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a kiss and the finger

October 16th, 2004

Some of the reasons I love my job:
Vermont State Poet Grace Paley kissed me on the check tonight after I interpreted her poem (and was introduced as Stephanie Van Kent, has a nice ring to it, don’tcha think?!) 🙂 She did two of the most common things that non-deaf people do when they meet Deaf folk – show off the sign language they know and comment on learning the language. But I must say that she added quite a unique twist to both of these – such that she bridged the crosscultural distance and made interpersonal contact with the Deaf members of her audience in a heartbeat.
What I will say, is that her “sign language” wasn’t exactly ASL, and her reason for thinking she ought to learn it wasn’t uttered in the Queen’s English. She’s a hoot!