One of the more endearing aspects of the Bathroom of Self-Loathing is the seashell shaped toilet seat. We all need to think about sitting on brittle pieces of dead mollusks in order to feel like going to the bathroom. How else to explain the popularity of such an unsightly object?

Not only is the seat a blight upon the eye, the actual potty part doesn't function all that well. Actually, it functions too well, constantly circulating water and not always doing the right thing with it. For example, it likes to take a fair amount of it and drip it down through the basement beams, which luckily have held for a century and might be able to take it until I do something radical, like call a plumber.

Our brains are like that, as writers. We're constantly circulating little ideas, drops of dialogue, splashes of scenes, and the occasional wave of a freshwater WIP. But do we do the right thing with it? Do we take that one second to jot it down on a piece of paper or email ourselves? Or do we let it slip away, drip down into our brain stem where it'll rot a hole in our spine and our heads fall off?

OK so that last bit might be a tad melodramatic, but it's important to write those flashes of inspiration down, because they are only brief flashes. And when they're gone, you're left in the dark basement searching for words, while cold potty water drips on your noggin.