Lawson writes that her first home was in Austin, Texas, in an apartment near a military base. She lived there as a toddler with her parents. "Late at night I would stand up in my crib, open the curtains, and attempt to wave soldiers on the street up to my room," she wrote. Her parents soon moved her crib to a different spot, no longer near the window. "Apparently I was really distraught about this whole arrangement, because the very next week I shoved a broom into the living room furnace, set it on fire, and ran through the apartment screaming and swinging the flaming torch around my head. Allegedly. I have no memory of this at all, but if it did happen I suspect I was probably waving it around like some kinda awesomely patriotic, flaming baton. To hear my mother tell it, I was viciously brandishing it at her like she was Frankenstein's monster and I was several angry villagers. My mother refers to this as my first arson episode. I refer to it as a lesson in why rearranging someone else's furniture is dangerous to everyone. We've agreed to disagree on the wording."
