universal language of signs
yesterday
I'm outside of the Registry of Motor Vehicles, (because there is no better way to spend a beautiful day off than to wait for an hour at the RMV in order to renew the registration on your car) and I'm locking my bike to a nearby steel fence. I look up and see a Hispanic drunk shambling towards me, his face slack with whatever was buzzing through his system, his eyes half-lidded in stupor. We make eye contact and he smiles and giggles and makes a noise that begins like a bumblebee buzz and ends in a "cigarillo?"
I shake my head. Sorry, man, none here.
He doesn't comprehend and comes closer, asking the same question, and I shrug emphatically and shake my head even more and say, "no cigarillo"
I can smell the Corona, he's getting this close. He reaches an arm out, looking like he's going to lay it on my shoulder, and he's still smiling.
My right arm flies up and pushes him away. Sorry to bust your buzz, man, but there's this thing called personal space. His eyes blink wide in alarm, his face has an unexpected look of hurt and guilt. I hold my hands up to hopefully calm him down. I realize that I'm still holding my bike lock in my right hand and it probably looks like a weapon.
I bring my right index and middle finger to my lips in the universal sign of cigarette and I raise my eyes and nod slightly. He acknowledges and asks to bum a smoke again. I shake my head one more time. He nods finally and chuckles as his non-verbal way of saying sorry. His eyes swing left, scanning over my bike and he pats it. I fight the urge to smack his hand with my lock and wait for him to walk away.
I am a fucking freakmagnet.
today
I'm packed up and heading out for the day, and on my way out, I'm waved over by Ghedi, the office's night-shift guard, a Somalian who's become my silent compatriot in late shift work. He asks if I speak Chinese, and I say "no." He asks if I know anyone who does, because he's got this laptop with a problem ... and I ask him to show it to me.
If there's one thing that is nice about the Windows interface, is that it's consistent across languages. Doesn't matter if the PC talks French, Swahili or Arabic -- the Control Panel still looks like the Control Panel and you can still get to it if you hit Ctrl-Esc S C. The back of my head wonders if the Russian equivalent for Control Panel begins with a 'C', and if Russians feel strangely put upon to have to hit C to bring it up.
Apparently, Ghedi borrowed the laptop from his Taiwanese roommate, and he uses it to while his nights away with DOS emulator games and Solitaire. The machine's stuck in a low resolution because of something he did ("everything's so small") and he's afraid that his roommate will yell at him for breaking the display.
The man sounds so meek and fearful, I wonder what he'd do if he actually caught someone trying to break into the building.
Getting to the display settings is easy enough and there are enough visual cues available to reset the screen resolution back to its normal settings. I hand the laptop back to him, all fixed and he asked, "how did you do know to do that?"
"computers speak their own language, Ghedi, you'll figure that out after a while. It makes dealing with them a little less painful."
"Thank you, Cris, good night. I hope I don't see you until tomorrow."
"That's you and me both, Ghedi."
I'm outside of the Registry of Motor Vehicles, (because there is no better way to spend a beautiful day off than to wait for an hour at the RMV in order to renew the registration on your car) and I'm locking my bike to a nearby steel fence. I look up and see a Hispanic drunk shambling towards me, his face slack with whatever was buzzing through his system, his eyes half-lidded in stupor. We make eye contact and he smiles and giggles and makes a noise that begins like a bumblebee buzz and ends in a "cigarillo?"
I shake my head. Sorry, man, none here.
He doesn't comprehend and comes closer, asking the same question, and I shrug emphatically and shake my head even more and say, "no cigarillo"
I can smell the Corona, he's getting this close. He reaches an arm out, looking like he's going to lay it on my shoulder, and he's still smiling.
My right arm flies up and pushes him away. Sorry to bust your buzz, man, but there's this thing called personal space. His eyes blink wide in alarm, his face has an unexpected look of hurt and guilt. I hold my hands up to hopefully calm him down. I realize that I'm still holding my bike lock in my right hand and it probably looks like a weapon.
I bring my right index and middle finger to my lips in the universal sign of cigarette and I raise my eyes and nod slightly. He acknowledges and asks to bum a smoke again. I shake my head one more time. He nods finally and chuckles as his non-verbal way of saying sorry. His eyes swing left, scanning over my bike and he pats it. I fight the urge to smack his hand with my lock and wait for him to walk away.
I am a fucking freakmagnet.
today
I'm packed up and heading out for the day, and on my way out, I'm waved over by Ghedi, the office's night-shift guard, a Somalian who's become my silent compatriot in late shift work. He asks if I speak Chinese, and I say "no." He asks if I know anyone who does, because he's got this laptop with a problem ... and I ask him to show it to me.
If there's one thing that is nice about the Windows interface, is that it's consistent across languages. Doesn't matter if the PC talks French, Swahili or Arabic -- the Control Panel still looks like the Control Panel and you can still get to it if you hit Ctrl-Esc S C. The back of my head wonders if the Russian equivalent for Control Panel begins with a 'C', and if Russians feel strangely put upon to have to hit C to bring it up.
Apparently, Ghedi borrowed the laptop from his Taiwanese roommate, and he uses it to while his nights away with DOS emulator games and Solitaire. The machine's stuck in a low resolution because of something he did ("everything's so small") and he's afraid that his roommate will yell at him for breaking the display.
The man sounds so meek and fearful, I wonder what he'd do if he actually caught someone trying to break into the building.
Getting to the display settings is easy enough and there are enough visual cues available to reset the screen resolution back to its normal settings. I hand the laptop back to him, all fixed and he asked, "how did you do know to do that?"
"computers speak their own language, Ghedi, you'll figure that out after a while. It makes dealing with them a little less painful."
"Thank you, Cris, good night. I hope I don't see you until tomorrow."
"That's you and me both, Ghedi."