ME AND MY [RAINBOW] SHADOW

Photo retrieved from: https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2939/14331924701_7ec86e4c5b_b.jpg

June 26^th, 2015 is a day that has implanted itself into the core of my memory. The United States Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, and with prismatic brilliance, yellows, greens, purples, oranges and blues infiltrated our amber waves of grain, swept across our majestic mountain passes, and turned all the eye can see – from sea to shining sea – Technicolor.

And I missed it.

Well, nearly.

No, I don’t live under a rock, but I did have tunnel vision. I write screenplays, and I’ve been so consumed with my latest project, that when I heard the news, I let it course through me. I experienced the joy of prayers answered, called my mom, then filed the celebration away neatly into its own compartment. I spent the rest of the day absorbed in my work and – like the dead – hit my pillow in the middle of the night.

At five this morning, I jolted awake. Had that really happened, yesterday? Did the Supreme Court really legalize gay marriage? In a trance, I flipped through my news feed and saw that I had missed the party of the century. Friends I hadn’t noticed in months, years even, came out of the woodwork with handfuls of glitter and even more love.

Facebook was a disco ball, and my friends were swirling points of light.

Yet I’ve been bothered by my slow response time to such good news. I heard the information, was pleased by it, but refused to let myself bask in all the colors, all the life. I watched the dawn, cigarette in hand, and interrogated myself. What I found, surprised the hell out of me.

To explain, let me transport you back in time.

Whoosh.

I lived most of my childhood and adolescence brainwashed, confined to a miniscule interpretation of The Bible. I was the kid who proselytized on the playground. I wandered up to every child in my fourth grade class, and pleaded with them to ‘accept Jesus in their hearts.’ Invariably, my classmates would ask ‘why’ they should do such a thing, I would respond with some version of: “To escape burning for eternity in a lake of fire.”

I wasn’t very popular.

When I entered adolescence, my brainwashing focused onto a singular issue: Homosexuality. I have always had fair luck with women, and certainly a desire for them, but as my ‘sex bell’ (that’s what I call the pituitary gland) rang, feelings not only for women, but also curiosity for men flooded my most private of thought. Man, I cannot tell you the depth of self-loathing these feelings brought to a young Danny Warn – First Citizen of Sunday School.

Around the same time, I read a passage of scripture in the book of Romans that named homosexuals among a list of ‘God-Haters.’ I was confused, because I loved God, yet the passage stated, in no uncertain terms that I, in fact, hated him. The paradox was too much for my young brain to unravel, so I used the verse as armor: As long as I loved God, I could not possibly have feelings for other men. As my teenage years hit, I became increasingly aware of my same-sex interest, but at the same time, the armor I used as a preteen, became a source of insurmountable denial.

           

My armor became camouflage.

I accepted my feelings for men in one hand, and denied them in the other. The human brain is quite amazing, because I compartmentalized my duplicity – my double life – so well that I wasn’t even aware of the fact that I came out as bisexual to 300 of my peers at youth group. My pastor had asked me to write a testimony about anger. I agreed because I was ever willing to prove myself. I thought about anger, and I wrote about the anger I felt at the world. In my testimony, I blamed my same-sex attraction on the bullying I received in high school – in 9^th grade the upperclassmen labeled me ‘the freshman fag.’ I told the entire youth group that I watched gay pornography, and was angry because the bullies made me believe I might be gay. I thought I was talking about anger. I was really talking about the kind of guilt a person feels when they despise a part of themselves.

I had a Rainbow Shadow, and I hated myself for it.

It gets better (#2,000 and late?).

But first it gets worse.

I experienced one of my most cherished romances my senior year in high school. I began dating a girl I’d had my eye on since the fifth grade. We ruled our high school theater (or ‘theatre’ to the cool ones out there) department together, attended prom together, and embarked on a cross-country-separate-college-long-distance-relationship together (i.e. that time when you realize you confused the words ‘love’ and ‘moronic’). No one was a bigger fan of our relationship than me. I spent student loan money to visit her multiple times, and even surprised her on our one-year anniversary with a promise ring.

A week later, I broke her heart.

I was at a Huey Lewis and the News concert when my fortress of denial came crashing down. I had told this girl I was bisexual, but I was an addict to my own compartmentalization. It was as though I intellectually acknowledged my feelings for men, but refused to accept them on a base level. Huey was singing his heart out, and it hit me all at once. My duplicity. My hypocrisy. My confusion. My doubt. My guilt. All the self-loathing, all the anger, and all the miss-placed shame enveloped me. I remember thinking that my brain was a tornado of emotion, destructive and omnipotent. On impulse, I broke things off with my first love.

Let me be clear: I dumped her a week after I gave her a promise ring.

The phrase ‘dick move’ is a woefully inadequate understatement.

I found myself on the phone with her, late at night telling her everything that didn’t work in our relationship, everything she had done wrong. I attacked her with the immature, cowardly hope that she would accept our parting. She pleaded with me to give her another chance, and something snapped within me. I blurted: “But what if I’m gay?” We ended our conversation, our relationship and our friendship that night.

I dated exclusively men for the next three years. I knew that I had feelings for women, but out of misplaced and insulting loyalty to my first love, I opened one of my handy-dandy compartments and filed the information away. I thought I could win back a friendship with her if I proved to everyone, especially her, that the only reason I left her was because I was a 100% hardboiled-homosexual, born that way, baby. I became pretty stockerish. I contacted her frequently, hoping that the next time we spoke, or maybe the next time, or maybe the next time… she would finally forgive me. I felt entitled to her forgiveness, yet I never gave her an apology from a place of truth.

During all of this, I befriended a girl named Margaret Bezold. We were fast friends, and confided much in one another. She was there through all of my mistakes, and I was there as she found the courage to come out to the world as bisexual. Bolstered by her acceptance, and her command of her own vulnerabilities, I grew confident in my new identity.

I felt as though I had finally come home. I was acquainting myself with a part of me that I had starved for too long. However, I have found that inauthenticity, if not dealt with head-on, has a way of transferring. I became obsessed with gay culture to the extent that I transferred my neglect from my same-sex attraction to my opposite-sex attraction.

Hypocrisy has tended to disguise itself as authenticity in my life.

I wore my rainbow shadow as a cape. It flowed loud and proud, yet concealed half of me.

About one year before I accepted that I might not be gay, but bisexual, I told Margaret that I loved her as more than friends. I freaked out when I told her, and continued dating men for twelve more months. (I know, I’m a freaking head case! It’s okay, you can laugh. It’s funny. I promise.) We moved away from each other, and I spent three challenging months confronting my feelings – trying to piece together the shards of my broken authenticity. I came back out as bisexual.

Just call me the come-out-kid.

A DOUBLE RAINBOW!

I gained enough courage to pick up the phone. I called Margaret and I told her I loved her. She told me to wait a month and tell her again. I waited a month and told her that beyond a shadow of a doubt, I believed that we would wed.

Fast forward two years, and we stood before a host of witnesses and said our ‘I dos.’

Whoosh.

Now we’re in the present again.

I decided to write this post because I am still working toward my most authentic self. I believe that the Supreme Court’s most recent decision hit me in waves, because I haven’t known how I stood with the gay community since I married Margaret. I was ashamed for calling shark, and then dolphin, and then sharkphin. (“Dolphins are just gay sharks.” - Glee)

But shame of any kind cannot survive when millions of voices cry out in glee: “Love wins.”

This morning, a heavenly chorus of people from all walks of life greeted me as they celebrated love in all authenticity. Every celebration, every rainbow, every unexpected ally, touched me to my core.

Now I realize that my rainbow could never have been a shadow. Light pierces all darkness. In light, there is no darkness at all.

Sometimes, the obvious is the hardest thing to find.

Re-Revised Old Paper. Ugg I hate academic writing.

Critics and readers alike have criticized Jane Austen’s Edward Ferrars in Sense and Sensibility. Such people have even gone as far as citing Ferrars as cowardly and feeble – one of the weakest men in Austen’s novels. What was Austen trying to say when she had Elinor Dashwood, heart beating with the author's own brand of feminism [NOUN-ABSOLUTE], marry Mr. Feebility, Edward Ferrars [APPOSITIVE], in the novel’s concluding chapters? The answer is simple: Austen wanted to show that true heroism can be accomplished through honor, integrity and the willingness to stand firmly on one’s resolve. Austen (the baffler of generations) [APPOSITIVE] characterizes Edward Ferrars as Sense and Sensibility’s romantic hero.

Before Edward’s heroic qualities can be examined, one must first determine how to define a hero. Writing about gender roles for the American Psychological Association [PRESENT PARTICIPLE], Alice H. Eagly and Maureen Crowley discuss male gender roles and the forms such roles take on. Explaining this concept further, Eagly and Crowley write: “One such form is heroic behavior, especially altruistic acts of saving others from harm performed at some risk to themselves” (Eagly and Crowley 2). Next, they cite a hero as a man who is distinguished by valor, noble acts, and brave deeds (Eagly and Crowley 2). By Eagly and Cowley's standards, Ferrars would not be identified as the best literary hero. However, he may exemplify the qualities of a romantic hero. While still exemplifying heroic characteristics, a male romantic hero faces a specific type of villainy: A look in the mirror – himself [APPOSITIVE]. In his essay, “Self, Society, Value, and the Romantic Hero,” Fredrick Garber classifies a romantic hero is a person who uses self awareness to stand up for what is right, many times against society’s maxims (Garber 213-218). Garber explains part of this when he writes: “Self-awareness, a recognition of the demands and complexities of his own private being, is, as we know, basic to the position assumed by the romantic hero” (Garber 213). To tie it all together, Garber writes that all romantic heroes have an “unresolved ambivalence toward those values in society that seem continually to press against the boundaries of the self and demand recognition” (Garber 217). Garber does admit that each hero varies in the strength of the stand he takes against himself and society’s maxims, but the stance has to be made nevertheless (Garber 217). So a romantic hero can be seen as a person who – through a deep knowledge of himself and societal norms – stands up, courageous and strong [ADJECTIVE OofO], for what seems right, even if society is in the opposition.

Edward Ferrars is the perfect romantic hero. However, not all hold this opinion to be true. Ferrars’s main flaw in heroic merit is his supposed cowardice. Critics see Edward, devoted [PAST PARTICIPLE], as cowardly and weak because he does not decide to leave his loveless romance with Lucy Steele for Elinor Dashwood: His true love [APPOSITIVE]. While this judgment can be a compelling argument, it is not looking at the whole picture. As the novel begins, Edward finds himself in a dire situation. He has a secret engagement to Lucy, but after meeting Elinor, he falls deeply in love. He finds himself torn by his honor and loyalty to Lucy and his heart. Even at this early stage in the novel, Edward shows the qualities of a romantic hero because at great personal expense, he chooses to honor his history and his pact with Lucy. In addition, he is kind and loving enough to not show Elinor any more affection than he shows the other Dashwoods. This act is an attempt to protect her feelings – an equally heroic act that shows his ability to perceive and protect the emotions of others. Furthermore, as soon as his engagement with Lucy becomes public, his mother demands that he sever the ties, or else she will disinherit him. Still true to his binding agreement with Lucy, and remembering all the sacrifice he had to endure as a result of failing to choose Elinor, Edward courageously tells his mother he will not leave Lucy. Here, Edward acts again as the romantic hero, standing up to societal standard without much care for his personal needs. This act of courage that he commits for Lucy is the carbon copy of what it is to be a romantic hero. If he had simply left Lucy for Elinor, as the critics suggest, he would be no hero at all. Rather, he would be yet another male who jilted his girlfriend, leaving her for someone better.

Forward: I do not know what a noun absolute is. Can someone help me out? Oh, and this is not the entire essay. Enjoy!

Edward Ferrars in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, has received criticism by critics and readers alike. Edward is cited as cowardly and feeble – one of the weakest men in Austen’s novels. What was Jane Austen trying to prove, then, when she had Elinor Dashwood marry Mr. Feebility, Edward Ferrars [APPOSITIVE], in the novel’s concluding chapters? The answer is simple: Austen wanted to show that true heroism can be accomplished through honor, integrity and the willingness to stand firmly on one’s resolve. Austen (the baffler of generations) [APPOSITIVE] characterizes Edward Ferrars as Sense and Sensibility’s romantic hero.

Before Edward’s heroic qualities can be examined, one must first determine how to define a hero. Writing about gender roles for the American Psychological Association [PRESENT PARTICIPLE], Alice H. Eagly and Maureen Crowley discuss male gender roles and the forms such roles take on. To explain this further, Eagly and Crowley write: “One such form is heroic behavior, especially altruistic acts of saving others from harm performed at some risk to themselves” (Eagly and Crowley 2). They then cite a hero as a man who is distinguished by valor, noble acts, and brave deeds (Eagly and Crowley 2). A romantic hero, then, is a subtype of a hero. While still exemplifying heroic characteristics, a male romantic hero faces a specific type of villainy: A look in the mirror – himself [APPOSITIVE]. In Fredrick Garber’s essay, “Self, Society, Value, and the Romantic Hero,” which appears in Victor Brombert’s The Hero in Literature, a romantic hero is a person who uses self awareness to stand up for what is right, many times against society’s maxims (Garber 213-218). Garber explains part of this when he writes: “Self-awareness, a recognition of the demands and complexities of his own private being, is, as we know, basic to the position assumed by the romantic hero” (Garber 213). To tie it all together, Garber writes that all romantic heroes have an “unresolved ambivalence toward those values in society that seem continually to press against the boundaries of the self and demand recognition” (Garber 217). Garber does admit that each hero varies in the strength of the stand he takes against himself and society’s maxims, but the stance has to be made nevertheless (Garber 217). So a romantic hero can be seen as a person who – through a deep knowledge of himself and societal norms – stands up, bravely [ADJECTIVE OofO], for what seems right, even if society is in the opposition.

Edward Ferrars is precisely such a hero. However, there are multiple critics that think the opposite. The main fault found in Edward’s heroic merit is his supposed cowardice. It is believed that Edward, devoted [PAST PARTICIPLE], is cowardly and weak because he does not decide to leave his loveless romance with Lucy Steele for Elinor Dashwood: His true love [APPOSITIVE]. While this can be a compelling argument – and certainly an easy one to make – it is not looking at the whole picture. As the novel begins, Edward finds himself in a dire situation. He has a secret engagement to Lucy, but after meeting Elinor, he falls deeply in love. He finds himself torn by his honor and loyalty to Lucy and his heart, which belonged to Elinor. Even at this early stage in the novel, Edward shows the qualities of a romantic hero because at great personal expense, he chooses to honor his history and his pact with Lucy. In addition, he is kind and loving enough to not show Elinor any more affection than he shows the other Dashwoods. This is an attempt to protect her feelings – an equally heroic act that shows his ability to perceive and protect the emotions of others. Furthermore, as soon as his engagement with Lucy becomes public, his mother demands that he sever the ties, or else she will disinherit him. Still true to his binding agreement with Lucy, and remembering all the sacrifice he had to endure through not choosing Elinor, Edward courageously tells his mother he will not leave Lucy. Here, Edward acts again as the romantic hero, standing up to societal standard without much care for his personal needs. This act of courage that he commits for Lucy is the carbon copy of what it is to be a romantic hero. If he had simply left Lucy for Elinor, as the critics suggest, he would be no hero at all. Rather, he would be yet another male who jilted his girlfriend, leaving her for someone better.

Swiping Dora's Exploration

First of all, when I read Dora’s journey through writing, all can picture is Dora the Explorer. You know, the little Mexican-American cartoon girl on television. She yells things like, “Swiper no swiping!” and, “We did it! We did it! We did it!” Dora the Explorer is a children’s television program that is supposed to encourage children to problem solve, think critically, and never be afraid to learn.

SINCE I was picturing Dora (the cartoon) while reading the article about Dora the writer, I couldn’t help but imagine the article as another episode of Dora the Explorer. As I watched Dora progress, I imagined her jumping up and down saying: “I did it! I did it! I did it!” I saw her celebrations and her frustrations, but loved her determination. I found myself rooting for her, cheering her on. I wanted to exclaim: “You’re doing it! You’re doing it! You’re doing it!”

In the television show, there is a character named Swiper who likes to steal things. To keep him from thievery, Dora yells: “Swiper no swiping, Swiper no swiping, Swiper no swiping!” In the same way that Swiper shouldn’t steal the various things that Dora holds dear, educators mustn’t swipe a child’s ability to learn. As I was watching Dora explore punctuation, I knew that I must refrain from stepping in and telling her exactly what to do. The teacher in the story was correct when she let Dora develop hypotheses her own. If the teacher had sat down with Dora and told her everything she had done wrong, a chorus of ‘Swiper no swiping’ should have sounded in the room, because that teacher would have been swiping Dora’s chance to learn.

How do we, as teachers, promote an environment of self-discovery?

FANBOYs of Elitism

I am a fan of FANBOYS. It is quite a great tool to remember coordinating conjunctions. However, while I love the tool, it is not new to me. In my blogs, I have detailed the new aspects of grammar that I have learned thus far. Even so, this is not to say that I have not learned something infinitely valuable in the past few days. I have learned something that has everything to do with this class and my future as a potential educator and citizen.

I have learned about the evils of elitism. As our class looked at student writing, something happened that I see now as insidious. We made fun of the writing, bashed our heads against the tables and groaned. It seemed like simple, innocent fun, but it was representative of that “teacher’s lounge” elitism that makes educators unapproachable and devalues the potential of the student.

I did not see this right away, but after receiving an email from our teacher – Barbara Monroe – I was humbled to a great degree. It was as if I had been goliath, and a measly rock slung from a small David had taken me down to size. Now I see that David is king, and students should be our focus. Monroe made a great point when she wrote that it isn’t the fault of the students that they have not perfected writing. It is our job to teach them, and re-teach them if we have to. As educators we should be civil servants, not pompous puritans.

It strikes me as odd that many of us approached the student writing the way we did. Teaching was supposed to be of interest to everyone in the room. Instead, the only thing that seemed of interest to many of us was bullying these children behind their backs. I for one, am ashamed of myself. When we make fun of the work of students we are not TEACHERS; WE are scoundrels.

To play the devil’s advocate, I am sure none of us would treat children this way in the classroom, but it is a slippery slope. One moment, we are joking with our contemporaries, and the next moment we are ruining the English educations of this nation’s youth. I am so sorry.

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Is there ever a time when a sentence can be started with the word, ‘because?’

Those Fancy Terms

Have you ever just accepted something because it sounded fancy? When we were young, we did it all the time. Before we develop minds of our own, we assume a person that is using complex terms to explain something knows precisely what they are talking about. For instance, I used to think my friend Jesse knew a lot about politics. However, as it turns out, he is just an average Joe who knows how to use the hot-ticket political terms. He is no better at actually understanding politics than Sally Sue or John Smith.

Here’s the thing though – not many people are willing to question Jesse about politics. It is almost as though he is off-limits to all critical thought. The only reason for this that I can think of is that he knows how to employ fancy terminology. The problem is only intensified because if the people around him do not fully understand the words he is using, they don’t ask him to define anything. I believe they don’t want to seem ignorant. In this way, Jesse continues to be considered a guy who understands politics quite well.

I say nay.

While I can see through Jesse’s facade of fanciness, I find myself making the same mistakes as the people who think he is a great political mind. What I mean by this, is I sometimes just accept complex terminology without really understanding what it is that I am acknowledging. I feel like I do this in the subject of grammar all the time. In example, I have never understood what transitive versus intransitive verbs are. I have known the terms for years, but I always just accepted them as fancy ways to say something was a verb. AND I never asked what they meant. I accepted the fancy.

After a few weeks in Barbara Monroe’s grammar class, I finally came across the meaning of transitive/intransitive verbs. In sentence structure, a verb is transitive when it has an object attached to it. So, in the sentence, “Seth uses glitter pens,” the word ‘uses’ is a transitive verb because it is using the glitter pens. Here, ‘glitter pens’ is the object that makes ‘uses’ a transitive verb. On the flip side, and intransitive verb has no object in the sentence structure. The object is merely implied. An example of this would be, “Seth uses.” In this case, ‘uses’ is an intransitive verb because the object of the sentence is only implied (the object being drugs).

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Do I understand transitive/intransitive verbs correctly?

What I have Learned

Learning is an interesting phenomenon. Some say we are life-long learners. Others say that our brains are like storage disks, and they will eventually fill up. Still others say that while we do learn, the brain is like a muscle. If we spend too much time on the couch watching TV, that muscle – among others – will deflate. However, as far as metaphors go, I prefer the idea that the brain is like a sponge; it absorbs knowledge and does chores. At the same time though, if it cleans too much of one thing it starts to fester and smell bad. (No one likes stinky knowledge.) In this way, I believe it is a good idea to give the sponge multiple tasks, rinsing it every so often to make sure that the knowledge we want to use in the future does not fester.

While I am on the subject, I would like to address some of the knowledge my brain has absorbed in the last two weeks about grammar. To preface this, I have had a comma splice on my shoulder about all things grammar for quite some time. I am simply egotistical when it comes to the stuff. With that said, it is with my deepest humility that I inform you of my greatest lesson of all. (In fact, I would say that I am the best learner I know.) You see, I have realized that I am not infallible. There are times when I am WRONG, BUSTED, IGNORANT.

Amidst the time that I learned how wonderful I am at learning, it also occurred to me that I did not know all the uses of a parenthesis. It has been my general understanding that parentheses are used when you want to insert a thought within a thought without screwing up sentence structure. (It is quite Inception-esc, is it not?) I have always believed that parentheses were only used within a particular sentence structure. I thought the only pace they were found was somewhere in between a capitol letter and a period. While reading The New Yorker, I learned how wrong I was. I found a parenthesis that was its own sentence. Thus, it was a thought between thoughts. (Instead of being once removed from the sentence structure, it was once removed from the structure of the paragraph.) It was a parenthesis that was its own sentence. I was floored.

This leads me to another important lesson that I have learned: Never assume you understand all the rules of an element of grammar (because you will be surprised). Also, I believe it is appropriate to raise this question: Is it permissible for me to end this paragraph with only two sentences (while using similar structure in both)?