Jumping on the bandwagon long after most people have gone to their destinations...

[jducoeur]

So Mr. Perpetually-Behind is only now wading through this particular meme. But late or not, it's one of the more interesting ones I've seen lately, so I'll jump in.

The problem with LJ: we all think we are so close, but there is a lot we don't actually know. So I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away.

Comments

[jducoeur]

Of course, pretty much all of my clubs involve funny hats at least some of the time. But I'm going to assume you mean the top hat.

Like many people, I really got intrigued by Masonry through conspiracy theories -- probably originally from Illuminatus, but memory fades. And I realized fairly early that Baron Steffan was a Freemason (I think I first found out during my sophomore year of college).

So there came a very complicated conversation with Steffan, about two years after I graduated. He startled the heck out of me by asking, out of the blue, if I was interested in becoming his Esquire. And then I startled him just as much by asking to join the Masons. This began a habit of freely mixing conversations about the two clubs, which persists to this day. (Our standing joke is that we always talk about the SCA at Lodge meetings, and always talk about Lodge at events.)

Anyway, I joined, and almost instantly got sucked into line. Masonry has a concept of "line officers": a chain of up to eight officers, theoretically advancing one seat a year until you land in the Master's chair. I actually got skipped directly to the fourth chair (the lower three are mostly for people who are timid about ritual, while they get used to the idea), and have been an officer ever since. I did my term in the East (the Master), decided it wasn't my cup of tea (while there's a lot of cool ritual, the job is *mostly* Cruise Director), and established that I would thereafter pinch-hit in whatever seat they needed from then on...