Some say looooooooove....

(Click here for a subtitled version)

I'm back on eHarmony. I'm weak, don't judge me. I got suckered in by the free weekend and before I knew it, I had signed up for a three-month membership. Whoops.

I keep going back and forth, though, over whether to mention my hearing loss on my profile. On one hand, I want to be upfront so that there are no surprises. You know, if someone kept something like that from me until we'd exchanged several emails, I think I would wonder what else they might not be telling me. I don't want to appear deceptive. On the other hand, sharing that kind of information is pretty personal and I'd rather someone got to know me as a person (and me get to know them better) before divulging my hearing loss. Hearing loss is easy to misunderstand and I wouldn't want someone to see "hard of hearing" in my profile and run the opposite direction because they think it is something scary and foreign.

I also wonder how a relationship works if one person can hear and the other is hard of hearing. Would my friends who are hard of hearing with hearing spouses/significant others chime in here? In my more melodramatic moments, I'm convinced that NO ONE will ever GET me if they are not hard of hearing themselves and in my more mellow moments, I remind myself that I'm a person first, and that personality and heart trump hearing loss... I think?

Talk to me. What are your thoughts or experiences on being in a relationship when you are hard of hearing?

I posted this a while ago, but I think it's worth sharing again... I hope it makes you smile!

Love language

Sometimes I wonder (er, worry, if we're really being honest here) if my hearing aids are a turnoff to prospective suitors. How do relationships work if one person is deaf or hard of hearing and the other isn't? I know people do it and I'm curious how they manage. Does it get tiring for the hearing person to have to repeat themselves? Does it get tiring for the deaf/hard of hearing person to explain themselves?

Am I thinking too much again?

Don't answer that.

Just watch this video that I stole from Speak Up Librarian. It made me smile. And helped me stop thinking.



And I confess I teared up a little, too. I'm a girl. It's what I do. Just go with it.

Happy Weekend-ing!

Counting my blessings! Really!

Random fact of the day: I have to edit a lot of bridge columns at work. I can now tell you an awful lot about bridge except how to play it.

Hearing aids: One of my hearing aid batteries quit on me today and I didn't have any extras in my purse. It's not that big of a deal, really. Just annoying. It's like all the sound in one ear just gets cut off. Makes me feel off-balance. But it's different when I deliberately choose to not wear one hearing aid (usually because the earmold doesn't fit right or something). That doesn't bother me. Getting caught without spare batteries does. Weird, right?

I buy batteries in packages of 16. They usually cost something like $13, $14 per package. Not great, not horrible. I change my batteries maybe once every couple weeks, or once every week and a half or so. So I figure I use four batteries a month. So one package can last me several months.

A few weeks ago, I walked into Radio Shack to get more batteries (Radio Shack is my supplier, yo). They were marked as $2.99 each. I thought for sure it was a typo and they were really $12.99 each. NOPE. They REALLY were $3 apiece, so I bought six packages. YUP. That is like two years' worth of batteries for $24!!! WIN.

I've been thinking about hearing loss and relationships. I've blogged a bit about that before (here, here, here, and here ) but I don't really talk about the good things. There are good things and there are good friends and people who DO want to help. I think that often I just look at the ways that hearing people do relationships and how much easier they have it. When I look at my own life and realize it doesn't look like theirs - I don't function like they do, make friends like they do, etc - I assume I've failed. I think that others don't care because they don't interact with me the same way they interact with others.

But the thing I need to get is that's not true. I haven't failed. Just because people interact with me differently doesn't mean they don't care. It does mean they have to put a little more effort in and yes, I think that sometimes people who haven't gotten to know me are intimidated by that, but for every one like that, there are five who aren't. And yes there are times when people forget to speak clearly or they look away or get a little impatient, but how can I fault them for that? How can I expect them to remember everything all the time? How can I, when I'm human, too?

I'm so grateful for my church. They WANT to help me communicate and get plugged in and DON'T WANT to see me isolate myself and they recognize the dangers of doing so. We're learning together, I think, how to navigate this communication thing. I'm so thankful for my friends there - who pick up a notebook and jot notes for me. Without asking. For friends who know sign language and can clue me in from across the room. ;)

I'm thankful for my friends and family (who I totally take for granted) who love me for ME and chastise me for ME and tease me for ME and not for my hearing aids. And even the stuff about me they don't like - that doesn't have anything to do with my hearing aids but everything to do with who I am as a person. I love them for doing things like having a quiet side conversation with me at a crowded party. For cheerfully planning one-on-one activities, for texting instead of calling, for tagging along to movies that are 30 miles away.

I wouldn't trade my job for anything. Not because of the work itself but because of my bosses and co-workers. They so freely and naturally clue me in when it's apparent I've lost my place in the conversation. They choose the quiet part of the restaurant when we go out to eat. They let me know what I missed when we have company-wide meetings. They say things like, "If you ever need anything, let me know!" "What can we do to help?" "What if we tried this?"

Man, I've really got it good.

In other news: I'm going to pull a Seth Meyers and do my own version of "REALLY?!" (the clip I linked to isn't captioned, so please forgive me if there's any offensive content!)

Winter Olympics? Really? The Olympics for cold-blooded creatures who think they're too cool for normal sports? Also known as the Games That Remove All Hilarity From Thursday Night's Lineup. Really?

Google's Buzz - REALLY? What is this? Facebook for Google? Foogle? Twitter for Google? Twoolge? Worse yet, Facebook, Myspace AND Twitter for Google? I'd make up a word for that, but my keyboard might explode. Really.

Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow!

Train's gone, Juan

There's only one movie theater in my area that shows open-captioned movies and usually when I go, it's pretty empty. I'm usually the only one in there (besides whoever I'm with). Today was a different story - Avatar was playing, and at a decent time for a change. It wasn't hard to find a seat but my friend and I didn't have the place to ourselves either. When the movie was over, we went to use the restroom and when we came out, several D/deaf people had congregated outside the theater and were just chatting. As my friend and I walked by them, I felt the slightest twinge as I watched their fingers fly. And for just a minute, I wished I was part of it again, to be in a circle of people and not have to wonder what they're saying or who is talking, where "What" is a common question and cheerfully answered.

Then I saw a man signing crisply and quickly and passionately, as only the Deaf can. And I remembered "Train gone," and the twinge passed.

"Train gone" is a term that Deaf people use when you ask them to repeat themselves. It's almost always in jest. I used to be on the leadership team for a deaf youth group and we would often expand on that joke... the wheels are turning, the horn is blowing, the train is leaving the station and ohhhhhh.... TRAIN GONE! Har, har.

For a time, I tried to be part of the Deaf community but the problem was that I'm not really Deaf. (My audiologist may call me deaf (little "d") but in the real world, I'm hard of hearing.) English, not ASL, is my first language and I lost my hearing after I learned to talk. I prefer to speak for myself and lipread and don't really like to sign unless I'm with an interpreter or another deaf or hard of hearing person.

The Deaf community is a world away from my own. I got a lot of "Train gone"s while I was still trying to get the hang of ASL (for the record, it wasn't that the sign themselves were hard to grasp. I've been signing since I was 4 but ASL is a completely different language with its own grammar and syntax) and the speed at which they communicated. Like I said, "Train gone" was usually in jest and I didn't take it personally. Not too much, anyway. :)

There was this Deaf guy named Juan. We bantered like brother and sister - he heckled me a lot for being hard of hearing. He sure loved his "train gone"s and would mock me when I would mouth the words while signing. He'd make a big show of rolling his eyes and slowing down his signs when I couldn't keep up. He'd scoff and push me away when I tried to help him with his English (even though he asked for it!). But at the end of the day, I think he was okay with who I was... not hearing, not Deaf.

Not everyone was like that, though. Most of my socializing was done with kids at the youth group, members of a Deaf church I had started going to, or with interpreters. Even though I was learning a lot and my signing was picking up, I often felt like I wasn't good enough, not D/deaf enough. I was hard of hearing, which was almost as bad as being hearing. Sometimes they'd take the sign for hearing and move it to the forehead (If I can ever find it online, I'll link it here) which basically meant I was a cop-out, someone who had defected the Deaf community and acted like they were hearing. This can be used in jest but it's really an insult. The message was clear - I didn't really fit in. After too many miscommunications to count, I left the deaf youth group - and the Deaf community - on unhappy terms. They hurt me and I'm not sure I left them unscathed, either.

There's a lot I was and sometimes am still not willing to understand about Deaf culture. I get impatient with the long stories. I don't always get the jokes. Sometimes English seems more efficient than ASL. And I say this without any malice whatsoever, but I don't think I'll ever understand Deaf pride. Deaf people - at least the ones I spent time with - seemed okay with isolating themselves from hearing people while railing against hearing people for isolating them. It just seemed like a vicious cycle and I didn't like the way it was affecting me.

There's some bad blood, yes. Hurts that might never heal. Resentments that may never go away. But that twinge never really goes away, either. When I see someone signing, or someone with a hearing aid, I want to go over and say hello and look into the eyes of someone who understands, who totally, completely gets it. Instead, I brush my hair over my hearing aids, avert my eyes and keep walking.

... Train's gone.