It's been a long day... I'm playing hardcore punk music to chill out. *giggle* If I expected THAT to work, I've got a serious problem... Fuck it -- I'm just playing this to irritate the ex-roomies, who are in the process of moving out. I'm mostly tuning it out, although I've noticed my typing speed has dramatically increased. On with the entry...
As a kid, I never took showers. I only ever took baths. I'm not sure why. I think I was afraid of getting soap in my eyes.
When we moved into The Big House, which is my dad's current place, the water pressure was so low that you couldn't take a decent shower anyway. So I took baths. Everybody else took showers; I didn't know how they could stand it...
The best part about staying overnight at somebody else's house or a hotel was taking a shower. GAHD, how good that felt!!! You don't realize the beauty of showers until you've been forced to take baths all your life. I actually had to LEARN how to take showers; how NOT to get soap in my eyes, etc...
College was wonderful. Just wonderful. SO much water! Plus, nobody ever used that bathroom much, so it was almost completely private. I used to sing to myself. Usually, it was either Sarah McLachlan's "Hold On," or "Loving You," from Stephen Sondheim's "Passion." I'm not sure why I sang those particular songs; I guess I just liked them or something.
I also used to stick my head under the water and loosely cover my ears with my hands. It was stupid, I know, but it reminded me of the sound of rain on my rooftop. It never rained in Santa Fe; I had to pretend.
I love my shower now. I love it passionately. It's got a purple shower curtain with stupid dragonfly-shaped shower-curtain rings. There's a loofah sponge hanging from one of the faucets shaped like a dinosaur. The dinosaur used to have a sister loofah shaped like a hippo. The hippo was named Julia. The dinosaur was named Gulia. Julia has gone M.I.A., which deeply saddens me, because Julia and I shared many fond shower memories together.
There's Suave shampoo: usually peach, although there's almost none left. To conserve it, I've got a few bottles of hotel-issued soap. And VO-5 conditioner: the economy sized balsam-and-protein one. I'm almost out of that, too. And plain old boring Dial soap -- or maybe it's Ivory. I don't know. Whatever. It's plain and boring. Next time I go shopping, I'll get something exotic with carrots and mothballs and seaweeds and orange pulp in it.
All of my towels are purple. I had this gorgeous red one, but I don't know what happened to it.
I firmly believe that a good shower is as essential to one's emotional health as a good pair of underwear. And, much like underwear, colors and smells are important... Uh... yeah...
I'm not sure why I thought I'd write about my shower this evening. No particular reason, I guess, except that I love it. And that I really ought to start singing in it again. Last time I took a shower at somebody else's house, I sang a 30-minute medley of stuff from "Into The Woods," but somebody's always home here, and no overhead fan to block out the noise... *sigh* Well, NOW nobody will be here... Jeff and his boyfriend just walked past me with a mattress saying they'd be coming back for the box spring in an hour or two and would never return after that.
I think it's time for a shower...
Love,
~Helena*
PS -- Oh, yes, and before I forget... Two things... One, Jo is moving in with me in about a month, because she's wonderful and beautiful and I have absolutely no desire to nurture her to the point of getting myself into debt. And... I'm actually going out tonight; they're expecting me at Chances, everybody's favorite gay bar... I REALLY don't want to go, but I guess six months is a long enough time to recover from all the reasons I hated that place. So... it's almost ten o'clock -- time for a shower and then I'll leave...