Let's be real girl

* I had to change the name of the piece. Rob was right — it was too good to resist...

Texts from my roommate, presented without comment:

Hey Jackie

I've noticed since the whole AC was fixed and there's always a fan on upstairs while Gloria and I just have the windows open and don't use a fan that it's best if we paid $18.32 which is what we paid last month and we didn't have the huge AC from upstairs on. It's unfair how we're paying more for something we don't use. So next month we're just going to pay $18.31. Thanks.

PS If you that AC circulates the bottom floor... it doesn't

Think*

P.S. Gloria and I would prefer for you to tell us when everything is due so we can give you a check then instead of waiting towards the end of the month just to avoid anything since you have to pay a huge chunk of it

Since one of us is almost always out of town

I texted back that her suggestion about the electricity bill was inappropriate and would not happen and that we would talk about it in person

Continue roommate:

Oh and it would be best if we spoke over the phone there's no way we would talk about this face to face to be honest we have different schedules and it's best if this issue is resolved quickly. And Jackie, it's completely acceptable, just to let you know. Most people think this is taking advantage of other people and I'm not going to let this happen. You, Gloria, and I don't have huge fans that take up a lot of energy especially when you have that and the swamp cooler running with the windows open in the house. Really, Jackie . . . at least close the windows. If nothing gets done, Jackie, then I'm sticking to what I'm saying, because it's fair, and to give you the checks on their respective due dates. That's how you run a house full of roommates. 

You shouldn't be paying for all of us and expect to get the checks to you when you want. 

I again said we would discuss this in person

Continue roommate:

You give us the due date of each utility and we give you the checks that's it

It's not going to happen, Jackie. Really you and I. hardly. see. each other.

Let's be real girl.

No drama, just laying out the facts lol

But if you want we can do it in person but I don't know when that's going to happen.



Roommate, you're welcome for fixing your spelling/punctuation. Also, roommate, meet door.

Hugs

I come from a family of non-huggers.

My mom may dispute this, because she's taken up hugging during the last few years, but seriously, we don't hug. Brothers No. 1, 2, and 3 got/gave hugs when leaving and returning from their LDS missions. Brother No. 4 gave them when he left, and will probably give them when he gets back. Brother No. 5 has years before he'll have to hug anybody, since he's only 16.

Hugs = Too much touchy-feely! Space bubble! Get awaaaaay from me!

It's not that I don't know how to hug — I had a boy teach me when I was in 10^th grade, and he was a very good teacher. I'm quite a good hugger . . . when I feel like it.

But I don't often feel like it.

I've always known that part of my hugging problem stems from the fact that I have a giant space bubble. I spent most of a 15-minute meeting at work last Friday feeling uncomfortable because I was standing two feet away from a girl when I could have been standing six feet away.

(The space was there; I chose my floor location without thinking the situation through.)

In high school, I took to being anti-hug because it was funny. My friends got a kick out of torturing me, and I got a kick out of playing up my reactions.

But back in February, when one of my roommates was about to move to San Francisco, I realized that I now use hugs as a sort of weapon with which I purposely try to make people uncomfortable. I like to watch people squirm as they wrestle with the impulse to hug while also fighting against the waves of awkward I'm sending in their direction.

Why am I so vindictive?

I don't know, but it's sure funny.

The day my roommate was due to move away, I was sitting in my room building a bookcase when she poked her head in the door. She was trying to find the source of the hammering noise in the house; I was trying to avoid her and the good-bye hug that I knew was coming.

Me: Are you all packed?

Roommate: Yep.

Me: So . . . guess this is good-bye.

My brain: HAHA! I'm sitting in the middle of a bookshelf and you can't even open the door all the way because my room is full of wooden shelves! This is brilliant!

Roommate: Not yet. I'm not going to leave until early tomorrow morning, so I'll come back and say good-bye tonight.

My brain: Boo.

I went to class that night thinking that maybe she would be asleep by the time I got home, and came home to find her running around the kitchen and talking about how much she still had to do. My plan to avoid the inevitable hug had been foiled again.

At this point, I had to make a choice:

1. The usual (i.e. say good-bye from a safe distance and exude enough don't-even-think-about-it vibes that the target is unwilling/unable to break through the awkward barrier)

2. Instigate

For once, I took pity on the victim.

I instigated.

It won't happen again.

(Incidentally, sorry Layton, for using the hug awkwardness vibes against you when you left for your new job. I still feel bad about that . . . minus the fact that I was mentally laughing the whole time . . .)

If I ever say, "Okay, give me a hug," just know that I'm choosing pity.

In case you are a current hugger and have suddenly decided to reform and become a non-hugger, here's a final word of advice from an expert: I've learned that when trying to avoid a hug, it's best not to make sudden movements — or movements of any kind, actually.

This is why:

This is Gallifrey

The other day, my roommate tried to start a Time War.

No, not this kind of Time War:

This kind of Time War:

"I am the busiest person in this house."

Cue my rage machine!

I've always hated comparisons of busyness. In the busyness battle, there never is an actual winner — just lots and lots of ticked off people and self-pitying bemoaning.

I used to be the worst at Time War-ing. I'm not better now, but I'm trying.

As a junior in high school, I remember coming to drill team practice at 6 a.m. and hearing one of the senior captains say, "I'm sorry I couldn't get thus-and-so done. I was just SO busy. I'm SO busy all the time!"

Then, a few sentences later, she said, "I watched three hours of Fresh Prince of Bel Air yesterday."

And I went, "WAIT A SECOND! YOU'RE NOT BUSY!"

Then my judging kicked in.

I used to get so annoyed by people who complained about being busy, because I was totally convinced that nobody (NOBODY!) was as busy as I was.

"I was busy last night."

"Oh yeah?! Well, are you taking ballet lessons and doing drill team and taking ballroom lessons and fulfilling church callings and running the school newspaper and writing a weekly newspaper column and blah, blah, blah…"

I had a note on my door (stolen from my friend Angeline) that had a picture of a girl with her head on her desk. It said, "Think you're stressed? Call me. You can have some of mine."

Remembering that picture totally makes me blush now. My parents — running a business, raising six kids, and working multiple jobs — must've rightly thought I was an idiot.

At some point in high school, though, I realized something:

It's not that any of us are NOT busy — it's that our definitions of the word vary.

One of my friend's older brothers taught me this, without even knowing it. He would always (ALWAYS!) talk about how busy he was. He wasn't whining (which would've ticked me off); he was just saying, "I am busy." To me, though, he didn't look busy. It was then that I realized we're all working under different definitions of the same word.

We are all born with and develop busyness or stress thresholds, and what seems busy to one of us definitely might not seem busy to someone else.

I don't reach my definition of "busy" very often. Right now I'm working 40 hours a week and taking 9 credits in grad school. That's not busy.

My last semester of college in 2010, I was working 30 hours a week for the school, 10-20 hours of week doing freelance design, taking 18 credits, trying to finish the capstone classes for 3 different majors, and preparing to speak at graduation. That was busy.

I was busy last week. One midterm, six+ school assignments, 40+ hours of work, visits with my darling Kenna and my delightful Hobie, a date, trying to finish two sculptures in time for an art show, and planning a class for a Cub Scout leader pow-wow.

Got 'em both done, by the way. Bam.

I was busy in mid-December, when I was finishing 15 credits worth of classes for my first semester of grad school, working 40-60 hours a week, and trying to get presents ready for Christmas.

But guess what?

Other people were, are, and always will be busier.

I whined about being busy to a med student in my ward and he shut me down with "I work 80 hours a week." (Saving lives, I might add. That trumps any of my busyness.)

I whined to my Mom about being busy and she (could've but didn't, bless her) said, "Yes, well, I'm working 40 hours a week, being a mom, and planning the ENTIRE Cub Scout pow-wow.

I whine about working more than 40 hours a week to my boss, and then remember that he gets here about the same time I do, leaves 2-3 hours later, and is on-call all the time.

Maybe my roommate is the busiest person in the house. Maybe she's not.

I think she's not busy because she goes to get her hair done, goes out to eat, goes clubbing, and goes to the gym.

She probably thinks I'm not busy because I play with clay and I'm making a bunch of puppets for the Festival of Trees in November.

We both work and we both go to school.

Are we both busy?

Probably.

It's subjective.

Whenever someone tries to start a Time War (or whenever I mentally try to start one myself) I have to tell myself to (A) calm down, and (B) step back. I don't always succeed, but I do try.

Once you start a Time War, there's probably no stopping it.

And even if (miraculously) it does stop, is there ever really a Time War winner?

I'm thinking no.

P.S. If you don't know where the title comes from, you should probably listen to this. You're welcome:

Characters = disobedient little buggers. Or not.

"My characters won't do what I want!"

Don't even pretend you've never heard that before. It's a phrase I don't understand, and for which I blame kitschy romance novelists — the same ones I usually blame for everything.

"They won't do what I want!" was the phrase that kept me convinced I wasn't a REAL writer for a long time. Whenever I wrote stories, my characters did exactly what I wanted. I never had any rebellion in the ranks. If I wanted the characters to go left, they went left. If I wanted them to go right, they went right. If I wanted them to grow wings, run into the air while clutching on a cellphone, and then land in the fairy realm, they would.

(Of course, I've never asked them to do that, so maybe I'm just making stuff up now...)

Either way, this idea that characters were supposed to be rebellious people who torture an author all the way through a story confused me greatly. Since my characters have never done that, I just assumed I wasn't a real author, and that I would never be able to write a book and get it published. I figured that my characters, in comparison to the apparently self-willed characters other authors invented, must be bland, dull, and boring.

If everyone else has characters who obey, does that mean I'm doing it wrong? I'm writing wrong! I'm a wrong writer! The horrors!

My dear Watson, who happens to be a real author with a book and everything (see here) wrote her first book (did I mention that you can find it here?) around the same time I was writing mine. She finished hers first and succeeded in getting it to a publisher while mine continues to sit in my hard drive. C'est la vie.

BUT, a couple of months ago, Shannen wrote this piece on her blog that reminded me of this whole inner struggle I had with characters who did EXACTLY WHAT I TOLD THEM TO. Luckily, since I personally witnessed the writing process of another writer, I'm convinced that I'm not "wrong." I'm just "different."

(There — doesn't that make it sound better?)

Around the time Shannen wrote that post, she texted me something like, "I just figured out how my book is going to end!" This was the book she was like, two chapters, away from finishing.

I went, "WHAAAAAAT?!"

Every writer has a different process, and the fact that Shannen (and I'm sure other writers with disobedient characters) make things up as they go along blows my poor little mind. I've never been able to make up stories as I go. It's not my style. Maybe my characters all obey because their storylines are computed, arranged, and debated before I even bother writing anything down. (Seriously, if I die tomorrow, about 9 fully written books die with me.)

For me, the writing process begins with just one scene. The best way to describe it is like a seed — one tiny idea gets planted, and then I build on it mentally, bit by bit, until suddenly I've got an entire story. Then I have to go through the trouble of writing it down and tying the scenes all together.

Or — for a visual — it's like making a clay creation. (This is what I do when I'm supposed to be editing)

Start with cardboard and tinfoil, and then end with a... a something!

Anyway, so last month I went to a performance of "Aida" at Hillcrest High School. I went on a whim, and because I start each year with a list of plays I'd like to see, and "Aida" was the last one I needed to hit. (By the way, it was freaking amazing. Go to Hillcrest plays. You'll be impressed.)

So I was innocently sitting there during intermission trying to see if the cute cameraman was married (what? I'm single. I can do that stuff.) and reading my program, when suddenly, a scene came to me. It went like this:

"Are you normal?" ____ demanded.

"What?" ____ asked.

"Are you normal?" she repeated.

That's it. That's my scene. Despite the fact that the characters didn't even have any names (hence the blanks), in the past few weeks that scene has become an entire book in my head. I've molded it and built it over many December tooth-brushing sessions. (Brushing your teeth = 2nd greatest time to think.)

Every single book I've written (which is technically none, since they're just sitting in Word files on my computer) ... Okay, I feel like I'm overreaching...

Clarification.

Every single Word file I've written that one day has the potential to become a book if I can find a sucker publisher and some editing gumption — has a scene just like that. Some are shorter than others, but each one sparked a story. I'll call it the genesis scene.

There's this one:

“But look at the girls he’s dancing with,” I said, letting my insecurities slip out. “They’re beautiful.”

Or this one: Suddenly, a flash of red appeared, rolling down the slope of the mountain. As I stared, i realized that the shape was actually a girl, and my mouth dropped open.

Or this:

"According to government statute 65921, this tower must be registered with the Ministry of Zoning and Urban Development."

And this:

"Excuse me. Do you know where I can find _____?"

Or this:

The rain fell in a gray curtain, hiding the city behind him and muffling all but the sound of his own breathing.

And this one:

I know who the ____ is. And his apprentice, too.

This too:

“You’re the President of the United States,” she said.

Or even this:

"I’ve got a phone call for you,” the secretary called.

From each of those tiny scenes (and more!) my obedient, happy characters in their obedient, happy storylines grew and developed into full stories. Maybe I'm not a real author, but the characters seem real to me, and I suppose that's what counts.

Someday I'll get around to putting the stories onto paper. But first, maybe I'll make another clay thing...

(Just kidding Shan. I'm editing. I'm totally editing.)

(Actually, I'm still cleaning my room... Sigh.)

In which I slept through a big palaver

Disclaimer: I've been watching too much "Top Gear," so beware of random British slang...

Either there is something magical and amazing about the locks on my house, or those of us who live/visit the house are total idiots. I've locked myself out before (as noted in an earlier entry), which was embarrassing enough. However, I also managed to break in, which means I'm not a complete loss. Various other roommates haven't been so crafty and therefore resorted to calling for help, etc.

When it comes to getting locked out in style, though, my roommate's unnamed boyfriend, however, takes the cake.

(He's not unnamed because this is the Internet and I don't want to make fun of him — he's unnamed because I really don't know his name. Heck, I don't even know what he looks like. I just know that he stands on my porch and blows his cigarette smoke into my room, that he smokes weed in my roommate's room, and that he and my roommates often do things which I — a little Mormon innocent — don't want to know about. But I digress...)

(Here's another disclaimer: Although the house IS supposed to be LDS standards — no smoking, no boys, no alcohol, etc. — this roommate hasn't quite grasped the concept.)

So occasionally I work night shifts. They're not real night shifts where I get home at dawn, though — they're more like semi-night shifts. However, if I work more than two in a row, my bedtime gradually gets later... and later... and later... By the end of a long stretch of night shifts my internal clock is so screwed up that I'm convinced day is night and night is day.

So, as this story begins, early one Saturday morning I found myself coming home from a night shift feeling completely, totally awake. As I am wont to do, I therefore began wasting time.

2:00 a.m. - Ah-hah! Time for dinner!

2:30 a.m. - I'll just finish this episode of "Top Gear."

3:00 a.m. - Ice cream sounds super good right now...

3:30 a.m. - I should brush my teeth

4:00 a.m. - But I've only got two chapters left in this book...

You get the picture.

As I was brushing my teeth — around 4 a.m. — I heard someone come out of my roommate's room, walk out the front door, get into her car, and drive away. I found the early-morning drive a little odd, but I didn't dwell on it. Going to bed was more important, so that's what I did.

BUT

At 7 a.m. I was awakened by furious pounding on my front door.

"Girls! Wake up! Wake up right now!" someone shouted.

You know that moment of confusion where you can literally feel the individual brain cells firing up one by one? That's what I began to experience. I cracked opened my eyes and tried to orient myself as the room came into focus.

The pounding and shouting continued.

"We know you're home! Open the door! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!"

My poor, overtired brain began to function a little further, and I suddenly started to panic about my car. I had parked it in front of the neighbor's house (since boyfriend was in my normal spot, dang him) and I was suddenly hit with a wave of panic. What if they were towing my car!? Oh no!!!

But then — through my open window — I heard the pounding stop and a conversation begin.

"I know she's in there," someone said. "Her window is open."

 "Where is she?" a girl asked.

"In this front room. I know she's home." the first voice answered.

With those sentences, my concern about my car disintegrated and I began to feel far, far more concerned about my safety. Who were these yelling, pounding strangers standing on my front porch and talking about me?! AHHHHHH!!!

Even though I still didn't know what was going on, I climbed out of bed and peeked out the window to see police cars parked in front of my house. My brain did this: 

WHAT THE HECK!!?!!?!!! 

In reality, there were only three (THREE?!) squad cars, but to me, it looked like this:

And yes, in case you're curious, police cars really do park at odd angles. The movies are right.

Now feeling completely freaked out, I threw on some clothes and ran out the front door. Three cops were standing at the end of the driveway and chatting. They turned when I came outside.

"Are you (roommate's name)?" one of them asked.

 "No," I said. "Uh...what's going on?"

According to the police, my roommate's boyfriend had locked himself outside, and one of our neighbors had gotten suspicious and called the cops.

"Oh," I said.

"You are a REALLY sound sleeper," an officer said.

"Er, yeah," I said. "I got off of work late..."

Technically that wasn't true — I had gotten off late, but I had also wasted eons of time faffing around. However, the police didn't need to know that.

Then I went back inside and — naturally — updated my Facebook status before going back to sleep. It's the 21st century — that's what we do. I should've tweeted about it too, but that was too much of a leap for my overwrought mind.

(I also didn't take a picture of my house surrounded by cops, and I've been berated for that by a number of people. Next time YOUR morning is interrupted by three (THREE?!) squad cars and a lot of door-pounding, see how YOU react! Ha!)

In the wake of the whole adventure, I subsequently got to hear different versions of the story from a bunch of different roommates. None of them match up. Funny how that works. 

My version: Boyfriend left the house at 4 a.m., got in my roommate's car, and drove off. Later returned to the house, greeted the cops, pounded on the door, and eventually was allowed into the house, where he ran to his girlfriend's room with an incredibly frustrated, "Babe!"

My version is clearly the most boring, seeing as how I slept through the majority of the fun.

Roommate/Boyfriend's version: Boyfriend left the house to have a cigarette on the porch. He smoked his cigarette and then went to come back inside, but I had locked him out. (EH?! ME?! Uh, no. Our door locks automatically when you close it, thanks very much.) Boyfriend therefore decided he'd be stuck outside of a while, so he climbed into girlfriend's car to spend the rest of the night there. But then nosy neighbor called the police, who swooped down on him. Boyfriend tried to explain that he had locked himself out by using his bare feet and lighter as evidence, but the mean cops still searched and interrogated him. Finally they pounded on the door to try to get someone to come and identify him.

(I guess it's a good thing I didn't open the door first, since I don't know what he looks like.) 

Downstairs roommmate's version as related by other roommate: Boyfriend blew lots of smoke into downstair's roommate's room before discovering he had locked himself out. Then cops came and pounded on the door and shouted. Then downstairs roommate and visiting boyfriend went upstairs to see what they wanted. Cops asked them to identify boyfriend, which they did. Then they allowed boyfriend to go into the house. Cops said neighbors in the area had reported a theft, and boyfriend fit the profile of the criminal, which is why three (THREE?!) officers came to the scene.

All in all, it was a giant mess that could've been avoided had boyfriend not been struck by a sudden urge to smoke (or drive the car) at 4 a.m. Of course, it could've also been avoided had boyfriend not stayed the night at our house in the first place, but that's an outrageous suggestion, I'm sure.

On the upside, it did make for a fantastic Facebook status and it did make downstairs roommate angry enough to lay down the law with roommate and boyfriend. No more stinking up my room with his cigarette smoke, no more marijuana, no more sleepovers...

Yes, the whole mess was a good thing. You know what would've made it even better, though?

Not sleeping through most of it. Daggnabit.