All toilet, all day. And my penis is an earlobe.

It's in landscapes like this where your mind has plenty of time to wander. And wander it does. Things like One Letter Off variations on signage and names, a habit I first heard named by Gary as eulexia. (like dyslexia, but instead of a prefix indicating disfunction, it indicates pleasure) Currently, the chuckles come from Sitarbucks. You know, the place where you can get overpriced mediocre coffee and gratuitously pretentious world music. But inevitably, in the world of long road entertainment, the process of elimination leads to... elimination. Administration of, planning for, and crude references to... poop.

With that, I bring you Phase 2 of the culinary adventures from last week. Long time ago in a midwestern state far, far away, Matthew and Sandra inadvertently showed me how completely easy it is to make seitan (yes, it's pronounced "say-tan", like the devil). So I thought I'd give it a try. Easy enough, but I have to say that if you're going to try it yourself at home, don't fashion the dough into cylindrical shapes, regardless of how much you might want to have round slices to cut up and pan-fry. What you end up with is a cylindrical piece floating in soy sauce/broth, and well, it looks like poo floating in the bowl. Tasty and good for you, but you have to get your head past the visual similarities.
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We move next to the metaphorical toilet, the Toilet of the Mind. It's the metaphorical flip side of that metaphorical tender pelvic region boys on bicycles know well as the perineum, but which Jethro or Bubba would refer to by colloquial nomenclature as "taint". You know, "tain't one, tain't th' other". Something I've been meaning to delve into because it's eminently bloggable, but just haven't gotten to.

It all started when I was chatting with a friend of mine who, among her many fine qualities, happens to be a woman, a scholar, and a post-second-wave feminist. In the midst of our conversation there was some reference to something in popular culture that was possibly phallic, which then led to a discussion of penises.

As a penis owner-operator, and (for the sake of conversation) representative of penis owner-operators everywhere, the question was posed to me "what does your penis MEAN to you?" [emphasis added]. Which easily led me to an introspective self-debate over what "mean" means. (thanks to Bill "that depends on what the definition of 'is' is." Clinton, for making epistemology acceptable in pop culture) We got back to the original question... eventually. Discussion ensued about penises as Instruments Of Oppression, references in art, literature, criticism/analysis thereof, and other meanings assigned in unrelated settings.

The crux of it though is that the best, most honest, most accurate answer I could come up with to describe my own is: "my penis is an earlobe". Seriously. While it's a happy, useful and recreational piece of my anatomy, it doesn't have any crucial day-to-day symbolism or significance. In a removed, academic sense, one can fetishize, iconify, celebrate, or demonize a penis, but on a personal level it doesn't guide me, it doesn't decide things for me, it doesn't define me any more than other parts of anatomy. It's like an earlobe. I use it, it's part of me, I would miss it if it were removed. But I don't think about it actively. Sure, I think sexual thoughts every 7-9 minutes just like every other American Male, but my anatomy plays only a supporting role in those mini-sodes; fantasy mental movies are more likely to have an ensemble cast of anatomy or epic drama of dialogue than be a superstar biopic. Other than it's critical participation in urination and fornication, my penis is an earlobe.
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And lastly, the words of others. I was riding somewhere on an errand and/or adventure with G and her sprogs E and O... adult conversation going on in the front seat, kid conversation going on in the back seat, two separate galaxies. It's where they crossed over that we'll leave off today. The point where the adult conversation ended with "did you hear what I think I just heard?"

You see, the kid conversation was mostly background noise until it got to a puzzling exchange.

O: "I'll be the hamster."
E: "I'll be the toilet."

... someone figure that one out for me and let me know what I must've missed right before that, mmmkay?