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Procedure | Mar 29 2003

The procedure was simple: one person, the scribe, would write down the words of the other, the speaker. This included all the words said by the speaker, including the ums and ahs. Then we switched roles.

Each scribe (the process itself was called scribing, and the thing produced, a scribe) lasted twelve minutes. The scribe timed it. At two minutes to go, the scribe would say, Two minutes. This was one of the few things the scribe was allowed to say. Others were begin, end, and pause. Pause was said when you the scribe fell too far behind. When you caught up, you said go. When you hadn’t heard something, you said repeat. When ten seconds remained, you said ten seconds.

The speaker could say absolutely anything. The whole point was to say anything.

The scribes were written in special notebooks. There was a special way they were written on the page, with the date in a certain place and the text beginning in a certain place.

We did one scribe a day each, and never missed a day, even when we were in a fight. One time I was so mad at her, I said nothing for twelve minutes. That scribe just has the date at the top.

When we broke up, I photocopied all the scribes (this took several hours) and gave her the notebooks.

Later she met a bodybuilder and became a bodybuilder herself. Now she’s in the Women’s Martial Arts Hall of Fame, I’m not sure for what. She’s still in touch with my mom.

As to the scribes themselves, I just discovered (I’m a fucking moron) I threw them out.