Faster Than an Outta Control Train

"Do we need to drink lots of coffee while you talk faster than an outta control train?"

When I get nervous or stressed out or excited or pretty much have any emotion at all, I talk fast. Really fast.

Once I called friends of a friend when I was in Israel for the year to find out about going to them for Shabbos and left a message on their voice mail. They called me back three days later, saying it had taken them that long to decipher what I was saying.

Last year, after giving an hour-long presentation on a seminar paper I was writing (I counted as pretty impressive the fact that I could talk for an hour about a paper I was writing, but then again I could talk for forever about Howell Raines), my professor's first words of feedback were: "Somebody's going to tell you this eventually, so I'm going to tell you now. You talk too fast. Slow down." (I, for one, counted it as even more impressive that I could talk fast for an hour about my paper.)

And my friends are mostly trained to understand my mile-a-minute conversations. They either share what is apparently a New York speed for conversations or at least can interpret mine. One friend in particular both talks fast herself and has trained herself by watching episodes of Gilmore Girls, which contain the fast and witty banter of Lorelai and Rory.

So, I count it as an accomplishment that last night I was able to reach such a speed in our phone conversation that she had no idea what I was saying. One for the record books.