The One Debate Tournament I Went To- All The Finest People
I Did Not Get Out of the House Much.
Somehow I got it in my head that if I chose the same extracurricular activities that my brother had, my mom would have the same response.
Not so.
Trump, Diddy, and Epstein were just chains in a pipeline that dates back to Jefferson. Take a look.
My brother had been a debater, and I rode along as Mom drove a van of boys to events. She would laugh with them, and was the cool mom. She would lightheartedly gripe about the distance to some of the meets, but it was easy to tell how much she loved it.
I took debate, but I joined second semester. They covered debate forms in the first semester and focused more on the interpretive side of speech and debate during the second term.
I developed a pretty amazing poetry interp working with poems by Baxter Black, a cowboy poet who actually knew my grandfather.
This did not count. Mom was not interested in taking me and my friends to meets. She was disappointed, and clearly put out. She was NOT going to take me, so I’d have to find a ride.
That was actually not quite the punishment she intended. I had a budding friendship with an underclassmen in the class who had watched some of my previous endeavors (I did mock trial in junior high), and she was happy to take me. (We’ll call her K).
I only attended one debate tournament, but to pass the semester you had to be physically present at a minimum of 1.
I only got away with it, because I didn’t have a choice.
Since I hadn’t made it to any of the regular meets, I was not competing in the tournament. All I had to do was have 3 judges sign off on a thingy saying I attended a session. Cool beans.
Priorities
The first order of business was to find out where to smoke. When they set us loose, my friend K and I went outside, and found where all of the students were scattered smoking.
We did our business quickly. This was very conspicuous and we’d been given the “don’t you dare let us catch you smoking,” speech. We were the defiant types but preferred to fly under the radar. This was nerve wracking.
We huddled up with some students from Columbine who were also reclusive and defiant. We joked easily with them, not knowing they would shoot up their high school a few years later. It still chills me, but I was very comfortable with them.
I went to my first session, and had a great rapport with the Judge. He enjoyed my questions, and I actually learned quite a bit about debate (since I missed that part in school).
He was a smoker, and he invited me to come smoke with the judges. SCORE! This was much less conspicuous and I had a chance to chat it up with more of the judges.
Smoking was such a life-saver in high school. It comes with SCRIPTs that enabled me to be social. It broke the ice for me. It gave me a pass that said I belonged with other people doing the same thing.
The judge who I’d met in round 1 (J1) introduced me to his friend, who was also a judge (J2). They’d gone to high school together.
J2 was intoxicatingly cute, and witty, and sexy, and charming, and he and I started flirting immediately.
The Flirting Script
Flirting is an interesting script, because it calls for a break from what is appropriate, and invites someone to break from the appropriate with you.
In return, the other person can chide you, which returns you to the appropriate script without consequence, or scold you, which returns you to the appropriate script with consequence.
The person can also meet you in the break from the appropriate, and if they meet you at the same level it becomes banter. Banter was the level of intimacy I had with J1.
The other person can also choose to meet you in the break from the appropriate and escalate it. The escalation can become banter with intent, or it can go too far and it becomes your job to chide or scold. (Scolding gets tricky here because you started it).
J2 and I jumped head first into banter with intent. I followed him to his second session. I sat right next to him and explored his lap under the table as we listened to a round of debaters make their arguments one by one.
I absolutely delighted in every reflex, every adjustment in breathing, every squirm in the seat. He was giving tiny but clear signals that he did not want me to stop.
Somehow, I still think we were pretty smooth about not being obvious, but I have to admit that it could have been quite clear, and my perception might be off. None of the debaters seemed to notice at all, and their nerves protected us.
We built the tension for the duration of the round.
The anticipation was exquisite.
Things escalated after the last debater of the round left the room. J2 was sitting on the counter of this high school science room, and my face was firmly planted in his lap when this poor debater walked in on us. She just froze, and I looked up and I made eye contact without stopping.
He just calmly said ,”You can shut the door now,” and she did.
It did end the moment, however, which was probably for the best. Hormones and pheromones had us moaning in the wrong space, so we headed out for a cigarette.
We tucked away for several heated moments throughout the day, while also keeping up appearances for teachers and friends.
We didn’t have to stay for the awards and I told K that J2 would take me home.
We parked in an elementary school parking lot, and somehow did the deed in the back of his Toyota Camry. He even used a condom.
Mom wasn’t wise to any of it when he dropped me off. I managed to hook up with him one other time, but we just weren’t in overlapping worlds and getting out of my house was incredibly difficult.
Fantasy
I fantasized about him constantly.
I fantasized about a lot of things. I had Cinderella fantasies that some man would come swoop me up and I would matter. Mine were more like Pretty Woman or Fancy than Cinderella though.
I fantasized about a plague wiping out most of the people on the planet (I read The Stand twice). I fantasized about getting lost in the woods and just staying there and building a life with the deer and the birds.
I started writing. I would write at least 2 hand written pages per day, single spaced, double sided. (I was also trying to build discipline, but that post is coming up.) I wrote a story where I killed off my family and had an affair with J2. It was 78 pages long when my mom found it in my room and read it.
That was the first time Mom took off my door.
I knew better than to fight back.
Mom would even take her glasses off, and say “go ahead, throw a shot.” I didn’t dare. I still loved her so much, and couldn’t imagine physically hurting her. I knew I deserved it.
What was I thinking?
I didn’t write for a long time after that.
Operation **Reclaim** Loveland 
What do you think?