Advice for Those in the Friend Zone

I'd like to speak to some of the menfolk for a moment.* Specifically, I'd like to speak to those of you stuck in the "friend zone." You know who you are. You've got a bunch of lady friends who love you so much - as a friend. You're so nice to them, but they never see you as more than just a friend, preferring to date jerks who treat them terribly. Well, I want to say that I understand your pain. For a long time, I too found myself in such a situation and I know how frustrating it can be. So now, somewhat older and more experienced, I'd like to give you all a little bit of advice.

Get the HELL over it.

Why I am no longer an Eagle Scout

On August 22nd, in a small manila envelope, I mailed my Eagle Scout badge and medal to the Boy Scouts of America National Executive Board, along with a letter explaining why I could no longer associate myself with the organization. If you're interested, you can read the text of my letter here, and can read some of my prior thoughts on the matter here and here.

This wasn't by any means an easy decision for me. For many of you who've only met me within the last decade or so, the fact that I am - was - an Eagle Scout is probably a pretty early thing you learned about me, and your response was probably something to the effect of "Of course you are." Many of you who knew me before that attended my Eagle Scout Court of Honor, and some of you knew me primarily or entirely through Boy Scouts (heck, several of you are Eagle Scouts yourselves). Those of you who've known me since elementary school may remember that one day a year when Cub Scouts - often just me - came in to school in their uniform. And if you knew me before I was in Scouts... well, I think there may only be three or four of you out there, tops, that aren't related to me.

Point is, being a Scout has been a big part of who I am since I was seven, nearly as long as I can remember. I distinctly remember, one of the main reasons I joined was because my cousin had just earned his Eagle Scout badge, and I wanted to do the same. So I joined up, and over the course of the next twelve years I went into the same Boy Scout troop my cousin had been in, held leadership positions (including being in charge of the whole troop as Senior Patrol Leader), went back to my Cub Scout pack as a Den Chief, was staff at leadership training camps, camped in all sort of weather including sub-zero temperatures, went hiking through the back country trails of Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, and worked as Field Sports Director and Nature Director at a Cub Scout Camp. Shortly before I turned eighteen, after months of planning, organizing, and hard work, I'd actually done it. I earned my Eagle award. That was thirteen years ago, and it's remained one of my proudest achievements.

But I can't do it anymore. I can't continue to associate myself with an organization that betrays their own ideals, their own history of including boys of different races and religious affiliations long before many other groups did, by unanimously reaffirming in a "secret council" to maintain their policies excluding lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans* youths and leaders. I can't be true to the many loved ones I have that lie along the LGBT spectrum or to myself as an atheist, another group considered too immoral to be members, while continuing to link my name up with them.

You who know me well also know that I'm not really one for making big statements. I like to be quiet, to support more privately, and keep out of the spotlight (and no, acting doesn't count.) Hell, that's part of the reason this blog is so infrequently updated. While I support a number of progressive causes, I'm not likely to be found at protests, or rallies, or otherwise actively, publicly advancing those causes. Rightly or wrongly, I feel like I don't have much of value to contribute.

But... I can do this. And I'm not the only one. At the time I write this, at least 156 Eagle Scouts, some who earned their badges back in the 1950s, have sent their badges back to the National Council to let them know that this is not okay. And it's not because we don't love Scouting. We do, so much. Many people I talk to or who write online about this think that the Boy Scouts is a hopelessly outdated relic, with nothing of value to offer youths of today. Well, I don't think that's true. I personally got an enormous amount from Scouting. More than nearly any other thing growing up besides school and my family, the Boy Scouts is responsible for making me the man I am today, and I know many of these other men feel the same. But that's why we have to speak up, because they can do better, and we feel they're worth saving. And if they won't, if they continue to betray the very ideals that made them great and that people like me hold dear, then they're going to find themselves consigned to the wastebasket of history, a shadow of their former selves, left behind by standing still.

For it to possibly make any difference, of course, it needs to be public, and loud, so that the National Council knows that the American public can see that these former Eagle Scouts - held up as the best, the highest pinnacle of Scouting - wants nothing more to do with them. So this is it, my resignation. It hurts, it feels like I'm giving up a crucial part of my identity. And I hope that they'll eventually come around, because they are on the wrong side of history. But until that time, in order to stay true to my ideals, ideals that the Boy Scouts ironically helped instill in me, I can't support them anymore, even if it is only in name.

I am no longer an Eagle Scout.

To Joy

I'm not a music person, not really.  I mean, I enjoy music, of course.  Well, certain music.  But it never really seems to... I don't know, transport me the way it seems to for so many other people.  Maybe it's some sort of in-born temperament thing, or maybe it's because I never really learned the language of music properly, I don't know, but music rarely speaks to me the way many other types of art do.

I'm best with highly narrative music.  I do love me a good story, more than almost anything else, and music can certainly be a way to do that well.  When there's no real story evident though (to me, at least), I find it much harder to grab onto it, emotionally speaking, and it becomes just sort of pretty sounds to me.  I find this is especially bad with things like jazz and classical music, music that I know - I know - can be profoundly emotional artistic statements, but the meaning, the true genius of these pieces, always seems to be just out of sight for me, and I feel like I'm missing out.  It's like listening to a foreign language: you may find it pretty, even beautiful, but you don't understand.

Sometimes, though, sometimes... I catch a glimpse.

Duty to God

Exactly one hundred years ago last month, Chicago publisher W. D. Boyce incorporated the Boy Scouts of America, several months after being helped on a foggy London street by a boy who refused a tip, explaining that he was simply a Boy Scout doing his daily good turn.  Much has changed over the past century, but much has not.

I've mentioned before that even if I wanted to get back into Scouts as a leader I couldn't, not without being dishonest with them and with myself.  See, I'm an atheist, and the Godless are one of the three "G"s not allowed into the Boy Scouts, along with Girls and Gays.  I was only just starting to figure this out in high school, after I was well into Scouts (and had earned the Methodist religious award).  Even though I've only started calling myself an atheist within the last few years, at the time I was definitely at least an agnostic, and became pretty uncomfortable with the religious aspects.  I kept my mouth shut, though, because I loved Scouts, and wanted to see it through to my Eagle.

Of COURSE I Knew That....

The majority of my posts have been of the "lengthy diatribes on serious social issues," and I've been snowed in for the past five days, so I think it's time to lighten up a bit.  (Don't worry, we'll get back to the social commentary soon enough.)  With that in mind, here's a brief list of pretty obvious things I didn't realize until well after I should have, along with the age of realization.  Note that they are all from my late teens or later.

1. "The Beatles" is a pun, not just a creative misspelling.  I remember realizing this, and thinking back to the old episode of The Simpsons where Homer is in a barbershop quartet.  The whole story was a reference to the Beatles, I understood that at the time, but when they were thinking up a name and Professor Skinner said they needed "a name that's witty at first, but that seems less funny each time you hear it," and Apu suggested "The Be Sharps" it sailed right over my head.
   Approximate age of realization: 18
2. The lead singer of Rush is male.  All right, to be fair about this, I never really listened to Rush all that much.  Honestly, they kind of annoy me.  Not that big of a deal.
   Approximate age of realization: 19
3. My grandmother has a New York accent.  And boy, do I mean a strong one.  It's not like it's subtle or anything; it's full-on New Yawker.  She's just always talked (tawked) like that, and I never really gave it a second thought.  She just had Grandma voice, that was all.
   Approximate age of realization: 22
4. The song "Black Velvet" is about Elvis.  This one was really more a case of never actually listening to the lyrics outside of the chorus.  I do that a lot, actually.  I usually have to make an effort to listen to lyrics, and not just drift off during songs.  I was driving home one day and the song came on the radio for the billionth time during my lifetime and I thought "Hey, I wonder what the rest of the song is about?"  Turns out it's obviously and blatantly Elvis.  Huh.
   Approximate age of realization: 25
5. The word "segue" is pronounced "segway."  See, okay, I knew the word pronounced "segway," and could use it properly in a spoken sentence, and I knew the word spelled "segue," and could use it properly in a written sentence, but I thought the former was spelled "segway" and the latter was pronounced "seeg" (long "e", hard "g").  I guess I thought they were synonyms or something.  I finally realized it when someone else mentioned to me that they were once confused on that point.  I kept my mouth shut.
   Approximate age of realization: 26
6. The term "upwards of" a number means "more than," not "almost."  I have no excuse for this one whatsoever.  This is also one of the few where I was caught out by someone, and had to be convinced of my error, because my version was so ingrained in my head by that point.
   Approximate age of realization: 27
7. The old joke "I don't trust anything that bleeds for three days and doesn't die" is talking about women. This is one that I first heard long before I knew what a period was, and by the time I did know had long since relegated it to the back of my mind, in the "weird crap that makes no sense" bin.  It was revived years later while watching Mel Brooks's High Anxiety, but since the joke in the movie is that the guy had actually been bleeding for several days without dying, it didn't help.  It only popped up in my head and clicked into place for no apparent reason I can remember maybe a year ago.
   Approximate age of realization: 27 
8. The cookie brand "Chips Ahoy!" is a pun on the phrase "Ship ahoy!"  Nothing special triggered this one.  A commercial came on TV, and it just suddenly clicked.  This was maybe a few weeks ago.
   Exact age of realization: 28

So there you go.  All minor things, to be sure, but still.  So what sort of things did you not realize until embarrassingly late in life?

Privilege

I've been thinking a lot about privilege lately.

See, I'm a very privileged person.  Oh, I don't mean I'm wealthy or anything; far from it, but the simple fact is that I have advantages that many people simply do not have, unearned advantages that I was simply born with.  I'm a straight, white, naturally-thin male who was raised Christian and who, while not wealthy, has never been exactly poor.  There are doubtlessly many other privileges I have that I don't have space to list, or that I don't even know I have.  Because the thing about having privilege is that... well, it's hard to see, when you have it.

There are, of course, many things that can go wrong when one has privilege, especially when one can't see it.

Starry-eyed

I had the best of intentions Thursday night, I really did.

I had the evening to myself, no chores or work that required my immediate attention, and I was going to make the best of it.  I was going to update this blog, or finally organize my backlog of photos, or revive my essentially-defunct photo website.  I was going to be productive, and not just spend another evening playing around on the internet.*  I really was.

But I got home from work and found a telescope on my porch.

Now, it wasn't precisely a surprise, since I had ordered it myself back in August and have been waiting for it anxiously ever since, just a little disappointed every day I came home and there was not a package on my porch.  It's a Galileoscope, developed as a cornerstone of the International Year of Astronomy (which, as I'm sure you already know, is/was 2009) and specifically designed to be a high-quality but affordable telescope, with an emphasis on education (discounts for bulk orders, classroom activities, etc.)  Assembly is purposefully required, both to save on cost and as a learning experience (while the assembly is pretty easy, the included directions are incredibly terrible.  The expanded directions online are highly recommended.)  It can be used in three different configurations: 25x, 50x, and 17x, the last of which closely mimics the view through Galileo's original telescope.

I've always wanted a telescope.  I could never quite justify the expense, though, and didn't want to settle for a piece of crap, so I never asked for one growing up, and never went out and got one myself.  But still... I've always wanted one.  And now, with the good reviews this has gotten from trusted sources, I was willing to shell out the thirty-some-odd bucks including shipping and treat myself for my birthday (as I said, it took a while to get here.)

So, instead of doing something artistically productive, I built myself a telescope (which took longer than it should have, because of the aforementioned terrible instructions) and within minutes was in my backyard, looking at Jupiter, Callisto, Io, and Ganymede, all clearly visible at 25x, even in the middle of light-polluted Baltimore.  Once Annie got home, we went up on the roof and looked at the waning gibbous moon and the Pleiades.  I can't wait to show her Jupiter and it's moons, which had set by that point, and Saturn, which doesn't rise until about 3 AM right now, and whatever else we can see in the glare of the city.

But, really, this post isn't about my shiny new toy.**  It's about why I was so excited, why I was out late in the cold on my front porch to see if I could find the Orion Nebula (I couldn't).  Astronomy was the first science that I remember really, truly loving, and it remains my favorite of the sciences.  I majored in physics, spent five years doing school programs on a variety of scientific topics including biology, paleontology chemistry, and currently -- exclusively and inexplicably -- do classroom programs on embryology, but it was the astronomy programs in my college's planetarium and in the portable Starlab during those five years that I think I liked best.

See, astronomy, in many ways, is a gateway science.  I can't tell you how many science people (researchers, educators, or simply dedicated geeks), regardless of their field, have told me about simply looking up at the stars when they were kids and wondering.  It sparked something in them, a humbling awareness, a questioning, a yearning of some sort, though obviously they didn't recognize it as such at the time.  They, and I, simply looked up and went "Wow."  Many of them went on to apply those same feelings to other areas, whether it's stem cell research, organic chemistry, nuclear physics or, yes, astronomy.

But astronomy opened so many more doors than that.  It's no exaggeration to say that the human race itself was introduced to science via astronomy.  Many, many thousands of years before we could view or measure much of anything else scientifically, we could do it to the heavens.  The sky is enormous (many of us forget, since we usually focus on what's right in front of us), and mysterious.  Few things are so universally spread out through ancient myths across the globe as the stars, sun, and moon are.  They were gods, spirits, demons, heroes, life-givers.  They were omens, portents, signs, symbols.  They were patterns, stories, histories.  And they were predictable.  These incredibly important things that everyone could see, things that supposedly could determine our future, or give us a clue as to the workings of the gods, could be understood.  From these superstitions came the very first systematic scientific observations and recordings.  Those ancient astronomers/astrologers (for at the time, there was little distinction) viewed and charted when the sun rose and set, how it rose higher in the sky during summer and lower in winter, the phases of the moon and when it rose and set, how they could interact to cause solar and lunar eclipses, the positions of the stars relative to the sun throughout the year, what constellations were visible when, the movements of each of the planets, and so many, many other things that could be seen simply by looking up and paying attention.  So for millennia, these observations were recorded, and all the while we wondered what, exactly these lights in the sky actually were.  How far away are they?  What are they made of?  Why do they move as they do?  How do they relate to the Earth?  Do they affect us?

Four hundred years ago, in 1609, an Italian scientist named Galileo Galilei made significant improvements to a new Dutch invention for seeing across long distances that would later be called the telescope, and turned it skyward.  The observations he made through those simple, early telescopes and the theories proposed based on those observations are easily among the most important in the history of science, and inarguably helped kick-start the entire field of modern science.  Even more than that: he forever changed how the entire human race views itself, and its place in the universe.  It had been assumed that all of the heavenly bodies were perfect spheres manufactured by God hisownself, but Galileo saw rough mountains on the Moon.  Even the supposedly all-perfect Sun turned out, under Galileo's watchful eye, to have the occasional spot on it.  Everyone knew as well that everything in the sky rotated directly around the Earth, but Galileo saw four moons going around Jupiter.  Ah, but the major things, like the planets themselves, they still went around the Earth!  But Galileo saw that Venus had full phases, new, crescent, half, gibbous, full, and back again, while never going very far from the Sun.  The Morning Star, the brightest object in the sky after the Sun and Moon, was orbiting the Sun, not us.  We were not the center of the universe.  This was, to put it lightly, a humbling discovery, and affected every single aspect of our lives, far beyond science.

And now, four hundred years later, a dozen human beings have set foot on the Moon.  We have sent probes to land on and orbit around other planets, to leave the solar system itself and report back to us.  We now know that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies, untold numbers of stars (septillions?), black holes, quasars, pulsars, nebulae, and more.  Over just the last decade and a half, we have discovered hundreds of planets going around other stars, and it's only a matter of time before our observations are keen enough to find ones that are Earth-like.  We are learning more and more every single day about the entirety of the universe, everything that is, about the nearly 14-billion-year history that brought us here and about what might happen next.  And when I go out amidst the glare of city lights and look through my cheap, plastic telescope to see shadows on the Moon, and the Galilean satellites of Jupiter, and the rings of Saturn, to see them, to really see them, not as a picture, not as a video or computer animation, but to really SEE them, right there before my eyes just as Galileo did, I feel a sense of awe at being part of such an unimaginably vast cosmos, and feel connected to all those who went before me, looking up and wondering and thinking, turning the world around and upside-down, even back to the dawn of civilization, and forward to all those who will come after, and look up at the stars, and wonder.

And that's why this post is late.

*Likely would have ended up spending it playing around on the internet.
**But, seriously, I've got a shiny new toy.

A Brief Introduction

I'm not good with words.

I know, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement, stoking the fires that make you want to check this blog every day, but it's true. It's always been true. For as long as I can remember, I've had difficulty with words, and it's gotten worse as I've gotten older and had to express more complicated ideas. I mean, I can string sentences together; I know how to use proper grammar, spelling, punctuation and such, but I have a great deal of difficulty figuring out what to say.

Usually, when presented with a new idea or situation or whatever, it takes me a long time to figure out what I really think about it. I may have some sort of broad "like/don't like" gut reaction, but it takes me quite a bit to determine why I feel like that. By the time that I do, the conversation (if not several days, and the occasional glacier) has usually moved well past me. When I do finally find the words to express how I'm feeling, I tend to run them over in my head again and again to make sure they're right before I let them loose in the wild.

Unfortunately, they're often insufficient, so upon further questioning I stumble and flail and repeat myself, using different words, hoping that I'll hit something by chance that'll accurately get my feelings and opinions across. It rarely works. Often, I somehow manage to get across the exact opposite of what I'm trying to say, or something incredibly insulting that doesn't truly reflect how I feel, and that causes me to muck about even more while trying to repair that damage while at the same time trying to get across whatever point I was trying to make in the first place.

Now, I know, I know, this sort of thing happens to everyone, especially if sitcoms are to be believed. But it seems to happen more to me than to others, and has been known to cause me to freeze up during very important and intense conversations, which makes everything that much worse. As such, I tend to rarely offer up an opinion, and going on about something that I actually feel strongly about can give me the shakes. I've gotten better in recent years, but it's still very difficult for me to feel like my words are really getting across what's going on inside of me. Even now, I'm wondering if this post is getting the right message across or is an unintelligible jumble of self-pitying nonsense.

But that's why I'm here. This is going to be a place where I can actually put down in words what I'm thinking and feeling, and enlarge upon and defend those ideas and feelings if necessary. There might emerge a coherent theme among the posts eventually, but for now it's just going to be me thinking out loud. In print. On, um, the screen.

...you know what I mean.