As to why it is so hard to read aloud, I have no idea. I read to my daughter every night, and often I am reading a book that I have read to her dozens of times. I still stumble over the occasional sentence. And I really do envy you the ability to read without error. I think it might have to do with not sight reading ahead of where I am at. I think I stammer sometimes when I am talking for much the same reason — my mouth is moving faster than my brain. :)

There are some other non-podcast incidents of this lately as well. For example, someone recently tried to read some board game rules aloud and failed miserably.

So yeah, sorry you just kind of drew the short straw that inspired me to write a blog post. Your estimation of your stammering quantities is pretty much spot-on, and anyone can listen to the podcast and judge for themselves. In fact, I encourage them to do so ;) I also kind of have high standards, and expect perfect reading. Even if you had only messed up one word, I might have done the same blog post.

Hope you get well soon, can’t wait for your next show.

However, your post above makes it sound like I stammered over every word and every line. I may have stumbled a half dozen times, and most of them were pretty small (like pauses a fraction of a second longer than they should have been). If you can do cold readings of books and letters without tripping up at all, I’m envious. And I should be envious. I was a Theatre Major in college with about a dozen classes in acting and vocal interpretation under my belt.

I don’t want this to come across sounding bitchy. I’ve been hoe sick for 2 days and I mey not be thinking quite as straight as I should. But I just felt that comparing my reading of your letter to the way an elementary school child reads and stumbles “over every third word” was a little unfair.