little things

in particular, i'd like to note the disfunctionality of the toilets in my life.

toilet at home: has been fixed by landlord. made it worse. have to hold the lever down to empty the tank. water doesn't swirl normally, it sloshes as it swirls. takes ages to fill, and loudly. sometimes the flapper gets stuck, and one must return to toy with the lever.

toilets at work: one routinely needs to be flushed twice. seriously. anything beyond a wayward glance heads in its direction and it declines to empty itself. putting a sign up in the stall at least brought the problem to others' attention, eliminating the problem of walking in and seeing a partly-flushed toilet.

other toilet at work: usually works fine, but some days it declines to develop adequate pressure and also requires a second flush. seriously, some days it couldn't handle a facial tissue being tossed in.

neither of these are particularly pleasant because they both have flush valves rather than tanks. i guess i'm just not a fan.

then there are the toilets at the studio. the downstairs bathroom tends to be dusty so i often go upstairs if i need to change clothes. it takes fully five minutes for the tanks to refill, despite the sinks having adequate water pressure. oh, and none of the stall doors actually latch correctly, so if not held shut (a folded tissue makes a good wedge), the doors swing open. that's also rather special.

then the ones downstairs. they look like normal tank toilets, but inside, they are not. they flush like flush valve toilets with the dramatic high-pressure rush of water, but then make horrible noises as they refill. it's truly unpleasant.

so i do appreciate that all three toilets in my parents' house are in perfect working condition. i visited the family over the weekend.

i also appreciate that, after three weeks off the bike, i pounded out 35 miles on rolling terrain, upwind both ways, like it was nothing. cruised along at 20-22 the whole time, as good or better than my path pace when i was bike commuting. that one is a little harder to explain.