(no subject)

[vaxjedi]

More beating a dead horse...



*sigh* I seem to be over-sensitive still. I found some comments about the Back Table on a grinnell web site and my immediate reaction is to get incredibly defensive. When I see people say "The Back Table are..." I still translate it into "Blade is..." in my head. I react to it the same way that people react to "Black people are..." and "Hispanics are..." and "Fags are..."

And I want to scream at people. That you don't know what you are talking about. You don't understand what the label meant, you aren't the one who created it, who lived it, who was kept alive by it.

The division between myself and my community was very faint in my mind, and I guess it still is. I adored the drama, even when I was suffering. I adored being so close to my friends that every breath they took was one I shared. I guess I was just a co-dependent person in co-dependent heaven. I was partly who I had connected to. I was larger, more, better because I was spread across so many beautiful, brilliant, interesting fucked-up people. I mean, I was an anarchist and a freak and a weirdo, but I still wanted to be more.

And I feel silly, because there are people who will look at me and say "Haven't you just gotten over it?"

And I know there will always be sin-eaters, people that others will take potshots at, blame without thinking or who will find reasons to dislike. A group of people who handle the world differently and claim an identity (or are associated with an identity) make an easy target.

But I just can't help hearing "Blade is..." in all of that. Blade is good to have around so other people have something to look down on. And Blade is just a freak. And Blade is unfriendly to outsiders. And it's Blade's fault that some jerk at Grinnell walked in on a few back table people having sex in a lounge - like Tablers are the only people to have done that. And it's Blade's fault that some Table people didnt like other people and wanted to avoid them, like no other group of people have ever done that. Grrr.. GRRRR.

So... the moral of the story is that Blade can't let certain things go. That I can't fully except that I'm not part of the Back Table and how it stands at Grinnell, that they don't know me from Abel.

Comments

[bunyip.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

[tsjafo.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

[daenin.livejournal.com]

Blade is a warm, awesome person with lots of nifty ideas in his head. You think for yourself. You feel emotions. You give a damn about your friends. You give awesome hugs.
The Back Table was very important to you. It sounds like you added a lot to it while you were there, and put a lot of yourself into it to make it special.
You add a spark of life and uniqueness to your surroundings, even away from the Back Table.
I'm glad you're in my life.
Hugs!

[ladyotterfae.livejournal.com]

I think all of us who were there, at whatever time during the backtable's existence, still hold tightly to what it meant to us, and how it defined us. Healthy or not, it was and is a huge part of the lives of those of us who were touched by it, and added to it.

I've read some of the badmouthing I believe you're referring to. It's rather painful. Particularly since I've been on campus recently. There isn't any table up there, to speak of. No one for them to really slam, aside from a small, very small, group of friends who keep trying to rebuild a social community that most of them have only heard stories about.

However, one thing should be noted. During most of my stay on campus, the backtable was largely ignored. and nearly perished for lack of new people. Maybe the virulence of the idiots is unpleasant for those of us who needed that group to have a 'home' at college. But maybe it will also point out the group to people who could use that support. Without another generation, the backtable is over, except as a memory, and a community of previous graduates scattered around the world.

As for the rest of your self-flaggelation... you know better, Blade. Yes, you highly identified with the backtable. Yes, you always will. However, what people say about it is not aimed at you. What becomes of it does not necessarily have to be what becomes of you, unless you chose for that to happen. For that matter, what people on those particular communities say about you should be ignored, because to the best of my knowledge, almost no one has any clue what they're talking about. If they've met you at all, they don't know you. And, dear, as much as we all adore you, most of us know that on first impression you tend to worry the more mundane among us.

Now go back to treasuring your memories, exploring your future, and enjoying your now. You have a family who loves and needs you, and friends who will, as I hopefully am demonstrating, deliver a periodic much-needed verbal swat on the rear, however verbose they may be about it. ;)

[vaxjedi]

And, dear, as much as we all adore you, most of us know that on first impression you tend to worry the more mundane among us.

I find this simultaneously vaguely frustrating and vaguely satisfying.

[xiombarg.livejournal.com]

Don't sweat it, man, it's what ultimately makes you a hoopy frood.

Our resident member of the fae has said it all better than I could have, so I'll be quiet now, except to say complaining about Tablers having sex, even in a lounge or whatever, is the most hypocritical thing any member of the Grinnell community could do... That goes on ALL THE TIME. Hell, visit a lounge in the wee hours after a party.

[eleri.livejournal.com]

I love hearing Back Table Tales (oooh, that sounds like an anthology!), and the one thing that seems to stang out is how you and Blade were something of the group gurus. Things revolved around you two. Patron Saints Blade and Loki. It a sort of charisma that you two give off, especially together, that's maybe is what's lacking in the Back Table of now. It *can't* be what it was then, because the glue is gone. And the current BT's can't grock the then, because they have no frame of reference.

As an aside, I said something to Blade a couple of days ago that there should be a support group for Spouses of Back Tablers...and he pointed out that I was the only non Back Table spouse there was. Everyone else married their own kind. I feel both honored, and intimidated.

[xiombarg.livejournal.com]

Depends on the "era". You hear a lot about the Back Table as Blade and I knew it, but it existed before I even came to Grinnell. The earlier group -- Eva, Barton, Hannibal, Tav, etc. -- did NOT consider me (or Blade, when he showed up) a guru. They just talk about this stuff less. :-)

throw this out when done reading

[toilteanas.livejournal.com]

I don't know you well, and I haven't known you long, and I don't know a damned thing about what your talking about really, but something you said struck a chord with me.

And I feel silly, because there are people who will look at me and say "Haven't you just gotten over it?"

That type of comment- "Haven't you gotten over it?" really raises my hackles. I'm a firm believer that everyone is different (original, I know) and that people cling and mourn in different ways and lengths. I am adversely and loudly, publicly against anyone who thinks that someone should get over something within a certain period of time. Oooo that just pisses me off...


So I guess my point is... I may not understand everything else you are saying... but to the people who think you should be over it by now, I say "Fuck off."

/soapbox