(no subject)

Something really cool happened to me Monday. I was walking back to the car from work (I'm too much of a cheapskate to buy a parking permit, so I have to walk a few blocks, which is good exercise anyway) and listening to NPR. And, as I sometimes do for practice, I was fingerspelling to myself, this and that word that struck my fancy in the news broadcast. And sometimes that would remind me of some sign or other and I'd sign a few words to myself. I only have one deaf friend to practice with and we're both busy at work these days, so I practice by myself a lot.

I was striding along with the radio talking in my ears and something touched the back of my left arm. I turned, and there was this big african-american guy smiling at me. And as soon as I make eye contact, he started *signing*! I'm not very good at reading sign language yet, but I caught the words for "see" and "deaf" and "sign"

signed back slowly and haltingly "No, I'm hearing. I learned sign language..." Here I lost the word and kind of paused, and he signed "class" while looking at me inquiringly. "..from class in...at...West High School"

He signed "My name is C-H-A-R-L-E-S"

I signed "My name is C-A-T" He kept looking at my hand after I quit spelling (now I think maybe it was because I was holding the T too long and should have dropped my hand back to a neutral postion, but at the time I thought he was wondering if he'd read it right, so I continued "sign name cat/smile" (my sign name is the sign for cat (put both hands to your upper lip, pinch imaginary cat whiskers between each thumb and forefinger, palms facing each other and other fingers extended, and pull both hands apart about 2 inches) but made with an upward curving motion. It's much quicker to make a sign than to fingerspell something out, so I gather deaf people usually use sign names, frequently some combination of a fingerspelled letter and a position or motion or both.

It was just very cool to meet another deaf person (besides Judy, I mean--though Judy is very cool too), and to actually be able to communicate, at least a little. I want to get better at sign language.