Tuesday, driving Jackson and two of his friends to the zoo for a class field trip: Jason: Toilet mouth!

Jackson: Toilet tongue!

Jason: Toilet ears!

Merrick: You're a toilet head!

Jackson: No, you're a toilet head!

*wild laughter*

Me: Hey, okay guys, that's enough, no name-calling, please, uh, we only say nice things to each other in this car.

Jackson: BULLSHIT!

Yeah, mirrors on the bedroom closet doors, too. Fun, in a way, if you like to have fun in that way; me, I am a wee bit self-conscious having fun in that way, believing, as I have for some time thanks to that goddmned James Merrill poem, that the gods watch us through our mirrors. I mean, I like the gods and all, but my seven closest friends wouldn't even get a show like that from me. I'm not sure the gods still consider my decrepitude to be even moderately interesting anyway, given that they have an entire world of perky tits to spy on. But maybe even after you've shrugged off your worldly existence, you still long to ogle; or to paraphrase Ron White, once you see one naked person . . . you want to see all of 'em naked. Ron was talking about women exclusively, but I have a feeling there are a lot more than one in ten homos in heaven. Pure speculation on my part, you understand.

Anyway, if the principles of feng shui are to be taken into account, mirrors in the bedroom are bad luck as they invite more people into your bedroom. But maybe that's not a problem for you. You beast.

I liked having a tub here in the bedroom, but Jack said no.

So Clayte, Mike, and Gaspar hauled it into the hall bathroom. Here you see Mike polishing a bit of copper and snickering. Right before I took this picture I said, "Suck it in, honey," and Jack said to Mike, "I think she's talking to you."

Here you see Gaspar about to put his head up into the attic to move the flexi hose thing that will soon blow heat down into the kitchen through a Reggio register in the ceiling. I took a dozen pictures of Gaspar yesterday and I think it started to weird him out a little bit. I think Gaspar thinks I like him. Which I do! But not in that way. I'm no fool. I know which side my bread is buttered on.