Move away your left foot, Daniel Day Lewis. Keep your chocolates, Forrest Gump. There's finally a new handicap in town. Stuttering is taking the Oscars by storm. Colin Firth is stuttering his way to an Academy Award. The handicap that is most scared of speaking up has spoken. Come out, come out wherever you are, my fellow stutterers. It is our time to bask in the light. The King's Speech has brought stuttering (or 'stammering' as the English say) to the forefront. The film tells the story of King George VI, who was  forced by circumstances of chance, or some say fate, to become King of England as World War Two was beginning.  Being a stutterer, becoming King was at first more of a dreaded punishment rather than an answered prayer.  The King would have to go head to head against Hitler with his stutter representing an entire nation and the free world. It's exactly my life story, well, minus the King thing, World War 2, the palaces, the money, the crown jewels, and the fame. It is actually the story of every stutterer, or at least every stutterer's fear. A King is as fearful as a commoner when it comes to stuttering. If there was one thing more menacing than Hitler it was the radio microphone that King George had to speak into to address the millions of people hanging on his every word. To help get through this most trying of times, he kept by his side his own personal speech therapist, which isn't in the budget of most other stutterers.  The relationship these two men formed was one of the most enduring and historically significant of the twentieth century yet before this movie, little has ever been made public. The whole matter of The Stuttering King  seemed to be  buried in history books, overshadowed  by the scandal of his brother abdicating the thrown to marry an American divorcee named Wallis Simpson, better known as the  title reluctantly bestowed on her, the Duchess of Windsor. Why was there so much written about The Duke and Duchess of Windsor and so little about King George V!? Growing up stuttering, I could have used a kingly role model. He could have been to me what Helen Keller was to the blind and deaf. 
        I didn't know what to expect going in to the movie. My dear friends Graham, Lizzy and Ron came with me for moral support just incase it, like  a regressive therapy session, triggered deep-seeded, untapped emotions that would leave me curled up in a fetal position in my movie seat or running naked out of the  theater screaming. Was I going to be disappointed, uplifted, angry, thrilled, frustrated, inspired? Fortunately for everyone, what I felt most was pride. Colin Firth as The King gave such dignity and gravitas to stuttering that for the first time I wasn't embarrassed seeing someone stutter on a movie screen. It reminded me of the pride I felt way back when as a young gay man I watched Harry Hamlin French kiss Michael Ontkean in "Making Love". That was 1982, when me and my first boyfriend Scott stood up in our seats at the end of the movie and in an act of pride and solidarity French kissed each other for what seemed an eternity but was actually only around five seconds before we panicked and ran out the emergency fire exit.
         At the  end of the "Kings Speech" I wanted to stand up again and announce to the audience that I too am a stutterer and get the applause that Scott and I were robbed of 29 years ago. I couldn't help but feel special coming out of "The King's Speech", almost like a celebrity of sorts. I could tell even my friends were feeling kind of special, proud of themselves for having a real-life stutterer in their lives.
        Graham, who just got his duel citizenship and became a US citizen last year, was feeling  a touch of extra pride in his British roots after seeing a royal actually depicted in an admirable light. He wanted people to hear his English accent coming out of the theater as much as I wanted everyone to hear my stutter. "Did you think his stutter was authentic? It sounded spot-on,” Graham asked me.
         "More authentic than your English accent right now."
         "It always gets stronger after I see a British movie, especially a good one. And don't go ragging on how other people speak. You should be proud of how I talk, just like I'm proud of you," he put his hand around my shoulder and gave me a kiss on the forehead, his version of knighting me. "Sir Puss of the Stutter."
        Lizzy was still dabbing the tears in her eyes. She is so compassionate and giving of her emotions that she did me the favor of crying through half the film for me so I didn't have to. She experienced all my emotions with me during the film, and even some that weren't mine. "I don't know how you made it through the whole film," she said, hugging me.  "Liz I don't know how I made it through my whole life so far." Ron interrupted and broke up our hug. " Liz, don’t feel bad for him. He's the height of hip now. It’s StutterChic. Now Madonna is going to be speaking with an English accent and stuttering too. Everyone is going to want to stutter. A dinner party won't be complete without one." With that said Ron declared he would be stuttering from now on too.  He did his best impersonation of me and asked me if it sounded real. " It needs work," I waved him off. " You have to do the  head bob, and  the flickering eyelids and contorted mouth. And some foot stomping and thigh punching is good too." Ron loved me too much to do a more accurate stutter. The only ones who would imitate my  stutter full-on in all its horrifying glory in front of me( God knows what goes on behind my back)  is a nurse I work with named Brendan, one of the funniest guys I've ever met, and a straight Chinese co-worker named Eddy Lu who works as an O.T. in our department, who is never uneasy about the gayness around him, and loves to play along with us. They actually have contests right in front of me and  I get to judge whose is the best after one practice round  and then a second round that counts.
    I'm gearing up for all the attention stuttering is bound to get in just a week from now when the Academy Awards airs on Sunday the 27th.  The odds-makers are predicting Colin Firth and of course I am rooting  for him. I'm even more excited about this then I was about "Brokeback Mountain " being nominated for Best Picture a few years ago and late, great Heath Ledger almost winning. Up to now, I always identified myself as  gay first, Jewish second, and white third.  But if I really think about it, I have to say I am a stutterer first and foremost. If Colin does win, what will it mean for  stutters all over the world. Will there be a national dialog over it, specials on CNN,  and medical programs with the latest breakthroughs and treatments. I just hope there won't be the interviews with  "reformed" stutters, which is as annoying to me as seeing "reformed" homosexuals interviewed. There was nothing more humiliating and annoying as hearing Vice President  Biden  explain in a T.V. interview how he overcame stuttering in young adulthood with will-power and determination because he was too ambitious to let it get in his way. I guess my total lack of will-power, determination and ambition must be why I still stutter and he doesn't. My fantasy would be for him to start stuttering during the next major speech he makes and for all the "reformed" homosexuals to start blowing each other during the panel discussion on  live T.V. Then I will be redeemed.
    If Colin does win, I will be listening closely to what he says. I would like him to personally mention me, but I would settle for him mentioning stuttering in general He better not forget that without our handicap, he would have played just another old, stuffy, British King.

    Last Sunday, I partook in an annual ritual that most gay men I know do religiously. This yearly thing we feel compelled to do is the one thing most straight men would never dream of doing. This subversive act that we participate in every year is the Official Turning Off of The Super Bowl. It's an act of defiance, a declaration of our gay rights that we fought so hard for.    

    I have found a kindred spirit in my new boyfriend Alex over our mutual hatred of sports. Alex would rather watch gangrene grow than watch the Super bowl and I'd rather spend an afternoon at Auschwitz. It's reassuring to find someone who understands what being 'gay' still means.  It means 'sports hates me and I hate sports'. I've have lived by this motto for decades. I haven't hated anything for as long as I have hated baseball and football and basketball:  The Holy Trinity of Homosexual Hell.  (Soccer was the only exception because I could give a 'Batgirl" kick to a ball and make it go pretty far)

    I might even hate sports more than Republicans and Religion. Sports has always betrayed me, double-crossed me. Sports gave me away; let the other kids know that something was different, something was wrong. Terribly wrong.  No matter how hard I tried and how hard I prayed, I could not catch a ball. A ball is the single most terrifying object I can think of. In it's small round shape is embodied all the fear, pain, anxiety, embarrassment, cruelty, torture, and unpopularity that a child can experience. Personally, I'd rather have a lion coming towards me than a ball. I stand a better chance with the lion.  Having terrible eyesight my entire life has not helped. I was born with cataracts, and when they were removed the lens of each eye had to be removed too. This left me without full depth perception, which the 3/4 inch glasses I had to wear did not correct. Even contact lenses designed by NASA didn't help me. The doctor explained this is why I can't catch a ball, but I knew there was more to it. I had seen the curse too many times in other boys who didn't have bad eyes. Even with depth perception, some boys couldn't catch to save their lives. It was usually proportionate to how gay you acted. A strange math equation that almost seemed to follow a law of Physics that Sir Isaac Newton didn't discover: Airborne Ball + Gay Boy= Ball On Ground.   Some straight boys suffered from the same curse too but in a totally disproportionate number.

  The Ball-Catchers, as they are called, always know where the ball-droppers are, and unfortunately we always knew they knew. The Ball-Droppers were all part of a team that no one wanted to be part of.  But what exactly is it that makes gay boys so challenged? What is the physiological basis, the origin of this lack of coordination, the retardation of our hands that makes gay boys so bad at sports? 

   To my chagrin, it appears that all gay boys aren't bad at sports. As I got older I started coming across gay guys who actually like sports.  Liked watching them and playing them. These were gay guys who can actually punt footballs, hit baseballs, do lay-ups, better than a lot of straight guys. Entire leagues being formed of gay men playing sports!     

   Still to this day I cannot catch anything. I have this great body with all my muscles that actually can't do anything. It's like a hologram. The only thing my muscles are good for is helping friends on moving day lifting heavy objects and helping the stroke patients I treat walk again. I warn my friends and co-workers but they sometimes forget and throw things towards me. A pen becomes a missile, a banana becomes a torpedo, an apple becomes a grenade and a Hershey’s kiss wrapped in foil becomes a bullet. Occasionally, I put my hands up and the object somehow lands in them, which always shocks and thrills me, and fills me with an amazing yet temporary sense of pride that I actually caught something.

  This is why Alex and I ended up at the beach. It is the furthest thing from watching the Super Bowl that one can do. Typical of San Francisco's unique climate and politics, the temperature was 75. That's tanable temperature.  I was not only not watching the Super Bowl but I was getting color too. What a perfect day. Alex's friend Chance joined us along with Alex's tiny black Chiwawa-like mutt, Doug. Chance is an edgy gay Irish 29 year-old who is unfancy until he gets in the kitchen, where he turns into a tyrant.  What the love-child of Julia Child and Hitler would be like. Only he wears the apron. He was a child prodigy, almost burning down his house at three by trying to make French Toast for himself by putting all the ingredients into the toaster. He gets all his power, and ego,frorm the kitchen. He 's entertained by me but looks down on my cooking skills, which I have none of, and my unsophisticated palate. He prepared a meal for us, which I made the mistake of not eating a meal in preparation for the meal I would be served.  It was the first time I had foie gras.  I ate my entire portion in one fork-full. I thought the entree of 2 mini kobi beef burgers was an appetizer. As delicious as it was was as fast as it was gone off my plate. I acted very appreciative and complimented Chance on the sublime smallness of the meal. Then told Alex I would burn down his condo if he didn't get me more food. Luckily there was no kitchen at the beach so Chance was more relaxed and a lot of fun to be around, even though he wouldn't drink the Orangina I offered him. He, Alex, Doug and me were pretty much there by ourselves on the entire beach. There were a few gay Super Bowl protesters there with us, but it was empty compared to what Black Sands Beach would normally be on such a beautiful Sunday. For me, there is nothing more boring then an empty gay beach. I go to be seen, not to relax. The only real attention I was getting was from Doug who kept running towards me then back to Alex on his towel. After two hours we decided we had enough sun, especially Chance who is as white as French Bread. It was 4:30 in the afternoon already and  we still had the long schelp back up the steep path, so we didn't get back to Alex's place until almost six. By that time, I figured the Super Bowl was over and it was safe to call my friend Ron who had been watching the game at my ex-boyfriend Grant's apartment. They told me the game had just finished, and that it was safe for me to come over so we could hang-out and play some episodes of Dexter. When Alex dropped me off at Grant's and I came into the downstairs entrance, I could hear screaming coming from upstairs.  I ran upstairs to see what was wrong and those bastards were yelling at the T.V. at a play  from the Super Bowl that was still going on!

    " You told me it was over!"

    "Gotcha !" they both pointed at me at  the same time. "Hope you brought your pom-poms" Grant said. Ron pulled out a short  blue skirt he had bought for a dollar at GoodWill.  "I think this will fit. Put it on fast so you can start the cheers."

       I grabbed the skirt and put it over my head instead to shield my eyes from the T.V and wouldn't take it off.  It was in the fourth quarter so at least it was almost over.  I lifted the skirt from my face only to eat the seven-layer dip Grant made.  After a few minutes, Grant told me if I wanted, I could bring out his dog, Oliver, a beauitful black German Shepard that at 10 months is already a giant. Ron had his little dog there too, a great mutt named Bubba, who holds his own against Oliver. I take care of the dogs whenever Grant and his new boyfriend Mark needs me to, just like I do for Ron with Bubba.  So, I was more than happy to have something to do besides sitting there behind my skirt-veil. The thought of cleaning up dog poop was much more appealing than watching the SuperBowl. When I got the dogs outside, it was as if an atomic bomb had exploded and mankind was wiped out.  The streets were empty except for me and the dogs. everyone else was indoors watching the last minutes of the game.  By the time I got back upstairs, the game had just ended and Ron was jumping up and down and pointed his finger at Grant "In your face, in your face!"  I joined in the chorus and we both jumped up and down " In your face! In your face!"  I didn't even know who won or who each was rooting for or even what teams were playing, but it is always fun teaming up with Ron against Grant, just because Grant is so tall and good-looking and has a boyfriend who is even more handsome than me who he lives with in that 2 bedroom rent-controlled apartment we were jumping up and down in.

    Ron hugged me in solidarity and faked crying.  "We won, we won".               

    I faked crying too and hugged him back. "I know it's amazing.  All the sportscasters  said they didn't stand a chance but those Mets showed everyone."

                         

     The man who we thought would never die has died. Jack Lalanne is  finally gone, but he lasted 96 years. I always imagined  he would meet his end in poetic justice, either having a barbell crush his head or being turned into juice by one of his giant turbo-engine juicers. Instead, he died  peacefully of pneumonia in his Los Angeles home this week. He is now in Public Broadcasting Heaven  joining Julia Child who also lasted into her nineties.  Jack was to exercise what Julia was to food.  Whatever weight Julia helped us gain, Jack helped us loose. They were the first of their kind, coming into the homes of millions Americans when  television was still black and  white, to show us how to cook and exercise for the first time, back when working -out  was called calisthenics and Ripped Bod  was called a Physique.
  One of the millions of homes Jack  was invited into every morning was mine. I'm not sure in how many other of those millions of  homes was there a mother who was exercising naked in front of the T.V. as her eight year-old son counted reps for her. I would watch from her huge antique four-post bed as my mother Priscilla huffed and puffed.
      "Down to floor for bicycle kicks!" Jack ordered.
    She dropped to the carpet with hands behind her head, legs up and knees bent.
      "And kick, and kick, and kick!" he  ordered on.
      I counted  "... 29, 30, 31..."  as she peddled into the air.
      " Up for Jumping Jacks!" he switched commands.
      She shot up from the floor and started jumping up and down.  She did her best to follow the cues but her arms and legs and boobs and hair all moved at different speeds every time she tried them.  She just wasn't good at following directions, for either exercising or motherhood. She did perfect the bicycle kicks though, able to do them fully clothed in the front seat of our Cadillac turned towards my father as he was driving the whole family on an icy road one of many stormy winters.
      Her morning naked calisthenics were the last time I saw a vagina, or The Bermuda Triangle as I had named it. If one single thing  turned me gay AND made me stutter, that could have definitely done it. Unfortunately I stuttered already so I can't pin that on her, but as far as the gay thing goes, her naked bicycle kicks certainly didn't help me turn any straighter. 
      Ten years ago, when I described this to my ex-boyfriend Brian, he  pointed out that I did my ab work-out naked in front of him. I argued it was not the same, that my naked ab routine wasn't half as traumatizing as hers, but he still called me Priscilla every time I did them.  I realized  I had been doing naked abs in front my second ex-boyfriend Pepe before Brian and my first ex-boyfriend Scott before Pepe.
       It's scary to think that I have naked exercising in common with my mother. Not to the mention the fact that out of three children, I'm the one who looks most like her. Put a wig on me at Halloween and the similarity is frightening, especially to me. How much do you have to look like a person to start acting like them too? Is there a science behind it, and a pill to prevent it?
      My mother still exercises but now its in a gym, and I assume she's at least wearing a leotard. All that exercising back in her twenties in front of the TV has kept her in remarkable shape, along with plastic surgery and the boob- job she had in her 50's. She's 71 and is showing no sign of slowing down. I guess I have Jack Lalanne to thank for this. But let me tell you, if she's going to live to 96 too, just please drop a barbell on my head right now.  

I have to explain the name 'Stutterpuss' in case people who don't know me actually read this blog. Stuttering is what I do, and puss, or face,  is where it comes out of.  This  is the first time in my life I have to prove I stutter without it being very apparent to anyone who is hearing me. But because you are readers instead of  listeners you will never have the pleasure of hearing my stutter, unless for some reason I am forced to do a 'books on tape' version of my blogs, which would be a stuttering nightmare. Stutterers  have a lot of nightmares and unfortunately they all occur when we're awake. It's what any interaction can instantly turn into. All it takes is that first stutter and the avalanche begins. Something as simple as calling the operator for a phone number, giving a cab driver an address, giving  directions to a lost person, being lost and having to ask for directions, a stranger asking me for the time on my watch, ordering a sandwich over a counter in a deli, trying to ask a conductor something before the train doors close, being stopped to sign a petition, having to identify myself over an intercom, asking a stewardess for  a pillow,  telling a person he is in your seat, choosing paper or plastic at the checkout isle, describing my coat to the coat-check girl who can't find it, leaving a message on a voicemail, having to make a toast, complaining to a waiter, or whatever you, The Fluent, think is easy to do can be monumental for a stutterer. In the course of a day I go from one verbally hazardous situation to the next,  a stuttering minefield that could blow at any time. 

         Yesterday, during lunch, a car filled with passengers stopped in the street and rolled down the window to ask me for complicated directions. "I'm from out of town too," I apologized and shrugged my shoulders, just to avoid the guaranteed stutter on the deadly 'D' of Duboce Park and the treacherous 'S' of Safeway Supermarket.  The fact that I was wearing my hospital scrubs and obviously work at the huge hospital behind me only occurred to me after they pulled away. There have been times when I did offer my help that cars have pulled away from me before I could get out  the word I was stuck on, and other times when strangers on foot have moved away quickly after making the mistake of coming up to me for a question. I can promise you that an unintended encounter with a stutterer is amongst the most socially awkward and uncomfortable moments you will ever experience, if you haven't experienced one already, depending on how long the stutter lasts. I've seen some stutters so long at Stuttering Conventions that The Guinness Book of Records should be notified. There's kind of a Kinsey Scale of Stuttering, but instead of being a zero and totally straight or a 10 and incredibly gay, you are perfectly fluent or  it takes you five minutes to say your name. I rate myself a 3-3.5. Being part of a continuum,  I might sound less fluent than a 1.-1.5, but compared to an 8.5, I sound more eloquent of an orator than Barack Obama. 

       My longest stutter happened six years ago in  front of my ex-boyfriend Grant. I was able to clock it on my watch at one minute 20 seconds give or take a few. I was  trying to say the words "medically necessary" over the phone to an insurance agent. Try doing anything that's not enjoyable for one minute and 20 seconds and you'll see just how long it actually is.  All Grant could do was helplessly watch as I did a convulsive rain-dance around the bedroom with my head bobbing up and down like a sewing machine on high speed trying to force the words out. It became a game between us for him to time business calls I made to strangers. We would see if I could beat my personal best and stutter even longer, but 80 seconds still remains the record four years after Grant and I broke up. 

     Now Grant and our friend Ron make me order the food whenever we're hanging out and calling for delivery. The worst is when its Chinese because  the woman answering at Hunan Palace has a  hard time understanding even when someone who doesn't have a speech problem orders. As I order the appetizers and soups and entrees and give the address and my charge card number, Grant sits in front of me and Ron sits on the side, both holding their IPhones switched to video to capture my stuttering at different angles in hopes of putting it on YouTube and, if the stuttering is bad enough, it going viral.  But so far the plan has backfired and I haven't stuttered enough for it to be worthwhile. That's what makes stuttering a particularly spiteful handicap. It will always do what it wants to do, appearing when you don't want it to and disappearing when you try to make it appear.  I can't coax it out on cue no matter how hard I try. It comes when it comes. We'll just have to keep on ordering Chinese delivery, and if you ever see someone taking much too long to say Mongolian Beef and Won Ton War Soup on YouTube, you'll know it's me.