Johnny B. Goode

(Photo of Sea weed at The Sea Ranch)

I rise to a point of clarification. Sorry I've always wanted to say that. A few days ago on Facebook I posted a status that said It's called Deafness not Gayness Dumbass. There are things in life you can control. How much you eat, how much Grey's Anatomy you watch, and how you talk to people. Then there are things that you have no control of, the little flukes of nature and genetic material that you acquire through the process of your creation that by nature make up who you are. Its a great thing, a strange and wonderful combination of what comes from your genetical line that makes up a person or as my biology professor put it A little from Column A and little from column B and BAM! There's you.

As some of you who know me I have a wee bit of a hearing impairment that requires me to wear hearing aids. The joys of hearing impairment is that often times it comes with a little bit of lisp and I talk with my hands (a lot. sometimes it looks like I'm directing air traffic.). I've gone through years of speech therapy to help me with my S sounds. Which is why I hate Sally Sells Sea Shells at the Sea Shore. I always thought Sally's business plan was a little off. Why would you sell something at the location of where you could purchase it? I always wanted to go to the sea shore and pick up sea shells and dance around Sally and be all look at me Sally I'm picking sea shells for free! HA! If you ever want to know what Speech therapy is like read David Sedris book Me Talk Pretty One Day the first essay sums it beautifully.

So why this big conversation about my hearing impairment and slightly fun lisp and big hand gestures? The other day I had a situation happen in which I heard someone I didn't know very well go "I love to hear that gay kid talk" (heads up hearing impaired people can still hear. Oh. and we read lips pretty well too.) and I turned around I looked at the person and I said I'm deaf not gay and second of all its none of your business. I want to stress though that while I am personally not gay I have many friends who are and I bare no political agenda. people are who they are. But like Oscar tells Felix in the Apartment "You know what they say about people who assume? It makes an Ass out of you and me." I don't see how my sexual orientation plays into the way I speak but for some people it does.

There. I've risen to speak on how hearing impairment doesn't equal gayness. Let's not visit this issue again shall we? Now if you excuse me I have some sea shells I need to go throw at Sally.