense!  Just a stream of consciousness that was only slightly understandable.  A thoughts on top of thoughts mind.  Sometimes we would save these messages, and replay them days later when we wanted to laugh.  Make no mistake… my Dad’s twin (my Godmother) is one of my favorite people on this planet.  She’s one of the most generous and genuinely kind-hearted people I’ve ever met and on top of that she has a fucking great sense of humor.  Plus, both her and my uncle are amazing cooks, and I look forward to eating there more than I ever look forward to eating in nice restaurants for the combined meal and company where I know I’ll laugh my ass off.

Now, it’s not news to me that I’m a mumbler.  My Mom’s brothers are also terrible mumblers, so genetically, I was doubly screwed, and I have memories going back to elementary school of being told to speak louder and/or more clearly.  Despite being told to be less shy throughout my life, I never even considered myself an introvert until college.  Introspective, yes.  But I don’t think it really dawned on me how quiet I was until I started doing stand-up, and people just could not believe that I said more than a few words ever, let alone speak on a stage.  The only time my Dad ever yells at me is for mumbling, “DAMMNIT, HOW COME YOU SPEAK PERFECTLY ARTICULATE ON STAGE BUT I CAN’T HEAR A WORD YOU’RE SAYING.” Errrr… mumbulmaynishmahal……

Friend and hilarious comic (actually, my family’s favorite comic, no joke) Tim Gage perpetually berates my mumbling.  You would think he would be more tolerant of the mumbling since he is related to Colin Quinn.  Once, I was talking to Gage on the phone, and he just yelled, “DAMN IT LORI, BEFORE YOU CALL ME WRITE DOWN WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO SAY FIRST.  I CAN’T UNDERSTAND YOU.”  Ispo facto, my muscles get slightly tense every time a phone rings, making working in an office a living hell for me.

Where was I going with this?  God, my blogs are like talking to me… I start off with something then digress into my overlapping thoughts….

In the past, I’ve attributed my love for writing due to what seems to be a lack of verbal communication  Or the fear of being misunderstood?  Eh, I’m not sure.  I get so tired of psychoanalyzing.  I still do it anyway.  Living by myself has definitely made it worse.  There’s no doubt about it.  After being on the road with good friend and comic, Dennis Rooney, he pointed out how frequently I’d say something, and then mumble to myself after.  I had thought he pointed it out every time, but after the weekend, he said he only pointed it out some of the time.  It felt like a lot to me. Errrrrr….. mumblulinwahdinsufar……

This made a bit self conscious, I must admit.  It never bothered me I was a mumbler.  That seems to annoy others more than it annoys me.  Plus, when someone pointed out what I was doing, I just thought of those voice mails from my Aunt, and that made me laugh.  Although, I was similarly self conscious about this during a post break up hook up where my then ex who I was still sleeping with told me the same thing, “you say something, and then continue to mumble but you’re talking to yourself.”  Except he NEVER pointed this out while we were dating.  All the good confessional stuff was revealed in our post break up hook ups (I think I liked these post break up hook ups better than dating for the brutal honesty, angrier sex, and no pressure of being in a relationship anymore).  He said he found it fascinating.  He also said I was both the weirdest and most hard working girl he ever knew, and that he looks forward to being interviewed when someone makes an documentary about me after I’m famous (I told him the documentary about me will be because I kill myself, not because I’m a wildly famous writer/comedian). (To be clear, I wasn’t saying I was going to kill myself because of that break up, we are amicable friends.  I’m just a morbid nut job who jests about her inevitable suicide, so yeah, in retrospect, I could see how why he thought I was odd and sometimes, even, a chore to be around.)

Yes, I’m scolded at work for mumbling on the phone.  Comics mock me off stage.  Friends are used to it, so they just ignore me half the time.  But Jesus, a bus driver yelled at me for mumbling on my commute to work the other morning.  A bus driver!

So, my one friend goes, “doing stand-up is harder than not mumbling.  Work on it.”  I don’t know why that had never occurred to me in the past.  I can improve on this?  But how?  It is hard to improve on something you’re not aware you’re doing.  I would encourage anyone subjected to my mumbling ways to point it out (even if this frustrates me.  I won’t take it out on you, promise).

While I don’t envision a future where I ever stop mumbling all together, I have to consider that with my reclusive nature, it’s going to get worse if I don’t consciously try to spit out the marbles in my mouth when I talk.  Mumbling is not a sign of laziness.  I lament such a suggestion.  Psychologists widely agree mumbling could be a side effect of a number of anxiety and/or mood disorders.  My favorite interpretation is that mumbling is like a “data compression,” meaning, the mumbling individual is processing too much information, and therefore cannot articulate it, but the mind is still sharp, and working way faster than the mouth.  Of course, I like this option because it suggests I’m smarter than I am crazy.

But, in my defense, the people I’ve known to be the worst mumblers are also some of the smartest and certainly most thoughtful people I know.  So, yes, I think mumbling is a bad habit I should work on, but also, I’m in good company.  Company I’d prefer to be around more than anyone, even if that means we’re all mumbling to ourselves and none of us know what the other is saying.