Bathroom Monologue: Death is…

-Never having to hit the snooze bar again.
-Reality falling asleep.
-The last note in your file.
-The end.
-The end of life functions.
-The end of brain functions.
-The end of some brain functions, some life functions, and the patience of those who are paying the hospital bill.
-The end of pretenses.
-The beginning.
-The purpose of the beginning.
-The thing that you will spend the most time anticipating, and yet the thing you can only be lucky to be ready for.
-Really, the least stressful thing you’ll ever do.
-Not to be taken lightly.
-When the doctors really don’t earn their fee.
-Going to a better place, either in that you have earned a paradise, or you’ve been so unbearable that wherever you’ve gone everyone else is just happy you’ve departed for it.
-Overly romanticized.
-Often anthropomorphized as a sentient skeleton in a robe, carrying an oar, riding in a boat.
-Often anthropomorphized as a sentient skeleton in a robe, carrying a sickle, hanging out in the fields for some reason.
-Often anthropomorphized as a really old man.
-Often anthropomorphized as a charioteer.
-Often anthropomorphized as a henchman.
-Often anthropomorphized as a deity.
-Often anthropomorphized as a place.
-Unconcerned with my misuse of the word “anthropomorphized.”
-Waiting for me.
-In need of spare change for some reason.
-A one-syllable word for something that has filled up libraries.
-Constantly occurring somewhere to someone or something, not merely every second, but every millisecond, and likely every nanosecond if you count all the single-celled critters that have been busily living and dying in your guts your entire life, witless that you’re even there.
-In possession of a much better and crueler sense of humor than Life, thanks to Her use of just one punchline.
-A really good cause for the use of a period.
-“Life’s conclusion to its search for the meaning of life - in this case.”

Bathroom Monologue: Love is…

-How the patriot feels for his country, how the zealot feels for his religion, how the sky feels for the ocean.
-Believing this is the last black eye.
-Legally blind; it can make out shapes, but shouldn’t drive.
-A chemical reaction.
-The best biological interface with this world.
-Peace with a part of the external world when you haven’t even achieved internal peace yet. Progress, it seems, is possible. Thank God.
-“Miracle. A miracle. That’s so obvious it doesn’t need to go on the list.”
-A faulty mating mechanism.
-When you don’t have to ask if she’ll come to know she’ll be there. Keep this in check. It could become trouble. Love has many crossovers with “stalking” and “just being annoying.”
-The most worthwhile thing that will ever hurt you.
-The only brand of submission that comes in the “victory” flavor.
-Accessorized self-help.
-Never having to say you’re sorry but always wanting to because you care that so much you pay attention to things you previously didn’t know existed. No question, it expands the consciousness.
-“Life’s search for the meaning of life. What a great idea.”

Bathroom Monologue: “Philosophy is…” –Flyer for an open admission community college course

-The intellectualization of all potentially meaningful and meaningless things.
-Rationalization of the human experience.
-A few atoms in the brain colliding in a slightly different way than usual. Nothing more.
-The course you were so psyched to sign up for.
-The course with the most expensive books.
-The course that turned “Why?” from a word you used to annoy your parents and into a word that destroyed everything you held dear.
-The course where you first gave up on the subject material and relied on saying things that might sound smart in the hopes of getting laid.
-The only course you were ever happy to receive a C- in, because thank God it was over.
-A logical and reasonable artifice constructed to hide base desires.
-Selfish.
-Do-It-Yourself religion.
-The laziest form of politics, with all of the beliefs and none of the practicality, all of the conviction and none of the action. It’s the diet of ideology, where rather than changing the world for the better, you merely tell the world what would be better while you do your own thing. Like diets, their greatest hits are made up of fads and failures.
-“Life’s search for the meaning of life. What a great idea.”

Bathroom Monologue: Historical Friction

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, famous author of the Sherlock Holmes series where a detective used keen deduction to find physically plausible answers to seemingly impossible or supernatural crimes, believed Harry Houdini was a nefarious magician who used his immense spiritual powers to block those of others when testing them in order to "debunk" their mysticism and ruin their careers. This is untrue. Mr. Houdini was not nefarious at all, but altruistically spent his time putting down amateur wizards who were exposing the craft for the few true magic masters. If the Virgin Mary showing up on a grilled cheese sandwich can be covered on CNN, you can imagine what would happen to somebody who can raise the dead, play chess with them, and have them fall back over at the first check. Magicians need privacy to get their work done. What work? Keeping miracles to a minimum and making the planet seem normal. How good of a job do they do? Well, you saw the Virgin Mary grilled cheese, but did you see the Last Supper wheel of Brie? No, and that's all thanks to Mr. Houdini.

Bathroom Monologue: How John Screws Himself Over From Ever Getting Published in * NAME OF MAGAZINE WITHHELD BY REQUEST *

First we tear off the extraneous folds of the unraveling cover, because it’s fucking annoying to have it drape down to the floor every time I accidentally open this thing. Next we scorn the airbrushed anorexic actresses and models that lie across the page in fashion that should cost $39.95, but probably runs nearer to the operating budget of a small island nation. During the unfortunate task of actually opening this mammoth stack of advertisements we skip the first ten or twenty pages, knowing they’ll all be trying to sell us something rather than point us to an article, and sadly shake our heads when we realize “ten or twenty” wasn’t hyperbole, but underestimation. When we can’t find the index, we’ll just flip through and hope to spy a couple of white pages with columns of words. Skimming the pages is perilous for while it will allow you to avoid being affected by most of the vapid, over-art-designed bullshit that makes up the majority of this “magazine,” you may miss one of the rare pages that actually features the work of a writer, or even less often, the work of a journalist or author. Look here – an eight-page article on the next Star Wars videogame, which will apparently open up a new universe in “gaming.” A couple of pages in and this eight-page article is broken up by another ad featuring some repugnantly “beautiful” woman in mood lighting that we can’t stand to look at long enough to find out what fragrance she’s hocking. We wonder if even television, that wasteland of integrity, would break up a news story or a skit on Saturday Night Live to bring you a word from their sponsors. We wonder if this is a news magazine or an overindulgent catalog. Then, nearing the end of our primary function here in the bathroom, we wonder if glossy paper wipes well.

Bathroom Monologue: Here’s to that color under my toenails

Pink was sick of his reputation as a girly color. He was badass, darn it. He was there at every open wound and surgery, but red blood got all of the credit, while he, the color of scar tissue and organs, the color of the tissue that held blood in and told it what to do, got no press. He was the color of infections, and yet through a homophone with “gangrene,” Green stole Pink’s limelight.

Well Pink wasn’t going to take this much longer. He was the color of several erogenous zones, and if people didn’t start giving his manliness more credit soon, he’d go X-rated next spring.

Bathroom Monologue: Simple Question, Simple Brain

How might an omnipotent, omniscient entity with no true physical form simple enough for the human eye to observe appear if It wanted to be seen by people It deemed worthwhile?

-Galactus
-A cloud
-The planet earth
-The planet Jupiter (perhaps speaking out of the Great Red Spot)
-A burning bush
-A woman wearing the sun as a robe
-The father he never knew
-The mother he always wanted
-The rich aunt that always picked up the check
-Friedrich Nietzsche (only on April 1st)
-The opening above a maze
-A very small part of a very comforting but incomprehensible whole, which would give you a massive heart attack if you seriously thought about for so much as an instant
-Her entire life experience, second-for-second, year-for-year, boredom-by-thrill, worry-by-joy, birth-by-death
-A tractor-trailer (Guaranteed Overnight Delivery truck?)