First of all - a Disclaimer. This is NOT a blog to be read before or during mealtime.

I ask you - How many names can one room possibly have? It's called the toilet, the water closet, the outhouse, the bathroom, the restroom, the head, the loo, the library and sometimes by those of us a little rough around the edges - the crapper. I only know 3 words in Spanish and one of them happens to be Bano. I've found out the hard way that you should know how to say  'bathroom' in every language if you're going to drink beer.

When out in public I never know which is politcially correct. Do you ask for the location of the bathroom or the restroom? It would be easy to discern if I planned on taking a bath or a rest, but usually this is not my intent.

If you're like me, you'd rather address the porcelain throne in your own home, but we all know that this is not always possible. When you gotta, you gotta. For times when I predict my stay will be longer than a 'drive-thru', I always seek out the multi-stall locations. Nothing causes more anxiety than knowing the meter is running and other users are lining up outside the door waiting for the single stall that you are occupying. Barnes and Noble Bookstores and Starbucks are one-stall locations to be avoided for extended stays.

And there's the issue of accomodations. I've found it's best to look for a supply of TP before assuming the position. (In the airline we used 'the position' to prepare for emergency landings. We called it, Grab Ankles!)Nothing worse than embarking on the procedure and finding the bathroom lacking supplies because the attendant apparently went home early with dysentary and no one is picking up the slack of bathroom duty.

When there is a delay in completion of the job, I listen and look under intently to see if other occupants remain. I prefer the listening part - breathing sounds and the rustle of TP, rather than the visual because I have a problem with other people's feet. Toenails really gross me out, especially the dirty and untamed ones. I have to make myself look away when I spot them, like when you pass roadkill and are drawn, against your will and better judgement, to staring and moaning. If you wait long enough, the stall turnover will allow you to exit without anyone knowing you've been in there long enough to request a forwarding address for your mail.

Do you sit or stand? And where do you put your purse if some male was responsible for the stall design and forgot to put in a hook? Thoughts of what is and what has been on the floor can be nauseating.
And, do you exit leaving the appliance in the condition you found it? Dry, wet or fully stocked?

And lastly, a really personal question. Do you always wash your hands afterwards or only when someone else might see you bolt, sans humming the Happy Birthday song twice as you soap up? Just wondering...sometimes it's tempting because the faucets and sink look dirtier than any germ you might have picked up behind the stall door.

And lastly, do you continue conversations once you and the toilet have become one, or answer cell phone calls over the sound of the new turbo-charged hand dryers that have caused me to exit so fast I forget to check the bottom of my shoes for the "you're dragging toilet paper on your shoe' look?

Whatever you call it, it's always an adventure in there. I'm sure we'll not meet someday sitting side by side, only separated by a graffited wall and a toilet paper holder that needs written instructions for its operation. I have only two requests. Please don't judge me if I stay too long and please wear closed-toed shoes. ;-)

between the lines (at the ladie's room),
Thanks for reading! 

Near the cutting edge...but carrying a dull knife.

A day late and a dollar short. Yeah. Yeah. I can hear my dad saying it now. Little did I know how prophetic his words were.

It's happened over and over. I get just within reach of the cutting edge, and it moves. I master old math, the week before new math is introduced. I can't wait to be 18 to booze it up, and the week before my birthday they change the age to 21. I take my last college semester of photography with film and darkrooms, as film gives way to computer imaging.

And now here I am with my buttocks bleeding because I'm perched on the wrong side of the cutting edge once again. This time it's the literary publishing world that's waiting to pull the plug on my plans.

I've spent the last 6 years plodding along on a manuscript, knowing someday an agent and publisher would be clamoring for it and that I would see my work in hardcover - beautifully bound, eye-catching cover gracing the windows of Barnes and Noble. I never pictured it to be self-published or read on a Kindle. In my dreams I've been able to smell the ink on the pages as it came off the press, to touch the glossy outside, and turn to the first page to read - by Lee Ann Ropes .

Ah, you say. That could still happen. Maybe, if I had the damn thing completed and ready for press, which I don't. No. By the time I write THE END, cutting edge in the writer's world will undoubtedly be paperless.

Maybe those of us who are always a day late and a dollar short of the cutting edge were put here just to make the rest of you over-achievers look good. Maybe we pave the road to make it smoother for your progress.

But for now I sense I'm foiled again. I'm at least two steps behind the cutting edge. It's like the time I decided to finally go back to work after an extended maternity leave...the Company filed bankruptcy and shut down. Oooh. That dull knife hurt.

By the way, I'm finally ready to cash in the thousands of S&H Green Stamps I've been saving up for years. I hope I'm not too late. They do still redeem those, right?

between the lines,
thanks for reading. :-)

Just one more...Addiction.

I am still reeling over the loss of Robin Williams. Not a day passes where I don't see his image - those sweet eyes - or think of the pain he must have been enduring those last few days. I want to forget about it, but in order to make sense of his death, we must remember. I think he would want us to find a silver lining - to save or at least recognize some other human being that is in pain. Maybe that's what we are supposed to learn from Robin's life and his untimely death. Actually is there such a thing as a 'timely' death?

Anyway, this pondering reminded me of an entry I made some time ago...about addiction and another celebrity. Thought I would share it with you again.

No one grows up dreaming of becoming an alcoholic or addict. It's just not a hit on the Top Ten Parade, for those of you who remember Dick Clark and the show Bandstand. Instead we dream of wealth, happiness, stardom, success, and maybe a long life.

Recently I read an obituary about a man I met many years ago while I was in treatment. My first sight of him was as he shuffled down the hallway like an elderly person, in his slippers, with a distant and glazed look in his eyes. I recognized him. He was a celebrity type. Known for his television career and his wild escapades with celebrities of the opposite sex, in this place he was just a regular guy. He was like me and I just like him. Sick, and sick and tired of being sick and tired.

We became comrades.I watched him struggle as he described several treatment centers he had been in before this one. He finished his 28 day program before me and as we said goodbye, I prayed that he had gotten 'it' this time. I was sad when I heard some years later that he was back in treatment again.

Addiction sneaks up on its victims. Cunning, baffling, and powerful, the menacing disease exercises no discretion at choosing between the poor and the wealthy, the black and the white, the young and the old, blue collar or white collar. It strikes where and when it can, and consumes not only the user, but the entire family and surrounding community. It kills if given the opportunity.

I will probably never know if my friend died sober. The newspaper didn't say. But his legacy to me will be a reminder that recovery from addiction, whatever kind it is - alcohol, drugs, gambling, overeating - all these recoveries are a gift.

Today I am very grateful for my gift. Thank you, James, for sharing part of my journey. May you rest in peace.

Between the lines...