Author: lkvy

I'm a Deaf vagabond currently living in Montréal. Bicycles dominate my life, but I also make time for climbing, hiking, camping, and cats. And if I have time left over after all that, I write about it.

A Scorpio below the Tropic of Capricorn.

~ lkvy ~ 2 Comments

Tomorrow I start my 24-hour 3-flight journey to Trelew, Argentina. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. It’s a great relief that this time my travelling pal, Mélissa, will be on the same flights as me. I am counting on her to be entertaining enough to compensate for the absence of captioned movies on these flights. I’ve had to endure many entertainment-deprived flights including the 15 and a half-hour haul from Vancouver to Sydney, Australia. Don’t be surprised if, by the time we land in Trelew, Mélissa will have a head full of micro-braids because I’ll need something to do while she watches Super Troopers 2 back to back to back to back…. to back.

White girls on vacay!

Continue reading “A Scorpio below the Tropic of Capricorn.” →

Life as a living canvas.

~ lkvy ~ Leave a comment

When I was 19, the mother of my then-boyfriend pointed to my ears and went, “Ewwww.” She was not referring to my deafness; she was saying to my face that she thought my stretched earlobes were ugly. In hindsight, I should have had the guts to inform her that her bowl haircut was gross but not as appalling as her manners. Her manners, by the way, got her sacked from her job at a Christian bookstore as well as from Mrs. Fields’ Cookies.

That’s right: she was too rude for Jesus and baked goods.

I was 19 in 2002, and this was right around the time stretched piercings started going mainstream. It was still during a time when stretched ears were reason enough to be denied a job. It was not that having a hole in your earlobe that was the problem, but the size of the hole. How big is too big? If one jumps from 14 gauge to 12, would that person be rendered unemployable?

It was up to the company where to draw the line.
Continue reading “Life as a living canvas.” →

365 days later.

~ lkvy ~ Leave a comment

Here are my nine most popular posts on Instagram from 2018:

bestnine2018

I don’t like that my most popular picture was a… selfie. My parents deserve all the credit for creating my face. 35 years ago their deoxyribonucleic acids (that’s longhand for DNA) merged and 9 months later I happened. All I did was take a few snapshots at an arm’s length on the balcony on a sunny day and posted the best. (Besides, my coolest tattoos are on my lower half.)

Perhaps it was the thrill of seeing my hair out of braids? My hair didn’t do much growing this year, but I did.

Here are nine moments of glory from 2018.

Continue reading “365 days later.” →

Nothing about us without us.

~ lkvy ~ 1 Comment

If you follow me on Instagram and follow me closely enough to stay updated on my Stories, you would’ve caught my overview of the shitstorm caused by a popular YouTuber on Sunday.

I’m not going to repeat as much of the details here as I don’t want to direct further attention to this person’s channel.

The story begins with a hearing person with no ties to the deaf community who gained notoriety for her “ASL” videos of songs. The spoken portions of her uploads are often not accompanied by captions thus making them inaccessible to deaf people who rely on them.

That’s not all; she decided to start selling ASL-themed merchandise. At this point, Chrissy Marshall of The Essential Sign and 50+ other members of the Deaf community convened to write an open letter delineating the issues with what this person was doing. The letter was very polite and informative, yet it resulted in posts on Instagram, Twitter and even a new non-captioned video by this person accusing the Deaf community of attacking her.

Continue reading “Nothing about us without us.” →

The reality of being a successful Millennial.

~ lkvy ~ 2 Comments

While I was taking time off work to recuperate from my injury, I got so bored that I dared to sort through my cache of important papers. I’m only partially organized in that everything was dumped in one small box, from my secondary school transcript to a jumble of tax papers from the last decade.

Canadians are only required to keep income tax records from the last six years, so it was time to get rid of some retro government documents.

I was shocked by how little money I made in my mid-20s. In 2008, my employment income was just under $13,500. This was the same year I took a three-week trip to Europe. I remember being told by my mother, “You are so lucky you have the money to travel!  I can’t afford to travel!”

Continue reading “The reality of being a successful Millennial.” →