2005-10-30
"yellow walls"
I slunk around after a speech round and went left instead of right, leading me down a mini-hallway to which I could easily see the end. Noticing the sign on the last door on the left, I pressed it open. After I turned on the light (the location of light switches is usually quite predictable overall, if you think about it), my eyes were greeted with the immediate sight of yellow stalls. It was the women's faculty bathroom. I stepped in with hesitance; it was by no means a hallowed place, yet I wasn't sure if I should really enter. It seemed just a little taboo. I went in anyway.
There was a bookshelf toward the back of the room, perpendicular to a full-length mirror.
I glanced at myself, wearing that black suit that is supposed to provide an armor of confidence and professionalism when all it really does is make me mildly physically uncomfortable, a reminder where I am during some of the more drowsy, less real-seeming moments of these circumstances. My hair is down and my face is plain and boring. I'm used to its look. It is a mirror relfection look, a standard expression with a hint of self-consciousness. I can be funny about being alone, sometimes unsure of this person.
The bookshelf is not lined with books, which makes sense since it is a bathroom. Instead it is adorned with makeup bags. There were five or so, all different colours, all with a zipper on top.
Cosmetic holders are pretty peculiar. They are a fingerprint in themself, one for each girl and so customized to her. For some, they hold the key to putting on a face every morning to look acceptable (by their own critical self-standards). Other makeup bags are a bit more neglected and less useful, yet still contain feminine essentials.
I honestly don't know what �feminine essentials� are.
I go ahead and peer in these bags, but it's hard to see in them without stealthily widening their openings with my hands as the stale bathroom lights create a shadow on their insides. I don't get my hands involved; that seems like a little too intrusive and I don't want someone to walk in on me even though I know that no one will.
I can see toothpaste in one, a hairbrush in another. These teachers are predictable, but that's not disappointing, it just makes sense. Contact solution, maxi pads.
I go into the left bathroom stall (of the two) since I did enter the bathroom for the usual reason, afterall. On the stall door's interior is a printed sheet with a few jokes on it. I would normally be delighted, but that is too strong of a word for my mood at the time. I was more subtly tired and observant.
There was one about a panda, one about Sherlock Holmes and Watson, and another lame one about a little boy calling his dad a sissy.
I was a bit disappointed that there weren't any raunchy ones. And not just because that would be surprising and comical from a faculty; those are my favorite types of jokes.
Dirty jokes are great because a joke is a joke is a joke, so their crudeness isn't substantial anyway, just admirable in their wit (however ill-refined it may be).
This stall also had the pull-down seat covers, the ones I admire and use with appreciation for their existence.
It is serene in this bathroom; the yellow stalls aren't flamboyant or bright. They are pale, but not in a way that has been worn down over time. Yes, there is no graffiti. This place is not clinical, it is practical. It is an escape from the administration that one is inevitably a part of. Either that, or it's a place to do the expected. There is a surrouding solace within these diluted-lemonade walls.
I ought to get back soon. I had more to do. It would be time again soon enough. This wasn't an exploration, but it wasn't a detour either.
The soap didn't have that strong hospital smell, and the water was warm running down my hands. Running, like people to get somewhere fast. The paper towel dispenser was not the jack-in-the-box crank like the student facilities had.
I let my eyes catch their own reflection once more, and I offered a bit of a reassuring lip-curved grin as I sometimes do to myself. My right hand combed its fingers at my head surface and spanned outward, sliding along the strands in an expanded gesture until the hair falls through and back down, sweeping my shoulders. I like this place.
I look back at the bathroom; I would return here again before it all was over, once more to look around and use it and profoundly ponder the teachers using it. Excuse herself from the class and tease with her hair, brush her teeth after a brief lunch in the teacher's lounge, pop her blood pressure pills in her mouth, sit on the seat and sigh with hands on face sides and elbows on knees. Really, all it was is just a bathroom.
I pushed the door open and peeked my head to see that no one could see me down the hallway end. The door swung closed with a bit of resistence, enough to keep it from being a swingdoor at a restaurant's kitchen but not too much to have to push hard. I don't know where my strength would come for that, anyway.
Someone will go in there tomorrow, they'll step on the small white floor tiles, and they'll use it just as I did.
leesah-likes at 10:25 a.m.