Water

A column in the Times today affirms the value of a perk I didn’t realize was a perk. The water cooler. It is an occasional thorn in the side of my otherwise peaceful workday. Sometimes the water is not cold. The horror! For a while there was only one water-maker (heh) available, and I had to climb stairs to get to it. The stairs gripe is not really a joke. I don’t appreciate how the middle-level break room or whatever it’s called has no elevator-type access, save for wheelchairs. I don’t do stairs like I used to and I bet others here feel the same about having to scale that precipice.

The Times column was about a place where they cut the water cooler for cost savings, and that while employers are required to supply potable water it’s not desirable for that water to come from a bathroom sink. But it’s legal. Who knew with such  lavishments this place of work spoileth us?

I took a full 2mg of Lorazapam yesterday and felt like a zombie because of it. A zombie, yes, but restless still. Walked a walk I used to do twice/thrice daily, to Socrates Sculpture Park then over to Rainey Park via Costco and their famous $1.50 quarter-pound hot dog and soda, which suffered only from lack of ice in the self-serve soda machines. Both of them. I noticed that the hot dog stand, which had a conspicuous amount of empty space as I recall, has now been filled out with a selection of appliances for sale. Smart. I have to shit.

…

I shat. Shitted. Shut. Shooth. Doing that here seems so urgent and, as I’ve complained before, the toilet design is a little aggressive, or hostile. I am a reasonably well-hung male specimen and find that the design of certain shared shit outlets (shitlets?) forces me to manually point my penis downward so that I do not urinate straight forward and onto the floor or into my pulled-down pants. My penis-length reaches the end of the bowl but I think it’s more than just that about this design of this shitlet. Something about the concave-ness of the oval. I don’t know, it’s not something I find myself wanting to study but it is annoying. Normally I cover my ears when I shit because the sound is so crunchy and coarse. I can’t do that when I have to use one hand to force my penis to piss downward.

For a long time I let myself almost make the mistake of letting myself squirt a small amount of pee onto the bowl, as if in some sort of denial over the inevitable inconvenience that is about to transpire, or maybe a silent protest against the keepers of the shitlet, a little bit of waste on the bowl to perhaps stoke the observations of a janitor or inspector who would see this and think “hmmm, maybe that man’s penis was longer than comfortably fit in the bowl… maybe that individual was forced to manually direct his piss stream into the bowl lest creating a small lake upon the floor in front of him, or worse yet, litter his pants with piss and stinking himself of it for the balance of the day? We can’t have our shitlet customers styling about so uncouth. It soils the shitlet brand.”

…

Anyway… yesterday’s jaunt through Socrates/Costco/Rainey (and also the old Sunswick Beach) was introduced by a run-in with an ex-gf’s mother, who I barely recognized with her three-quarter-face-coverage masked-uppedness. We made only chitchat, albeit she entered into the conversation as if I was the most normal presence in her life. There was a matter of a chair that had been left up for grabs outside a school for the arts. She liked the chair, and a table as well, but said the table was too much to carry.

I responded that I would not be able to carry that table, either. I said so as an affirmation, not intending to imply that she had just asked me to carry or else help carry the table home for her. I was not intending to make that offer nor was she intending to solicit it. A minor confusion which we rapidly cleared up (we always communicated astonishingly well, unlike her daughter) but one which opened the uncomfortable vision of entering my ex-gf’s house performing a neighborly favor, then leaving. That would be awkward since this ex and I do not talk or communicate in any way.  For me to just waltz into her domicile unannounced…

Unlike most women I’ve known the anger and insecurity persist, at least as far as I can tell, for as far as I give a fuck.

I always liked this woman, and she liked me. We talked about the breakup a few times but not in any detail. I know that the family was disappointed that it ended but nobody hated me because of it. Nobody except the ex, of course.

But why go there? I was unhappy in that arrangement. I lost a lot of money to it, money I’ll never see again. I made compromises and sacrifices far greater than I will ever get credit.

But it doesn’t matter. Life is long and I’ve had some righteous adventures since giving up on the expectation of a so-called traditional relationship. I can say with honesty that I’ve made some women very happy, and maybe frustrated some others, which is probably about average. But for me, at least, it’s all good in that realm.

Socrates is putting an administrative building on park grounds. Until now they’ve used a small building across the street, which I think is either shared by UPS or else it used to be a UPS office. I guess the new administration building will be what you’d call a permanent exhibit.

There was a piece there yesterday that reminded me of YES, the famous (to me) story of how Yoko and John met. She had an exhibit with one piece that made you climb a ladder and read a message on the ceiling. John Lennon did this, expecting the message to be cynical, or activist, or anti-war… something predictable.

Instead it just said “YES”, and for John it was love.

This piece at Socrates has you climb some stairs, at the top of which is a light. Just a light, and I guess your own reflection. I mean I say “I guess” because I assume that’s an intentional part of the work. It’s not a mirror but it’s enough of a reflection to make me assume the artist took it into consideration.

I want a mirror in my cremation niche. Anyone who thinks they’re looking at me should be looking at themselves instead. Mirrors are pretty powerful platforms. Platters. Maybe the mirror in my niche should be shattered, or broken, but only enough that your reflection is still intelligible.