Alfonso Partida (Mexico) 14/12/02—Pleasant Experience

Last night i drank (at 22:00 p.m.) one glass of medicine water (drinking water) that a good friend gave it to me and before i drank it i pray asking for curying me of high triglycerides in my blood, and this night i stand up after three hours of being sleping i urinated too much and i felt too well, i was brething better and by this morning i felt very good

Anne Wilson (Chicago) 12/4/00—Strange

The hair in the shower drain has always held a certain kind of potency for me, at once curious and beautiful, and sometimes unpleasant. The following excerpt is a contribution to my "an inquiry about hair, archived responses" web site. Fiction writer James McManus presents a particular identification and focus about this shower drain site.

"He lifted the trap from the drain of the tub. There were three kinds of hair in it -- armpit and leg stubble, fine auburn strands, darker and springier pubic hairs -- but the three distinct shades ran together, grayed by the soap and shampoo scum. Wendy's pits, Wendy's legs, Wendy's head, Wendy's pussy. Gingerly, wincing, using the tips of his index finger and thumb, he twisted the sopping gray nest from the trap and flicked it into the garbage pail, snapping his fingers to knock off the last clinging strands."

Excerpt from a novella by James McManus in "Western Humanities Review," University of Utah, 1991, pp. 322-323

Rolf Moore (Kalgoorlie) 10/02/00—Pleasant Experience

I recommend two showers: a hot shower followed by a cold one. This is how we do it in Calcutta.  You keep two buckets. The hot shower opens the pores, and the cold refreshes. The effect is like an orgasm.

Elizabeth Langston (Sarasota, Florida) 8/02/00—Pleasant Experience

A shower is not merely a way to clense one's body. It also has a more productive use: to clense one's soul.  Who hasn't had a terrible day, then have their nightly "shower time" melt it all away?

Adrian Williams (Kalgoorlie) 5/02/00—Outdoor shower

On pastorical stations they use what is called a "donkey" for heating water. This consists of a 44 gallon oil drum suspended on three walls so the fire can be lit underneath it. Out of the drum comes an inflow pipe, outflow pipe and expansion pipe. The water is heated in the drum. There is a header tank, so when you open the tap, hot water flows. It would be someone's job to light the donkey late afternoon, so when the workers came home at about sundown there would be hot water available for showers, to wash off layers of mud, grim and blood.

Jim Roth (Kalgoorlie) 5/02/00—Historical shower

The old showers used chip heaters. This was an open system. The temperature of the water is governed by how much wood you put in it, and you couldn't add cold water to it, so everyone would have to have their shower the same temperature.

Susan Fielder (Hobart) 8/11/99—Cold shower

I was in Melbourne during the gas strike. I found the best way to have a cold shower was to work on a small section of the body at a time. By the time the body had been scrubbed in small portions, I actually felt cleaner that I would if I'd had a hot shower.

Susan (Gippsland) 8/11/99—Cold Shower

I don't enjoy a cold shower at all, however one piece of information has made the experience more bearable when it is unavoidable. This is that one should avoid getting water on ones' back until the very last minute. I have found that this does indeed reduce the unpleasantness . The back seems to be a part of the body quite susceptible to conducting the chill into the bones.

Susan (Gippsland) 8/11/99—Pleasant Experience

The most wonderful shower experience I can remember occurred several years ago on the island of Bali. I was taken to some hot springs where there were several different pools for bathing. Rising around the pools were terraced gardens full of tropical flowers and butterflies.One pool was quite small but had three pipes feeding it from high in the cliff above. I was possible to stand beneath one of these streams of warm water so that it pummelled directly onto your shoulders. It was a combination of a massage and a shower with no time limit. Blissful

Gary Warner (Catai Creek) 8/11/99—Outdoor shower

In winter it is more advisable to heat water in billy cans over the morning fire while making the coffee, toast and eggs. A large orange plastic basin - the kind you find in Chinatown supermarkets - is half-filled with cold tank water and topped to a comforting temperature with water from the boiling billy. The filled basin is set upon a convenient boulder - when the sun is shining upon it preferably - at about chest height and water and soap applied vigorously all over the bather's body. While naked in the bush on a crispy morning, it is best to be vigorous and better to be standing in the sun. At the conclusion of the initial splash and clean, the basin is carefully lifted above the head and the contents poured in a steady stream over the head and down the body. It is most pleasurable to feel the warm water running down the length of the spine. Towelling is immediately acted upon - while standing in the full morning sun facing out over the valley if possible..... I can honestly say one never feels so clean as after a bush shower, standing in the morning sunshine......

Gary Warner (Catai Creek) 8/11/99—Cold shower

On the ground below and alongside the edge of the verandah, six medium sized marble tiles of different colours are set onto the earth to form a 'bathroom floor'. Attached to one of the tree trunk poles that hold up the hut are some yacht fittings that allow a rope to be lowered, raised and held in a kind of slip-vice. On the end of the rope is a hook. Onto the hook goes a bag that contains up to maybe 15 litres of (tank) water. This rectangular bladder is soft plastic, black on one side (the idea is that it can be left in the sun to warm the water in winter). A thin plastic pipe tails out of one end onto which is fixed a little plastic shower florette. A simple spigot tap between the bag and the florette completes the assembly. The filled bag is hung over the hook, the tap turned and the bag quickly raised above the showerer's head. Standing on the marble tiles, taking a cold exhilarating shower beneath the Yellow Bloodwoods and Casuarinas, looking across to Wallaby Hill, is an enduring and reliable personal pleasure...…

Darian (WA) —Pleasant Experience

i always shower twice a day, hot in winter, cold in summer.

i find it valuable thinking time.

Scarlett (USA) —Pleasant Experience

when I was a little girl we went away to a country place during the summer where we had outdoor showers. They were little wooden booths where one could shower outdoors. It was most pleasant to shower while the sun was shining...