A few more things

First: this is what the whole house looks like, for those who have been wondering if it's the same house they lived in. I hope it is the same house! I'd love to hear everyone's stories about it.

Also, the landlord was creepy when I lived there, too. At one point, before the front room was turned into a separate studio apartment, he dropped by to announce that he was moving in. His wife had left him, and he needed a place to live, and since nobody was renting that room at the moment he was just going to live there himself. He did own the place, after all! But we didn't need to worry about a thing – he'd be sure to give us plenty of bathroom time in the morning to shave our legs and curl our hair and put on our makeup and whatnot (he obviously wasn't looking too closely at any of us if he thought we were going to care about any of that).

Um, I don't think so, I told him. Oh yes, I do think so, he said. Luckily the BYU housing office had our back, and he did not move in.

(A brief detour about housing at BYU, at least when I lived there: They have really weird rules there. Every student is required to live in university-approved housing – meaning, no boys & girls under the same roof, which led to some bizarre apartment building designs, among other social contortions. Whereas in most places a "housing unit" consists of a whole house or apartment, which you can rent and live in alone or sublet to friends or whatever, there, you usually just rent a bed. Most places had three bedrooms, with two beds in each bedroom. If you could convince enough friends to move into the other beds in the house, great. If not, the landlord would move someone in there. You could end up sleeping three feet away from someone you'd never met!

Also, according to the official rules, at least as recently as the early 90s, non-BYU students are not allowed to live in BYU housing. Presumably their non-BYU ways might taint or contaminate the otherwise pure and innocent students of the Lord's university. I found this out when a friend's little sister came to me in tears, claiming the place she'd been renting all summer was refusing to renew her contract for the fall because she wasn't a student. Preparing to kick some greedy landlord ass, I called the BYU housing office to get the real scoop – and found out it was true. According to the agreement with the university, they were completely within their rights to kick her out. Why it was okay to let her live there during the summer, I never found out – probably just because they needed the money.)

Anyway: when I moved out of the Bauhaus, he tried to withhold my deposit. I still remember the amount: $75, a full month's rent. To me, in 1986, that was a lot of money. He claimed I had never paid a deposit, and I knew I had. Where's the receipt, then, he wanted to know. Well actually, I happen to have it right here, I replied. Then he claimed not to have the money – he was too poor! He wanted to mail me a check later. I told him that since he'd just tried to rip me off, I didn't trust him to send it (I can't believe I ever used to be that brave!) and asked for cash. Finally he pulled out his wallet and handed it over – he'd had it on him all along – sighing and rolling his eyes as if he was doing me a huge favor. I gave him the pathetic little handwritten receipt I'd prepared before I went to meet him, shook his cold oily hand, and never had to deal with him again. The scumbag.

(I remember that little square white wooden table, bigbrownhouse. I wish I had kept something, too. Actually – I did. A large blue and white porcelain dinner plate, which I still have. I've eaten dinner on it almost every night since 1985! Nobody else is allowed to eat on or even wash it, except me.)

And he still owns the place. The woman who lives there now with her husband is probably in her late 40s. They're both there for graduate school and can't wait to get out of Provo and move back to California. I don't blame them.

To me, the saddest thing is the loss of that big tree in front. It protected the house and gave it a feeling of warmth and ... hm, a kind of compassion. I spent a lot of time with that tree, and I always felt like it was aware of me, and watching out for me. I can't believe nobody's bothered to plant a new one in its place.

The forsythia is gone, too. The gravel driveway is paved now and the whole back yard of the house next to it, all the way back to the alley, has been turned into an enormous asphalt parking lot. Cars and ugly apartments everywhere. I don't know if all that junk is still in the back yard, though if that woman had not arrived when she did I would have gone back to look. I probably would have peeked in the windows, too, even with my mother sitting out in the car cringing at my audacity.

I only lived there a couple of years, but somehow I still feel like I own that house.