Toilets For A Rainy Day

Where:
World Cup Coffee
1740 NW Glisan
Highlights: Clean and stylish, children's art to look at while you're waiting
problems: Bland


Multnomah County Library Northwest branch
2300 N.W. Thurman Street
Highlights: Historic, communal
Problems: Historic, communal

Food Front Cooperative Grocery
2375 NW Thurman St
Highlights: Community bulletin board, organic waste
Problems: It's a grocery store bathroom

Dragonfly Cafe
2387 Northwest Thurman Street
Highlights: Handicap bar, art, super toilet paper, etc.
Problems: no paper towels (air dryer only)


Over the last few weeks I've made piles of paper cranes, romanced perhaps by the crane's connection to wishes. According to Wikipedia, a young girl might fold a thousand paper cranes to win the love of a young man or the thousand cranes can represent health and prosperity. Legend has it that cranes can live for a thousand years. Sunday, I decided to decorate toilets around Portland with paper cranes and flowers in honor of the glorious sunlight.

Tuesday- as I embarked upon the "toilet beautification project"- as I called it- the clouds created a fog across the sun and the rain drizzled the town grey. If this were a post on facebook my friend would comment, "85 degrees in California" and another would describe her tragic dissent into despair for lack of sun. Portland is cloudy 208 days out of the year (San Fransisco is only 105, L.A. only 73).* The clouds attract artsy, cynical, emo types that read Nietzche in coffee shops and dye their hair dark colors. I sometimes associate these long, dark winters with scenes from the shining and Jack the Ripper and yearn for Africa, or Singapore, or New Mexico- fantasizing for hours about the sun.

Tuesday I felt the same despondency over the rain's return. Then, walking past an old, Gothic church decked with rhododendron bushes, i noticed the sweet, vibrant color of the flowers. The color of red tulips in the park, the intense grass smell after a soft rain, and the specks of water on the remaining cherry blossoms making the petals lush and shining. Not everyone came to Portland to write about a gloomy, Godless humanity, many saw in Portland a symbol of hope.

If one gets too distracted by the flashiness of sunlight, they might not notice the twilight beauty of the rain, how the clouds bring objects into focus and give to everything a magical, fairytale quality. They may not notice the beauty in hidden things, the sensuous fresh simplicity of a row of lilacs that only glisten when it's grey.

I thought of making spaces beautiful, perhaps a reflection on a lack of satisfaction with myself, but I realized that I can also change the way I look at things. Rain gives you a quiet space to understand yourself. Rain makes a warm drink (chai roibos in my case), a library, an art museum, or a good movie, a small and precious shelter. Maybe the beauty in a thousand paper cranes isn't the wish itself but in the patience and time it takes to fold each crane, the gathering wisdom to see all you've wished for was there all along.

Review

Things To Do On a Rainy Day

Sunny weather folk might feel a little surprised to see how joyously we Portlanders frolic in the rain. The parks fill with children in bright colored rain coats and galoshes. Flower vendors set up shop on the streets, men walk their dogs, women sit outside bakeries, and couples in coats window shop in the many boutiques littering Nob Hill. These drizzly days are actually a great excuse to go out and enjoy yourself- especially in the spring when the gardens fill with flowers. For all you sunny weather newbies here are a few suggestions for rainy day activities (all with fully equipped toilets of course).

Start out with something warm to drink at a comfortable cafe. I went to the World Cup coffee house which usually has enough chairs and boasts a wall of children's artwork (for the moment, marionettes) and it's own brand of local coffee. It also serves dragonfly not Oregon chai. For those non natives who might not know the difference- dragonfly is American (for lack of a better term) style chai with several different tea bases and Oregon chai is terrible. Both are local. The bathroom is clean, attractively painted, and has a large mirror.

After looking into the shops of crafts, new-aged hippie books, upscale fashion, and breakfast cafes that oddly serve alcohol, stop into the library to use the Internet, read the paper, or even check out a book! In general, beware of library bathrooms. This rule applies in particular to most Multnomah county library bathrooms which host scores of eager patrons and rarely update their facilities. The plumbing resembles a 70s hospital and the baby changing station has some weird black smudge which I suspect dates back to the early 90s. Academic folk looking to better understand the history of Portland may appreciate this glimpse of the past but most people should check out the many more comfortable options in the area.

You can pick up some free rooibos to rewarm yourself and indulge in food fantasies at the Food Front. In the bathroom learn about classes in the area and wholesome hippie events which will make you ask yourself, "Wait- am I in Eugene?" This includes adds for fortune tellers, garden supplies, a business card for God, and a sign saying, "keep your brain sexy, learn French."

After buying dates and honey, or gluten free cookies, or a fair trade chocolate bar, or any number of tree hugging products at the coop that make you feel like going into a yoga, religious, shaman, fill in the blank induced trance why not stop at a nearby bistro and eat some more? One of the best ways to ward off rainy day blues is to eat constantly. I wonder why people from sunny climates don't gain tons of weight. Oh yeah- it's because of all that yoga, religious study, shamanistic ritual, fill in the blank...

The dragonfly cafe also carries dragonfly tea and is filled with luscious velvet couches, cushioned benches, boardgames, and old books including one of my all time favorites- The Chicago Manual of Style. It also has the best bathroom I've seen yet. Why is this bathroom so good? It has everything I've personally ever wanted in a bathroom and more! Let me list the things I love about it:
1) An enormous mural with bright colors and a hot air balloon. I love hot air balloons!
2) Loads of toilet paper unwrapped and out in the open so if you run out you don't have to pull at it, search for a garbage can, fiddle with some dispenser, or any number of other nuisances.
3) The toilet paper feels amazing! Thick and firm and soft- not the cheap stuff that fills even the finest restrooms
4) A whole rack of disposable reading material. If you have an episode- not that I've ever had one in a public restroom- you have something to read until it passes that won't carry someone else's germs and that you can recycle when you're done. You can also use this multi tiered rack with a table underneath to put your things on. I decorated the rack with paper cranes.
5) A handicap bar. How many small establishments don't have handicapped bars. It's awful considering the large number of elderly people who want to eat out and can't bend down to the toilet so have to stand while they use the bathroom.
6) High quality yummy smelling soap.
7) The garbage is covered and tasteful and the plumbing on the sink is hidden by a simple striped cloth.
8) The walls are newly painted and graffiti free!

Two problems keep this bathroom from a perfect score: 1) no paper towels, only an air dryer. 2) slightly lax on cleanliness.

Grade: World Cup B
Northwest branch (Multcolib) C
Food Front B-
Dragonfly Cafe A-
*according to the Western Regional Climate Center.

Toilet Sexuality in a Wildian world

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months- Oscar Wilde



Where:
Saks Fifth Avenue 850 SW 5th Avenue

Highlights: You can pretend to be Judy Garland from A Star is Born

Problems: Not worth pretending to buy socks for

Nordstrom 701 SW Broadway

Highlights: Directly across from Pioneer Courthouse square
Classy lounge

Problems: The toilets might only speak Svenska

When pontificating on the ideal husband, countless women of my acquaintance have described their lust for Oscar Wilde. What is it about the gay, not terribly handsome and frankly, suicide inducingly cynical, dead guy that embodies for the female sex such tantalizing sexuality? As the writer of the surprisingly raunchy "Julie and Julia" points out, the written word has a uniquely potent sensual power.

One of my male classmates, describing his interest in his creative writing teacher, said, "Women who like Jane Austen are so sexy!" Is it possible that men respond as strongly to a well formed sentence as women do?

Jane Austen, writing at the end of the Romantic period, and Wilde- embodying the self reflecting witticisms which revealed, at a time when psychology was just becoming en vogue, the monster within everyone, particularly the beautiful- represent the sentiments of Victorian literature. By Victorian I mean the same period known for repressed sexual neurosis and corset induced fits of hysteria. Austen never married, Wilde rotted away for romancing a manipulative playboy and both spoke of love (never of sex or sensuality) as something growing out of gratitude and kindness rather than romance. Given their relative literary chastity in a West which thrives off of blunt and visual stimuli, what exactly makes their writing so, well... sexy?

My friend Kate understood completely. Kate is going to school to be a counselor and works with sex addicts. She's my personal relationship expert, the one I would call if I needed some authority in a trial or to research some non fiction piece on dating for the new millennium. When I brought up Pride and Prejudice she burst out with, "It's the tension between Darcy and Elizabeth." If you've seen the smoldering passion behind Colin Firth's troubled brown eyes you'll totally get what she means. So something must happen in the process of denial and anticipation that makes chaste, cool objects turn hot.

So what other seemingly sexless objects do the public desire? Many people find food strangely alluring, hence the lewd obsessions of both Julia Child and her mimicker Julie Powell, who found things like parts of a cow or a well cooked egg oddly erotic. Men supposedly respond well to the smell of popcorn and women to chocolate. A well placed tie, a face veil, vampires, and women dressed as men have all had their sensual appeal and fashion in general dictates the body type, the skin color, the height, and the facial expression necessary to finding a mate driving scores of wealthy Japanese girls to tanning booths for orange tans and bleached hair.

Given the influence of fashion on our desires I decided to explore the two most fashionable bathrooms in downtown Portland: Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue. Saks Fifth announced recently the decision to close it's Portland store recognizing that Portland is both fashionably and economically bankrupt and thus more committed to vintage clothing. My only two experiences with Saks involve an obsessive purchase of the nicest umbrella I could find- a designer piece with a wooden handle that I never use- and a conversation with an French ex-celebrity ballet dancer who wanted to find me a job there because, since I'm clearly a fellow European, I'm too classy to work at Macy's. These two associations made me approach Saks with the same working class snobbery I approach the Republican party.

Review

I invented a convoluted reason for shopping there which came in handy since none of the store clerks seemed to have anything to do other than picking at their nails against a spotless counter or pretending to examine a handbag. I went to the hosiery section suffering from an attraction to socks resembling only my previous fascination with umbrellas and an ongoing very French love affair with unmentionables. I realized my mistake when a sales clerk showed me to the blandest, least convincing part of the store. I took one glance at rows of nude colored pantyhose and asked for directions to the restroom.


So here's the shocker: For all that effort the Sak's bathroom is decidedly unspectacular. It looks like the sad dressing room remnants of a faded starlet. The walls are painted in pink marble with large vanity table lights above a long mirror and pearl colored lounge chairs. Quite frankly, Macy's bathroom might have more class and less pretension.


Here's where I go from sounding like a self righteous anti consumerist to losing the positive opinions of socially conscientious readers by admitting my hypocrisy. I used to work at Nordstrom. What's more- I like it. There, I said it! Not just because, for me, the heartwarming story of a Swedish immigrant who labored for years in mining camps, eventually opening up a small family shoe business in the great Northwest invokes Portland's pioneer spirit or because the pep rally style staff meetings where we watched stylish videos of runway models that had absolutely nothing to do with my job gave me a sense of sexy pride. No, I think primarily of Nordstrom as the best free public bathroom in downtown Portland.


Yes, after investigating Sak's rival facilities Nordstrom still holds that title. It's facilities impress for several reasons. 1) Although the clerks greet you if they catch you say, looking at the shoes, they aren't watching from every corner ready to physically escort you to the bathroom stall and wait for you to finish. 2) It's louge is lush and classy with huge grey armchairs and a washbasin. 3) One can't help but wonder at how far that foreign kid working in logging camps in California really came.


I need not comment on the toilets. They're generically clean- cleaner than the movie theatre but wealthy women also enjoy hovering. Just wipe the seat before you use the toilet and- a tip someone gave me- the first stall is normally the cleanest.

Grade:
Nordstrom B+
Saks B

Alas- I was unable to review the male bathrooms though certainly next time I'll bring the proper disguise so I can review both men's and women's. For now though- if anyone would like to review the men's bathroom for either store feel free. You can post your review on the Facebook discussion board or add your comments at the end of my blog.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=296867263385

Toilet on Asylum Avenue

Where: Fred Myers 3805 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Highlights: Eco Friendly, Posh for a grocery store

Where: Powell's Books & Fresh Pot
Highlights: Literary Enlightenment

Though surely none of my readers will believe the tale I must now relate to excuse my several weeks absents, I feel compelled to live up to my humble pledge to tell nothing but the absolute truth- in particular regarding Portland facilities.

My story begins two weeks ago as I set out to review a part of Portland known as the "hipster" street, frequented by young men and women with tasseled manes, tight pants, cigarette induced glares, and the lost look of the temporarily insane. The man in front of me spoke on the phone in Russian baby talk then spit, narrowly missing me. A pirate statue with a feather boa around it's neck smiled at us from someones front porch.

Suddenly, an animal which looked like a cross between a duck and a beaver wearing a patch over one eye ran across my path, looking repeatedly over his shoulder. "Oh dear, oh dear," the thing exclaimed, "I am so very late!" I followed the thing, because- well- who wouldn't be curious- as it rushed past deliberately obtuse pedestrians into Powell's, through the bathroom door, and disappeared down the toilet. "I do declare," I said aloud, peering down in perplexity, "This day keeps getting curiouser." As I stared into that plumbic abyss, a strong pull arose from within it's darkness drawing me into the depths beneath.

The next thing I knew I was falling past a series of objects suspended in space, flashing like memories past my vision. Ahead of me, maintaining a consistent distance so as to seem immobile, was the thing, muttering under it's breath I suppose, "so very very late." My dear readers, remembering similar journeys taken by girls, will be relieved to hear that I ate nothing on my journey and kept my mouth fixedly closed the entire fall.

Eventually, as all falling objects supposedly do, I hit the bottom only to find myself outside a large and imposing property. The original Oregon Hospital for the Insane took up the enormous square space between 9th and 12th, Hawthorne (at that time Asylum Avenue) and Taylor. This asylum later relocated in Salem, gaining notoriety for it's gruesome abuses of inmates.

I followed the thing into a pleasant building and spent the next few weeks meeting people suffering from all range of infirmities. I met those who had engaged in indecent behavior, those who liked to listen to the mingling of strange harmonies, people pretending to be pirates and people pretending to be artists, dreamers and inventors and mathematicians. I felt the strong sense of deja vu as I recognized these ghosts who had haunted me on Portland's modern streets. "Keep Portland Weird" could just have easily applied to 150 years ago as to the present.

I will not relate my travels through the streets of 19th century SE and my return to the present so much as to say that I made it safely back to the present day streets to complete my review of the toilets. The sad hauntings of the insane and the feeling of loneliness which shadows anyone who thinks differently from others affects Portland pedestrians like France's mistral wind. Photographs of the bathroom at The Fresh Pot- a coffee shop connected to Powell's- revealed a population weighed down by an oppressive society, crying for a way to escape.


One person quoted Wilde:

It is only what is good in man
that wastes and withers there
pale anguish keeps the heavy gate
and the warder is despair

(from The Ballad of Reading Gaol)

The poem refers to a prison and I remember the faces of the inmates of that asylum so many years ago. I realize that smell which has permeated so many of these trendy places in Portland, the claustrophobic smell, is the smell of imprisonment. All these settlers who have since Portland's insurrection escaped the sadness of their past have found, like many of Wilde's characters, that this imprisonment lies in their hearts not in their surroundings.

And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word.

Review
Hawthorne has always been a strange dichotomy between counter culture riffraff and the wealthiest members of Portland. The two main public bathrooms within a block of each other represent perfectly this juxtaposition. The Fred Myers bathroom boasts a new environmentally advanced plumbing system, in line with the Portland airport, so customers stuffing themselves on sushi at the grocery sushi bar can relax in the knowledge that they've consumed a minimum amount of water in disposing of their organic waste. They rebuilt the store as part of an initiative to earn the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certificate which should encourage the Whole Foods market.

Because Fred Myer bathrooms are conveniently located and accessible without making a purchase, they get more traffic than other smaller facilities. Compared to both the Powell's and the Fresh Pot bathrooms, however, they are kept tolerably clean and the multiple stalls give the consumer options. Out of the Powell's and Fresh Pot bathrooms, Fresh Pot is the most reliable though currently filled with quotations urging you to kill yourself or rage against society like"so empty inside? Kill your TV!" and "The cat will nap when he is ready to face his dreams." They recently painted the Powell's bathroom an edgy green, probably a semi regular occurrence as many bathroom goers use the walls as a canvas for their angst. Also- one can browse the zines and foreign language section while waiting for the Powell's bathroom, discovering "delightful" digests from local writers.

Otherwise the bathrooms are pretty standard unisex single bathrooms vs. sterile multi stall megaplex. It would be an interesting sociological study to draw up a demographic for each of these three bathrooms though dwelling too much on the flocks of bathroom growers might get a little distasteful.

Grade:
Powell's C
Fresh Pot C-
Fred Myers B

Toilet Spirits and A Dark, Dark Tale

Where: Rimsky-Korsakoffee House
707 SE 12th Ave
Highlights: Original Decor Spotless
Problems: Scary

The first book I ever learned to read was "A Dark, Dark Tale" by Ruth Brown. It begins, "Once upon a time there was a dark, dark moor" I learned it at the age of four through stubborn and obsessive memorization, the words materializing in my brain "in the house there was a dark, dark stair..." What passion for uncovering the mysteries within that darkness formed in my malleable brain as I repeated those words to myself? What spirits lurked in that wood, that empty house? Did they bleed from the pages of this dark story into my dreams? Looking at the images from my latest toilet observation I recreate this story- asking myself the same questions...

Once Upon the Time there was a house
In the house was a dark, dark stair

Up the stair was a dark, dark hall

Down the hall was a dark dark room

In the room was a dark dark corner

In that corner was a dark, dark tub

In the tub was....

A body!!!

This children's story never suggested a murder, unless in the natural predator and prey, cat and mouse order of things. Yet this bathroom brings to mind a number of questions. Who is this body in the bathtub? Whose feet dangle from the ceiling and did someone decapitated a body before you came in or did the architect build the room entirely out of water? The spirit reaches her hand out toward you, as though beckoning you into the murky blue paint, to creep within the walls.
In elementary school I read a story about a wax museum which came alive at night and turned two children hiding in the museum into wax. Since then mannequins have terrified me. I use the toilet like a soldier in battle, blocking out the body in front of me, the open window with the pale billowing curtains, the shackled hand of the mannequin struggling to reach my face- just one hand, the other somehow absent. I focus on the fish, floating benignly across the wall, anything to distract me from my imaginary villains, images from Japanese horror films dredged up and melted together, whispering lines from too many children's books featuring death by drowning.*
I take my pictures quickly, hearing a line of women building in the hallway. Downstairs, I admire the portraits of dead white musicians beneath the glass in the coffee tables and the painting of famous writers behind me, their eyes fixed empty and wax like from the frame. Oscar Wilde's head is grotesque, dwarfing his body. A journal on the table for guests to write their innermost thoughts is open to drawings of genitalia and palm trees. I write in a game of MASH.

Score: This bathroom disturbs me in some profound and hidden place I can't explain. The same part of me weeps when I read Pinocchio, recalls late nights at summer camp in a dark bathroom trying to conjure "bloody Mary," confuses a tree with the shadow of a phantom in the moonlight, could reread the B.F.G. a thousand times. Those who can shut off this part of them which believes in closet monsters will have no problems with this bathroom. Those who have to read a cheerful story after a vivid dream might struggle more with the staring images as they try to relax into a sense of security.
The toilet lacks the cleanliness issues found in my previously reviews. So immaculate is both this bathroom and it's reputation, that I'm tempted to conclude that the inhibitions of others in truly using this toilet equal mine. I could never see someone spending quality time on this toilet, taking the time to read a magazine. The open window circulates freshness through the room, and the uncovered toilet paper roll keeps users from mistakenly flinging paper across the room which mysteriously happens in at least 8 toilets out of 10. Definitely a toilet worth seeing and enjoying, at ones own risk. I just wouldn't recommend saying "candy man" anywhere near the mirror.

Grade: B+
A Few Children's Books Which Feature Drownings *
(Feel Free to Add Any You Think Of)
Huckleberry Finn
Pinocchio
Wait Til Helen Comes
Boy's Life
(Notice that three of these involve spirits)

Toilet Haiku

Where: Backspace 115 NW 5th, Portland
Highlights: Reading Material, Convenient (open 7am-11/12!)
Problems: Unusable

Several people have told me their stories about the interesting dialogues scribbled on the walls of public bathrooms. Many people use these bathrooms to proclaim various personal musings or important social messages like, "You are beautiful" "Dumb hipsters" or "Penis." I've found that certain PSU bathrooms contain some of the most interesting comments including poetry and an essay on pretentious English majors.
The bathrooms at Backspace have wall to toilet to paper towl dispenser graffiti- most of it the typical variety like someone's tag name "Plack" (written at least 6 times), hometown (Winchester VA), or message of love (Jim loves Kate). I wonder about the emotions that Jim went through when he decided to profess his love on the bathroom wall. Did the sound of water hitting the toilet bowl remind him of that rainy day when Kate forgot to bring a rain coat and her hair fell in tangles about her face? Did the memory of that moment fill his heart so completely that, as if compelled, he took a pen from his pocket and sketched his undying love on the paint splattered wall for everyone to see, "Jim loves Kate!"
If I'd actually sat upon that toilet- which I didn't- the short quibbles might have inspired me to write a haiku. Back in front of my computer I try to combine lines to create some meaning: "Blonde death on the moons of Jupiter/ all the things that might has been" or "Dear Mike, I want to have breakfast every morning/trick sensor." Finally, I form some sense of a haiku. Originally, I thought the word was "split" and stared at it for several minutes trying to understand the depth of meaning "one great split"- like dissecting Shakespeare. Did someone have a really bad breakup? Then I tilted my head and the "pl" transformed.

See the world as one
truth is found in unlikely
places, one great shit

Score: I couldn't use this bathroom. I lived in Africa for two years and traveled to several countries with unattractive toilets, used gas station bathrooms, port-a-potties, and park bathrooms and I couldn't use this bathroom. Something about the drug induced artwork, the sign saying "Mice" with an arrow pointing to the right, the sticker depicting a large insect on the side of the toilet, made me uncomfortable connecting my bare bottom to a surface which several creatures may or may not have used before me. That and the hair all over the toilet seat. Than again, it wasn't that urgent. There are two bathrooms and the cafe is in a really convenient part of Portland and easy to use without paying anything. Plus the cafe is open fairly late.

An unrelated note on the food: Looking up the place online I saw the cafe serves only vegetarian cuisine. 'Great,' I thought, 'I'm vegetarian.' Not great. By vegetarian it actually means several options of fake meat- including fake ham which, quite frankly, baffles me as I believe- correct me if I'm wrong- that ham is the last thing any vegetarian would want to eat or even, as the case may be, pretend to eat. I ordered the nachos which tasted like fake beef and burnt cheese. Grade: D

Lessons in Zen in the Toilet Afterlife

Where: Whitsell Auditorium, Portland Art Museum
1219 SW Park Avenue

Highlights: Native American artwork,
no hoverers, Zen
Problems: Bright hospital lights, too white,
sterile= constipation inducing

According to an online quiz, I was a unicorn in a past life and, because of my experience as a unicorn, I now behave like a character in a fairytale. I have read story after story of people who recounted astonishing facts supposedly learned from their past lives. People suddenly speak Russian under hypnoses or remember the names and faces of family members from medieval Scotland. No one, under hypnosis, ever remembers their life as a cockroach or conducts extensive research into monkeys to understand why they have a compulsive desire to swing on branches using their tail.

So why do we remember what we remember? Do we possess a collective consciousness like Jung suggested- a psychic connection, did we really live in ancient Rome where we witnessed Nero massacre our parents, or is it in fact a convoluted series of coincidences? One woman under hypnosis started speaking Hebrew which turned into a long obsession with her past as a migrating Jew, only to later discover that she'd had an Israeli nanny as a young child.

William Butler Yeats believed that all of our lives happen simultaneously and that each life is a different path our destiny could take. I've seen three movies in the Whitsell auditorium, attached to the Portland Art Museum, dealing with reincarnation and coincidence, the most recent involving a lovely pair of designer shoes and a stolen handbag. All three movies favored lingering shots of grass blowing in the wind. Apparently grass and the afterlife are connected somehow.

It's ironic every movie I've seen at the art museum has dealt with death. Not just death in the mother dieing of cancer, violent genocide, stark newspaper article sort of way but mystical, gateway to something new, empty nothingness, tunnel out of the darkness death. I've followed each movie with a trip to the bathroom, a bathroom so white I imagine embracing the light and giving myself over to a blinding peace. The long, angled row of sinks resembles a stark, sparse, zen inspired Japanese studio and the marble countertops, combined with the strong metalic light fixtures in stern, straight lines creates a modern simplicity which might make a chic boutique but gives you the sense that rather than peeing, you should maybe get some work done or buy something. The light attracts flaws in personal appearance making you feel underdressed for the toilet. This toilet says both, "Welcome to the afterlife" and "I don't mean to be rude but isn't your underwear a little garish?"

When I walk out of the bathroom, planning on purchasing some new underwear, I admire the Native American masks and baskets in glass cases in the hallway and struggle to remember my life as a unicorn in the same way that Sam Neill vividly reenacted his past life as a dog while under the influence of rare whisky in Dean Spanley, a film I watched in the Whitsell Auditorium. I find it difficult to remember this particular past life given that I'm not completely sure I believe in unicorns or past lives. So instead I picture a bright light, wild grass blowing in the wind, and forget about unicorns and gaudy undergarments.

Score: Outside of this toilet's connection to the afterlife, it's a fairly standard toilet. The whiteness gives the illusion of extreme cleanliness which comforts the hoverers enough not to pee on the seat. While I can't make a promise of 100%, I can't remember any visit to the art museum that involved puddles of pee. The art museum in general is extremely accessible for the elderly and handicapped and I have never once waited in line for the bathroom, even at the most crowded events.
The long row of sinks adds to the accessibility of the bathroom making it so every patron could finish at the toilet at the same time and find a place to wash their hands- simultaneously! While friends and family wait for the lingering bathroom goer they can occupy themselves admiring the Native American artwork, including some hand woven baskets and bird masks. Children can find entertain running up and down the long ramp and stairs.
A few things bother me about this toilet. Something about it's whiteness and bright lights reminds me of bathrooms at mall food courts. The lights and the reminder of suburban meth addicted teenagers makes me feel pressured to get in and out as soon as possible. This might explain the lack of lines to the bathrooms and might also be a positive aspect of the bathroom.

Grade: C+

La Bourgeoisie: A Cultural Study of Toilet Hovering

Where: Regal Cinemas Broadway Metroplex
1000 SW Broadway, Portland
Highlights: Funky large, round Mirrors, yellow painted walls, and black onyx tiles
Problems: Hoverers

Where: Saint Honoré Boulangerie
2335 NW Thurman St, Portland
Highlights: French theme, long gothic passage
Problems: Bland, cliché


Every year Portland gathers in theatres across the city for the International Film Festival; a collection of movies from around the world that Americans might otherwise wait years to see. Though the festival typically does a good job including a diverse range of topics, I've noticed over the years that Americans prefer their movies to live up to preconceived notions of the featured country. From France comes movies with love affairs or classy psychological thrillers, African films deal with multiple wives, war, and immigrants, Japanese films often have a modern techno element, and Indians are always poor.
This year I watched a movie from India called "The Window (Janala)" about an idealistic young man who commissions a window for his old run down school. Outside of commenting to my friend on the aesthetically pleasing leading man, I spent most of the film reminiscing about Africa. Bimal's classroom lacked electricity and windows, so did my classrooms in Cameroon. The women wearing bright colored skirts, carrying baskets on their heads looked like Cameroonian women. The windowless bus and men peeing in a long row across a field while the women waited in the vehicle made me homesick for Africa.
After the film my friend and I filled out score cards. I gave it a 2 and wrote "boring, hot guy, underwear model?" My friend gave it a 5, "My favorite movie ever." His nationalist pride makes him want to win anything. A woman filling out the cards next to us discussed the film with her husband, "Did you like this movie as much as the other one? It was good to get to see India since I'll probably never go there." I ignored this comment to rush to the bathroom.
Women have long expounded in anecdotal blogs and humorous newspaper articles on the subject of the hoverer. The hoverer is the woman before you who, in order to avoid pressing her bottom to the toilet seat and unaware of the seat covers provided for that reason, squats over the toilet, peeing all over the edges. A certain type of person pees on the toilet seat. The same type of woman who goes to the International Film Festival and makes comments like, "I understand what it's like to travel to India because I saw the Window" or "I know all about Afghanistan because of the Kite Runner" and all about Muslims from NPR.
Speckles of pee decorated my toilet. I admired the yellow walls and large round mirrors where an older woman with blond hair adjusted her fur coat, wondering what she thought about the movie. When I came out of the bathroom my friend gave his true, nonpatriotic view of "the window." "Maybe India looked like that in the 60s but you don't see run down schools like that nowadays. That's why I hated Slumdog Millionaire, treating India as though it's nothing but poverty. And these types of movies they make because they know it'll sell."

Saturday, I went to a French cafe in Portland's hoity toity neighborhood, an area of Northwest where many of the wealthy people from the Heights descend to spend money in the many boutiques and upscale coffee shops. Members of Alliance Francaise meet at Saint Honore to practice their French and customers pay exorbitant amounts for almond filled croisants, rich pastries, and several ham filled options. Given the elegant atmosphere of the cafe I expected a luxurious French themed bathroom. Instead, the bathroom at Saint Honore resembles many other bathrooms scattered throughout Portland. The bathrooms are decorated with the same cheap copy of a painting of flowers and unoriginal grafiti. Only one thing distiguishes between the two; "Eat the Rich" written in small block letters on the mirror in the first bathroom.
I returned to my seat and my chai and watched an Indian man take delicate, deliberate pictures of his croisant. The man next to him read a book about drawing. As children, did we believe that America resembled what we saw in the movies? Did we think that beyond our tiny houses most of America had large kitchens full of constantly available food, well lit bathrooms, and perfect smiles. Did we believe the myth of a wealthy America? Do we look to the movies for our clues about the world rather than to the people around us? Do we believe that the true France can be found in a wealthy cafe with a cheap bathroom or a well made gateau chocolat? Over the next two weeks, watching the movies featured in the International and African film festival, I will explore these ideas which haunt me about art and truth in hopes of getting closer to my understanding and our collective vision of the truth.

Broadway Regal Cinemas
Score: For a Regal bathroom it has it's own individual charm and personality. If the theatre employees could keep the bathroom clean despite the artsy mob regularly defiling it I might even give this bathroom a better grade. The multiple large mirrors make it easy to do a quick beauty check up to make sure you haven't melted during the 2+ hours in the theatre. Unfortunately, you can only use this bathroom if you pay. I tried to sneak in because I hadn't taken proper photos and found the doors locked.
One thing I should note about hoverers: Always wipe the seat before you use the toilet to make sure that you don't sit in a pile of someone else's urine. I know one woman who brings a bottle of water to wash herself after using public bathrooms. When I discover puddles on a toilet I pay special attention after flushing to see if the toilet spits the pee out when it flushes or if someone had, in fact, hovered. If it does spit something out- I suggest doing a courtesy wipe for the next person. I also stand well clear of the toilet after I flush to make sure it doesn't get me with an strong splash.
Grade: C+

Saint Honoré Boulangerie
Score: The lack of attention payed to this bathroom suggests either A) that not many people use the bathroom or B) That customers of this café care very little about the quality of bathroom. While a bathroom might not need to be the first consideration when developing a new café, a well established place should take the time to invest in better facilities. When you pay for food you also pay for all the hidden costs going into the restaurant. With such exorbitant prices, this cafe can afford to spruce the place up at least with some French themed art work. Another unapetizing aspect of this bathroom were the bugs blending into the flower painting and creeping along the floors making me question the overall sanitation of the place.

On a positive note, due to the business of the place, you can easily sneak into the bathroom without buying something although you need to know where to grab the restroom key so you don't have to ask anyone. FYI: It's in a small basket at the front counter. Just grab it- no one will see you! You then go down a long hall curving round a large stone wall making you think that you've snuck into a gothic castle to retrieve lost and precious treasures. You pass by employees speaking in French adding to the sense that you are, in fact, a foreigner on an adventure in a foreign land only to turn the key in the door lock and enter a generic, very American bathroom. Oh horror! And there... the fantasy ends.

Grade: C-