whoa

im stepping out of my usual political shit to speak straight from the source to your eyes, girls and boys. things have been kind of nuts for me lately. yeah, inside and outside and all the other sides. im in love, im looking for a home, im looking for a real job. i have a lot of stress and pressure from all sides, especially inside. you know what, when you're 25 nothing ever comes fast enough, and when it doesn't you have a tendency to blame yourself. such is life.

we're deaf people in a really fucked up city. one of the most "kultyyyyyural" places in the world, yeah, and one of the most prejudiced. try being a deaf person calling about a job. trust me, nothing more depressing than having a relay person tell you "they said they don't take calls from deaf people and hung up." assholes. they even turn you down secondhand. and yet we have shit like the deaf awareness festival which brings hundreds of deafies together and advertises how wonderful we are.

does anyone think it's kind of funny that on deaf awareness week all deaf people want to do is be with each other? funny funny and funny nice, but not funny peculiar (eh defbef?)

tonight i had this voice in my head. it was a really dark voice. it said my education was wasted. it said i was a failure and probably would always be so. it said the universe was against me. it was the kind of voice that builds walls around you in your head and mesmerises you so carefully you never notice youre being bricked in until it's too late to do anything but scream. and yeah, a lot of this voice comes from being here, in a world that does not care for fairness, as a deaf person. but you know what? i told the voice it was an idiot. i said nobody was a failure at 25. i said their (meaning hearing peoples') criteria for success were just that - theirs. hell, it's not that unusual. it's the same thing artists and gay people and black people have seen. and other deaf people too. but this time it kind of took.

and maybe love has a little to do with that. and maybe not. sure, this is the real world. what of it? im real, too. and i know how to use a shovel, and really, in the end, you wake up, you go outside, and you step into this rich texture of the world, and it feels like everything is singing to you, just waiting softly for you to join in, and i'm supposed to listen to a damned voice telling me how much of a failure i am?

so: deaf awareness week. not for failures. that's my awareness. that's my week.