Alternate reality

I am so relieved. The refereeing craze has finally ended. This weekend I worked the last 2 tournaments of the college season here on the East Coast, and officially, I am done for a long time. Looking back over the past 2 months or so, the only weekend I didn't referee was the weekend of the marathon, and the only 2 weekends I was in NYC were ones on which I had tournaments in the city. Overall, these 2 months were super tiring and crazy and it will only be worth it once I finally get all the money I am supposed to be getting.

This weekend started out badly even before I was anywhere near the fencing. Since the tournament on Saturday was in New Jersey and I had to be there early in the morning, I was going to stay at Kelsey's parents' house (very very nice people who I spent Christmas Eve with, among many other holidays and events) that is about 10 minutes away from the school where the competition was held. I got on a train around 9pm on Friday and called my Kelsey's Mom who was picking me up from the train station, only to realize that she had given me the wrong phone number. At this point I was already halfway there and starting to get a little worried. I knew that Kelsey was on a date, so I figured it wasn't gonna be easy to reach her, but what I didn't know was that she was watching a 3 hour movie and she wasn't gonna get my message until after 11. I was trying to think of all the people I knew in Jersey who I could ask to pick me up at the station, but couldn't come up with anything.

I got a little more panicked when I got off the train and realized how far away (yet so close) from the city I was. It was completely dark, no people around, no taxis, just woods on one side of the tracks, and strip malls on the other. After a short walk, I found a pretty fancy hotel, where I begged the receptionist to use their internet even though I wasn't gonna stay at the hotel. I luckily found Kelsey's address in an old email and managed to get the receptionist to call me a taxi. The taxi driver had never heard of the street Kelsey's parents lived on, so it was another 20 minutes of looking at a really bad map to find the place. Once we got to the street, I realized that all the houses looked exactly the same and every car parked in the driveways also looked the same. Everything was dark and I had to walk up to every house to make out the numbers on them. Ah, suburbia! I never want to live there! Who's idea was it to build houses that all look the same??? Anyway, after walking up and down the street for a few minutes (the cabby was nice enough to stick around as he could probably tell I was a bit stressed out) I found the right house and as Kelsey's Mom was still waiting for my phone call, she was still awake. I would have felt so awful if I woke them up too! Arghh, have I already mentioned that I find the suburbs really unpleasant?

After this little adventure, the tournament on Saturday seemed like a piece of cake. It was so horribly organized that we didn't get out of there until close to 7 and I was driving to Boston with a couple of the other referees for the same tournament that was held in a different collegiate region. The 4 hour car ride was one of the most interesting ones of my life, in a strange way. I found out about way too many rumors and much dirt that there is in the fencing world, politically and at the personal level too. I guess it must be the same way in every tight community: people talk, there are very few secrets, there is so much gossip! The 2 people I was with are both very involved in the sport and so they just knew so much detail and knew all the people in the community and were not quiet about it either. It's a little disgusting, to say the least.

I think the reason this happens is that people need to or want to have a sort of secret alternate life. They live their everyday lives quietly in the suburbs or wherever it is they live doing their day-jobs but want some excitement or adventure too. I know this is how it is for many of the people I know through fencing: we travel to tournaments either as athletes, coaches or referees, it's away from home, away from the worries of the weekdays, always the same small group getting together, usually involving going out and drinking and whatever happens behind closed doors that we all hope will never become part of the universal fencing gossip. Most of the time it makes its way into it; it's very difficult to keep secrets in this world where everybody knows everybody. Why do we do it? Well, if I look at how my life has turned out so far, I have to admit that some of the most exciting things have happened to me as a direct consequence of being part of this world. With all its dirt and gossip and craziness, it's still my little alternate reality, secret - or not so secret - second life that makes the routine and occasional monotony of the weekdays seem just normal rather than boring and thus, enjoyable, in a way.