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Deflection | Apr 17 2002

I don’t really want to talk about the thing I was just working on. In fact I’d like to get as far away from it as possible.

Before returning to it.

The idea, and maybe this is just an excuse to not have to think about it for ten minutes, is that things look different when you go away and come back. Even if you’re just gone for ten minutes. No matter how many times this happens, I’m always surprised by it—unnerved, even. You come back and it’s like you’re looking at a different thing.

Makes you wonder how much of what you see is a function of how you’re looking.

I mean, we’re all aware, more or less, that it’s “all in our heads,” or whatever, but it’s another thing to see this in action.

Anyway, fine, I just wanted to mention something about my penis.

That’s what seduced me away from that other thing: this thought about my penis. I actually had it this morning, after peeing. I was about to run a few errands and figured I should pee first. So I peed—which is no big deal, obviously; one pees all the time—however this time I managed to get a few sprinkles of urine on my pants. This happens to me sometimes: I pee on myself.

The way it happens is… Well, my penis has this teeny-tiny little fold thing on the—fuck, now I have to check—right side of the opening.

(I was going to qualify that and say “I mean, the right side from my perspective,” but then I realized that we always describe a person’s parts from his/her perspective. Does this rule extend to things? If you’re looking at a chair, what do you call the armrest on the right—the right armrest or the left? For some reason, I can’t figure this out right now.)

I’m not sure if this fold thing is a regular feature of penises or if it’s particular to mine, but I’m guessing the former. That is, it looks to me like a thing that more or less belongs there and probably even serves a function. Yes, yes, its function is plain: it seals the hole, preventing leaks.

Seen this way, it’s a clever bit of engineering. However, as I was reminded this morning, there’s a downside. Sometimes the little fold gets stuck shut—most often, if this isn’t obvious, because of a drop of dried semen (yes, America, I sometimes get semen on the tip of my penis). When this happens, the stream of pee has to break through the seal (that is, assuming I forget to open the opening beforehand, which I often do). It doesn’t take much force to break through, thankfully, but in that split-second of breaking through the pee sometimes deflects off the half-open fold and goes leftward and downward, landing on the left leg of my pants, usually just above the knee.

We’re talking about a few sprinkles here, but of course it’s enough to make one want to remain in one’s apartment until the evidence has dried.

This is precisely what happened this morning, and when it happened I wondered if it’s the sort of thing that happens to other men. Probably it is. Probably I’m going to be deluged with emails confirming that men the world over are peeing on themselves right and left, depending on the location of the fold.

Ah, the fold! Is it always on the right? That’s another question I’d like answered.

Also, it must be acknowledged, since I’m on this subject, that the opening looks more like a mouth than a real mouth does. One time (I’m not naming names) a lover used mine to deliver an improvised monologue. You had to be there, of course, although I’m rather glad you weren’t.