Peed to Meet You

Let's just get something out of the way: I'm weird.

I have a weird sense of humor. I laugh at strange times. You know Dr. Hibbert? That's me.

So it's with that caveat that I introduce my latest project — one I've been planning for years, and I personally think is funny. You, on the other hand, might just think I'm weird.

The plan started nine years ago when I was about to leave for a semester in London. I knew that I'd do a lot of traveling during my three months there, and I wanted to be able to document all the places I'd been. (This was before the days of Facebook and FourSquare).

But simply taking pictures of buildings and landscapes was beyond cliche. Plus, a picture of, say, a cathedral, doesn't mean anything. Sure, the architecture is beautiful and the stained glass is exquisite. But that's doesn't express how well you got to know a place. I wanted to know everything about the places I visited — the interior and exterior, the blend of old world charm and modern conveniences, the beauty captured by tourists' cameras, and the reality those tourists experienced.

In other words, I wanted to document the bathrooms. Or more specifically, the toilets.

You see, these structures from centuries past had to be retrofitted to accommodate modern toilets. You walk out of the naturally lit beauty of a sanctuary, barely touched in 500 years, and into fluorescent-lit bathrooms with automatic-flush toilets. You have to love the contradiction.

Or so I thought.

In reality, many old world toilets haven't seen much updating. Some are beautifully decorated and provide a seamless transition. Some are nothing more than a hole in the ground. Many don't have toilet paper.

So the project evolved. And now the plan is this: Document my travels by toilet, then frame the pictures, along with their locations, and display them in our bathroom. It's a sort of traveling "George Washington Slept Here" idea, except I'm George Washington, and I, hopefully, haven't been sleeping on the toilet.

So here's the first entry, taken in Tangier, Morocco, in 2006, on my honeymoon:

Tangier, Morocco, September 2006

Just check out that tiling. Gorgeous, huh? And not one, but THREE, rolls of toilet paper.

So there you have my newest project. It's weird, yes. But at least I'm amused.

And if you've see me walking into a bathroom with a camera, now you know why.