The Writing's on the (Toilet) Wall

I have a fondness for graffiti, I think from living in Brooklyn. It seems to suggest spontaneous artistic creation, and that is cool (although I know a lot of graffiti is very planned out). Anyway, by extension I really enjoy it when people write on bathroom stalls. Not a common occurrence in my undergrad institution, or maybe they were just fastidious about it getting washed away, but bathroom graffiti is rampant here, especially in the building where I have Italian class.

A few weeks ago, I was in the bathroom before class, and happened to choose the Holy Grail of bathroom stalls. So I got out a notebook, and wrote some things down. (Sidenote: yes, this is what this blog is turning me into--someone who copies things out of bathroom stalls!)

Some highlights:
In a block script, above the toilet roll holder: "Minds are like Parachutes: they only work when they're open"

In squiggly cursive: "The Sun is out, the sky is blue, it's beautiful, and so are you"

Taking up almost all of one of the walls: "We are, all of us, in the gutter. But some of us are looking at the stars. ~Oscar Wilde"

"Be the Change"

"My ex-boyfriend" with an unflattering picture. Someone else had written underneath, "hey, looks like my ex-boyfriend too! haha!"

"Quite frankly, I'm just excited that we've begun writing on bathroom stalls again."

This engendered a lot of comment: "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it". Which morphed into a discussion about the merits of President Obama (socialism, high taxes, etc.) versus President Bush II (war, big business, hurricanes, etc.)

Also generating a lot of comment: "Twilight sucks. Harry Potter pwns Twilight." (response ranged from "frick yes" to "TEAM HARRY" to "Vampires suck. Zing!")

And for all you HP fans out there, this is the crown jewel: "The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir beware." Now, if you haven't read HP, I'm not going to explain the awesome placement of this sentence in a bathroom--let's just say that it is the crux of the second book, and was written on a bathroom wall at Hogwarts.

There were some "for a good time call" things and "so and so slept with my boyfriend", etc., but by and the large the comments were pretty positive. (Another sidenote: The Buffalo Amtrak station has the dirtiest graffiti I have ever seen.) One of my friends went to the same bathroom but got a different stall, with quite a different message. She came to class looking troubled, and said in her stall someone had written:

"I'm gay and I want to come out to my parents but they are going to hate me and I don't know what to do. What do I do?"

The responses to this were both lovely and so sad: "I thought my parents would be really angry too, but when I came out they still loved me. I hope yours do too." "If they don't like it, they aren't worth it. You are perfect how you are." "Sometimes we have to create our own families with people who accept us." "Parents are surprising sometimes. I think you should go for it." "I am keeping you in my thoughts." "Best of luck!"

It's weird to have such a personal response to someone who you probably don't know, and who you would probably never meet. Perhaps that is the appeal of writing on a bathroom wall--the anonymity. I've never sought advice by literally writing on a wall, but figuratively? Ah. Blogging feels a bit like writing on a wall, addressing the unknown reader. So, thanks for reading my scribblings on the stall wall of the internet.