Home

Sometimes I remove all of my clothes before taking a shit. I can’t explain it, I just feel compelled.
This is one of those days. The fan (it’s been broken for ages) howls like an abattoir; my heavy hand thumps it into a rough buzz. And... I disrobe. I can already feel the weight pressing gently.
My body shaped lump of flesh, stands in the air.
With a kind of minds eye (not in the mirror), I observe myself ...like a kind of third person detachment.

A shit occurs.

Get dressed.

That’s it.

Pub

Chlamydia ?
Clamydia?
The poster asks? I’m not sure if I’m part of the target demographic, at least... that’s not what I’m in the toilet for. The warning tells a thousand stories of those for whom it is intended. Those people who pass to pick up a condom, or drag a female drunkard into this tight cubicle. One who casts his eye over her shoulder and sees that vigilantly bi-lingual sign... doubt? It’s all yours.

Tiled floor, small shaped, thankfully quiet, wooden door, lock busted, held shut by my foot, balance ,piss, failing to decipher graffiti, wooden door.

Home

So these two bogs, Home and Work, punctuate the average day. Back at my house, empty , myself excepted. The bathroom, sits right at the back of the house, a window would open out onto the garden, but it’s too cold for that. The Fan has fizzing to grating motor sound. Simplicity is something held in high esteem in this area of the house. Functionality is the most important element to the room. There is something so logical, so systematic; it’s somewhat pleasant to walk into the order; away from household build up of clutter, junk, trinkets, books, work, tat and stacks of... The door closes you into a routine, so ingrained you almost don’t know your doing it. The space awaits you and guides you, offers no distractions or quirky brilliance. And in one moment of that order, there is a pause, it’s a pause for as long a you want.

Work

Institutional toilets are a hit and miss affair. Well, I can’t help but enjoy the warm clean clinical situation of the art school, or the art centre (before they moved theirs outdoors for major redevelopment – and I have high expectations of the new toilet facilities.) The art school was the first time I broke the unspoken rule of every young boy ‘ No Shitting at School’ .I can never quite figure out why this rule existed, and I remember coming across significant evidence of some kids breaking this law. Maybe it’s something that I fabricated. Something I applied (unspoken) to everyone hoping that I’m not being weird. The rule however somehow has carried, not into the art school but into the work place. I never shit at work. This has never been a significant problem. The room is reminiscent of the school toilet. Very grey, flaking paint. Disconcerting signs that regulate the space with logo and slogans ‘Make Handwashing a Habit’. Two cubicles and two urinals, if possible I only use the toilets if the room is empty of my colleagues. The room has a bit of clutter, a bucket and several boxes of industry standard paper handtowels. The cubicles itch with graffiti, currently homophobia is the major theme, taking the baton from racism some months ago. A few poorly made A4 posters (which is a generous description for a printed word document) advertise some kind of charity raffle, which I don’t know much about, the font is too small and I’m not about to hang about here reading. The smell is unpleasant in a chemical rather than natural way; I’m not sure which is worse. I make handwashing a habit, and leave.

Home

White squares, green oblongs and a red circle. Ok so I’m looking around the room, much more conscious of ‘looking for things’ than ever before. I’ve sat here staring into space, day after day after day. There’s nothing I haven’t absent mindedly cast my eye over. The white square tiles cover one wall, and part of its adjacent wall. Two green bathroom mats and one circular red bathroom mat. The red circle almost really strikes me... but fluff and bits of hair and stuff gives it the grotty uniform. This bathroom is mostly clean (obviously lived in- old toothbrushes, empty shampoo canisters, and damp towels slouching off the radiator- signs of life) but there is a kind of faint grotty outline, just along the base of the walls and around the base of the toilet.

I think a little about the lock. It’s just a tiny brass bar, but it’s critical to the toilet’s definition. The lock needs to be there. I hardly ever lock it anymore. I used to, and in every other toilet I do without fail. But this is in my home. Mostly home alone. So the peace is unlikely to be disturbed.

Space for Safe Solitude.

This page will contain text based documentation of every toilet that I enter over the next forty days. Toilets are unusual in that they are architecturally designed for aloneness. In this place the very bricks and mortar have been placed for safe solitude. The space for private happenings in the flesh and safe exploration of our thoughts.
I think the texts will be focused on the space and locus of the toilets rather than the events that take place durin my visits. I'll see how things progress.