Before I knew I was deaf and around about the age of 7, I discovered Kylie and one Christmas my mum and dad gave me her album and my grandparents bought me a shiny red walkman to play it on.
I was so excited and wore the first set of batteries down before Christmas Day was out – I wanted to be Kylie and my favourite song was Hand On Your Heart.
I vividly remember listening along and thinking that there were no real sentences and that pop stars just mumbled or inserted random words here and there that I could hear. To this day, song words have no meaning to me and I only like songs for the melody. Does this cleanse me of my Westlife-liking sins?
So, back to Kylie – I think it was because of her that I got my first inkling that all might not be well in my world of hearing. There I was, aged 7, stood on the rounders pitch at third post. With hindsight I realise now that because I couldn’t hear, I clearly had no clue what was going on and was very bored. So I started to sing Kylie, only with my words and it went something like this
Put your hands on your heart and shell me
You’re a clover
I won’t be in it til you
Put your hands on your heart and shell me
That you’re blue, oooh, waaa-aaa-aah-aah-aaah
At which point the nasty girls in my class fell about laughing.
*sniff
This trend carried on and to this day I still have no clue about the words to Summer Nights from Grease, although to be fair the words ‘Summer dreams drift out to sea’ are not a bad shot at the line ‘Summer dreams ripped at the seams’.
My ex-boyfriend/brilliant writer once wrote about lyrics he misheard and it was nice to know that someone else has a quirky take on things…
Perhaps the best one was Madonna’s Like a Virgin, which he thought went something like this, ‘Like a bird king, plucked for the very first time’.
If, for whatever random reason, I become a pop star, I will only concentrate on the melody, the words will be a rambling mix of whatever rhymes and goes with the rhythm and when the nasty girls from my class want to see me play at Wembley, I will turn them away!
Friday, 30 May 2008
Thursday, 29 May 2008
I wish I may, I wish I might...
The sun was shining when I woke up this morning and as I floated to work on my little cloud of positivity, I started to wonder what I would wish to be different in my life right now.
As usual when I start thinking about things like this, I wonder if a genie came out of my bedside lamp, would I ask him for my hearing back… and actually I’m not sure I would.
You see, being deaf might be a right Royal pain in the posterior, but it’s kind of who I am, along with my blondeness and chatterbox tendencies.
If I wasn’t deaf, would I have worked so hard at school? Would I have done so well in my degree without all the fabulous angst I channelled into my writing? Would I appreciate the smaller things in life? In short, I believe the answer would be no.
Sure, deafness has its downfalls in that it gives you a sixth sense – body language becomes more like a neon sign, flashing above people so you instantly know when they’re lying, don’t like you or are in danger of falling in love with you – all things I don’t really like the look of…
But perhaps the biggest downfall of all is that I can’t go to the cinema with the same regularity of hearing people. Take last night for example… housemate went to see the new Sex & The City movie and I REALLY WANT TO SEE THAT FILM!
I have searched the Subtitled Cinema, the Odeon and Vue website and can’t find details of any showings at all – and it’s driving me crazy. I know that there will eventually be a showing somewhere, at 2pm on a Tuesday afternoon in Ramsgate but what’s the use of that, unless you’re a deaf old pensioner with a penchant for racy movies?
So tonight, I am going to go home and dust my bedside lamp in the hope that a genie will pop out and give me one wish…
And if he does, I will wish for hearing for 24 hours – so I can go and see Sex & the City with ease, listen to Sibelius’s violin concerto and hear the cadenza at the beginning, and go to Bird World and hear some birds sing. I may also try and have a phone conversation with an Irish person to see if it’s difficult for hearing people, too!
Yup, that’s my wish list for today.
As usual when I start thinking about things like this, I wonder if a genie came out of my bedside lamp, would I ask him for my hearing back… and actually I’m not sure I would.
You see, being deaf might be a right Royal pain in the posterior, but it’s kind of who I am, along with my blondeness and chatterbox tendencies.
If I wasn’t deaf, would I have worked so hard at school? Would I have done so well in my degree without all the fabulous angst I channelled into my writing? Would I appreciate the smaller things in life? In short, I believe the answer would be no.
Sure, deafness has its downfalls in that it gives you a sixth sense – body language becomes more like a neon sign, flashing above people so you instantly know when they’re lying, don’t like you or are in danger of falling in love with you – all things I don’t really like the look of…
But perhaps the biggest downfall of all is that I can’t go to the cinema with the same regularity of hearing people. Take last night for example… housemate went to see the new Sex & The City movie and I REALLY WANT TO SEE THAT FILM!
I have searched the Subtitled Cinema, the Odeon and Vue website and can’t find details of any showings at all – and it’s driving me crazy. I know that there will eventually be a showing somewhere, at 2pm on a Tuesday afternoon in Ramsgate but what’s the use of that, unless you’re a deaf old pensioner with a penchant for racy movies?
So tonight, I am going to go home and dust my bedside lamp in the hope that a genie will pop out and give me one wish…
And if he does, I will wish for hearing for 24 hours – so I can go and see Sex & the City with ease, listen to Sibelius’s violin concerto and hear the cadenza at the beginning, and go to Bird World and hear some birds sing. I may also try and have a phone conversation with an Irish person to see if it’s difficult for hearing people, too!
Yup, that’s my wish list for today.
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
Like a moth to a lightbulb
I never learn…
Have you ever sat and watched a moth bang its head repeatedly on bright lightbulb? Well, just sometimes that’s what I think I do with my hearing. I know I can’t hear in certain situations and yet I keep putting myself in them.
Why, oh why?
Pompey-Revision-And-Onion-Soup mate visited me the other week and I thought it would be wonderful to go and see Vivaldi by Candlelight at St Martin’s in the Fields. And it was… kind of. It was a special congratulations-on-your-new-job from me to her and luckily she loved it. And I loved that she loved it but after 20 minutes of near silence while two violins battled it out, I was contemplating poking my finger in my eye and swirling it around in my brain.
The seats were hard, with an overhang on the back so you couldn’t lean back – I guess because it’s a church and they don’t want you to get to comfy and fall asleep. Somehow I still managed to for a bit of the first half.
In the second half I realised that falling asleep was a tiny bit rude and my neck was starting to ache so I tried other ways to pass the time. Luckily, there was a double bass player playing quite a lot and as a bonus he was quite cute, so I focused on him… quite literally. I stared at him the whole time, watching his fingers fly up and down the fingerboard, pretending it was a double bass solo I was listening to, and it really helped. Although I think the poor chap thought I was some kind of lunatic for staring at him for a full 40 minutes and made quite a speedy exit at the end as if half expecting me to follow…
I guess I just love classical music so much that I forget I can’t hear it. One of my favourite ever pieces is a violin concerto by Sibelius… it’s quite exquisite in places but the first couple of minutes are almost completely silent for me as there’s a huge cadenza where all I can hear is the bow scraping on the strings.
I have a flute lesson once a fortnight now, to keep my fingers nimble and really do love it, most of the time – but last week I started banging my head against a hot lightbulb again and had to play pieces I couldn’t hear for the whole lesson. And, for the first time in ages it really upset me and, rather embarrassingly, I started to cry, big, fat silent tears, and being British I tried to keep on going. But trying to blow out while crying results in one big snotty mess and some rather interesting musical phrasing.
My flute teacher, bless him, finally noticed, shut the piano lid with a bang, handed me a tissue and left me to it before returning with a large glass of red wine and a promise of lower-pitched pieces.
It helped considerably and now, whenever I see a moth banging its head against a lightbulb I feel confident that I’ve learn my lesson for the time being and I’m not going to do it again for a while.
Have you ever sat and watched a moth bang its head repeatedly on bright lightbulb? Well, just sometimes that’s what I think I do with my hearing. I know I can’t hear in certain situations and yet I keep putting myself in them.
Why, oh why?
Pompey-Revision-And-Onion-Soup mate visited me the other week and I thought it would be wonderful to go and see Vivaldi by Candlelight at St Martin’s in the Fields. And it was… kind of. It was a special congratulations-on-your-new-job from me to her and luckily she loved it. And I loved that she loved it but after 20 minutes of near silence while two violins battled it out, I was contemplating poking my finger in my eye and swirling it around in my brain.
The seats were hard, with an overhang on the back so you couldn’t lean back – I guess because it’s a church and they don’t want you to get to comfy and fall asleep. Somehow I still managed to for a bit of the first half.
In the second half I realised that falling asleep was a tiny bit rude and my neck was starting to ache so I tried other ways to pass the time. Luckily, there was a double bass player playing quite a lot and as a bonus he was quite cute, so I focused on him… quite literally. I stared at him the whole time, watching his fingers fly up and down the fingerboard, pretending it was a double bass solo I was listening to, and it really helped. Although I think the poor chap thought I was some kind of lunatic for staring at him for a full 40 minutes and made quite a speedy exit at the end as if half expecting me to follow…
I guess I just love classical music so much that I forget I can’t hear it. One of my favourite ever pieces is a violin concerto by Sibelius… it’s quite exquisite in places but the first couple of minutes are almost completely silent for me as there’s a huge cadenza where all I can hear is the bow scraping on the strings.
I have a flute lesson once a fortnight now, to keep my fingers nimble and really do love it, most of the time – but last week I started banging my head against a hot lightbulb again and had to play pieces I couldn’t hear for the whole lesson. And, for the first time in ages it really upset me and, rather embarrassingly, I started to cry, big, fat silent tears, and being British I tried to keep on going. But trying to blow out while crying results in one big snotty mess and some rather interesting musical phrasing.
My flute teacher, bless him, finally noticed, shut the piano lid with a bang, handed me a tissue and left me to it before returning with a large glass of red wine and a promise of lower-pitched pieces.
It helped considerably and now, whenever I see a moth banging its head against a lightbulb I feel confident that I’ve learn my lesson for the time being and I’m not going to do it again for a while.
Tuesday, 27 May 2008
Mel's thought for the day
Well, I am back from my explorations of the fromage and forest, baguette and boulder variety and as well as waxing lyrical about the torrential downpours and the excellent standard of climbing, I can report one more very exciting thing! I got hit on the head by a tree… well a bit of a tree anyway.
You see, during one such lovely downpour, I was sheltering from the worst of it when mischievous ex-housemate’s boyfriend (the JAWS one) decided it would be hilarious to shake the tree so I got covered in water, which would have been OK, except when he did this the tree came with the water.
The rest is a bit of a blur, I vaguely heard exclamations but nothing of any clarity and then I saw a wide-eyed Mel backing away and saying something, which to me, through torrential rain-clouded eyes and a hood pulled down lower than Kenny from SouthPark lipread as 'whathkjdhkjghth!!!!'.
Then, THWACK, it hit me… and I lost a few more blonde cells, which is what probably caused me to think no more about it.
The next day in a different bit of forest, as we all sat munching on baguette and smelly Camembert, it became clear that Mel had not forgotten about it when she piped up ‘Okay listen to this, if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, did it really happen?’ Familiar with this riddle, we all got ready to state our thoughts on this but then she added…
‘So, if a tree falls on Deafinitely Girly in a forest and she doesn’t hear it, did it really happen?’ And at that point I laughed so hard that baguette tried to come out of my nose – something I didn’t realise was biologically possible until then!
Luckily this time, I had lots of witnesses so it definitely happened… but next time I’m walking alone, in a forest and there are lots of tall trees around, I’m going to take a hard hat.
You see, during one such lovely downpour, I was sheltering from the worst of it when mischievous ex-housemate’s boyfriend (the JAWS one) decided it would be hilarious to shake the tree so I got covered in water, which would have been OK, except when he did this the tree came with the water.
The rest is a bit of a blur, I vaguely heard exclamations but nothing of any clarity and then I saw a wide-eyed Mel backing away and saying something, which to me, through torrential rain-clouded eyes and a hood pulled down lower than Kenny from SouthPark lipread as 'whathkjdhkjghth!!!!'.
Then, THWACK, it hit me… and I lost a few more blonde cells, which is what probably caused me to think no more about it.
The next day in a different bit of forest, as we all sat munching on baguette and smelly Camembert, it became clear that Mel had not forgotten about it when she piped up ‘Okay listen to this, if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, did it really happen?’ Familiar with this riddle, we all got ready to state our thoughts on this but then she added…
‘So, if a tree falls on Deafinitely Girly in a forest and she doesn’t hear it, did it really happen?’ And at that point I laughed so hard that baguette tried to come out of my nose – something I didn’t realise was biologically possible until then!
Luckily this time, I had lots of witnesses so it definitely happened… but next time I’m walking alone, in a forest and there are lots of tall trees around, I’m going to take a hard hat.
Friday, 23 May 2008
I’m taking a break…
…until Tuesday, and I probably will have a Kitkat – stuffed inside a bit of baguette – it’s absolutely delicious and could well be why I will always have a double-figures figure.
My online silence will be because I am going on holiday, and I am rather excited. But alas those with me will have anything but silence…
First there’s the car journey – I can’t really hear in cars so my fellow travelling companions are often subjected to my deaf tourette outbursts of things like, ‘I’m bored, are we nearly there yet?’ and ‘Look at that car/sheep/cute boy over there.’ Any intelligent conversation is out of the question so I have also baked a large batch of flapjack to keep my jaw busy.
We’re camping, and climbing boulders and I’m hoping I don’t fall off the latter…
Lipreading while hugging a gigantic rock and hoping you don’t fall bottom first into the person spotting you is quite difficult, but as I love climbing rocks, it’s a small price to pay. I will just listen before and after I climb and hope that I don’t need to hear anything crucial inbetween.
Camping is always an odd one for me as when it gets dark, I can’t hear. But this year, Tigger, my bouncy friend is going to be there and he’s come up with lots of ideas to help me – I love Tigger, he’s quite a clever thing. He’s bringing a lantern so I can hear in the dark! Hurrah! And, he’s going to make sure I know what’s going on – although I’m not sure how he’s going to tell the difference between my deaf gormlessness and my blonde gormlessness…
So, back to being excited… I really am– it’ll be fun – and an excellent way to get new material for Deafinitely Girly.
My online silence will be because I am going on holiday, and I am rather excited. But alas those with me will have anything but silence…
First there’s the car journey – I can’t really hear in cars so my fellow travelling companions are often subjected to my deaf tourette outbursts of things like, ‘I’m bored, are we nearly there yet?’ and ‘Look at that car/sheep/cute boy over there.’ Any intelligent conversation is out of the question so I have also baked a large batch of flapjack to keep my jaw busy.
We’re camping, and climbing boulders and I’m hoping I don’t fall off the latter…
Lipreading while hugging a gigantic rock and hoping you don’t fall bottom first into the person spotting you is quite difficult, but as I love climbing rocks, it’s a small price to pay. I will just listen before and after I climb and hope that I don’t need to hear anything crucial inbetween.
Camping is always an odd one for me as when it gets dark, I can’t hear. But this year, Tigger, my bouncy friend is going to be there and he’s come up with lots of ideas to help me – I love Tigger, he’s quite a clever thing. He’s bringing a lantern so I can hear in the dark! Hurrah! And, he’s going to make sure I know what’s going on – although I’m not sure how he’s going to tell the difference between my deaf gormlessness and my blonde gormlessness…
So, back to being excited… I really am– it’ll be fun – and an excellent way to get new material for Deafinitely Girly.
Thursday, 22 May 2008
Love in the time of deafness
Today I am going to a wine tasting
*hic
So I thought I’d better update this before, not after, so I didn’t accidentally write a love confession to…
Actually, come to think of it, I think I am fairly safe on that front just now – there are no potential suitors in my midst.
But just thinking about it has got me reminiscing about my first crush… and do you know – I can thank my deafness for meeting him. Although at the time no one knew and I think he liked me as I came across as something of a rebel.
You see I was always in trouble when I was at school, in the days Before Hearing Loss Was Discovered (BHLWD)… and in the days after come to think of it.
At my first school I had this draconian teacher who wouldn’t explain what she had just said when I told her I didn’t understand. She scared me witless, so much so that I actually rubbed a hole in my maths book as I got a sum wrong so many times. And, at 6 years old, I thought rubbing a hole in my maths book was a cardinal sin. I nearly cried on parents’ evening as I thought my mum might shout at me. She did shout, but at the teacher for being so evil. However, it still got me lunch detention for a week…
After two years of seeing very little of the outside of my school and lots of time practising lines on the blackboard, I moved up to the big school – it was louder and therefore had lots more potential for me to get into trouble.
Bollockings became a regular occurence. Usually a teacher had said, ‘Quiet’ and I hadn’t heard them so carried on nattering – something I am very good at. I would then be hauled across the room and banned from break, or put on changing room duty. The former punishment saw me standing outside the staff room for most of the term’s break times – but it was OK as the headmaster’s wife took pity on me and gave me the pick of the best conkers. The latter, involved tidying up the girls’ changing rooms – a mass of jolly hockey sticks and mud.
One time I got told off in the lunch hall in front of the whole school and I was mortified. The whole school gawped at me, the brand new junior with blonde pigtails jutting out at mad angles (my dad had done my hair that day… I looked like a hybrid Pippy Longstocking) being shouted at public-school style by a very tall teacher. Placed in the corner facing the wall as the rest of the green-clad clones filed out I began to cry… the kind of snivelling you do when you don’t want anyone to know you’re crying but they can tell as your shoulders are shaking and there lots of snot.
I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder and there was the cutest boy in the year above and he handed me his hankerchief and told me he’d sort some of his friends to do my changing room duty. And I fell in love! I guess being naughty was an attractive trait to 11-year-old boys and he took a shine to me – and until I left that school I had a protector. Wonder what he’s like now…
*hic
So I thought I’d better update this before, not after, so I didn’t accidentally write a love confession to…
Actually, come to think of it, I think I am fairly safe on that front just now – there are no potential suitors in my midst.
But just thinking about it has got me reminiscing about my first crush… and do you know – I can thank my deafness for meeting him. Although at the time no one knew and I think he liked me as I came across as something of a rebel.
You see I was always in trouble when I was at school, in the days Before Hearing Loss Was Discovered (BHLWD)… and in the days after come to think of it.
At my first school I had this draconian teacher who wouldn’t explain what she had just said when I told her I didn’t understand. She scared me witless, so much so that I actually rubbed a hole in my maths book as I got a sum wrong so many times. And, at 6 years old, I thought rubbing a hole in my maths book was a cardinal sin. I nearly cried on parents’ evening as I thought my mum might shout at me. She did shout, but at the teacher for being so evil. However, it still got me lunch detention for a week…
After two years of seeing very little of the outside of my school and lots of time practising lines on the blackboard, I moved up to the big school – it was louder and therefore had lots more potential for me to get into trouble.
Bollockings became a regular occurence. Usually a teacher had said, ‘Quiet’ and I hadn’t heard them so carried on nattering – something I am very good at. I would then be hauled across the room and banned from break, or put on changing room duty. The former punishment saw me standing outside the staff room for most of the term’s break times – but it was OK as the headmaster’s wife took pity on me and gave me the pick of the best conkers. The latter, involved tidying up the girls’ changing rooms – a mass of jolly hockey sticks and mud.
One time I got told off in the lunch hall in front of the whole school and I was mortified. The whole school gawped at me, the brand new junior with blonde pigtails jutting out at mad angles (my dad had done my hair that day… I looked like a hybrid Pippy Longstocking) being shouted at public-school style by a very tall teacher. Placed in the corner facing the wall as the rest of the green-clad clones filed out I began to cry… the kind of snivelling you do when you don’t want anyone to know you’re crying but they can tell as your shoulders are shaking and there lots of snot.
I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder and there was the cutest boy in the year above and he handed me his hankerchief and told me he’d sort some of his friends to do my changing room duty. And I fell in love! I guess being naughty was an attractive trait to 11-year-old boys and he took a shine to me – and until I left that school I had a protector. Wonder what he’s like now…
Wednesday, 21 May 2008
I am not alone!
My mum, it seems, is joining me in the land of ‘What, what? Huh, huh?’
She was at a meeting last night when her boss announced the new furniture colours in the school library.
‘Leek and carrot?’ she exclaimed… probably losing her volume control like me and announcing it town-crier style.
And with that, 10 pairs of senior management eyes were upon her… as she visualised lurid green and orange leather sofas.
‘Ink and claret,’ her boss responded.
Apparently there was a wonderfully awkward silence and then my mum started to laugh, which often becomes a choke and soon turns into a sneeze if you’re my mum! Most strange!
Anyway, a good three hours later when I spoke to her, she was still laughing, choking and sneezing, so much so that I misheard her and didn’t even get the gist of what on earth she was talking about for a good five minutes!
But it was lovely to see her laughing about it. Especially as not being able to hear so well is something new to her.
I sometimes feel very grateful that I won’t have to encounter the stress of losing my hearing as I get older (Ma I am not saying you are old). At least by the time I reach old age I will have had a whole lifetime to get used to it and who knows, medicine may have advanced so much that I could have bionic ears by then. What a thought…
I wonder if they would make pink ones…
She was at a meeting last night when her boss announced the new furniture colours in the school library.
‘Leek and carrot?’ she exclaimed… probably losing her volume control like me and announcing it town-crier style.
And with that, 10 pairs of senior management eyes were upon her… as she visualised lurid green and orange leather sofas.
‘Ink and claret,’ her boss responded.
Apparently there was a wonderfully awkward silence and then my mum started to laugh, which often becomes a choke and soon turns into a sneeze if you’re my mum! Most strange!
Anyway, a good three hours later when I spoke to her, she was still laughing, choking and sneezing, so much so that I misheard her and didn’t even get the gist of what on earth she was talking about for a good five minutes!
But it was lovely to see her laughing about it. Especially as not being able to hear so well is something new to her.
I sometimes feel very grateful that I won’t have to encounter the stress of losing my hearing as I get older (Ma I am not saying you are old). At least by the time I reach old age I will have had a whole lifetime to get used to it and who knows, medicine may have advanced so much that I could have bionic ears by then. What a thought…
I wonder if they would make pink ones…
Monday, 19 May 2008
Back in the days…
Speaking to Jen, an old friend, last night, she reminded me of the days when I just started going very deaf. One of the most noticeable things was not being able to hear in the car anymore, that and not being able to decipher my beloved Secret Seven story tapes. (I really was very geeky in those days)
Anyway, one summer she came on holiday with my family to Dartmoor and, after the excruciatingly long journey of me not understanding anything, my father renamed me ‘What, what? Huh Huh!?’. Thankfully it hasn’t stuck, although a whole host of other nicknames have… guesses on a postcard please!
Jen was, and still is brilliant about being my ears – not only did she help me lots that holiday but she also used to teach me the words to pop songs with her own form of sign language – and, 14 years on, I still smile secretly to myself when I Swear by All-4-One comes on the radio as I remember Jen gesticulating wildly to illustrate moon, stars and sun!
She also came with me to a Hearing Fair not long after my hearing loss was discovered aged 10 and officially outed me! There was lots of equipment on display for me to look at and wonder if I needed and I think I resisted everything that day in a fit of tantrum and independence! Oh what a fun child I must have been.
The truth was I really didn’t care about my deafness – it was just how the world was, and always had been. I didn’t know what I was missing and saw my new disabled status as more of a mislabelled status.
Anyway, Jen and I looked like twins in those days and everyone assumed that we were both deaf – and, by the end of the day she was starting to get a bit sick of PEOOPLE SPEEEE-AAAKKIIING TOOO HEEEE-ER SLLLOOOO-WWWERLY and eventually she lost it and snapped, ‘I’m not the deaf one, she is!’ It opened my mouth to point out that I wasn’t deaf, but then remembered that I was… dammit!
And that was it, my coming out party, at a hearing fair in Birmingham!
Anyway, one summer she came on holiday with my family to Dartmoor and, after the excruciatingly long journey of me not understanding anything, my father renamed me ‘What, what? Huh Huh!?’. Thankfully it hasn’t stuck, although a whole host of other nicknames have… guesses on a postcard please!
Jen was, and still is brilliant about being my ears – not only did she help me lots that holiday but she also used to teach me the words to pop songs with her own form of sign language – and, 14 years on, I still smile secretly to myself when I Swear by All-4-One comes on the radio as I remember Jen gesticulating wildly to illustrate moon, stars and sun!
She also came with me to a Hearing Fair not long after my hearing loss was discovered aged 10 and officially outed me! There was lots of equipment on display for me to look at and wonder if I needed and I think I resisted everything that day in a fit of tantrum and independence! Oh what a fun child I must have been.
The truth was I really didn’t care about my deafness – it was just how the world was, and always had been. I didn’t know what I was missing and saw my new disabled status as more of a mislabelled status.
Anyway, Jen and I looked like twins in those days and everyone assumed that we were both deaf – and, by the end of the day she was starting to get a bit sick of PEOOPLE SPEEEE-AAAKKIIING TOOO HEEEE-ER SLLLOOOO-WWWERLY and eventually she lost it and snapped, ‘I’m not the deaf one, she is!’ It opened my mouth to point out that I wasn’t deaf, but then remembered that I was… dammit!
And that was it, my coming out party, at a hearing fair in Birmingham!
Friday, 16 May 2008
Friday rant!
Straight to the point today…
I am very mad with my insurance company!
For the fourth year running I had the following phone conversation with them…
‘Hello’
‘Oh hello, I’m calling from your insurance company as your policy is up soon. Would you like to renew?’
Except I hear ‘Psg dkfjh kdsnk nkgnskdfdn gkjdkj kkjbkjdb kjbf renew?’
‘I’m deaf,’ I say. ‘and I’ve been telling you this every year you’ve called me for the last four years!’ My voice is normally quite shrill by this point as I ask them to email me and hang up. It was, with hindsight, dumb to let them have my mobile number – but the enquiry form wouldn’t send without it. Next time, I’m going to make one up.
Anyway…
Two days later – ‘Hello there… this is…’
and I hang up.
The next week, Boss answered my work phone with its strobe flasher when I was in the kitchen making tea. ‘Your insurance company rang,’ she said.
‘Arrrgh,’ I replied.
She’s used to this now – having been privy to two years of it so far.
Finally, after six ignored calls, two hang-ups and a very rude word… I reached the end of my tether and asked my mum to ring them. Except they didn’t want to talk to her because she’s not me. After some polite, gentle persuasion (I love my mum), she got them to renew my policy and they had almost redeemed and removed themselves from the top of my idiot pile.
Thoughtful mum ended the call by asking for an email address so that I could get in touch with them if I needed to. The guy gave her three phone numbers. Politely, but firmly, she reminded him that I couldn’t use the phone, which was why he was speaking to her and so he gave her another phone number.
By this point I had gone a puce colour and the steam from my ears was causing the paint to peel from the walls…
Hoping that the third time would be lucky, my mum tried again and he disappeared from the line for 10 minutes presumably to find his brain, which clearly wasn’t in his head and came back with an email address…
He’s called Kevin and I hope that I won’t have any need to email him as I feel the sort of affection for him that one reserves for giant sea slugs – but I’m sure his delightful, unintelligible voice will grace my voicemail next year…
I’ll keep you updated.
I am very mad with my insurance company!
For the fourth year running I had the following phone conversation with them…
‘Hello’
‘Oh hello, I’m calling from your insurance company as your policy is up soon. Would you like to renew?’
Except I hear ‘Psg dkfjh kdsnk nkgnskdfdn gkjdkj kkjbkjdb kjbf renew?’
‘I’m deaf,’ I say. ‘and I’ve been telling you this every year you’ve called me for the last four years!’ My voice is normally quite shrill by this point as I ask them to email me and hang up. It was, with hindsight, dumb to let them have my mobile number – but the enquiry form wouldn’t send without it. Next time, I’m going to make one up.
Anyway…
Two days later – ‘Hello there… this is…’
and I hang up.
The next week, Boss answered my work phone with its strobe flasher when I was in the kitchen making tea. ‘Your insurance company rang,’ she said.
‘Arrrgh,’ I replied.
She’s used to this now – having been privy to two years of it so far.
Finally, after six ignored calls, two hang-ups and a very rude word… I reached the end of my tether and asked my mum to ring them. Except they didn’t want to talk to her because she’s not me. After some polite, gentle persuasion (I love my mum), she got them to renew my policy and they had almost redeemed and removed themselves from the top of my idiot pile.
Thoughtful mum ended the call by asking for an email address so that I could get in touch with them if I needed to. The guy gave her three phone numbers. Politely, but firmly, she reminded him that I couldn’t use the phone, which was why he was speaking to her and so he gave her another phone number.
By this point I had gone a puce colour and the steam from my ears was causing the paint to peel from the walls…
Hoping that the third time would be lucky, my mum tried again and he disappeared from the line for 10 minutes presumably to find his brain, which clearly wasn’t in his head and came back with an email address…
He’s called Kevin and I hope that I won’t have any need to email him as I feel the sort of affection for him that one reserves for giant sea slugs – but I’m sure his delightful, unintelligible voice will grace my voicemail next year…
I’ll keep you updated.
Thursday, 15 May 2008
Deafness made me drunk!
A few years ago, I went to visit my friend in Birmingham for a night out with another uni mate. It was a very civilised affair – we had dinner in her lovely Jewellery-Quarter flat and a few glasses of wine. And then we hit the town…
Less than an hour later I was sat on the floor in a bar, vandalising a plant by pulling it’s leaves off, and generally being a deliquent, which for those of you who know me will know is quite out of character (honestly!!). Of that night, I remember little else…
The next morning I woke up, head crashing and convinced I’d done something terrible. With shaking hands, I checked my phone. No drunken texts to Boy-Who-Did-My-Head-In-But-Who-I-Still-Liked (I’m over him now), which was a relief. But, sat on a sofa, with my relatively unhungover friends, feeling like death, it lead me to question just why I had got drunk so much more quickly than them.
After much deliberation, it was Clever Katie who came up with the reason, apart from lack of self control, as to why I had gotten inebriated that night and guess what!?
I can blame it on my deafness!
You see, in the quietness of a living room I never get steaming drunk ahead of everyone else and, unless there is red wine around – which sets me off on the successful path to talking rubbish – I am the model of good behaviour.
But, once outside in the loud world of nightclubs and bars, I can’t hear anything so therefore I am often left stood there, nodding and smiling away pretending that I am following things, when in fact I am not. Bored and in need of something to do that makes me look less like the nodding Churchill Dog, I drink my drink. And, hey presto, I am on my fast-track journey to Pissedville.
And, so armed with this knowledge, I have spent the last two years trying to find other things to do in clubs, other than suck through a straw, when I can’t hear… it’s been a rocky journey of accidental kisses, dancing on tables and falling downstairs (actually it was Nikki that did that) – but the good news is, not all of this is done in the first half hour anymore and I remember nights out. Who would have thought that it was deafness getting me so steaming drunk in the olden days… naughty deafness – does that atone my behaviour at my Grandmother’s 80th birthday I wonder?
You know what the best news of all is though? I haven’t demolished any pot plants since either. Soil under the fingers nails is not a good look!
Less than an hour later I was sat on the floor in a bar, vandalising a plant by pulling it’s leaves off, and generally being a deliquent, which for those of you who know me will know is quite out of character (honestly!!). Of that night, I remember little else…
The next morning I woke up, head crashing and convinced I’d done something terrible. With shaking hands, I checked my phone. No drunken texts to Boy-Who-Did-My-Head-In-But-Who-I-Still-Liked (I’m over him now), which was a relief. But, sat on a sofa, with my relatively unhungover friends, feeling like death, it lead me to question just why I had got drunk so much more quickly than them.
After much deliberation, it was Clever Katie who came up with the reason, apart from lack of self control, as to why I had gotten inebriated that night and guess what!?
I can blame it on my deafness!
You see, in the quietness of a living room I never get steaming drunk ahead of everyone else and, unless there is red wine around – which sets me off on the successful path to talking rubbish – I am the model of good behaviour.
But, once outside in the loud world of nightclubs and bars, I can’t hear anything so therefore I am often left stood there, nodding and smiling away pretending that I am following things, when in fact I am not. Bored and in need of something to do that makes me look less like the nodding Churchill Dog, I drink my drink. And, hey presto, I am on my fast-track journey to Pissedville.
And, so armed with this knowledge, I have spent the last two years trying to find other things to do in clubs, other than suck through a straw, when I can’t hear… it’s been a rocky journey of accidental kisses, dancing on tables and falling downstairs (actually it was Nikki that did that) – but the good news is, not all of this is done in the first half hour anymore and I remember nights out. Who would have thought that it was deafness getting me so steaming drunk in the olden days… naughty deafness – does that atone my behaviour at my Grandmother’s 80th birthday I wonder?
You know what the best news of all is though? I haven’t demolished any pot plants since either. Soil under the fingers nails is not a good look!
Wednesday, 14 May 2008
I’m not facetious… really!
I was eating dinner last night with Friend-Who-Knows-Big-Words when she reminded me of the time my hearing had her rolling around the floor with laughter… and me blacklisted from Tesco canteen forever more!
The Tesco canteen was the perfect venue for our A-level revision – skanky, sticky and rammed with junk food! We used to sit in there for hours discussing Charles II or the ‘merits’ of Mansfield Park – usually with me mumbling under my breath that Jane Austen should have been strangled at birth. (I’ve grown up a lot since then)
One day we arrived there, in my car (possibly the same day I nearly fractured Helena’s skull), all badly in need of coffee before our exams started for the day. The canteen was loud – machines buzzed, broad accents cut through the air and the sea of perms was making my head spin. I needed caffeine and I needed it now!
Suddenly, from behind the counter appeared a fierce looking woman, hair set solid, features to match and said, ‘Are you waiting for coffee?’ Except, I didn’t hear her over the rabble and gabble of OAPs so I just guessed and said, ‘No! I’m waiting for coffee.’ And, it was at this moment that I lost my volume control and accidentally bellowed it.
Thirty perms turned and stared at me, even the coffee machine seemed to slow to a hush and then I heard manic spluttering from in front of me as Hannah appeared to be fitting, frantically stuffing the sleeve of her jumper into her mouth.
The woman looked at me as if I was something nasty that had crawled out from under a stone and promptly served the person behind me. With no idea what I’d said wrong, I was ushered through the queue like a leper, my friends trying to keep the hysterical bouts of laughter from escaping, making them sound like manic kittens.
‘What did I do wrong?’ I asked as we sat down with our mineral waters – I’d unwittingly ruined our chance for caffeine…
‘Shite,’ was my response when I found out.
Another accidental smart-Alec moment came when I was temping in an office that was relocating. The boss was packing up and extremely stressed. ‘Could you get me a bowl,’ I thought he asked. So off I tottered in search of a bowl, which was quite difficult in a half-empty office block. After much searching I returned with a battered plastic flower pot in my hand, quite proud of my find and presented it to him.
‘Very clever,’ he said putting it down on the side and stalked off.
I stood there a while wondering what the hell I’d done wrong when the office angel sidled up to me and hissed, ‘What the hell was that? He asked you for a bulb, for a light – not a flower pot.’
He’d obviously been quicker than me…
Light – bulb – flower pot…
Gettit?
The Tesco canteen was the perfect venue for our A-level revision – skanky, sticky and rammed with junk food! We used to sit in there for hours discussing Charles II or the ‘merits’ of Mansfield Park – usually with me mumbling under my breath that Jane Austen should have been strangled at birth. (I’ve grown up a lot since then)
One day we arrived there, in my car (possibly the same day I nearly fractured Helena’s skull), all badly in need of coffee before our exams started for the day. The canteen was loud – machines buzzed, broad accents cut through the air and the sea of perms was making my head spin. I needed caffeine and I needed it now!
Suddenly, from behind the counter appeared a fierce looking woman, hair set solid, features to match and said, ‘Are you waiting for coffee?’ Except, I didn’t hear her over the rabble and gabble of OAPs so I just guessed and said, ‘No! I’m waiting for coffee.’ And, it was at this moment that I lost my volume control and accidentally bellowed it.
Thirty perms turned and stared at me, even the coffee machine seemed to slow to a hush and then I heard manic spluttering from in front of me as Hannah appeared to be fitting, frantically stuffing the sleeve of her jumper into her mouth.
The woman looked at me as if I was something nasty that had crawled out from under a stone and promptly served the person behind me. With no idea what I’d said wrong, I was ushered through the queue like a leper, my friends trying to keep the hysterical bouts of laughter from escaping, making them sound like manic kittens.
‘What did I do wrong?’ I asked as we sat down with our mineral waters – I’d unwittingly ruined our chance for caffeine…
‘Shite,’ was my response when I found out.
Another accidental smart-Alec moment came when I was temping in an office that was relocating. The boss was packing up and extremely stressed. ‘Could you get me a bowl,’ I thought he asked. So off I tottered in search of a bowl, which was quite difficult in a half-empty office block. After much searching I returned with a battered plastic flower pot in my hand, quite proud of my find and presented it to him.
‘Very clever,’ he said putting it down on the side and stalked off.
I stood there a while wondering what the hell I’d done wrong when the office angel sidled up to me and hissed, ‘What the hell was that? He asked you for a bulb, for a light – not a flower pot.’
He’d obviously been quicker than me…
Light – bulb – flower pot…
Gettit?
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
The art of walking... revised
Hahahahaha!
Ahem, sorry – I am still chuckling to myself after my antics with Fab Friend at the climbing wall last night. I encountered one of the most common pitfalls connected to being deaf – trying to lipread AND walk, and stumbled straight into a bent-over man’s bottom.
Fab Friend and I dissolved into fits of giggles much to the man’s bemusement and it seemed too difficult to explain quite why I hadn’t seen his hulk of a torso in my path… but I honestly didn’t because I was looking backwards hearing something FF was saying about a cute boy around the corner.
Walking into things when you’re deaf is something of an occupational hazard. I have honestly walked into more lampposts/walls/people/cars than I’ve walked around.
I do try and look where I’m going, but if I put more effort into that, then I can’t chat and I really do like chatting.
One time, on a school trip to the ballet I walked into a lamppost with such ferocity that I honestly thought I’d managed to reverse the direction of my nose.
But, when things like this happen to me, and I can feel the burning eyes and guess that bystanders are sniggering, I console myself that hearing people walk into things, too.
Perhaps the best one I’ve ever witnessed was at Notting Hill Carnival – cool people, cool music and lots of TV cameras. There was one filming on Westbourne Park Road and the two people ahead of me spotted it and started to try and walk cooler, look cooler, dance cooler but actually looked like total dicks.
This was amusing enough until one of them, putting all his effort into coolness, failed to notice a massive lamppost – wider than average and festooned with streamers and balloons, I have no idea how he managed it. But he hit it, front on and bounced of it with the ease of a bouncy ball and the finesse of a newborn foal.
The camera captured it all, including my beaming face – not happy about his misfortune, but happy that for once it wasn’t me!
Ahem, sorry – I am still chuckling to myself after my antics with Fab Friend at the climbing wall last night. I encountered one of the most common pitfalls connected to being deaf – trying to lipread AND walk, and stumbled straight into a bent-over man’s bottom.
Fab Friend and I dissolved into fits of giggles much to the man’s bemusement and it seemed too difficult to explain quite why I hadn’t seen his hulk of a torso in my path… but I honestly didn’t because I was looking backwards hearing something FF was saying about a cute boy around the corner.
Walking into things when you’re deaf is something of an occupational hazard. I have honestly walked into more lampposts/walls/people/cars than I’ve walked around.
I do try and look where I’m going, but if I put more effort into that, then I can’t chat and I really do like chatting.
One time, on a school trip to the ballet I walked into a lamppost with such ferocity that I honestly thought I’d managed to reverse the direction of my nose.
But, when things like this happen to me, and I can feel the burning eyes and guess that bystanders are sniggering, I console myself that hearing people walk into things, too.
Perhaps the best one I’ve ever witnessed was at Notting Hill Carnival – cool people, cool music and lots of TV cameras. There was one filming on Westbourne Park Road and the two people ahead of me spotted it and started to try and walk cooler, look cooler, dance cooler but actually looked like total dicks.
This was amusing enough until one of them, putting all his effort into coolness, failed to notice a massive lamppost – wider than average and festooned with streamers and balloons, I have no idea how he managed it. But he hit it, front on and bounced of it with the ease of a bouncy ball and the finesse of a newborn foal.
The camera captured it all, including my beaming face – not happy about his misfortune, but happy that for once it wasn’t me!
Monday, 12 May 2008
Me and my hearing aids
I own hearing aids but I am not a hearing aid wearer – if the NHS ordered me some pink hearing aids, I might possibly become a hearing aid wearer… they’d match my phone then…
Is that shallow? Who cares!
My hearing aids currently sit in a box by my bed and rarely come out of it – sure sometimes I wear them for the novelty factor, for when I want people to look at me, see them and look away really quickly… or for when I’m having an EDD (Extra-Deaf Day) after a particularly loud night out with housemate.
Although my most recent pair are more tolerable, one of the reasons I hate wearing my hearing aids so much is they make everything so loud – so loud in
fact that I fall over! But then, even without my hearing aids, certain things still make me fall over!
I first discovered my knack of falling over to loud noises when I was in a nightclub during Freshers’ week – it was of those fabulous 90s places with fabric flames that billowed unrealistically and lashings of Woody’s and WKD…
It also had podiums, which were situated on top of giant speakers – and it was these speakers that were my downfall literally! There I was slinking along in my giant flares and platform trainers (so, so cool) when suddenly, as I walked past the speaker, music thumping, I found myself flat on the floor… looking like a complete idiot… and I learnt something
Loud music + me = no balance
That learnt, I moved on and was quite happy knowing that should a fighter jet fly over, a police van (I can hear those klaxon-sounding sirens) or a big motorbike come flying past, I should brace myself like that scene in Mary Poppins, where everyone holds on to bits of the house – only in my case, I hold a lamppost, person, my brains and occasionally if I am not quick enough, the floor! Oh the shame!
And then, I got new hearing aids – with promise of being able to watch TV without subtitles and birds singing – the latter I was really excited about as I have never heard a bird sing…
However, my hearing aids were so loud that, on coming out of the clinic, a bus went past and I fell over…
Trying to give them a chance I went to the park to hear birds… and a police car went by and I fell over. So I went home and tried to listen to the TV but I had to have it on so quietly, because my hearing aids made it so loud, that even housemate would have struggled to understand what Paul Robinson was saying.
So I put them in the box and accepted that life has pros and cons – the pros of being hearing-aidless by far outweight the cons…
I fall over less, I fall over less, and um… I fall over less.
Is that shallow? Who cares!
My hearing aids currently sit in a box by my bed and rarely come out of it – sure sometimes I wear them for the novelty factor, for when I want people to look at me, see them and look away really quickly… or for when I’m having an EDD (Extra-Deaf Day) after a particularly loud night out with housemate.
Although my most recent pair are more tolerable, one of the reasons I hate wearing my hearing aids so much is they make everything so loud – so loud in
fact that I fall over! But then, even without my hearing aids, certain things still make me fall over!
I first discovered my knack of falling over to loud noises when I was in a nightclub during Freshers’ week – it was of those fabulous 90s places with fabric flames that billowed unrealistically and lashings of Woody’s and WKD…
It also had podiums, which were situated on top of giant speakers – and it was these speakers that were my downfall literally! There I was slinking along in my giant flares and platform trainers (so, so cool) when suddenly, as I walked past the speaker, music thumping, I found myself flat on the floor… looking like a complete idiot… and I learnt something
Loud music + me = no balance
That learnt, I moved on and was quite happy knowing that should a fighter jet fly over, a police van (I can hear those klaxon-sounding sirens) or a big motorbike come flying past, I should brace myself like that scene in Mary Poppins, where everyone holds on to bits of the house – only in my case, I hold a lamppost, person, my brains and occasionally if I am not quick enough, the floor! Oh the shame!
And then, I got new hearing aids – with promise of being able to watch TV without subtitles and birds singing – the latter I was really excited about as I have never heard a bird sing…
However, my hearing aids were so loud that, on coming out of the clinic, a bus went past and I fell over…
Trying to give them a chance I went to the park to hear birds… and a police car went by and I fell over. So I went home and tried to listen to the TV but I had to have it on so quietly, because my hearing aids made it so loud, that even housemate would have struggled to understand what Paul Robinson was saying.
So I put them in the box and accepted that life has pros and cons – the pros of being hearing-aidless by far outweight the cons…
I fall over less, I fall over less, and um… I fall over less.
Friday, 9 May 2008
Please leave a message after the foghorn
If you are ever unlucky enough to hear an answer phone message left by me, it will go something like this…
‘Er… dammit, can’t hear the beep – has the beep happened? Er… Hello, this is Mo-‘
And that’s as far as I get before the time limit cuts me off…
Why are beeps so high on answer phones?
Come to think of it where the heck did the idea of beeps come from in the first place?
Why not a big, low booming foghorn? When I lived in Pompey, I could always hear the ships honking away as I lay in bed at night and if everything that beeped honked instead my life would be so much easier.
The beeps that I can’t hear fall in to two categories – those which are helpful to people, and those that stop people getting dead…
The ones in the helpful category, I find mildly inconvenient – like the time I got distracted watching the Neighbours Omnibus and let my flapjack bake for two hours because I couldn’t hear the oven timer (mental note to self to get Miele to design a vibrating oven).
Then, there are the beeps that signal that tube doors are closing. I don’t like tubes at the best of times but I have this amazingly dumb habit of sticking my head into or out of the doors just as they close and… BANG… that’s another few brain cells gone! What’s worse is the looks of pity that people give me, as if I’m some idiot who ignored the beeps. ‘I DIDN’T HEAR THEM!’ I want to shout, nursing my sore bonse and going bright red with embarrassment.
But I don’t, I just sit there and ignore everyone, like everyone does on the tube.
Now, onto the dead ones. These include Level Crossing alarms on train tracks – I really cannot hear these and living in the sticks growing up, there were quite a few. One time, when I was skiving off RE and going to the pub I almost got hit by a train – I looked both ways and stepped out to hear a ROOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR
PAAAARRRRRRRRRP!!!! (at least the horns are those wonderful low booming noises).
Head-girl-and-best-friend saved my life – she grabbed my rucksack and pulled me backwards.
I bought her some chips and mayonnaise in the pub to say thanks…
…generous as I am!
‘Er… dammit, can’t hear the beep – has the beep happened? Er… Hello, this is Mo-‘
And that’s as far as I get before the time limit cuts me off…
Why are beeps so high on answer phones?
Come to think of it where the heck did the idea of beeps come from in the first place?
Why not a big, low booming foghorn? When I lived in Pompey, I could always hear the ships honking away as I lay in bed at night and if everything that beeped honked instead my life would be so much easier.
The beeps that I can’t hear fall in to two categories – those which are helpful to people, and those that stop people getting dead…
The ones in the helpful category, I find mildly inconvenient – like the time I got distracted watching the Neighbours Omnibus and let my flapjack bake for two hours because I couldn’t hear the oven timer (mental note to self to get Miele to design a vibrating oven).
Then, there are the beeps that signal that tube doors are closing. I don’t like tubes at the best of times but I have this amazingly dumb habit of sticking my head into or out of the doors just as they close and… BANG… that’s another few brain cells gone! What’s worse is the looks of pity that people give me, as if I’m some idiot who ignored the beeps. ‘I DIDN’T HEAR THEM!’ I want to shout, nursing my sore bonse and going bright red with embarrassment.
But I don’t, I just sit there and ignore everyone, like everyone does on the tube.
Now, onto the dead ones. These include Level Crossing alarms on train tracks – I really cannot hear these and living in the sticks growing up, there were quite a few. One time, when I was skiving off RE and going to the pub I almost got hit by a train – I looked both ways and stepped out to hear a ROOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR
PAAAARRRRRRRRRP!!!! (at least the horns are those wonderful low booming noises).
Head-girl-and-best-friend saved my life – she grabbed my rucksack and pulled me backwards.
I bought her some chips and mayonnaise in the pub to say thanks…
…generous as I am!
Thursday, 8 May 2008
I'm going a Deaf/Blind date
Right now, I’m sat at work waiting to go on a date… a blind date!
Why why why and HOW do I get myself into these situations? that is really what I would like to know.
The positive side of me is speaking up in soft tones akin to an earth mother wafting incense around a mud hut and saying that it’s good to broaden my horizons, meet new people and blah blah blah – actually right now I can’t be bothered to listen to her so I’m pretending I can’t hear her – a handy deaf trick.
Now, I could start my millions of reasons why I hate first and blind dates so much with a deaf-related reason – but actually there’s a far simpler reason that is top of my list, lit in neon and filling me with dread.
I hate waiting in the bar for the guy to turn up and then trying to say hello…
It’s a near impossible task for me. For starters, when I am nervous I go blind to faces, I doubt I could recognise my own mother, so I am usually frantically scanning the bar wondering if that’s him… or maybe it’s him (and sometimes even) Oh no, that’s actually a girl!
Another thing I do when I am nervous is forget to breathe – so by the time they have showed up, I’m normally seeing stars, have pins and needles in my hands and am about to keel over – this does not go hand in hand with eloquent conversation so I normally greet them with, ‘Helllurgh…’ start shaking and take a huge gulp of air.
Ironically, the thing I mind least is telling them that I can’t hear – they normally go a bit crazed at first and the one who I fell asleep in a bar listening too actually guffawed like a country gent and exclaimed, ‘Golly! Don’t you do marvellously!’ Bit of an odd reaction but it’s a wonderful way of showing how someone works up there… and it gives you a great insight into whether you could actually like them.
One guy was so unbelievably sweet about it I could have married him on the spot and one time a guy acted like I had told him something about the weather – it just went in one ear and out the other, speeding through the door – with me close behind.
But back to tonight’s date – I wonder when I will tell him or if I will even tell him at all – I didn’t tell one guy once and he just thought I was blonde and pissed!
Tonight I plan to tell him, and be blonde and pissed, too.
Why why why and HOW do I get myself into these situations? that is really what I would like to know.
The positive side of me is speaking up in soft tones akin to an earth mother wafting incense around a mud hut and saying that it’s good to broaden my horizons, meet new people and blah blah blah – actually right now I can’t be bothered to listen to her so I’m pretending I can’t hear her – a handy deaf trick.
Now, I could start my millions of reasons why I hate first and blind dates so much with a deaf-related reason – but actually there’s a far simpler reason that is top of my list, lit in neon and filling me with dread.
I hate waiting in the bar for the guy to turn up and then trying to say hello…
It’s a near impossible task for me. For starters, when I am nervous I go blind to faces, I doubt I could recognise my own mother, so I am usually frantically scanning the bar wondering if that’s him… or maybe it’s him (and sometimes even) Oh no, that’s actually a girl!
Another thing I do when I am nervous is forget to breathe – so by the time they have showed up, I’m normally seeing stars, have pins and needles in my hands and am about to keel over – this does not go hand in hand with eloquent conversation so I normally greet them with, ‘Helllurgh…’ start shaking and take a huge gulp of air.
Ironically, the thing I mind least is telling them that I can’t hear – they normally go a bit crazed at first and the one who I fell asleep in a bar listening too actually guffawed like a country gent and exclaimed, ‘Golly! Don’t you do marvellously!’ Bit of an odd reaction but it’s a wonderful way of showing how someone works up there… and it gives you a great insight into whether you could actually like them.
One guy was so unbelievably sweet about it I could have married him on the spot and one time a guy acted like I had told him something about the weather – it just went in one ear and out the other, speeding through the door – with me close behind.
But back to tonight’s date – I wonder when I will tell him or if I will even tell him at all – I didn’t tell one guy once and he just thought I was blonde and pissed!
Tonight I plan to tell him, and be blonde and pissed, too.
Wednesday, 7 May 2008
Air on a D-eaf String
When I was 6 years old, I announced I wanted to be a concert violinist, hoicked my mum’s guitar under my chin and tried to play it with a pencil!
After much begging, I got the real thing and it really did sound like a cat being strangled under water – but it was okay because I was going to be a world-famous violinist so I had to improve… right?
But then, bugger it, I found out I was going deaf and the violin gradually faded from my grasp. I so wanted to be a female version of Nigel Kennedy (but with better hair), and it used to make me very mad – one time so mad I actually headbutted my violin and ended up in casualty. I had quite a temper in those days!
So then I thought I would beat my hearing at its own game and took up the viola, which is one clef lower, but I was soon outwitted and after a time could once again only hear the bow scraping on the strings.
Then, one day in a fit of defiance I spotted a double bass languishing in the corner of our music room at school. ‘I’ll play that,’ I thought to myself and soon enough I was having a weekly lesson with Big Bird from Sesame Street – she really did look and sound like her, so much so that I have totally forgotten her real name.
I loved the double bass, it spat and heaved out great big throaty notes and was by far the loudest instrument in our feeble flute- and ego-heavy orchestra.
Just my cup of tea. Until one day I came in for my weekly lesson to find my double bass was gone… poof! Just like that… it had vanished into thin air. Well, not quite thin air, someone had nicked it. Not the double bass case, or the bow, just the bass!!!!
On reporting it to the police in the sleepy little town I lived in, the plod behind the counter said, ‘Oooh yars, I do believe we had a drunken sod in last night saying he’d seen a man running across a field with a giant cello. Thought he was just pissed to be honest, dear.’ And that was the end of that!
Anyone got a tuba I could borrow?
After much begging, I got the real thing and it really did sound like a cat being strangled under water – but it was okay because I was going to be a world-famous violinist so I had to improve… right?
But then, bugger it, I found out I was going deaf and the violin gradually faded from my grasp. I so wanted to be a female version of Nigel Kennedy (but with better hair), and it used to make me very mad – one time so mad I actually headbutted my violin and ended up in casualty. I had quite a temper in those days!
So then I thought I would beat my hearing at its own game and took up the viola, which is one clef lower, but I was soon outwitted and after a time could once again only hear the bow scraping on the strings.
Then, one day in a fit of defiance I spotted a double bass languishing in the corner of our music room at school. ‘I’ll play that,’ I thought to myself and soon enough I was having a weekly lesson with Big Bird from Sesame Street – she really did look and sound like her, so much so that I have totally forgotten her real name.
I loved the double bass, it spat and heaved out great big throaty notes and was by far the loudest instrument in our feeble flute- and ego-heavy orchestra.
Just my cup of tea. Until one day I came in for my weekly lesson to find my double bass was gone… poof! Just like that… it had vanished into thin air. Well, not quite thin air, someone had nicked it. Not the double bass case, or the bow, just the bass!!!!
On reporting it to the police in the sleepy little town I lived in, the plod behind the counter said, ‘Oooh yars, I do believe we had a drunken sod in last night saying he’d seen a man running across a field with a giant cello. Thought he was just pissed to be honest, dear.’ And that was the end of that!
Anyone got a tuba I could borrow?
Tuesday, 6 May 2008
Apres ski
Sat on the bus last night, in my own quiet world minus the guy who kept moaning in a very disturbing way (did I mention I can hear low noises), I got reminiscing about my car.
Jennifer was my only lesbian crush – and I think as she was a green Mini – it doesn’t really count. She was everything I could wish for in a car and came into my life when I was 16 and couldn’t even drive.
My friend Jenny and I used to sit in her where she was parked outside my house and listen to Roxette on the very shonky cassette recorder.
Now, Minis are perfectly suited to not being able to hear very well, because they are so loud that your passengers can’t hear very well either, so we were all in the same boat. My Mini was also very good at making extremely loud noises when something was about to go wrong. I think everyone within a five-mile radius knew when her exhaust had fallen off.
I had her for 10 years and during that time she saw more than her fair share of dramas, break-ups and general girly gossip. She learnt to fly over cattle grids at break neck speeds, park on pavements and even coped when some ridiculously stupid chav from Pompey reversed into her. When she died, from a head injury, I was broken hearted.
Now I have a quiet purring Peugeot called Boo, which I love and that I can hear surprisingly well in – but I still look back at my years in Jennifer the Mini fondly.
There was the time I nearly fractured Helena’s skull going over a speed bump in Tesco car park – she was sat in the middle of the back seat so I could lip read her in the rear view mirror and I approached the speed bump with such gusto that she took off vertically into the motor for my electric sunroof.
Then there was the time I was driving to school with my friend Kate, discussing our forthcoming skiing trip. ‘Of course you don’t need one,’ I said in answer to her question. ‘But my parents would really like me to have one,’ she replied.
Incredulously I looked at her and said, ‘Why on earth do your parents want you to take a cocktail dress skiing?’
There was a roll of eyes as I pulled into the car park at school, and a pause as I yanked the handbrake up. Then, Kate looked at me and said, ‘Cocktail dress? What are you on about? I said contact address!’
For embarrassment’s sake, I took my fist cocktail dress skiing that year!
Jennifer was my only lesbian crush – and I think as she was a green Mini – it doesn’t really count. She was everything I could wish for in a car and came into my life when I was 16 and couldn’t even drive.
My friend Jenny and I used to sit in her where she was parked outside my house and listen to Roxette on the very shonky cassette recorder.
Now, Minis are perfectly suited to not being able to hear very well, because they are so loud that your passengers can’t hear very well either, so we were all in the same boat. My Mini was also very good at making extremely loud noises when something was about to go wrong. I think everyone within a five-mile radius knew when her exhaust had fallen off.
I had her for 10 years and during that time she saw more than her fair share of dramas, break-ups and general girly gossip. She learnt to fly over cattle grids at break neck speeds, park on pavements and even coped when some ridiculously stupid chav from Pompey reversed into her. When she died, from a head injury, I was broken hearted.
Now I have a quiet purring Peugeot called Boo, which I love and that I can hear surprisingly well in – but I still look back at my years in Jennifer the Mini fondly.
There was the time I nearly fractured Helena’s skull going over a speed bump in Tesco car park – she was sat in the middle of the back seat so I could lip read her in the rear view mirror and I approached the speed bump with such gusto that she took off vertically into the motor for my electric sunroof.
Then there was the time I was driving to school with my friend Kate, discussing our forthcoming skiing trip. ‘Of course you don’t need one,’ I said in answer to her question. ‘But my parents would really like me to have one,’ she replied.
Incredulously I looked at her and said, ‘Why on earth do your parents want you to take a cocktail dress skiing?’
There was a roll of eyes as I pulled into the car park at school, and a pause as I yanked the handbrake up. Then, Kate looked at me and said, ‘Cocktail dress? What are you on about? I said contact address!’
For embarrassment’s sake, I took my fist cocktail dress skiing that year!
Thursday, 1 May 2008
Life gets cheaper every day
As you know, I saw Fab-Friend-Who-Actually-Wears-Her-Hearing-Aids last night and, after reading yesterday’s rant, she reminded me positively of all the great things about being deaf…
We can sleep through practically anything – except 5-year-old boys playing Spiderman at 7am on a Saturday morning and bin men, who from the noise they make outside my flat, also appear to be playing Spiderman…
We can ignore people without them thinking we’re rude – so when you spot the ex-boyfriend across the street, it’s fine to walk on by oblivious to his calls of ‘I still love you, you know!’ Fab friend and I always find that boys shout this after us.
But here’s the best bit…
Life Costs Less
I’m not kidding, it really does. We get free local travel, discounted national rail travel and as I discovered last night, even climbing is cheaper!
As we were paying I noticed that Fab Friend’s bill came to quite a lot less than mine and as this had happened before I asked the till man why.
He looked up Fab Friend’s details and said, rather confused, ‘Eet says sheee ees dis-abled.’ Being deaf is not the most obvious disability so people don’t really believe us a lot of the time.
‘But I am too,’ I exclaimed with glee. ‘Can I have a discount as well?’
I could feel him eyeing me somewhat warily so I jumped to action and pulled out all the proof I could find – much to Fab Friend’s amusement.
There was my free travel card, my disabled rail card and here’s the best one, which I’d totally forgotten about, my Sympathetic Hearing Card!
I think this was the clincher as one look at that and he was tapping away faster than you can say disability discrimination and BOOM, as if by magic, climbing now costs less.
I love my Sympathetic Hearing Card – it’s more kitsch than a 70s lampshade and Afghan coat with it’s off-white appearance and retro imagery – goodness knows which ignorant beige-wearing person thought up the design but it’s function is actually quite vital. Say I had got run over by that fire engine – the cute boys in uniform could have checked my wallet and realised I was deaf and not stupid. But err…
probably dead.
We can sleep through practically anything – except 5-year-old boys playing Spiderman at 7am on a Saturday morning and bin men, who from the noise they make outside my flat, also appear to be playing Spiderman…
We can ignore people without them thinking we’re rude – so when you spot the ex-boyfriend across the street, it’s fine to walk on by oblivious to his calls of ‘I still love you, you know!’ Fab friend and I always find that boys shout this after us.
But here’s the best bit…
Life Costs Less
I’m not kidding, it really does. We get free local travel, discounted national rail travel and as I discovered last night, even climbing is cheaper!
As we were paying I noticed that Fab Friend’s bill came to quite a lot less than mine and as this had happened before I asked the till man why.
He looked up Fab Friend’s details and said, rather confused, ‘Eet says sheee ees dis-abled.’ Being deaf is not the most obvious disability so people don’t really believe us a lot of the time.
‘But I am too,’ I exclaimed with glee. ‘Can I have a discount as well?’
I could feel him eyeing me somewhat warily so I jumped to action and pulled out all the proof I could find – much to Fab Friend’s amusement.
There was my free travel card, my disabled rail card and here’s the best one, which I’d totally forgotten about, my Sympathetic Hearing Card!
I think this was the clincher as one look at that and he was tapping away faster than you can say disability discrimination and BOOM, as if by magic, climbing now costs less.
I love my Sympathetic Hearing Card – it’s more kitsch than a 70s lampshade and Afghan coat with it’s off-white appearance and retro imagery – goodness knows which ignorant beige-wearing person thought up the design but it’s function is actually quite vital. Say I had got run over by that fire engine – the cute boys in uniform could have checked my wallet and realised I was deaf and not stupid. But err…
probably dead.
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
Deaf rage
Something very odd happens to me when I discover non-accessible services for deaf people – my face gets very hot and turns bright red – the colour of Santa’s trousers, my ears start to burn and I feel a surging wall of rage coming from the ends of my toes.
It then travels my body and comes out of my mouth usually in a fairly eloquent but not polite rant…
Ooooh it makes me so cross!
Take the time I emailed my local council about getting a permit renewed – I sent them a polite note about how I couldn’t hear and as there was only an information phone line could they please help me. So they did, by sending me the telephone number I needed to call.
Now, bearing in mind this was a disability permit that I was applying for I was fairly astonished at this response and so, as a result sent a curt email back…
Two weeks later, I chased it up again only to be told it had been referred to the correct person…
two weeks later, NOTHING!
So I chased the right person and still nothing!
And so today I reached boiling point, I stamped up and down the office, doing my work while silently fuming at the dumbness of some people – and then I emailed housemate – who for future reference and accolades has a fabulous pair of ears that work and so helps me often – and she called them.
And, in two seconds flat the problem was sorted, the form was in the post and all was calm – except me! I am still fuming, trying to find a vent for all this pent-up anger and frustration that doesn’t involve chocolate and weight gain.
Yoga? Tried that and not surprisingly from the position of the downward dog, I was quite unable to lip read anything except housemate’s obvious suffocation expressions due to the farting woman in front of her.
Deep breathing? Does this make anyone else feel dizzy?
So, instead I’ve booked a climbing session with fab friend who actually wears her hearing aids and I’m going to hum and climb. It really is quite relaxing – last week I hummed Amy Winehouse as I went.
This week, while working out just how to complain to my local council, I’m going to be humming The Bitch Is Back.
It then travels my body and comes out of my mouth usually in a fairly eloquent but not polite rant…
Ooooh it makes me so cross!
Take the time I emailed my local council about getting a permit renewed – I sent them a polite note about how I couldn’t hear and as there was only an information phone line could they please help me. So they did, by sending me the telephone number I needed to call.
Now, bearing in mind this was a disability permit that I was applying for I was fairly astonished at this response and so, as a result sent a curt email back…
Two weeks later, I chased it up again only to be told it had been referred to the correct person…
two weeks later, NOTHING!
So I chased the right person and still nothing!
And so today I reached boiling point, I stamped up and down the office, doing my work while silently fuming at the dumbness of some people – and then I emailed housemate – who for future reference and accolades has a fabulous pair of ears that work and so helps me often – and she called them.
And, in two seconds flat the problem was sorted, the form was in the post and all was calm – except me! I am still fuming, trying to find a vent for all this pent-up anger and frustration that doesn’t involve chocolate and weight gain.
Yoga? Tried that and not surprisingly from the position of the downward dog, I was quite unable to lip read anything except housemate’s obvious suffocation expressions due to the farting woman in front of her.
Deep breathing? Does this make anyone else feel dizzy?
So, instead I’ve booked a climbing session with fab friend who actually wears her hearing aids and I’m going to hum and climb. It really is quite relaxing – last week I hummed Amy Winehouse as I went.
This week, while working out just how to complain to my local council, I’m going to be humming The Bitch Is Back.
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
It's official... I'm a shoplifter
Well, not really but I did set all the alarms off in ASDA the other day as I walked out with a DVD player in my arms – all paid for but not detagged.
Housemate was very good about it – and had it not been for her, I think I would have been swiftly rugby tackled by the burly-looking security guard who was, as I was striding out towards my car, chasing me with much enthusiasm.
But it got me thinking about the fact that I can’t hear shop alarms, about how many other warning signs I don’t hear and what trouble it has, and could, get me into.
Take last Friday afternoon, there I was striding down Oxford Street when I spied the green man flashing (he doesn’t beep for me) and began to cross the road.
Sure, I did wonder why other people were just stood there, not crossing, but I just assumed they were of the tourist breed that stops randomly in the middle of the pavement for no apparent reason.
Alas, this was not the case and I was all of a sudden faced head-on by a big, red fire engine, lights flashing and, now I was within centimetres of it, siren definitely on.
Not wanting a vehicle full of rather good-looking and uniformed men think I was a total idiot I tried to sign sorry at them so they would realise I was deaf – except in my panic I signed thank you instead – and they all stared at me as if I had totally lost the plot.
Then, there was my old alarm clock – it was one of those massive tick-tock tick-tock clocks with the two bells and the hammer. I remember a time when I could hear it well enough to wake up but then, one day all of a sudden, it was waking up everyone in my uni halls of residence except me.
So now, everything I have that beeps, vibrates – from my mobile and alarm clock, to my phone at work and the fire alarm there – problem is there’s so much vibration going on that sometimes I’m not sure which one is going off!
I wonder if there’s an inventor out there who could make a nice vibrating fire…
engine.
Housemate was very good about it – and had it not been for her, I think I would have been swiftly rugby tackled by the burly-looking security guard who was, as I was striding out towards my car, chasing me with much enthusiasm.
But it got me thinking about the fact that I can’t hear shop alarms, about how many other warning signs I don’t hear and what trouble it has, and could, get me into.
Take last Friday afternoon, there I was striding down Oxford Street when I spied the green man flashing (he doesn’t beep for me) and began to cross the road.
Sure, I did wonder why other people were just stood there, not crossing, but I just assumed they were of the tourist breed that stops randomly in the middle of the pavement for no apparent reason.
Alas, this was not the case and I was all of a sudden faced head-on by a big, red fire engine, lights flashing and, now I was within centimetres of it, siren definitely on.
Not wanting a vehicle full of rather good-looking and uniformed men think I was a total idiot I tried to sign sorry at them so they would realise I was deaf – except in my panic I signed thank you instead – and they all stared at me as if I had totally lost the plot.
Then, there was my old alarm clock – it was one of those massive tick-tock tick-tock clocks with the two bells and the hammer. I remember a time when I could hear it well enough to wake up but then, one day all of a sudden, it was waking up everyone in my uni halls of residence except me.
So now, everything I have that beeps, vibrates – from my mobile and alarm clock, to my phone at work and the fire alarm there – problem is there’s so much vibration going on that sometimes I’m not sure which one is going off!
I wonder if there’s an inventor out there who could make a nice vibrating fire…
engine.
Monday, 28 April 2008
Me and my volume
When I tell people that I’m deaf, one of the first things they usually ask me, after can I hear their voice, is can I hear my own.
And, the answer is Yes, I can. But one thing I do struggle with is my volume control – housemate was the first person to tell me I have a wonderful skill of shouting in quiet places and whispering in loud ones! I have no idea why I do this, but she is absolutely right you know…
Take the time I was on a train from London back to my house at uni in a packed train. It was hot and stuffy and my boyfriend at the time was doing his best to keep me amused – he was a quick learner, so had brought a Take A Break Arrow Word book with him.
So there we were, chug chugging along when I suddenly announced to him, ‘I am so fucking (sorry mum) bored!’ Except I didn’t just announce it to him – I announced it to the whole carriage and probably to the whole of the South East.
His face was a complete picture and it made me laugh so much that tea came out of my nose and smudged my down clue on the Arrow Word I was doing…
He diagnosed me with deaf tourettes that day and it’s been that way ever since.
The other day I was watching Jaws in the early hours of the morning, for possibly the first time – it was old housemate’s favourite movie, she loved the book, too. So much so that she used to hide it in the shed so that she couldn’t read it anymore.
Anyway, so there I was watching Jaws for the first time, a bit spooked to be honest – I don’t do scary movies very well. Remember that scene where they’re hunting the poor fishy and he pops out the water and says hello, well I screamed, a very me scream – a town-crier proud scream – so loud in fact that other-old housemate’s boyfriend (who I was visiting at the time) shouted ‘Bloody ‘ell and Flamin’ Nora’ at the top of his voice too, and we woke up an entire row of terraces.
Now, for old housemate’s boyfriend to have been disturbed, it must have been quite a scream, even though I didn’t hear it – screaming is out of my frequency…
Once he challenged me by a loch in Scotland to shout as loudly as I could – I competed against the boys and won. And, I was the only one who didn’t suffer ear damage as a result.
I could probably fill this blog for days with details of all the noise I’ve made, but what really disturbs me is that I can shout in sign language, too. It’s quite alarming but my face gurns wildly, my hands flail about and I literally let rip…
So this got me thinking, if I ‘shout’ in both languages, perhaps if I wasn’t deaf I would still be noisy.
Perhaps I would still whisper in pubs and shout swear words in front of little old ladies on trains…
And for once, it’s quite nice to find something I can’t outright blame on my deafness!
And, the answer is Yes, I can. But one thing I do struggle with is my volume control – housemate was the first person to tell me I have a wonderful skill of shouting in quiet places and whispering in loud ones! I have no idea why I do this, but she is absolutely right you know…
Take the time I was on a train from London back to my house at uni in a packed train. It was hot and stuffy and my boyfriend at the time was doing his best to keep me amused – he was a quick learner, so had brought a Take A Break Arrow Word book with him.
So there we were, chug chugging along when I suddenly announced to him, ‘I am so fucking (sorry mum) bored!’ Except I didn’t just announce it to him – I announced it to the whole carriage and probably to the whole of the South East.
His face was a complete picture and it made me laugh so much that tea came out of my nose and smudged my down clue on the Arrow Word I was doing…
He diagnosed me with deaf tourettes that day and it’s been that way ever since.
The other day I was watching Jaws in the early hours of the morning, for possibly the first time – it was old housemate’s favourite movie, she loved the book, too. So much so that she used to hide it in the shed so that she couldn’t read it anymore.
Anyway, so there I was watching Jaws for the first time, a bit spooked to be honest – I don’t do scary movies very well. Remember that scene where they’re hunting the poor fishy and he pops out the water and says hello, well I screamed, a very me scream – a town-crier proud scream – so loud in fact that other-old housemate’s boyfriend (who I was visiting at the time) shouted ‘Bloody ‘ell and Flamin’ Nora’ at the top of his voice too, and we woke up an entire row of terraces.
Now, for old housemate’s boyfriend to have been disturbed, it must have been quite a scream, even though I didn’t hear it – screaming is out of my frequency…
Once he challenged me by a loch in Scotland to shout as loudly as I could – I competed against the boys and won. And, I was the only one who didn’t suffer ear damage as a result.
I could probably fill this blog for days with details of all the noise I’ve made, but what really disturbs me is that I can shout in sign language, too. It’s quite alarming but my face gurns wildly, my hands flail about and I literally let rip…
So this got me thinking, if I ‘shout’ in both languages, perhaps if I wasn’t deaf I would still be noisy.
Perhaps I would still whisper in pubs and shout swear words in front of little old ladies on trains…
And for once, it’s quite nice to find something I can’t outright blame on my deafness!
I'm green... honest
Apart from saving the environment and blah blah blah, there’s another good thing that’s going to come out of the increasingly common trend of not giving carrier bags to shoppers. I won’t look like a total idiot!
Here’s what usually happens…
I go into a shop, queue up, buy my stuff and just as I look down to fish my change out of my wallet, the shop assistant whispers so only people who can hear, hear, ‘Would you like a bag?’
Well, that’s what I think happens, and I can usually tell if it has because when I look up I am faced by them staring at me intently waiting for my apparently imminent response.
So usually flail about hopelessly acting as though they have asked me to find the square root of 67,987 and mumble yes, hope for the best. Now, back in the old days before chip ’n’ pin and would you like a storecard/cashback/extra gift for just £1 this used to work.
But today there’s a whole new host of questions coming my way and it can be a struggle to juggle them and guess their order.
Which brings me to my recent visit to Top Shop. There I was trying to look cool as sometimes I think I am bit old for this place, paying for my T-shirt when I predicted that the tweenie, traintracked, size -0 shop assistant asked me if I wanted a store card. So I said no. She repeated the question, which I didn’t hear and again I said no.
Very slowly, she raised her head to look at me, bug-eyed with malnourished over-straightened hair and repeated herself as if talking to a confused elderly lady.
‘E-n-t-e-r y-o-u-r p-i-n. ’
So now I don’t say anything… I pay by cash, I carry a lifetime’s supply of canvas bags (which makes me feel quite ecologically smug) and I never ever, ever answer questions.
Here’s what usually happens…
I go into a shop, queue up, buy my stuff and just as I look down to fish my change out of my wallet, the shop assistant whispers so only people who can hear, hear, ‘Would you like a bag?’
Well, that’s what I think happens, and I can usually tell if it has because when I look up I am faced by them staring at me intently waiting for my apparently imminent response.
So usually flail about hopelessly acting as though they have asked me to find the square root of 67,987 and mumble yes, hope for the best. Now, back in the old days before chip ’n’ pin and would you like a storecard/cashback/extra gift for just £1 this used to work.
But today there’s a whole new host of questions coming my way and it can be a struggle to juggle them and guess their order.
Which brings me to my recent visit to Top Shop. There I was trying to look cool as sometimes I think I am bit old for this place, paying for my T-shirt when I predicted that the tweenie, traintracked, size -0 shop assistant asked me if I wanted a store card. So I said no. She repeated the question, which I didn’t hear and again I said no.
Very slowly, she raised her head to look at me, bug-eyed with malnourished over-straightened hair and repeated herself as if talking to a confused elderly lady.
‘E-n-t-e-r y-o-u-r p-i-n. ’
So now I don’t say anything… I pay by cash, I carry a lifetime’s supply of canvas bags (which makes me feel quite ecologically smug) and I never ever, ever answer questions.
Friday, 25 April 2008
Words aren't all I have
Anyone who knows me will know that I love words – I work with them all day, preening them, honing them, bashing sentences into shape and removing unnecessary punctuation and tutting at misplaced commas.
As a teenager when I was going deafer, it occurred to me that some of my peers, (mentioning no names, Hannah) were using quite humungously-massive words in their 32-page politics essays that I had never heard of. And it got me thinking about why I didn’t know any of these words – and then I realised I hadn’t heard them.
It’s always fairly obvious if there’s a word that I don’t hear very well as I rarely use it – and when I do it’s more of a mumble, often with the beginning and end letters in place but not much else.
This has been the case since I was very little. I couldn’t lipread ‘S’ – it’s an invi’ible letter to the eye. So I used to ask for ’au’age’ and math for tea and my favourite teddy was called ’inging bear. My marvellous mum sat with my religiously going over the letter ‘s’ (she didn’t know I was deaf at the time – I wasn’t keeping a secret or anything – I didn’t know either) and eventually I got it – although until the age of 10 it had a big fat ‘th’ in the middle of it. So I was saying Thinging Bear and Thathaguh.
As I got older it was words like schizophrenic – goodness knows why I wanted to know how to say that word, but anyway I did. But I couldn’t!
It’s such a hard one to lipread so instead it used to come out as skitzopreenic! Or sometimes scitzophrmhmrph.
So once again I sat with my mum going over it syllable by syllable as though it was the hardest word in the English language – but I cracked it and I can say it – and now I am just waiting for my chance to use it!
With my last boyfriend, who was fluent in French, I used to be afraid of saying crepe and Comte – the former sounding very much like crap, the latter sounding like Crumphe. One time we went for a picnic on Hampstead Heath and he took me for a crap and fed me Crumphe. Needless to say, we broke up.
When I watch TV I am completely unable to distinguish one word from the next – but for some reason I seem to forget this and just act like I can hear what the heck is going on. No more so than on a recent flight from Istanbul to London. There I was watching You, Me and Dupree laughing along with everyone else at the crappy antics of the blonde scarecrow-y looking man when all of a sudden housemate said to me, ‘Why are you watching it with your headphones switched to Channel 10?’ I looked at her and replied, ‘because that’s what channel it’s on…’
‘Yes, in French!’ was her response!
Zut alors!
As a teenager when I was going deafer, it occurred to me that some of my peers, (mentioning no names, Hannah) were using quite humungously-massive words in their 32-page politics essays that I had never heard of. And it got me thinking about why I didn’t know any of these words – and then I realised I hadn’t heard them.
It’s always fairly obvious if there’s a word that I don’t hear very well as I rarely use it – and when I do it’s more of a mumble, often with the beginning and end letters in place but not much else.
This has been the case since I was very little. I couldn’t lipread ‘S’ – it’s an invi’ible letter to the eye. So I used to ask for ’au’age’ and math for tea and my favourite teddy was called ’inging bear. My marvellous mum sat with my religiously going over the letter ‘s’ (she didn’t know I was deaf at the time – I wasn’t keeping a secret or anything – I didn’t know either) and eventually I got it – although until the age of 10 it had a big fat ‘th’ in the middle of it. So I was saying Thinging Bear and Thathaguh.
As I got older it was words like schizophrenic – goodness knows why I wanted to know how to say that word, but anyway I did. But I couldn’t!
It’s such a hard one to lipread so instead it used to come out as skitzopreenic! Or sometimes scitzophrmhmrph.
So once again I sat with my mum going over it syllable by syllable as though it was the hardest word in the English language – but I cracked it and I can say it – and now I am just waiting for my chance to use it!
With my last boyfriend, who was fluent in French, I used to be afraid of saying crepe and Comte – the former sounding very much like crap, the latter sounding like Crumphe. One time we went for a picnic on Hampstead Heath and he took me for a crap and fed me Crumphe. Needless to say, we broke up.
When I watch TV I am completely unable to distinguish one word from the next – but for some reason I seem to forget this and just act like I can hear what the heck is going on. No more so than on a recent flight from Istanbul to London. There I was watching You, Me and Dupree laughing along with everyone else at the crappy antics of the blonde scarecrow-y looking man when all of a sudden housemate said to me, ‘Why are you watching it with your headphones switched to Channel 10?’ I looked at her and replied, ‘because that’s what channel it’s on…’
‘Yes, in French!’ was her response!
Zut alors!
Thursday, 24 April 2008
Deaf kisses
When I was 17 years old, I was quite bad tempered. I used to scream, shout and slam doors and generally behave in a common end-of-teenage-years manner. I also used to forget to wear my hearing aids.
So, on one visit to my lovely audiologist for a two-hour long painfully difficult, boring and tear-inducing hearing test I kind of lost it and the world of bad teenage behaviour and deafness merged.
This resulted in a weekly session with a hearing therapist, which pleased me as it also meant time off school.
My hearing therapist was stark raving mad… bonkers and in fact bonking – behind her husband’s back. And, as I didn’t really have any issues with being deaf, it was this that we spoke about. Her bonkers bonking! Isn’t bonking a fabulously 90’s word?
I used to sit there and listen as she poured her heart out to me and wonder what on earth I’d done in my past life to deserve such a liaison when suddenly she came out with something relevant to me…
Well kind of…
While talking about her dalliances out of marriage she suddenly pointed out to me that as a deaf person, hearing sweet nothings in bed would be out of the question and apparently (I was a young 17) lip reading at times like those would also be quite difficult.
I stored this information under ‘inappropriate things grown-ups tell you’, quit hearing therapy and soon grew out of my stroppy phase.
Then, five years later, I found myself on a campsite, in a tent, in the dark with a boy I quite fancied. It was freezing so we were cuddling to keep warm (It was all quite chaste, I promise) when suddenly he whispered something to me.
‘Pardon?’ I said
and he repeated himself.
‘It’s too dark, I can’t hear you,’ I responded.
And so this went on as I frantically scrabbled about for my head torch.
He tried once more with his question when suddenly someone piped up from the tent next door, ‘Oh for god’s sake, just kiss him!’
And the romance was dead.
So, on one visit to my lovely audiologist for a two-hour long painfully difficult, boring and tear-inducing hearing test I kind of lost it and the world of bad teenage behaviour and deafness merged.
This resulted in a weekly session with a hearing therapist, which pleased me as it also meant time off school.
My hearing therapist was stark raving mad… bonkers and in fact bonking – behind her husband’s back. And, as I didn’t really have any issues with being deaf, it was this that we spoke about. Her bonkers bonking! Isn’t bonking a fabulously 90’s word?
I used to sit there and listen as she poured her heart out to me and wonder what on earth I’d done in my past life to deserve such a liaison when suddenly she came out with something relevant to me…
Well kind of…
While talking about her dalliances out of marriage she suddenly pointed out to me that as a deaf person, hearing sweet nothings in bed would be out of the question and apparently (I was a young 17) lip reading at times like those would also be quite difficult.
I stored this information under ‘inappropriate things grown-ups tell you’, quit hearing therapy and soon grew out of my stroppy phase.
Then, five years later, I found myself on a campsite, in a tent, in the dark with a boy I quite fancied. It was freezing so we were cuddling to keep warm (It was all quite chaste, I promise) when suddenly he whispered something to me.
‘Pardon?’ I said
and he repeated himself.
‘It’s too dark, I can’t hear you,’ I responded.
And so this went on as I frantically scrabbled about for my head torch.
He tried once more with his question when suddenly someone piped up from the tent next door, ‘Oh for god’s sake, just kiss him!’
And the romance was dead.
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
...and while we're on the subject
That club and I seem to be building quite a history – something of a love/hate relationship – not one-sided at all
So there I was a few weeks earlier full to the brim with rum.
Now, rum i have just recently discovered makes me very very happy.
I have never encountered this with an alcoholic drink before...
Gin makes me morose and feel middle aged but I love it.
Red wine makes me talk utter crap at dinner parties and burn the pudding.
White wine makes me feel car sick even if I am not in a car.
Rosé reminds me of France.
Port makes me eat thousands of calories of cheese.
Whiskey makes me feel like I have stolen from my father's drinks cabinet
But RUM...
Rum sends me to a happy shiny place, where people look delicious... even rough ugly blokes, and no club queue
is too long, no cab fare too high and no hearing can be done.
Sometimes I think that when I drink rum my eyeballs actually spin around like that indecisive emoticon on the MSN messenger...
Focussing is not a possibility, which means lip reading is out of the question.
So there I was hip shaking with my usual vigour and randomly dropping my glass every few seconds when a guy approached me with a glass of champagne (Crshtal, according to a worse for wear friend). He was cute and kept shouting in my ear (not cute).
I'm deaf, I yelled at him over Kelly Rowland's latest tune, and dropped my glass of Cryshtal...
He replied something in my ear...
Hands free from the recently-dropped Cryshtal, I grabbed his face and put it opposite mine so I could lip read him... and he kissed me!
It wasn't a come-on you randy git, I wanted to scream, but I was otherwise occupied!
So obviously not in any fit state to learn from my mistakes I moved on and found myself cornered by a rather gorgeous guy, who too had a penchant for chatting up my ear...
I'm hard of hearing, I tried this time... to which he replied something to my ear.
So I grabbed his face...
and well, you know the rest...
The rest of the evening passed in a hazy blur... I kissed them both and have no intention of ever seeing them again.
I'm thinking of getting a T-shirt printed for night's out entitled
TALK TO THE FACE, THE EARS AIN'T LISTENING
So there I was a few weeks earlier full to the brim with rum.
Now, rum i have just recently discovered makes me very very happy.
I have never encountered this with an alcoholic drink before...
Gin makes me morose and feel middle aged but I love it.
Red wine makes me talk utter crap at dinner parties and burn the pudding.
White wine makes me feel car sick even if I am not in a car.
Rosé reminds me of France.
Port makes me eat thousands of calories of cheese.
Whiskey makes me feel like I have stolen from my father's drinks cabinet
But RUM...
Rum sends me to a happy shiny place, where people look delicious... even rough ugly blokes, and no club queue
is too long, no cab fare too high and no hearing can be done.
Sometimes I think that when I drink rum my eyeballs actually spin around like that indecisive emoticon on the MSN messenger...
Focussing is not a possibility, which means lip reading is out of the question.
So there I was hip shaking with my usual vigour and randomly dropping my glass every few seconds when a guy approached me with a glass of champagne (Crshtal, according to a worse for wear friend). He was cute and kept shouting in my ear (not cute).
I'm deaf, I yelled at him over Kelly Rowland's latest tune, and dropped my glass of Cryshtal...
He replied something in my ear...
Hands free from the recently-dropped Cryshtal, I grabbed his face and put it opposite mine so I could lip read him... and he kissed me!
It wasn't a come-on you randy git, I wanted to scream, but I was otherwise occupied!
So obviously not in any fit state to learn from my mistakes I moved on and found myself cornered by a rather gorgeous guy, who too had a penchant for chatting up my ear...
I'm hard of hearing, I tried this time... to which he replied something to my ear.
So I grabbed his face...
and well, you know the rest...
The rest of the evening passed in a hazy blur... I kissed them both and have no intention of ever seeing them again.
I'm thinking of getting a T-shirt printed for night's out entitled
TALK TO THE FACE, THE EARS AIN'T LISTENING
deafintely no entry
Last week, I reached new heights in the world of uncool – I got thrown out of a very posh, rather exclusive London nightclub less than 20 seconds after entering. I wish I could blame it on too much champagne – alas we were limited to Cava. I can’t even blame it on my enthusiasm to get into the place – as it’s really rather rubbish. No, once again, it was my pesky ears – things that are no longer something to drip with diamonds, but instead something to get me into a whole lot of trouble and strife.
I’m aurally challenged you see, deaf as a door post and blonde with it – a lethal combination at the best of times and when my brain’s involved, there’s always five star entertainment on offer.
So anyway, to set the scene, there we were, aware of the two-way mirror checking us out to see if we were good looking enough to get in – luckily we are of course all totally fabulous, so no worries there.
The problem is, when I try and look cool, it normally involves staring meanly into space – so allows no room for lipreading.
So when housemate marched passed the bouncers, I naturally followed, flicking my hair in a yes-I-am-a-super-cool-person-who-doesn't-need-to-queue sort of way.
And that's when it happened, I got collared (I finally understand why they call it this). The bouncer grabbed me by the collar of my M&S limited collection coat and hauled me back out again.
BOOM went my coolness
Snigger snigger, went the queue.
So anyway, it turned out that housemate had spun some wonderful yarn about our friends being in there and had been permitted entry to check... alone!
So this is kind of an apology to the rest of the girls, who never even got to see the lobby – it wasn't that special honest!
Still, I suppose it saved us the £1,000 minimum spend and instead we went home, watch Sex & The City and I fell asleep on the sofa, with my contact lenses and hearing aids in!
I’m aurally challenged you see, deaf as a door post and blonde with it – a lethal combination at the best of times and when my brain’s involved, there’s always five star entertainment on offer.
So anyway, to set the scene, there we were, aware of the two-way mirror checking us out to see if we were good looking enough to get in – luckily we are of course all totally fabulous, so no worries there.
The problem is, when I try and look cool, it normally involves staring meanly into space – so allows no room for lipreading.
So when housemate marched passed the bouncers, I naturally followed, flicking my hair in a yes-I-am-a-super-cool-person-who-doesn't-need-to-queue sort of way.
And that's when it happened, I got collared (I finally understand why they call it this). The bouncer grabbed me by the collar of my M&S limited collection coat and hauled me back out again.
BOOM went my coolness
Snigger snigger, went the queue.
So anyway, it turned out that housemate had spun some wonderful yarn about our friends being in there and had been permitted entry to check... alone!
So this is kind of an apology to the rest of the girls, who never even got to see the lobby – it wasn't that special honest!
Still, I suppose it saved us the £1,000 minimum spend and instead we went home, watch Sex & The City and I fell asleep on the sofa, with my contact lenses and hearing aids in!
To new beginnings?
An ex boyfriend of mine, and brilliant writer, once showed me a piece he’d written about how being deaf was something of a ‘love filter’, and although I was seduced by his way with words more than his philosophy at the time, I now realise he was right.
I’ve been in London for four years now and in that time my dating experience has been colourful! When I first arrived, bright eyed and bushy eyebrowed, hearing aids at the ready and owning some rather questionable clothes, I had this strange idea that I would somehow bump into my perfect man and we would skip off into the realm of affordable house buying in London.
But London is noisy, and not very patient for hard-of-hearing, non-signing, lip-reading deaf blondes and although, visually I improved and slipped into the smooth haired, shiny nails, nice handbag stereotype that is overwhelmingly popular in this city, aurally I got left behind.
The first three years were something of a blur – there were cute blonde snowboarders, busy hedge fund boys and rather delicious men in PR, but none of them really got off the ground – none of them really got me.
I remember one of them turned up at my house armed with a blindfold one night and suggested all manner of fantastic fantasies to me, but I couldn’t hear him as I was blindfolded – and saying pardon more times that ‘Oh God, yes!’ is a bit of a passion killer.
Looking back, ex boyfriend’s love filter idea was very true – all these men were totally unsuitable for me – and, because of my deafness, I found out a whole lot quicker than most other women. I pity the ones they’re with now.
About a year ago, my housemate took matters into her own hands and put me on Mysinglefriend.com. Lured by the pretty pictures I was soon hooked. Here was my pick of men – and none of them had phone numbers, just email. So I could dazzle them with my wit, rather than saying pardon every other sentence.
With a firm belief in my love filter, I jumped in head first and dated quite a few lovely men, with the exception of one, who was so boring I actually managed to fall asleep standing up in a crowded Soho bar.
And then, just as my guard was down and my faith in my love filter was at its height, my perfect man appeared. He whisked me off my feet with picnics, silent movies and subtitles for absolutely everything. He treated me like a princess to the extent that all my other friends were jealous and, just as I fell in love with him, he disappeared.
I’m over it now, just and so, with gusto I am throwing my love filter on to my pile of things that don’t work, along with my ears and thinking about where to go next…
I like a challenge, so I think I will try a strange alternative to speed dating I read about in a London paper – it's called dating in the dark.
I’ve been in London for four years now and in that time my dating experience has been colourful! When I first arrived, bright eyed and bushy eyebrowed, hearing aids at the ready and owning some rather questionable clothes, I had this strange idea that I would somehow bump into my perfect man and we would skip off into the realm of affordable house buying in London.
But London is noisy, and not very patient for hard-of-hearing, non-signing, lip-reading deaf blondes and although, visually I improved and slipped into the smooth haired, shiny nails, nice handbag stereotype that is overwhelmingly popular in this city, aurally I got left behind.
The first three years were something of a blur – there were cute blonde snowboarders, busy hedge fund boys and rather delicious men in PR, but none of them really got off the ground – none of them really got me.
I remember one of them turned up at my house armed with a blindfold one night and suggested all manner of fantastic fantasies to me, but I couldn’t hear him as I was blindfolded – and saying pardon more times that ‘Oh God, yes!’ is a bit of a passion killer.
Looking back, ex boyfriend’s love filter idea was very true – all these men were totally unsuitable for me – and, because of my deafness, I found out a whole lot quicker than most other women. I pity the ones they’re with now.
About a year ago, my housemate took matters into her own hands and put me on Mysinglefriend.com. Lured by the pretty pictures I was soon hooked. Here was my pick of men – and none of them had phone numbers, just email. So I could dazzle them with my wit, rather than saying pardon every other sentence.
With a firm belief in my love filter, I jumped in head first and dated quite a few lovely men, with the exception of one, who was so boring I actually managed to fall asleep standing up in a crowded Soho bar.
And then, just as my guard was down and my faith in my love filter was at its height, my perfect man appeared. He whisked me off my feet with picnics, silent movies and subtitles for absolutely everything. He treated me like a princess to the extent that all my other friends were jealous and, just as I fell in love with him, he disappeared.
I’m over it now, just and so, with gusto I am throwing my love filter on to my pile of things that don’t work, along with my ears and thinking about where to go next…
I like a challenge, so I think I will try a strange alternative to speed dating I read about in a London paper – it's called dating in the dark.
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