Teej's Secret Box

As a deaf person with both ears unable to interpret sounds below around 105 decibels, I have to depend on hearing aids in order to partly hear some sounds. Those devices do not make me a hearing person, as it only “improve” my hearing loss to moderate deafness. Much better than profound deafness, but still far below what people would assume to be normal hearing.

As an aside, cochlear implants are also limited in this manner, only improving the sense of hearing to a certain extent. Far better than hearing aids, but not up to normal hearing levels.

To compensate for the limitation, the digital hearing aids I have are designed to be optimized toward the vocal range of sounds, making those sounds as prominent as they usually are, and minimizing the sounds in the background. For someone with a less severe deafness, this is a godsend, but for me, my hearing loss is so bad that I can’t even hear the silent accents of certain words.  After all, people with moderate deafness can not hear them either without the use of devices to improve their hearing.

So hence the important value of speech therapy and lip reading education.  I spent most of my life constantly improving my ability to read people’s mouths along with hearing their sounds.  As part of hearing their voices, I believe that I analyze those sounds differently than most hearing people.  Instead of having an intuitive phonics structure in their head, which they directly translates to the words, I do a big database search in my head for the closest related word that the partial sound may most represent.

To me, “true” sounds exactly the same as “screw”, because I can not detect the distinctive difference of U and W, and the sharp silence of T versus the softer silence of S.  So not only do I look for the closest related word to the sounds, I also search for the context of the word accompanished by neighboring sounds.  “That’s so true” versus “You drop your screw” are very distinctive for me, and allows me to figure out which word a person would be saying.

But there is a problem with this solution — the inability to interpret multiple words.  I become far more reliant on the subject being covered during times like this — not only because I may be unable to interpret a word, but for several important reasons:  Inability to see a person’s lips; too much background noises; and too different of an accent.

Accents are part of what make a verbal language so interesting.  It help identify the person’s origin, along with their upbringing.  The deeper drawl of a Southern accent is probably the best accent for me to interpret sounds, due to the more audiable silent sounds, and the careful emphasis of the words compared to other accent make them clearer for me.

In a conference room with three co-workers this past week, one a Western accent, one sharp Asian accent, and a Southern accent; I realized that I was able to understand the person with the southern accents far better than any of the other two accents.

It is to my dismay that despite this huge advantage, this person is fond of changing his subjects, which is a challenge for me, when I finally do make a miss on a word or two he is saying.  Not only that, he would start a conversation without waiting for me to focus upon him, making it much of a challenge to catch up.

Being Deaf in a hearing world is an incredibly hard challenge to say the least.

Man, I need a haircut.  Perhaps I should start shaving my head.

Thanks to genetics from my mother’s side (which I am told is the real reason, despite my efforts to accuse my dad), I am now pretty much mostly bald.  There is a small patch of hair on top of my head that is holding a fading war of attrition, slowly yielding the flesh to the daystar above.

I am not all that upset about the fact that I am going bald.  No, not really.

I do not feel any urge to grab a bottle of “re-gro” hair products, nor do I feel a desire to spray gunk on my hair to make it seems fuller.

It is just a problem of looking good, and yes I can be a bit vain about this.  There are concerns in the past that I would not look all that good with a shaved head.  But with the new glasses I have, I must admit that I looks pretty damn good with a shiny forehead (“…that glows from the lightening flash…” — shut up, David).  The only concern is getting a good hat that fits the look without requiring any facial hair.  It is perhaps genetics, but I definitely do not look good with any type of facial hair.  Any goatee would seem as if it’s chopped off in half by my mouth.  Mustaches would compete with my chin.  Sideburns are not an option.

The other problem is the maintenance factor — it is one thing to shave your face every day, it’s another to shave your entire head.

One way or another, hopefully I can decide this weekend.

Since, of course, I need a haircut.

With a yawn, a stretch, and carefully placed scratches done in a deep stupor, I am now ready for some blog posting.  Yes, I have been neglecting my Wii Fit exercises, but I got something better in return.  Yes, I have been neglecting posting on the blog, but I was doing something better.  Yes, my life is one hectic mess especially at work, but I was generously rewarded over the weekend.

As some may know, I met and fell in love with a wonderful woman back in June while visiting Salt Lake City while she was in town for work.  It was a perfect opportunity, I thought — to meet a couple of old classmates from decades in the past and catch up on the news with them.

An old classmate turns out to be something so much more.  We spent so much time talking to each other on ooVoo, using webcams.  Our hands flew, expressing our thoughts in ASL.  We talked politics, weather, sports, computers, and our love for each other.  There would sometimes be a few lulls in the conversations, leaving us to stare at each other, and then the conversation somehow got restarted and went anew.

She enlightens me, and emboldens me.  We understood each other with such great ease, and trust each other with such fullness.  There is such a comfort level I feel, that makes me feel so alive.  A friend noted it the best — “I am so living.”

We both are very rational, trying to be sure we are not doing something wrong, but every time I try to find a new wall to bump into, I keep stumbling across into new boundaries.  I learned so much about myself, and how I love people, because I am exploring new territories with her.

Our relationship is unorthodox.  It is also limited by distance — she lives in Virginia, and I live in Arizona.  So many mile separate us, so much desire pulls us.

How unorthodox is it, you may ask?  Well, it just so happens that she is married.  Not only that, her husband knows and have approved of it.  How can it be?  But do read on, my dear reader.

We finally met again at her place over the Independence Day weekend, and there were such passion, so much release of pent-up demand.

Fortunately for you, my dear readers, it is not all I have done.  I was able to meet with several fantastic friends.  They were quite hilarious, and were quite a wonderful group to hang out with.  We went to the Salem Fair together on its opening day, and had a blast.  We had one friend’s daughter’s birthday party, and a social cookout event the same day, where I got to meet old friends and teachers from days long past.

Enough of that chit-chat, you cries!  What is the story behind my lover and her husband?  Well, we are auditioning for a new movie, “The Thief, The German Cook, His Wife, and Her Lover part 2”.  I am still waiting on Gysen to opt in for playing the role of The Thief….

(Okay, that’s an inside joke that only Jill would understand.  Sorry to the rest of you folks.)

Seriously, Heather and her husband both have a long-standing agreement that they are welcome to be with anyone for a nice fun in the romp as long as they make sure each other knows ahead of time.  It was slightly misunderstood that it really was limited to just a fun romp, and not a “Let’s fall in love with the World” kind of thing.

Somehow, in this whole plot of having a fun romp, Heather and I just hit it off well, too well.  It is not a matter of intimacy we craves (although that is something we both identify with as our main “Five Love Language”), but also the bonding that we somehow achieved over time.  I looked over to Heather at one moment at Salt Lake City, and told her that I trust her.  For those of you who really understand me, this is a major leap of faith.  Hell, I never trusted Jill completely, and she has been my closest friend for years.  In a moment, I now understood why it is possible, and yet why it can seem so cruel to those who fails to win this trust from the ones they lust after.

It is the willingness to involve someone with you in every single aspect of your life (except going to poop, we will pass up on that, thank you very much.)  It is the implicit understanding that we are responsible for each other on many levels, as it is us versus the world.

Or in our case, Peter, Heather, and me versus the world.  But Peter did not quite expect that.  He thought it was still just a fun romp wit long-term.  But when he saw us together, his fears that have been nagging him for years flamed up.  Throughout the week, I knew there were something’s up, and struggled to gain his trust enough to find out what it could be.

Finally, he expressed his thoughts over a course of a couple days, enough for me to wonders what I have been missing.  It turns out that Heather and Peter both have been having some struggles with inertia on their relationship, due to classic signs of misunderstanding due to cultural differences.  Peter is a true German, while Heather and I like to pretend from time to time.  He is hearing, while we are deaf.  Those subtle differences are still enough to ruin perfectly good relationships.

But it did not ruin this one.  As much as I would like to take the credits, it was they who were willing to listen, discuss, and find new ways to rekindle their own relationship.  It is clear they both deeply love each other, but they don’t understand each other perfectly.

First step I took was to make them read “Five Love Languages” – a task they will have to do soon.  Secondly, I took Heather aside, and after relaxing her a bit, started asking her for her side of the issues I have heard from Peter.  It was an enlightening experience, as she admits that she did not want to involve me in this struggle.  I had to point out that love is a journey through the good and the bad – the fantastic experiences, and the deep struggles.  Taking the journey together is the whole point.

The following morning, I got her to be with Peter, and they both came clean – sharing their fears, concerns, and thoughts.  They came down with me to continue the discussion, where it became clear that misunderstandings were pretty much the cause of it all.  It is amazing that when a person desires something to help improve their own life, it can easily be interpreted as the willingness to leave the other person if that person is a roadblock to said improvement.

It is very subtle, and something I am glad to be able to help point out.  The release was clear, and the trust in each one of us grew the more we understood each other.

My relationship with Heather as a lover, and Peter as her husband is growing every day.  We both find the time to chat every moment we could, and I am longing to return to see them, especially Heather (no offense, Peter – I am a ladies man. )

The funny thing about this whole thing – I do not feel as if I must be exclusive to Heather, nor does she wish for me to be so.  If I happens to find wonderful people out there that mutually wants to be together, we could, as long as Heather knows.  Yet with this new relationship, I do not feel in a rush to pick the nearest woman (despite a few obviously wanting a round or two).  After all, Heather has indeed been spoiling me.

I know this will be a shock to people out there, but as I see it now:  I don’t care.  I do care for my lover and her family’s welfare, and will guard it zealously.

I had a great weekend, and I look forward toward many more.

P.S.  Hai Majide!