why i hate the bathroom (or how my life is SO not poetic)
“You live such a poetic life,” a friend recently said. I had to laugh. I don’t think my life is particularly poetic when I’m wading around in clay and bumping into walls because I’m singing some Zombies song really off-key. My hair is almost always caked with mud/dirt/clay/or some disgusting combination and when it’s not, I’ve got it in my ear or smeared on my jeans. Or there’s the way that I trip up the stairs into my house and yell “What up” at my roommates. Those things aren’t particularly poetic or graceful. They aren’t anything compared to one of my lesser-known quirks. Ready for it?
Wait for it. Wait for it.
After this build-up, it should be something good, but it’s as ridiculous as I am. I have an extreme aversion to bathroom functions and things pertaining to the bathroom. Tell me a joke with the word poop, turd, piss, or fart, and I will leave the room-even if it’s a very good joke that your cousin told you and that made your Uncle Walter, who never laughs at anything, split his pants over. This stems from my upbringing. As wild as my parents could be-and believe me, they did stuff that I still can’t believe-they were conservative in the strangest areas. For instance, my mother could skin salmon with a long knife, clean said knife on her waist-length hair, and then, insist that everyone wash their hands before eating. My father scared me by taking his fake tooth out, yet he was vigilant about brushing his teeth, almost to a fault.
[I am the only person I know who takes a picture of herself in the bathroom of her favourite restaurant. I loved the walls. And no, I wasn't sitting on the toilet when I took this, just admiring the walls. In fact, I’m thinking about painting my own bathroom something citrusy like this. Then everyone can take pictures in my bathroom. This is why I don't date anyone these days.]
Even weirder is that my parents have an unnatural loathing towards anything involving the-here I gasp-toilet. When we lived in Iran, the toilet was a hole in the ground with feet drawn to show you where to arrange yourself. A spray nozzle completed the facilities. You’d think this would make it easy, but I cannot tell you how many of those drawn-in feet I saw with huge logs right in the middle, as if someone didn’t know the difference between the foot-spot and the hole in the ground. In India, it was a bucket of water with a dipper. In the United States, we have bathrooms aplenty, but they usually smell like things not found in nature and involve long lines. You might laugh at this, but almost every time I use toilet paper, I think about what a waste it is. That’s how ridiculous I am. I hate going to the bathroom so much that I either read or consider inane shit so I don’t have to acknowledge that I’m expelling waste from my body.
When I was growing up, my mom wouldn’t let my brothers or I use the word fart. She designed her own word for it, although she didn’t like to talk about it. She was known for releasing atomic clouds of gas that could have killed us many times. Car rides are still hell with her because of her silent but deadly fumes. Her word for them? Blooper. Not fart. Not gas. Blooper. I find this even sillier than saying fart, which is precise. Once, when I was fourteen, my best friend Lara and I were talking yackety-smackety like young folks do. I said, “And then he farted!”
Big mistake.
My mother pulled our minivan-complete with multiple My Kid Is an Honour Student bumper stickers-to the side of the road. “What did you say?” she demanded.
The van was a mess of staring eyes. Everyone-my brothers, best friend, and mother-stared at me. “Uhh, fart,” I answered, shrugging.
“This isn’t the banana boat! “ she yelled. I started laughing. I didn’t know what the banana boat was or why we were on it, but somehow it had something to do with the word I’d just uttered. “Roll your window down and take that bad word out of your mouth and throw it out the window!” She was using a lot of exclamation points to end her sentences, so I knew I was in trouble, as if that was anything new. The van idled, and I continued shrugging until I realised the van wasn’t going anywhere until I did what she said.
Vaguely defeated, I made like I was spitting out a piece of gum, and we went on our merry way. Roller-skating wasn’t nearly as satisfying afterwards.
So fast-forward to now where I am not against using words like fart, but still find myself avoiding anything having to do with bathroom functions. In fact, I don’t even like bathrooms that much, except that I can take a bath in them, but then, I wonder why would I want to take a bath right next to where I, well you know? Then, when Lisa was my roommate (she has since moved to Camp and I miss her horribly), her partner Pawl wandered into my room. “Do you pee in the shower?” he wanted to know.
I admitted that I did, but said I had certain stipulations about peeing in the shower. “One, I don’t pee in other people’s showers. Two, I don’t get it on the curtain. Three, I don’t do it to be lazy. Four, I tell myself that the acid in the urine cleans my drain so I don’t feel so bad about it,” I said. “ME TOO!” Pawl responded. We sort of made our own Pee Club after that. Lisa admitted she didn’t pee in the shower, but seeing our lax attitudes about it, she thought maybe she’d try. I told her if she did, I just didn’t want to know about it. Welcome to Jewel, repository of endless dichotomy. I don’t want to talk about piss or know about it, but I’ll pee in my own goddamn shower and not even tell anyone unless I am confronted with the question.
[I am not taking this off of my door, nope.]
Then, we fast-forward to how I was at El Gato Azúl with my roommate Errin the other evening. We had a lovely afternoon of noodling around the Square in Prescott. We bought pearl-buttoned cowboy shirts (hers was an orange-red that will look lovely with her African queen skin and mine was black with red roses embroidered all over the yoke), found grandpa hats at a sweet little thrift store, and eyed the Dia de los Muertos dioramas up the block at Ogg’s Hogan. At dinner, we sat on a patio overlooking the sunset and drank pomegranate martinis while eating tapas and goat cheese salads with dried wild cherries. After dinner, we both hit the ladies’ room.
Never have I been so enchanted with a bathroom, let alone a public one. I mean, my own is pretty simple. It’s got Jamaican candlestick holders from a visit to the islands, a curtain with bamboo stalks printed on the side, and more beauty products than any girl should rightfully own. No, I am not one of those jackasses that believes what ads tell her about beauty, but I fucking love smelling good. Even more, I fucking love shiny things. Drugstores are almost my kryptonite, second only to bathrooms and bathroom functions.
But the bathroom at El Gato Azúl had me wishing that they had books or a place to sit (beyond the obvious one). Candles illuminated the honey walls, along with punched tin art from Mexico, and divine homemade incense. I liked it so much that I decided I wanted to capture it on film. I almost opened the door to ask Errin to take it for me. Realising how absurd I was, posing for a picture in the bathroom of my favourite restaurant, I snapped it myself with my new little camera.
Later in the week, Errin left me money for the toilet paper I’d purchased. She left it in a little picture she’d drawn and tacked it to my door. I took the money, but the picture remains. Those people who know my quirk find this hilarious. Errin gave me a look that said, “What you doin’ that for, girl?” when she saw it was still on the door a few days later. What she doesn’t know is that I’m working through my issues on this very slowly. We’ll get through this somehow, the Tidy Bowl Man and me.
How’s that for a poetic life, eh?
Jewelness
Wait for it. Wait for it.
After this build-up, it should be something good, but it’s as ridiculous as I am. I have an extreme aversion to bathroom functions and things pertaining to the bathroom. Tell me a joke with the word poop, turd, piss, or fart, and I will leave the room-even if it’s a very good joke that your cousin told you and that made your Uncle Walter, who never laughs at anything, split his pants over. This stems from my upbringing. As wild as my parents could be-and believe me, they did stuff that I still can’t believe-they were conservative in the strangest areas. For instance, my mother could skin salmon with a long knife, clean said knife on her waist-length hair, and then, insist that everyone wash their hands before eating. My father scared me by taking his fake tooth out, yet he was vigilant about brushing his teeth, almost to a fault.
[I am the only person I know who takes a picture of herself in the bathroom of her favourite restaurant. I loved the walls. And no, I wasn't sitting on the toilet when I took this, just admiring the walls. In fact, I’m thinking about painting my own bathroom something citrusy like this. Then everyone can take pictures in my bathroom. This is why I don't date anyone these days.]
Even weirder is that my parents have an unnatural loathing towards anything involving the-here I gasp-toilet. When we lived in Iran, the toilet was a hole in the ground with feet drawn to show you where to arrange yourself. A spray nozzle completed the facilities. You’d think this would make it easy, but I cannot tell you how many of those drawn-in feet I saw with huge logs right in the middle, as if someone didn’t know the difference between the foot-spot and the hole in the ground. In India, it was a bucket of water with a dipper. In the United States, we have bathrooms aplenty, but they usually smell like things not found in nature and involve long lines. You might laugh at this, but almost every time I use toilet paper, I think about what a waste it is. That’s how ridiculous I am. I hate going to the bathroom so much that I either read or consider inane shit so I don’t have to acknowledge that I’m expelling waste from my body.
When I was growing up, my mom wouldn’t let my brothers or I use the word fart. She designed her own word for it, although she didn’t like to talk about it. She was known for releasing atomic clouds of gas that could have killed us many times. Car rides are still hell with her because of her silent but deadly fumes. Her word for them? Blooper. Not fart. Not gas. Blooper. I find this even sillier than saying fart, which is precise. Once, when I was fourteen, my best friend Lara and I were talking yackety-smackety like young folks do. I said, “And then he farted!”
Big mistake.
My mother pulled our minivan-complete with multiple My Kid Is an Honour Student bumper stickers-to the side of the road. “What did you say?” she demanded.
The van was a mess of staring eyes. Everyone-my brothers, best friend, and mother-stared at me. “Uhh, fart,” I answered, shrugging.
“This isn’t the banana boat! “ she yelled. I started laughing. I didn’t know what the banana boat was or why we were on it, but somehow it had something to do with the word I’d just uttered. “Roll your window down and take that bad word out of your mouth and throw it out the window!” She was using a lot of exclamation points to end her sentences, so I knew I was in trouble, as if that was anything new. The van idled, and I continued shrugging until I realised the van wasn’t going anywhere until I did what she said.
Vaguely defeated, I made like I was spitting out a piece of gum, and we went on our merry way. Roller-skating wasn’t nearly as satisfying afterwards.
So fast-forward to now where I am not against using words like fart, but still find myself avoiding anything having to do with bathroom functions. In fact, I don’t even like bathrooms that much, except that I can take a bath in them, but then, I wonder why would I want to take a bath right next to where I, well you know? Then, when Lisa was my roommate (she has since moved to Camp and I miss her horribly), her partner Pawl wandered into my room. “Do you pee in the shower?” he wanted to know.
I admitted that I did, but said I had certain stipulations about peeing in the shower. “One, I don’t pee in other people’s showers. Two, I don’t get it on the curtain. Three, I don’t do it to be lazy. Four, I tell myself that the acid in the urine cleans my drain so I don’t feel so bad about it,” I said. “ME TOO!” Pawl responded. We sort of made our own Pee Club after that. Lisa admitted she didn’t pee in the shower, but seeing our lax attitudes about it, she thought maybe she’d try. I told her if she did, I just didn’t want to know about it. Welcome to Jewel, repository of endless dichotomy. I don’t want to talk about piss or know about it, but I’ll pee in my own goddamn shower and not even tell anyone unless I am confronted with the question.
[I am not taking this off of my door, nope.]
Then, we fast-forward to how I was at El Gato Azúl with my roommate Errin the other evening. We had a lovely afternoon of noodling around the Square in Prescott. We bought pearl-buttoned cowboy shirts (hers was an orange-red that will look lovely with her African queen skin and mine was black with red roses embroidered all over the yoke), found grandpa hats at a sweet little thrift store, and eyed the Dia de los Muertos dioramas up the block at Ogg’s Hogan. At dinner, we sat on a patio overlooking the sunset and drank pomegranate martinis while eating tapas and goat cheese salads with dried wild cherries. After dinner, we both hit the ladies’ room.
Never have I been so enchanted with a bathroom, let alone a public one. I mean, my own is pretty simple. It’s got Jamaican candlestick holders from a visit to the islands, a curtain with bamboo stalks printed on the side, and more beauty products than any girl should rightfully own. No, I am not one of those jackasses that believes what ads tell her about beauty, but I fucking love smelling good. Even more, I fucking love shiny things. Drugstores are almost my kryptonite, second only to bathrooms and bathroom functions.
But the bathroom at El Gato Azúl had me wishing that they had books or a place to sit (beyond the obvious one). Candles illuminated the honey walls, along with punched tin art from Mexico, and divine homemade incense. I liked it so much that I decided I wanted to capture it on film. I almost opened the door to ask Errin to take it for me. Realising how absurd I was, posing for a picture in the bathroom of my favourite restaurant, I snapped it myself with my new little camera.
Later in the week, Errin left me money for the toilet paper I’d purchased. She left it in a little picture she’d drawn and tacked it to my door. I took the money, but the picture remains. Those people who know my quirk find this hilarious. Errin gave me a look that said, “What you doin’ that for, girl?” when she saw it was still on the door a few days later. What she doesn’t know is that I’m working through my issues on this very slowly. We’ll get through this somehow, the Tidy Bowl Man and me.
How’s that for a poetic life, eh?
Jewelness