Sophia went to her new therapist tonight. Â I waiting for her at a Coffee Bean near the office.
After he session, she came and said, “I talked about YOU to the therapist. He thinks you may have OCD.”
I have self-diagnosed myself many times, but OCD was never on the list. I’m sure my father, who flossed twice a day, had OCD, but not me. I consider myself more “generalized neurotic anxiety.”
“I do not have OCD,” I told Sophia. “Your therapist is wrong. I have no idea how he can make this statement without ever meeting me. What is he basing this on — What YOU tell him?”
“It makes sense to me.”
“No, it doesn’t. I don’t wash my hands all the time. That’s OCD. In fact, I haven’t washed my hands at ALL today! So, there!”
“That washing the hands thing is sixty year old Freudian analysis. That is so out of date. OCD is much more complex nowadays.”
“I’m not OCD. He’s wrong.”
“Didn’t you tell me that your first girlfriend dumped you because she nicknamed you “Repetitive Motion” in the bedroom.”
“I was new to the sport. I thought that’s how it was done.”
“And frankly, I always your “Five Second Rule” a very annoying method of oral sex.”
“It’s a scientific fact. Just like quickly picking up the cookie off the floor. If you take the tongue off the clitoris within five seconds, you avoid the germs.”
Is Sophia’s therapist correct?   Out of pure coincidence, I wrote the following post two days ago.  The theme was “bathrooms.”  I never published, thinking it dumb and not worthy of your attention. Now, I’m wondering if it wasn’t a cry for help —
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Part of the creative process is seeing connections between random events. Sometimes the artist is not even aware of how he is connecting the dots of his daily life.  It takes a wise friend or a therapist to expose the patterns.  Why don’t YOU try to be my therapist for the day and see if you can FIND THE PATTERN of my existence?  Who am I?  Why am I constantly focusing on this one mysterious subject?  What does this say about me?
It all started at the walk n New York for the March of Dimes.  I was walking next to two lovely bloggers — Isabel Kallman and Mihow — and discussing the question of the day — “What happens if one of us has to use the bathroom as we are walking?” I admitted that I would rather pee in the subway than be stuck inside one of those claustrophobic Port-o-Potties.  Isabel, being a true New Yorker, was a connoisseur of finding the classiest bathrooms in the city, and told us how in high school, she used to sneak into the Plaza Hotel.
“I tend to avoid five-star hotel restrooms,” I replied, “because they have attendants, and then I feel obligated to give the guy a dollar for handing me a towel, and I feel the same away about peeing that I do about using Twitter — it shouldn’t cost me anything.”
Always an entrepreneur, I immediately came up with a proposal for a best-selling travel book, “The Best Rest-Rooms to Sneak Into When You Have to Pee in America.” My hopes were dashed when Mihow said that someone already had written that book.
The next day, I went with my mother to Target, where we bought a new toilet seat. I told her that I was an experienced toilet-seat switcher, having done this task for Sophia, but when I attempted to remove the seat, it wouldn’t budge.  One of the screws in the toilet seat was so rusty, I could not remove it.  I sat on the bathroom floor for an hour, struggling with the toilet seat, not one of my favorite activities.  Eventually, my mother had to call the super to help me change the toilet seat. I felt like a failure in my mother’s eyes.  My mother gave the super a five dollar tip.   I sulked.
Are you noticing a theme developing? Let’s recap. At the March of Dimes march, I spoke to fellow bloggers about peeing in hotels. The next day, I spent an hour in the bathroom trying to switch the toilet seat. I also disappointed my mother, something a therapist would probably write down in his notebook.
On Friday, I had a flight to Los Angeles. My mother woke me up five hours before the flight! She gets nervous about flying and is obsessed with “getting there early.” She was making me so anxious in the apartment, as she paced back and forth, that I took her advice, and went to the airport two and half hours before my flight.  At the airport, I drank two cups of overpriced coffee, and then decided to use the bathroom in the JFK terminal.  I knew I had a window seat on the flight, and I am always reluctant to ask the passengers to let me out in the middle of the flight if I had to go to the bathroom. Besides, I hate those tiny restrooms on the plane!
The men’s bathroom at the Virgin America terminal at JFK was nice and clean, newly remodeled. I went to the urinal, and unzipped, when — OH SHIT, there was a giant cockroach or spider or some winged insect right inside the urinal, ready to jump out and bite me!
I flushed the toilet to down the monster, but it didn’t budge. I was relieved to learn that it was only an emblem engraved into the porcelain of the urinal. I sneaked a look at the other urinals, and each one had the same weird insect emblem. It was the logo of the urinal manufacturer! What freakin’ weirdo company uses an insect as their company logo and puts it on the inside of public urinals for men to look as they pee, their dicks in their hand?
It was my first time on Virgin America to LA, as I usually go with American Airlines. My father, who was a bit anal and hated change, only flew ONE airline.  Virgin was fairly pleasant. The flight attendants were young and pretty, and the atmosphere was a lot “hipper” than staid American Airlines. It seemed as if every passenger had a blackberry or iphone or their own personal DVD player. At first, I thought this was cool, but this trendy, geeky, technology-obsessed crowd grew tiresome within the first half hour of the flight. Everyone was lost in their own worlds. The girl sitting next to me was writing a screenplay on her Mac. Before take-off, she spoke LOUDLY on her phone to her lesbian lover in Los Angeles, who was apparently very upset about her taking a job in New York, and worried about her seeing some other woman working on a Woody Allen movie. Within five minutes, I knew this entire woman’s life. I actually missed having one of those old-fashioned annoying passengers, who sit next to you who TALKED TO YOU for the entire trip!
Virgin America had online internet for $12.95. I splurged, intrigued by sending emails from thirty thousand feet. . Unfortunately, the passenger in front of me leaned his seat back, making it virtually impossible for me to open my laptop fully. I had to rotate my laptop at a 45 degree angle just to be able to see the monitor. With not much to do, I spent a good amount of my trip writing nonsensical message on Twitter, mocking the woman sitting next to me. On the back of the chair there was a animated map showing the plane’s route. My other idea of fun was to messenger bloggers from around the country as I flew over their state.
@Gorillabuns — Hey, Shana, I am flying over Oklahoma. Waving at you!
I must have seemed very lonely. I was.
At some point, I started kvetching to my online friends about how uncomfortable it was to be crammed in like a a sardine.
“Soon, the airlines are going to start charging extra if you have a rib cage and arms.”
I then asked a question on Twitter that has puzzled me for years.
“I have always heard of joining the Mile High Club? But how does anyone find any room to have sex in an airplane?!”
Others explained to me that this activity usually takes place in the restroom.
“Yuch!” I replied. “It’s so disgusting… and tiny in there!”
I would think the airplane cockpit would be the best spot.
Editor’s note:Â Have you noticed another mention of bathrooms?
Sophia picked me up at LAX. It was nice to see her.
“I just want to stop at Target on the way home,” she said. “The toilet seat cracked downstairs and I want to get another one.”
I couldn’t believe me ears. I had just been to Target a week earlier, buying a toilet seat in New York with my mother? Why were there so many toilet seats in my life?
“The toilet seat with the dolphins?” I asked Sophia.  Didn’t we just buy that?!”
“No, we didn’t. We’ve had that for four or five years.”
“That’s not true. We bought it last year.”
“You’re wrong.”
“No, I’m right. And I’ll prove it to you.”
I took out my iPhone, went on the internet, and found the blog post from April 2008, where I discuss us buying this new toilet seat for the bathroom.”
I had won!
“You have OCD,” she said.
