deux choses:

a glimpse and a chink in the armour (which, incidentally, can be read like Goldmember's "shmoke and a pancake")

This is actually from last Sunday but I was re-inspired to post it for what I think are obvious reasons.

I cleaned four urinals today. I have decided that this kind of work is good for me right now (i.e. it's the job I should have) because I need something un-glamourous. I need to see His process of humbling and building back up gradually. That being said, I move on to the less mature portion of the evening.

PART A: Glimpse

In this men's washroom I definitely started to understand why people say men are just typically dirtier than women; I mean REALLY, guys. Yall are supposed to be good with directions... what's with the splatter? (What is that smell?) Man, the difference between cleaning the women's and the men's is like night and day. I just really don't get it. I feel I've stumbled upon a creepy weird underworld that has always existed -- but separately from my own existence.

My glimpse..I think this is what (many) dudes feel like when they're forced to deal with stuff in conversation like menstruation and all the hardware and frills that come with it. I know that for brothers or strictly friendses, traversing the bra section in a department store can be pretty unpleasant, too. I dunno..this is largely speculative. All I know is that I've seen males squirm over things that are totally COMMONPLACE to me. Urinal cakes are gross, urinals are gross and mysteriously CLOGGED (?), and the floor under the urinals is gross.

I guess I have learned that I should be more sensitive with my words in mixed company. Also, I approve of the sinks being about three or four inches higher in the men's than in the women's.

Oh and Glimpse, Section 1.2, I'm getting an inkling about the reality Jim Carroll was trying to reconstruct in Basketball Diaries. He wrote about public bathrooms in bus/subway stations and how they offer satisfaction for any major vice you're struggling with. He wrote about the drugs, of course, about the oral sex for money, about those who watched, about those who watched and did other things at the same time... It seemed pretty vivid. I mean, if THIS bathroom, one that had only seen moderate wedding party traffic since its last thorough cleaning was enough to make me reconsider inhaling on a regular basis then how absolutely squallid must the NYC public transit restrooms be? Goodness... I mean, I understand that urine is probably the least of your worries in those places but still. I call it a glimpse.


PART B: chink in the armour

This incident has forced me to straighten up from my D-FENSE! low-to-the-ground stance and with my hand off the grass and centre of gravity utterly exposed, I take just an imperceptible step backward.

I really can't staunchly defend men against women's blankety stereotypes. I can't stand as the Upperhand for the underdogs. Oh, boo. I really love that position but now...there's one little leak in my air tank, a dent in a i-beam meaning nothing is stable. Ai... It's so much easier to stand up for people when you don't know them. The benefit of the doubt can be your closest friend in these circumstances.

I'll do my best though. I don't have enough evidence to say anything, really. ONE bathroom can't be expected to represent the many. That's called roomism.


I must say that the woof smell that affronts my senses when I walk in (it happened again this week but it was worse) really just takes any mystery and romance out of the opposite sex for me. Ugh. I resolve to never watch a man do his bathroom business and I think I'll be OK.