Past Burned by House Fire

We read a newspaper article in class that was really published in the Washington Post. It read like a short fiction piece, included hilarious details that would be great for fiction, but seemed strange (in a good way) in a newspaper. So, the prompt for this piece was to make a fiction piece out of one of three newspaper blurbs (which were real) that we were given.

The true part of my story is that there was a woman (Judy James, 42) in West Jordan, UT that paid two teenage boys to burn a house down. She admitted she did it, she was charged with arson, her bail was set at $10,000. The details in between all of that were embellished by yours truly. I think this piece was one of my better one of the semester.

WEST JORDAN, Utah - Ray Markham, 16, and Tony Fledger, 14, were waiting for something interesting to happen on the corner of 3000 East and Center Street on a lackluster Wednesday night. Little did they know the excitement would come from Judy James, a 42 year old woman that could have easily passed for either of their mothers. A stout, disheveled looking woman with fly away auburn hair stopped at the 7-11 the boys were loitering in front of and coerced them into burning a house down at 3836 W. Country Drive, Salt Lake County.

Markham claims they denied the request initially, but the offer was too good to ignore. Fledger further explained, “I mean, this crazy lady is givin’ us free stuff to use, to burn something with? Would you pass that up?” James insisted that she never thought she or they would actually do it, but “to leave that house standing after that S.O.B left me…couldn’t do it...couldn’t.”

The boys deny ever knowing James’ motivation, simply that she handed them the matches, lighter fluid, and paper towels to get the job done. Markham elaborated “it just looked…like I dunno, you ever put off cleaning your room, and then you Mom stops screaming at you about it, and instead she just stares at you and quietly asks you to pick up your clothes? It was kind of like that. She just needed us to do it.”

Carl and Sandy Budging (33 and 30, respectively) were walking their cocker spaniel, Daisy, 3, the very same night, past the very same 7-11. They saw James stumble into the parking lot. The Budgings approached James to check on her mental health. “People are pretty queer when they cry so hard they start laughing, and she was looking mighty queer” Sandy declared. Before either Budging had a chance to ask after her health, both report that James profusely apologized for burning the house down, and that she never should have involved her (James’) children.

At that time, Markham and Fledger returned to the 7-11 to find James. Fledger stated “She told us to go alone, but as we were pouring the gasoline we could see her standing at the edge of the yard. When we threw the lit matches on it, she started screaming about her kids and her husband, and then she freaking ran into the middle of the road! We had to follow her; she didn’t look so good.”

Once detained at the police station, James’ only comment was “tell my boys I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for them to have to see that. Boys shouldn’t have to watch their parents fight.” While her outward appearance came across as composed, while she was detained her eyes never stopped roving the surfaces in her jail cell, never finding repose. James was charged with one count of aggravated arson, a first degree felony. Bail was set at $10,000.

Temperature

I'm flirting with danger, by writing this specific post in a publicly advertised URL, but we'll see what happens...

I may have a faulty memory, but I seem to remember a house kept around 68 degrees Farenheit during the winter growing up. I also remember never touching the thermostat, it wasn't really mine to mess with anyway. Summer, wasn't an issue because no one in western Washington has air conditioning anyway. Transition to Provo, land of cold winters and hot summers. First year I lived in the dorms where I didn't have much opinion or say about any temperature. Second year I lived in an apartment were we never could figure out our thermostat. Now, I'm here.

It's a user friendly little panel, just inside the kitchen, next to the washer/dryer combo. Flick a switch for "heat" "off" or "cold", use the up and down arrows to pick a temperature for the apartment, look at the little numbers on the digital display to see what the temperature is. A plight of this place is that it's technically 3 stories, though only 2 are livable. The thermostat is on the colder of the two floors so in your room, you're never really sure how hot it is. I would say I'm generally a cold person with poor circulation. I have an abundance of fleece blankets (all 3 of them) and a quilt and comforter to boot. Not all on my bed at the same time, but all available for use in the living room when required.

I don't think I'm that frugal, but I do think I'm aware of waste. So, instead of heating an apartment, I'll just bundle up, slippers, socks, robe, blankets, not move in the nest of down, and I'll warm up eventually. My last unmentionable roommate didn't share this mentality, and after at least 3 discussions, I gave up. I'd come home to a 75 degree condo in the middle of winter and while it might have felt nice for a minute, the money that was slowly draining out of my pocket turned my heart cold when I saw the temperature reading. I'd discuss with my other roommates the idea of leaving it at about 68 degrees when it's cold, turning it down a bit at night and when we leave for the day and no one said otherwise so I assumed the unmentionable roommate was just a little less aware of heating costs, being from southern California.

Enter new roommate (who's fabulous, and not unmentionable at all) and we've all just had the same discussion! It's been a beautiful week here in Provo (mid 60's) and I've been quite toasty after walking around campus all day, Then I become even more toasty when I walk into a 72 degree apartment...So we have an apartment pow wow where I declare a happy medium must be reached, which dissolves into: because I set it to 65 degrees when everyone leaves in the morning, we can leave it at 65 degrees always, and it's too much of a hassle to turn it up when we're home, so 65 is fine. I reserved the right to turn it up when it rains/possibly snows next week because I don't mind turning it up to 68 at all, but if no one else does that's fine.

The point of this was to pose a question, (not to rag on my awesome roommates) and the question is this: am I crazy? Is 68 like sitting in ice water to the rest of the world? Should I not fight that though, because I'm saving more money than everyone else? These are questions the more experienced of my readers can answer...

Analogy time

As my roommates and I were watching Xavier play Kansas St. last night in a most exciting NCAA Sweet 16 game, we noticed drips of water coming out of the ceiling, right where the tub in one of the rooms would be (we live in a two story condo). Our line of vision followed the drips down to my Wii, my RockBand drums, and my resilient VCR. We all leaped into action, moving the valuables first, then the whole entertainment center, then telling the roommate in the tub to get out of the tub, then calling our landlord, then getting bowls for the water, then getting towels to dry everything off with, then waiting for the landlord to pick up her phone, then wondering what more we could do. As roommates 1 and 2 were talking to said roommate in the bathtub and making phone calls, I felt like I had to do something, the water had to stop or else due to the softness of the ceiling, something was likely to fall through onto our brand new carpet. So, naturally I put my hand against the holes in the ceiling. That would stop it!

After a few minutes, roommate 1 asked me what the heck I was doing because it was just getting my shirt all wet with gross drywall water. I agreed and went to grab the towels. As we sat there, watching our landlord poke a hole through the ceiling as easily as sticking your finger in a pie, I thought about my instinctive reaction. An unstoppable force is pulling something undesired into my direct path, and all I can do is put my hands out, palms up, and believe that it's going to have an effect. I have to stop it, I can do it, get out of the way while I put my rubber-stopper hands up to half a dozen holes and watch them miraculously dry up all the water. What happens in the end? Water keeps flowing, holes keep growing, ceiling is softening, and my shirt is wet and smelly.

I'm not sure where my poetic analogy is going. I think if this issue was at rest in my life/personality type, I would have a flourishing conclusion about "going with the flow" instead of stopping it. Instead, all I can think about is money, school, and life, in that order. Three holes, two hands, and a sporadic sleeping schedule. Unfortunately, I think the way it works is that the drywall is going to keep getting waterlogged until the ceiling bows to it's apex of a monstrous crack right above my arms covering my head, and right at that moment, maybe I'll wise up and finally start depending on the one person that can really stop holes in my life.

Until then, I'm going to invest in a poncho. Wish me luck.

Hobbies

I've never been one for hobbies. Not that I don't wish I had some, or think that people with hobbies are silly or waste time, or anything like that. No, I just haven't ever been able to justify pursuing something that doesn't directly influencing my future. To be sure, this is a stupid behavior especially because it leads to spending large amounts of time on overly frivolous activities like video games or surfing the internet, but maybe in a small way those are my hobbies. ... Gross.

I started playing trombone in the seventh grade. Then I started playing trombone in the tenth grade. The only reason I didn't quit before high school was because of jazz band. The original motivator was friends in the class and getting out of school to go to different cities and perform for a little bit and play for a lot longer. There was something intoxicating about jazz. The dotted eights, the dominant sevenths, the attitude, the emotion. I'd like to say it was the challenge that I enjoyed, and I did, but truth be told, everything about trombone was a challenge for me. I also can't lie and say I loved the freedom of improvisation, because honestly it scared me to death. I did love the cultivation my music taste received from being in jazz band for so long. Playing jazz made me listen to jazz, made me appreciate jazz. And that's how I began to appreciate artistic nuances, references in other songs, and again, the raw emotion. I'm listening to Blue in Green right now, by Miles Davis, and the poeticism drove me to write this post.

After tenth grade, this wasn't just a hobby, this was the future career path. My freshman year of college, I auditioned for the school of music and didn't get in. In hindsight, this was how things were supposed to happen, but it was hard to hold onto that glimmer of hope at the time. Trombones are valuable, college is expensive, and after all my hard work and time (which again, in hindsight wasn't that much) I could hardly stand to look at it. I stopped playing the trombone on April 16th, 2008. Shortly thereafter, it got sold. Shortly thereafter, I stopped listening to jazz.

My iPod has twenty-five gigabytes of music. The majority of it is jazz and classical. I've listened to the handful of pop, country, rap, and rock bands/artists I have too many times to count. I've purchased quite a bit of new music over the past two years, but invariably, I get bored, claim I need new music, try to discover new bands, but usually end up letting the radio drone out the silence of my car. I debated taking off all the jazz and classical music from my iPod but couldn't bring myself to do it, to waste it even though it was already being wasted.

Today, Wired.com was giving away a collector's edition of a bunch of Miles Davis music and memorabilia. To enter the drawing, I just had to post a comment about how Miles Davis could be one of the greatest musicians of all time. I didn't commit to any ridiculous statement like that, I just posted something silly ("If peeing your pants is cool, then I'm Miles Davis!") and wondered what I'd really do if I had all of that.

Would I listen to it? I have a lot of Miles Davis right now, that I never listen to. I have a lot of Coltrane, Mingus, Thelonious, Hawkins, Basie, and more that I never listen to. I have a whole set of North Texas State University Jazz Band CDs that I cherished as one of the best gifts I've ever received, that I never listen to. I went about the rest of my day, came home, and listened to Miles Davis, Birth of the Cool. Like an addict, I went right back to it, a habit I could never truly shake. Apparently time heals all because the knife music left in me after I changed majors left a hole that nothing but a 32 bar blues could fill.

Ode to Caitlan

Preface: I'm in a creative writing class and we discussed the "ode" today, which is poetry, but I wasn't about to write a poem and post it on the internet.

I've been pondering my freshman year these past few days. I came to BYU the Summer term before the Fall semester when most of the '07 high school graduates typically begin college. I didn't know a single person that would be there during the summer, but I didn't think much about it until I actually got to my dorm, unpacked, and watched my mom and sister drive out of sight. Then suddenly, I was a little frightened.

My roommate moved in later that night, accompanied by her mom. Truthfully, I remember thinking we probably wouldn't be very good friends. I don't know why, but my initial impression was that she approached everything with more levity than I did, and I wouldn't be able to stand her. The first night as we got ready to go to sleep, I remember her pulling out her scriptures, so I pulled out my scriptures. She pulled out a journal, so I got out a notebook to jot down some thoughts, trying to mirror the duration of her writing as well. Finally, she said a prayer before turning out her light, so I said a prayer before turning out my light. From that night forward, it wasn't so much about doing those things for the sake of doing those things, but it was a function of making sure I wasn't judged. The right reason for doing the right thing came a little later, but that was the catalyst. (We talked later about how we both had the same though, 'don't get judged by the other person' so we kept doing it all summer for that reason)

I don't think I've ever been happier to be wrong. Caitlan and I became fast friends. It was a strong but casual friendship, where we were both confident that we would have a great time if we were ever together, but that didn't mean we had to be together all the time. There were late night runs down the hallway, elastic band jumping, pranks, cafeteria eating, MoTab blasting, and hospital glove drawing times to be had, providing much hilarity. We knew we wouldn't be roommates in the Fall, and thinking about that over the summer was a little depressing. But, it was the first friendship I had that was deeper than geographical location of residence. We still made time to get lunch together, go to sporting events, meet mutual friends, and go to parties. Last year we were roommates again and in hindsight, I can say I was pretty obnoxious. But, that wouldn't negate the good times of the quote wall, a free aquarium, putting barbecue sauce on everything, dance parties, and Little Cesar runs. (Thankfully, Caitlan is one of the most gracious people I've ever met so all of my fallacies as an annoying roommate were forgiven)

This past year we didn't hang out as much as I would've liked, we were both so busy. Texts related funny stories throughout the day or any really big news, but face-to-face visits were farther between. Through the course of the last few months however, Caitlan put in her mission papers, Caitlan got called to serve in the Hawaii Temple Visitors Center, Caitlan left to go into the MTC today, Caitlan will be gone for eighteen months.

I was invited to go to lunch today with her and her family, since I couldn't make it to her farewell, or dinner with other friends last night. It came time to say good-bye and I can say I didn't get choked up, but it was an odd, sad sort of feeling. I'm ecstatic for her opportunity, and what she'll be doing, I know she'll be an amazing missionary, and she'll have the time of her life. It was a sinking feeling I suppose, one where I knew that I had taken her being around and constant texting, for granted. Caitlan makes you feel better, even if you weren't feeling down. Caitlan makes you want to meet people and serve people and be better, without (intentionally/unintentionally) guilt tripping you. Caitlan is a fantastically loyal & genuine friend. Caitlan is already missed.

Can I love television without being obsessed?

I just wrote out a laborious post about watching "As Time Goes By" this weekend (British TV series with Judi Dench about a middle-age couple falling in love) and being somewhat ashamed about it. After further reflection, I realized I wasn't ashamed at all, and I truly love that show, and I can't wait until next weekend when I have some time to finish watching all of it. So there. Thanks Mom, for introducing me to the greatness that is British humour. Yes, I spelled that with a 'u'. Yes, I've been thinking in "British-speak" to myself for the past two days. And yes, schemes have crossed my mind as to how I could move to London and develop an English accent, even though I've lived in America for the first 20 years of my life.

This leads to another thought I've had recently. I don't feel like I watch that much TV. I watch "30 Rock" regularly, but that's about it. I've been watching earlier seasons of "Scrubs", but have kind of fallen off that bandwagon. And now I've watched 7.5 of 9 seasons of "As Time Goes By" this weekend, but that's about it. Not to say I don't just veg out sometimes, watch a lot of HGTV and "Mythbusters", occasional sporting events, but I always categorized "heavy" TV watchers as someone with two or more shows that they would die before missing on Thursday night, or whenever. Oh, can't forget that my guilty pleasure is Rob Dyrdek's "Fantasy Factory" but it's not in season right now. Again though, in my defense, I watch those online a few days later, it doesn't really dictate my life.

Despite all of that, in everyday conversation, I bring up TV often enough to make me look like a couch potato. Perhaps I just relate things in life to abstract sources really well? Perhaps I like the shows I do because they relate so much to real life? (I really don't believe that one...) I personally think it's because I only tolerate TV I find funny or genuinely interesting (so I'm not sure why I watch HGTV...subconsciously want to be a designer? I'm not sure) and you can always inject funny or interesting comments into conversation. Or so I thought. The more it happens, the more I realize how silly it makes me sound. It's like talking about Facebook in real life, something that has become fairly common place, but I still try to hide it by saying "Someone emailed me" instead of "Someone wrote on my wall/sent me a message". Perhaps it's not as taboo as I think it is, but it's always true that it's never as funny during the second retelling. "Mythbusters" came in handy in my physics class actually, we were discussing pressure so after class I emailed my teacher a link to the episode where a scuba diver's air line gets cut and his whole body is compounded into his helmet because of the water pressure. Great stuff.

All in all, I'm not really sure. I've been making a conscience effort to not talk about TV too much, and an even harder effort to not let it become any sort of importance in my life, but what can I say? I've always been a big fan of music playing in the background, hilarious set-ups, and wrapping up problems in 22 minutes.

A shadow of the older me

I feel like the subject of my post is a) usually a rant from women older than myself, so I hope this doesn't exasperate anyone and b) is written at 9:30pm on a Friday night, so yeah, I guess I am behaving like 20 going on 45, but whatever.

I'm in the double digits now, of cashiers that call me "ma'm". Really, folks, really? This doesn't bother me, I'm not offended, just confused. This wouldn't even warrant a post if it were in regular places, like Best Buy, or the grocery store. In fact, I'm sure I've been called "ma'm" at those places many times, but that's just polite customer service, so it isn't even memorable. No, what really puzzles me is that I am called "ma'm" at the BYU Cougareat (pronouned: cougar-eat).

For those that don't know, the Cougareat is the small collection of fast food places that have set up shop in the student center on campus. There's a particular favorite of mine if I had to skip lunch and feel like a large dinner and am stuck on campus, called Tomassitos. It pretends to be Italian, about as much as the Olive Garden, but it's filling, as cheap (expensive) as every other place, so why the heck not. Plus, I can get broccoli there, so I feel a little bit better about the whole experience. Not to mention, they are one of two places that have Fresca at their fountain drink machine, which also makes me feel better about myself...I know, I'm sick.

So what's wrong with calling me "ma'm" at the Cougareat? All cashiers at the Cougareat are students, i.e. the same general age group as myself, and I'm pretty sure they are aware that 95% of their clientèle is students. There are non-student (i.e. adult) workers in the Cougareat, but they are managers, that aren't dishing me up and charging my card. I mention Tomassitos because they are the greatest perpetrators of this "ma'm" business. I don't think it's ever happened at Taco Bell, probably never at the burger place, maybe once or twice at the wrap place, probably never at Subway, and those are pretty much the only places I eat there.

As I write this out, perhaps this is a distinction of classier eateries within the Cougareat. Perhaps these cashiers are trained specifically, "we're classier than Taco Bell and Subway, so you better call all polite customers ma'm!" Which also makes sense in relation to the wrap place because they're classier than Taco Bell and Subway too. That leads to the conundrum, can you call anywhere in the Cougareat classy? Probably not, but I've lost sight of those true standards, dining on mainly fast food for the past three years. And really, the wrap place is the classiest (whatever that means) and they call me "ma'm" less than Tomassitos. Maybe they're trying to appeal to a younger crowd because wraps are hip now...I have no idea, I'm getting lost in a world of Cougareat classification theory.

Anyway, to wrap this up (bah!), Tomassitos, what the hay? I'm 20 years old, and am probably younger than all of your employees, really.

Sincerely,

Puzzled in Provo