I am living a nightmare.
You know the one in which you find yourself on stage or in front of a class or maybe even in a boardroom, performing, lecturing or presenting and you suddenly realize you are in your underwear, or, even worse, completely naked? (I believe the technical term is “naked as a jaybird.”)
Terrifying.
You wake up in a cold sweat, anxious and humiliated. One of these anxiety dreams can ruin your whole day.
Welcome to my new life, a waking nightmare.
Let me explain.
For several months, my Darling Beloved, with my full knowledge and blessing, has been working on a redesign of the primary bath in our home. I will confess that I have been impatient at times wondering when the project was going to commence, much less be completed.
The first phase has involved lighting and some of the most interesting ceiling fans I’ve ever seen. The result of phase one is remarkable. Not only is the space more up to date and aesthetically pleasing, our bathroom is extremely well lit.
I don’t know about you, but of all the spaces in my home that could have sufficient lighting for me to see every detail AROUND me and… not to be indelicate… ON me, the bathroom is one I could do without.
Modesty is one of my lifelong core values. I could never be accused of exhibitionism. I wear long sleeves to the beach. I feel unprofessional baring my arms in the office. I feel completely exposed in short pants out in public. I especially do not wish to be in various stages of undress under a spotlight.
New South Essays has at times veered into risqué topics such as my underwear, my love life and my personal hygiene, but this may be shocking above all. This feels like the right time and place to offer the following content warning: Please do not proceed if you find discussions of nudity, bathing or home decorating… er… indecorous. Reader discretion is advised.
There, with that out of the way, let’s get down to brass tacks.
My showers have become WAY too revealing. I can’t handle it.
We have one of those walled-in showers with a textured glass door that lets light pass through without exposing the shower-ee to unwanted leering. If the hotels I’ve stayed in recently are any indication, our shower arrangement is totally old fashioned. Apparently, nowadays bathroom privacy is just as much a vestige of the past as a buggy whip or Blockbuster video.
I stayed in a hotel room in New York City where the shower was simply a showerhead with a drain over in the corner of the bathroom. There were no walls, no raised lip of tile to keep water in, not even an untextured glass box surrounding the space. It was impossible to take a shower and not soak down the entire bathroom. And the lavatory door was a louvered, sliding apparatus that obscured exactly none of the activity in what decent folks used to try to do in private. But I digress…
My current problem is that my Darling Beloved’s new decor for our home shower included a new ventilation fan and light. If 800 lumens are typical for a household bulb, this new fixture puts off approximately 489,673 lumens, give or take.
It is blinding. I cannot get in the shower without a cup of coffee first. It will literally melt my retinas.
The truly horrifying feature of our new lighting? This new floodlight illuminates EVERYTHING.
There are some rooms in my home where I do not need to see EVERYTHING in graphic detail. The shower stall is one of them.
It feels like now when I step into the shower I am stepping onto a stage and someone hits me with a searchlight. It is traumatizing.
As I see it, I now have two options:
Option 1: Shower in the dark. I have recently been learning about “additive bias,” in which human beings default to solutions that add elements to the problem rather than subtract. So instead of adding a step here, I think the best solution is to just not turn on the overhead light. The one downside is that I may go to work with a glob of unrinsed conditioner on my neck, but that’s a risk I may be willing to take.
Option 2: Change the order of operations. Typically, I shower, dry off and then apply clothing. If the light causes me to see things I do not wish to see, I can simply rearrange the order of my morning routine and apply my clothes first. Voila! Problem solved. So I go into the office a little sloshy. So what. With the summer humidity besetting us in the South right now, I feel like I’m already soaked by the time I get to the office.
That’s it. Those are the only two options. My Darling Beloved thinks I am rigid and not good at seeing all the options, but in this case, she is clearly wrong.
So this is what it’s like at New South Essays headquarters these days. It is well-lit, and it is not appreciated. The increased awareness of my decaying physical form brought about by improved lighting is, in a word, depressing.
Maybe the rest of the renovation will be less of a nightmare. I can only hope the new wallpaper is covered in jaybirds.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go get my clothes on and take a shower.
New South Essays 