THE GREAT GADFLY:

Ten Things About My Bathroom (Okay, Only Nine)

2. I mopped my bathroom floor yesterday afternoon, because I was so excited about my mop bucket and I wanted to try it out first thing, and my bathroom floor is small and fairly non-committal, so I gave it a go. I also bought a bottle of Mr. Clean Lemon Fresh something-or-other, which won my consumer favor because it was packaged so bright and so yellow and boasted on its label that it was SO germ-killing and SO citrussy and the toxic goo inside was like yellow hi-liter ink, it was so bright. That's what I poured in the new mop bucket. Then I added a gallon of hot water from the tub.

3. My bathroom smells like someone's been peeling limes in there. This is a good smell. It sure beats poop stink. Still, I want to explore expensive schmancy cleansers, I think. That is, when I can afford them. I want to try that fancy lemon-verbena stuff that you can get at places like Restoration Hardware and Crate & Barrel. Not that I go to places like that, of course. You know - people talk to me, they tell me things. Heh. I smelled the pricey lemon-verbena stuff once...it reminded me of the big stone house in which my grandparents lived, in Kansas, when I was a child.

4. I bought new shower curtains yesterday, too. Cheap ones, like always. My previous shower curtains were starting to look like something Rae Dawn Chong would have worn in "Quest for Fire". I had to buy two shower curtains because my shower is kind of a weird cubicle shape, and I accidentally bought two different kinds of curtain - one was clear and one was white. I dunno - I kinda like it that way. The white one has a rip in its cheap vinyl plastic, which I discovered during my shower this morning. I considered patching it with a sticker and then every time I acquired a sticker and didn't know where to affix it, I could put it on my new white shower curtain and it would be possibly kind of cool (though probably just ugly). Then I thought, well, by the time I got going with the sticker, the curtain would just be overcome by mildew and I'd have to throw it out. Feh.

5. I mopped my bathroom floor with hot sudsy Mr. Clean uber-germkilling hypercitric acid goo and A NEW MOP BUCKET, yet still the floor didn't look all that sparkling clean when I was finished. What's its problem, man? My landlord refloored my bathroom a few weekends ago, replacing the hip-yet-impractical wicker tiles installed by a previous tenant with cold matte black cheap tiles. I kinda don't mind the dull scrungey dinge among the gorgeous green and purple of my bathroom walls. The contrast between bleak and whimsical does the room good. It's like taking a pee in New York.

6. I also washed a big load of bath towels yesterday afternoon. Yup, I showed my bathroom some lovin' yesterday. It is a room that deserves love. All it usually gets on an average day is bodily fluids and beard clippings. Gross.

7. My hair has grown hopelessly liminal. Professional intervention is crucial. I still want long, luxurious caveman hair but I'm looking downright dumpy right now. I feel like Ken Burns, only with a fuller head of hair. I feel like Bill Gates, only I have the valid excuse of not having enough money to maintain an enviable coif. Choices: patience through this difficult dumpy phase, or a commitment to follicular excommunication. The white flag. Defeat. Hacking it all off. I mean, really. I'm remembering why bedhead just ain't worth it. I'm remembering how much lower my hair goo budget was when just a little pinkyfinger dab would do me. I don't think I'm a long hair person. But then, I love to run my hands through it melodramatically during moments of extreme stress, and let's face it, a good overwraught hairflip can keep a person from smoking a cigarette at least 50% of the time - mother heard that on the radio.

8. I know this was supposed to be ten things about my bathroom, but now I want to talk about the story I'm writing for NaNoWriMo. Here's the thing: I'm keeping more or less mum about the story till I'm done writing out the events. I'm blindly running through the completed plotline in my head, hacking it all out on my Captain Caveman computer without allowing myself a moment of doubt, a moment of re-writing, a moment of editing, even, heck, a moment of continuity-checking. I'm just forging through, blindly, gracelessly, recklessly. Damn, it feels good. And the best part is, I think I'm getting a fairly decent story out of it. Oh, I'm going to have to do some MAJOR work if I plan on doing anything with it other than celebrating 50,000 words written by the end of the month, but hey - that's the only objective I have to work toward right now, so it's all good. I'm two-fifths of the way to the finish line as it is, which makes me wonder if this might be the longest piece of writing I've ever attempted. And is that necessarily a good thing, or does it have to be a bad thing? I dunno. Last night I hit a point in my story in which one character reacts violently to another character and a violent beating is administered. Now, most of you know me well enough to figure out that I'm not an oh-so-violent guy. I think the last time I put the smackdown on someone was when I was in sixth grade and the school bully was picking on me and I smacked his head into the basketball goal pole, and because I never really roughhoused and didn't know my strength, well, I gave the poor guy a concussion. I felt really bad about it, but hey. Don't fight with people who don't know how to fight, because they don't know what the rules are - we just know to defend ourselves and to cause pain until the attacker goes away. Anyway. So being this kind of person, I had to write a violent scene for the first time, I think, ever. It creeped me out. I felt like Simon Bar Sinister from "Underdog" or like some freakish obsessive writing a sequel to "The Turner Diaries" or someone hideous and extreme and hiding dark, horrible patches in his soul. Then I got over myself in time to enjoy this week's "Alias", in which Syd's mom was sentenced to lethal injection, in which Syd's love interest started bleeding from his fingernails because of his exposure to a bizarro viral strain, and in which Syd kicked many people in the head and fired enough ammunition to arm the next world war. I'm sure if I went back and read my "ultraviolent" scene, it would look pretty silly in comparison: "I am so mad at you. I hate you. Look how much I hate you. I throw extra-firm tofu at your head. I make you sob. Die!"

9. I want to find a beautiful scarf (but I suppose not TOO beautiful) to drape over my septic tank. Oh, go ahead and snicker, but if you saw my vivid purple and green bathroom, you would understand the importance of a gauzy, garish scarf over the septic tank. You would, honest.

10. If you ask me, deep blue toilet water makes a house a home.