the road from hell is paved with carpet

i walked out during a poem

from the front row where my interpreter sat

i say, with confidence:

go back to ASL 1:1, pilar. they're looking for a teacher's aide.

and don't try anything too difficult.

bright young woman, really nice sweater, but i have never spent so much time picking apart the knitting method of a sweater (see: learning to knit but also see: fury and see: boredom)! she was just mangling and mangling and i had to sit on y figurative difgers rather than tell her how little she understands ASL and english. she's so bright her candle wanes. never once does she question her understanding of ASL, english and the her assigned definition of each sign and word.

she MANGLED 2/3 of the poems and the ones she saved fared no better. mine are meant to be signed next to a display of text. theirs are pretty but her word choice was sometimes so discordant she's crazy confident she has it all right. maybe she didn't understand the poignancy of each word.

she got three or four dark enough poems right by the end and is by no means dumb. bonus points for figuring out the tone and changing her concept of a poem for the last stanza or few.

stay on as a teacher's aide and don't start interpreting professionally again until you're so bored your only alternative to finding a better sign or signed sentence to express intent is death, like poems are inevitably about.

extinguishing.

seriously, i can't remember all the words i know the key to, all the words i wonder about and unlock three more definitions to on top of the four i already learned. always keep looking up everything you thought you knew as you brush up on what to know.

knowledge is best serviceable when it's useful. "knowledge" in the 1860s-1980s is the "what to know" post-wikipedia. i unplugged in 2006 to focus on the real world. i'm not sorry yet.

when a word means soaring and another means coasting along you damn well sign the difference. SHE AIN'T KNOW THE VOCABULARY BUT SHE KNOW DAMN NMS LIKE SHE AIN'T FAILIN'!  her ASL vocabulary is "kill in a hospital setting" shitty.

chris owens  is, like, interpreter of a FUCKING COUNTRY. of many twenty-thousand years.

he needs an office because he's a once-in-a-lifetime experience. sign up just to have a day interpreted by chris owens.

sophia  (CODA, need last name, shit) is actually the only one who could kick his ass. cannot.express. my. LOVE. she always, always figures out a word as she goes along. she is a GENIUS. she needs her law degree STAT.  supreme court , here comes sophia.

the girl will RUIN your dresses. and you'll never realize all the slithers she trails as she turns are your own robe shreds.

rachel. smart as the bunch and a total DODD. DAUGHTER OF DADAIST DANCER.

jessicah and michelle steele. the only jehovah's witnesses you ever want over for thanksgiving. super brilliant.

LOL SHE WILL NEVER BELIEVE ME  debbie whatsitnow? she is awesome.totally does not let your snippy opinion change her career or careen it smashed. she never made me mad outside of creative writing class. so

many

more

to name. dave coyne has really jerky movements and i can't recommend him unless it's more important to have a terp you can really hang out with. he is smart smart smart, shrewd in the goodest, bestest way, and he is on the opposite end: chris owens here. dave coyne there flip side of the coin, and the dark side of the moon if ever you ask. casually. i love them both.

dawn cartwright  is now dawn caudill. despite her despotic ways and sneaky evils to kill careers she is the reason cincinnati interpreters have a fairly ethic approach to Deaf people. put simply: most people can tell more of the bad ones from the good ones.

pilar totally passes for a good one to us all but i caught her out. i chose to lipread along.

SHE IS SHIT ON PRETZEL STRAWS.

SHE WILL WEAK HER SAUCE.

then, before his poem about crucifixion...which i walked out on

i was going to VOICE my poem at the end. FUMP.

the dipshit goes on and on about

AWW ASL IS SO SPECIAL WOW SPECIAL NEEDS PEOPLE CAN APPRECIATE POETRY

i will institute my rule from now on

i will make an announcement to read all poems in writing myself to see where ASL could not cover the english

i did not want my other BFF ASL to take a beating cuz ASL has more awesome storytelling power

than english

so next week i want to tell a poem in SEE, then three ASL versions to show how vastly different the interpretation has to literally be to  expand on one theory.

it's just not a written language with root words based on the first few letters.

it's got shapes and slopes.

i wish i were more me. i didn't mean to stay quiet. i shouldn't have. i woke up at 5:30 boiling.

THE INTERPRETERS MAKE IT SO WONDERFUL IT IS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL THING TO SEE THIS IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE IT FEELS AMAZING TO KNOW OUR WORK IS BEING SHARED IN A BEAUTIFUL LANGUAGE

THEY LOOK SO BEAUTIFUL

and pilar looked so elegant and her NMS are excellent

but she is wrong and she will get YOI wrong mister

she got all flattered and fluttery and then she GOT EGO

and pulled out her drama school abs!?

no, do not act out the crucifixion with increasing smugness because some old scruffy white guy

FINGERBLASTED YOU.

that's when i turned instead of

you. suck. you need to go back to dumbass 101: open a dictionary!

you would kill so please don't work at a hospital or in a courthouse

man, you never thought poetry could be so awesome, huh?

your native tongue fares no better than the one you paid for!

and left. there were people i had wanted to stay to support. i was gonna ask to read their stuff afterward.

BUT I GREW UP AROUND HUNDREDS OF KIDS WHO NEEDED ASL

when i was two at most, maybe still 1 1/2, bob my husband xxx teacher mmmm 40s? but so HANDSOME  mmm my husband okay told mom to stop using ASL with me, as it would rot my brain.  this was serious grown-up conversation time. they tried to break her week after day.

she's really smart! she'll be dumb faster than you can make the switch when it's too late.

he pressed her to use SEE, what was that? i asked in the car. she explained.

that is how i came to hate SEE. and that is the school system that forced it on us.

dad never quite got on board. he stayed mostly ASL.

the kids i grew up with--

pilar could never get how to work this ASL thing.

they couldn't get their language until it was too late to fully grasp--

they i grew up with.

i walked out.

if you can't tell, don't.