Friday, June 23, 2006

See and hear no evil

Last night, while waiting for a bus in downtown Austin, a blind man was sitting next to me. I looked at him. He probably heard my breathing. I can't hear but can see. He can hear but can't see.

How would I tell him something? Fingerwrite on his belly? It'd freak him out if I touched him without saying a word. And how would he tell me something, even if he managed to understand that I was deaf? If he was blind all his life, would he know how to write? He got some training, I'm sure. Is teaching a blind person to write like teaching deaf people to speak?

"People tell me I have a clear handwriting, as clear as a mountain lake. They tell I have a beautiful handwriting, as beautiful as a newborn doe or a freshly showered Angelina Jolie." *holding up a barely decipherable sign*

That's why I don't get too mad at hearing people for asking dumb questions about us. ;)