Just put the bathroom stuff in one part

My least favorite part of going around different foster homes growing up was having to get used to new bathrooms and the way different people in the house would use them.

I didn't like when they didn't like having the door close all the way. One time there was a house that had three bathrooms. 

But there were five or six of us living there plus the two guardians, and one of the bathrooms they didn't let us use, even though they used the other two sometimes too. So it always felt like you were waiting or being barged in on. 

I don't like public bathrooms because of who's usually in them. There aren't a lot of public bathrooms left open anymore anyway. 

A lot of places won't let me use the bathroom when I ask. And when I'm a customer it feels like they're always out of order. 

But if there's a clean bathroom I can use I usually try to use it.

One time I got hit on in a bathroom and it was kind of flattering. I said so, but said I wasn't interested. I said it wasn't him, I just wasn't interested in general. We had dinner anyway but I never saw him after that.

Right now I have a pretty big bathroom. I spend a lot of time in it, usually scrolling on the phone. For the last few months there's been a hole in the ceiling, right behind. 

It took me a while to realize it was dripping. I don't take my shirt off a lot.

I leave the shower on for white noise and thought droplets were getting on my back. 

It was several times over the course of a few weeks before I looked up and figured it out. I'd seen the hole there before but learned to ignore it. 

Years ago, in my road trip days, we also went camping, naturally. It's something to do on the way and something to do when you get there. 

We never pissed in jugs. We always stopped somewhere. A few times we'd camp somewhere long enough where it made sense to build a latrine.

Build is a strong word. It worked. 

But relieving yourself in the open, especially outdoors, is a revelatory experience, like a link back to where you came from and where everything you need to live came from. It feels like returning home.

I get why dogs do it. Sometimes I like to pee where I've seen a dog pee and sniff before, so it knows I was there. I've done it enough I know some of the dogs know me. They'll sniff or mewl or growl.

Some camp sites had porter potties. One time we got stuck camping down hill from some porter potties. I guess it was far enough that we didn't notice until the second day, but there'd been something wrong with the smell. 

Louis had picked the spot. I suggested water boarding him. It was a joke but I'd been interested in how easy it really was to do, and my enthusiasm spread. It was one of those things, you know, you hear a lot about it and it's this exotic, disconnected thing. But actually you can do it with a rag and water. Torture. 

Louis wouldn't let us. He ran off and Moe, my oldest friend, and the only one I have left from those days, had to go find him later.

We did waterboard each other. Moe volunteered to go first, though he told us all it was a stupid idea. Nevertheless, he lasted the longest and kept his composure until tapping out. 

The next guy was one of those braggadocious types. He'd wanted to go before Moe, and afterward he said of course he'd do better. 

He lasted maybe four seconds and was screaming from the first touch of water. Anyone could've seen that coming. 

They probably should have let him go sooner but four seconds is not that long. 

I went next. It was my idea after all. 

It's not a good feeling to feel like you're drowning but you're not gonna get there. At the edge of death falling in place. It's no way to live and it felt like a lifetime. It was torture.

I don't know how long I lasted but of the three of us it wasn't the longest. Moe had made it fifteen seconds. 

Moe said it wasn't funny. It was happening to people because of what they believed, he said, for who they were. And we were turning it into a carnival sideshow. We who'd sell out our mothers to make it stop and who's pride crumbled in seconds.

I decided after some time that the drip from the hole was kind of like Chinese water torture. It was water and it was dripping onto me at irregular intervals. But the back is soft.

A lot of life is like Chinese water torture. A drip of minor annoyances at irregular intervals, each one knocking you out of place just a little bit, until eventually you don't know where you are.

Thoughts can be like that, thought droplets splashing on the brain at irregular intervals. It happens sometimes when you're falling asleep. The kids call them intrusive thoughts but they're not intrusive, they're always there. There's just a lot of other thoughts distracting from those. At night it's not the same, so they snap and crackle and drip to the surface.

I wet my bed until I was five. I thought one of the other boys was putting my hand in water when I went to sleep because I always woke up with a wet hand and it didn't smell like pee, even though that's what the foster parents would say happened.

I already told you about my other issues. 

You never really see people going to the bathroom on television, unless it's part of a gag. But we spend so much time in it. 

"One foot in the grave, one foot in the toilet"