The view from the microscope slide.
Jun. 12th, 2011 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdymonkeyO My Friends, why do I feel as if I Am Being Watched?
I am not a Laurel. I do, however, have any number of friends who are, some having achieved that status before I met them, others having received and accepted that SCA "job offer" since I got to know them. Most of the time I can geek happily and comfortably about whatever I'm currently into in conversations with these fine folks.
Every once and awhile, though, I feel like I'm on a microscope slide as one of my friends innocently (or perhaps not so innocently?) says, "Really, that's fascinating, tell me more about it." I can't say why, I can only acknowledge that it happens and that it happened again this weekend.
It's not as though I don't know I've chosen the Road Less Traveled. Despite the cheerleading efforts of one late Dance Laurel and Viscount to encourage me, I've pretty much chucked my so-called bardic career down the midden. I still don't care if I ever sing a note in front of other people ever again. I had the audacity to be Japanese in the West Kingdom when it was considered the purview of "fringies." The only Westerner that I'm aware of to have received a Laurel in "Japanese Studies" passed away years before I moved out here. This, of course, means that my friends have to say "Really, that's fascinating, tell me more about it," because I want to do/make/study stuff that no one at the Laurel level is doing in this kingdom.
Why does all this occasionally make me paranoid? Because it does. It feels almost completely random and silly because it was triggered by a conversation with a friend, but I can't not acknowledge that it doesn't happen to me.
And of course, if someone is watching, someone is reporting back to the Council. How to discuss someone's SCA career path when nobody in the group has expertise in that person's chosen area of activity?
The mind boggles. And sometimes the boggling gets in the way of a perfectly good time doing cool stuff.
What a silly game we play.
I am not a Laurel. I do, however, have any number of friends who are, some having achieved that status before I met them, others having received and accepted that SCA "job offer" since I got to know them. Most of the time I can geek happily and comfortably about whatever I'm currently into in conversations with these fine folks.
Every once and awhile, though, I feel like I'm on a microscope slide as one of my friends innocently (or perhaps not so innocently?) says, "Really, that's fascinating, tell me more about it." I can't say why, I can only acknowledge that it happens and that it happened again this weekend.
It's not as though I don't know I've chosen the Road Less Traveled. Despite the cheerleading efforts of one late Dance Laurel and Viscount to encourage me, I've pretty much chucked my so-called bardic career down the midden. I still don't care if I ever sing a note in front of other people ever again. I had the audacity to be Japanese in the West Kingdom when it was considered the purview of "fringies." The only Westerner that I'm aware of to have received a Laurel in "Japanese Studies" passed away years before I moved out here. This, of course, means that my friends have to say "Really, that's fascinating, tell me more about it," because I want to do/make/study stuff that no one at the Laurel level is doing in this kingdom.
Why does all this occasionally make me paranoid? Because it does. It feels almost completely random and silly because it was triggered by a conversation with a friend, but I can't not acknowledge that it doesn't happen to me.
And of course, if someone is watching, someone is reporting back to the Council. How to discuss someone's SCA career path when nobody in the group has expertise in that person's chosen area of activity?
The mind boggles. And sometimes the boggling gets in the way of a perfectly good time doing cool stuff.
What a silly game we play.
