The porcelain god

Have you ever noticed just how graceful a toilet's s-curve is? I hadn't, until this morning. What I'm calling the s-curve, because I do not know much about toilet anatomy, is the swan's neck at the bottom rear. This curve was a fabulous invention because it blocks the smell of sewage that might otherwise pervade your loo. 

Toilets take care of so many unsavory problems. What would college campuses be like without flushables? Homes full of potty-training and sick children? Hospitals? We're lucky I tell you. Thank you, Sir John Harington, for your inspired invention.

I became intimate with not one but three toilets this morning. Before 9:30am. Happy Monday to me!

Oliver is sick and though he tends to be a real puke-and-rally champion who makes it to the porcelain god on time and has great aim, such has not been the case during the past twelve hours. That sweet boy bedecked not only his bathroom's john but also those in the basement and main floor with all manner of that which should have stayed in.

For extra fun, Nutmeg joined the game and booted all over the basement floor but at least chose tile versus carpet.

After bringing Jack to school and nestling Ol onto the couch with blankets and Gatorade, Indiana Jones on the screen before him, I donned plastic gloves, got out every disinfecting product I own, grabbed old rags and paper towels and got to work. I'm not a real germaphobe, but my house this morning was a serious Code Red.

As I ran a soapy cloth over the cool, shapely curves, I thought about what a lovely material porcelain is and how easy it is to clean and make shine. Aren't we lucky, in many ways, to live in the age of modernity? Can you imagine bedpans and outhouses? For a great number of people, that remains reality. 

I considered the aesthetics of today's toilets and those who design them. I appreciate functional objects being made visually pleasing. And why not? Going to the bathroom is humbling enough. It can be downright gross, really, but since everyone goes, why not make the experience as nice as possible? 

A smooth seat is nice, a gentle flush that doesn't mist the user's legs is a must. I love the efficient sound of low-flow toilets taking only what's needed. Those slow-close lids? The best. 

My bathrooms now sparkle like the gleaming star off a Ken doll's tooth. They look and smell clean which is a welcome change from two hours back. Scrubbing the loos was meditative; despite a lack of sleep last night, I feel rested. Off to refill our diminished Gatorade supply.

Nineteen again

Recently, prompts in one of my writing groups have guided my memories and pen backward in time. More Ouija board than overt direction, these prompts, about forgetting, remembering, standing out, blending in, have turned my pages back to the early chapters of middle and high school.

As is perhaps the case for many of us, I have a seriously conflicted set of memories about that time. Those coming-of-age years were not in any way my "glory days," but they included some marvelous, magical moments and provided a great deal of preparation and comparative context for college and early adulthood.

College. The proverbial best four years of my life it largely was. Despite being woefully unprepared academically, I was blissfully happy. I'd managed to throw my type-A, accomplishment-oriented cloak into Lake Michigan, watch it sink and race back to campus in time for the next party.

My grades plummeted, and I gained some of that freshman weight (you would too if you had Dan's Cookies on speed dial, ready to deliver warm cookies and milk at midnight; and/or kegs everywhere). I fell madly in love, lost that love, became friends with some of the women who are still my dearest soul mates, learned what real cold is and how to make a snow angel, joined a sorority and turned 19.

When I flipped the page to my final teen year, I was 75% of the way through my freshman year.  I had and was sick of the largest, ugliest, warmest parka you could buy at Eddie Bauer, I'd ruined gin for myself for the rest of my life (don't ever do shots of gin; terrible idea; I still can't even smell it.), I played ice hockey the night before a midterm, I couldn't believe I'd soon return to Louisiana for summer break.

I didn't know what lay ahead of me when I tearfully watched my parents and sister drive away from my dorm back in September. If I had known what a blank slate I'd just been given, I'd not have hidden in my room for four days in fear, quivering until my roommate said, "Emmy, you just gotta get out there."

While I'm certain she said that as much for her benefit as mine, she was right, and out I went.

When I was nineteen, I'd just learned about the complete liberation that comes from being no more than who you truly are. Of letting people meet that truth from the outset and seeing where such honesty takes things. It was almost like returning to a childhood state of mind, before the veil of after-college-into-a-career slipped down as had the pre-pubescent one. 

I'm certain this time of transparency (and relative lack of responsibility) is why so many remember college as a thrilling, watershed time of life. Why we look back on it with rose-colored (or beer-goggled) glasses and idealism and smiles. It's certainly why I do. Oh, to have been nineteen.
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*This is a Finish the Sentence Friday post (just a little bit late) that grew from the prompt "When I was 19...". Hosts this week are Kristi of Finding Ninee, Mimi of Mimi Time, and Vidya from Coffee with Me. 

Tuesday, Tuesday

Tonight I'm feeling manageably frazzled. Like, busy but productive, tired but accomplished, overwhelmed by the children but fully amused by them. Which is a preferable state to some of the grayer days I've had of late. Those days that feel like someone shut your storm window and nailed a dirty screen in front of it for good measure. You want to see the horizon, you want to feel the fresh air, but you can't quite do either. 

I'm drinking a lovely glass of Italian red wine. The bottle is nearing the ten year mark, and the wine's woody tannins hug my tongue like a corset you willingly wear. A salad of roasted butternut squash with allspice, lentils cooked with a bay leaf, and crunchy-bitter dandelion greens stands at attention on the sidelines, waiting to be called up for dinner. It's studded with chunks of young chèvre and has yet to be dressed. I'm thinking about that and what best suits it.

Jack is reading, Ol is tucked in bed. It's early but they are still so tired from the Halloween-Daylight Savings weekend. You'd think a zombie apocalypse struck our home. I don't know why they're so sensitive and susceptible to minute time differentials, but they are. 

They have, this afternoon, vacillated between hyenic laughter and snotting tears. They adore and despise each other. They chase and pants each other and think that's both hilarious and worthy of the rack. Jack suggested that Oliver was a "premium anus." Oliver demurred but then seemed to cotton to it. 

You just never know.

I finished planting all my spring bulbs, saw some good friends, and thought about how much I'm enjoying tennis. Mostly, though, I thought about how grateful I am for the blue days on which the sun shines bright, for the strength and sense of self I've secured after years of devoted spelunking, and for the people I've encountered along the way who like that unearthed self just fine.