Not That Kind of Girl

November is some kind of national novel writing month. Every November, I feel flooded with guilt that yet again, I will not write a novel. One year I tried. Made the word count of 1750 daily words for a week or so. The novel was about the time I lived and worked at a house for people with intellectual disabilities. I called it “Two Spines.” The material was rich. I pull it out regularly but I have never been able to put it together into anything coherent. By about eighty pages, it feels useless and impossible. Torture, regret, self-loathing. Can novel writing month be filled with anything else? I told my mother about novel writing month and its ensuing guilt. She told me that sometimes she wishes that someone would cut off her arms so that she wouldn’t have to feel guilty about not practicing the piano enough. Perhaps guilt is genetic. Or endemic. Perhaps I will write a novel while I’m in Delhi. Or someone will cut off my arms and forever rid me of the guilt.
 
Now I am in Delhi.

In the mornings I try and meditate. I used to be good at meditation, but in Delhi, it is excruciating. To stay focussed, I balance a copy of Lena Dunham’s “Not That Kind of Girl” on my head. Maybe Lena Dunham would like that. It’s possible that I am the only person in the world who balances “Not That Kind of Girl” on her head while meditating. We will have to see on Periscope. All through meditation, I am dying for the Internet.

Me and Lena

“Not That Kind of Girl” is somewhat up my alley. A great deal of nudity, sex, body parts, menstruation and masturbation. When she was very young, someone told Lena that touching your private parts led to something that felt like a sneeze. Soon afterwards, Lena started masturbating and discovered that in fact, the result was more like a seizure. I liked that part. During the summer, a friend of mine asked me when I felt the most alive in the past few years. Without missing a beat, I told him about the surprise sex that Robbie and I had one summer afternoon. It was heavens parting squirt everywhere kind of sex. Magic Mushrooms Sex. Beautiful Sex. A sneeze sort of orgasm. The time was August of 2014.
 
When I think about that summer, sometimes I consider that this was the last time Robbie and I were truly happy. A bit sad. You never know when the best times will be over.
 
My Magic Mushrooms Friend says that if you're a squirter and you don't squirt, it can build up and cause neurosis. I met my Magic Mushrooms Friend on the online dating site Plenty of Fish in 2009. We never made each other squirt; in fact, we never even kissed. But he has taught me a great deal about drugs and squirting. My Magic Mushrooms Friend is a big advocate of learning to squirt by yourself. I have never figured this out. I find the duvet is limited in its ability to generate a squirting sneezing sort of orgasm. If Lena Dunham were me, I imagine that by now, she would have done a better job at figuring it out. Probably she would have published all of it: the Magic Mushrooms Sex, the sneeze sorts of orgasms. So now I am like Lena Dunham. In her book, there are excerpts from online messenger chats. I can see myself publishing such things. And/or excerpts of words I wrote to pen pals. And why not do this right now.

In Delhi, I write to my pen pals constantly. Nobody is as good at writing back as I am. Not even my mother. That’s why I need at least five or six or seven pen pals. Maybe more. If you’d like to be my pen pal, here is what you can expect.

WORDS TO MY PEN PALS:

“When I was squatting on a public toilet today it occurred to me that my vagina looks different than it used to. Like the labia sticks out more and is crooked. I am not going to google prolapsed vagina but I am wondering if my vagina has changed since I stopped doing ashtanga. Or maybe I hump the bed too much. Or stretch too much. Do you remember my labia sticking out a whole bunch? Okay thanks.”

“Oh man. Not sure what I was thinking I was going to do here. I feel overwhelmed and isolated and useless and dirty and gross. Just tried to order food and it was a shit show. Whatever. It's the same old me. Everywhere I go. I don't know what was so bad about my life in Halifax or in Montreal with my stoner roommate. I miss Robbie so much. I feel like I won't pull off anything with my life. I am too old for this. Sad noise.”

“Tonight for dinner I ate some canned beans in tomato sauce and couscous. Quickly going through Fern’s cupboard of non-perishable items. She has some questionable do-it-yourself custard, skippy peanut butter and two kinds of oatmeal. I will need to find the restaurants soon.”

“The Canadian winter seems so wonderful if it means fresh air.”

“I really don't feel okay. I feel like my friend’s four-year-old, so desperate for his parents to come see him in bed but it wasn't part of the agreement so he was left to wail on his own.  Going to have a shower and try to sleep.”

“Am I actually going to become self-reliant, self-assured? Feels like such a stretch. I am baffled by how people figure out their lives.  Like how my friend Fern has figured out such a beautiful home in this crazy city. She just seems to have livelihood all figured out. It's so impressive. There there, Erica. You'll figure out your life too. Or will everything just dissolve like the colours of your tie dye hippie skirt?”

“I finally got the balls to go to a restaurant. It was kind of a dive but I had an okay feeling about it. Chana masala, jeera rice. A ten year old girl who I thought was a boy came and stood beside me and talked to me the whole time. She asked me about Canada and said she really wanted to see snow. It was adorable. She even gave me her mother's phone number. I hope she won't be too disappointed if I don't text. Felt immediately better after eating, which is not always the case in India. I find when I first come to a new place I suffer low grade starvation as I try to figure out where I can safely feed myself... Not the best for a serene state of mind, though easily fixed.”

“It seemed I was the only person in hippie clothes in the city but I did some touristy things today and I feel like maybe anything goes. Spiritual pants, jeans, tie dye, moomoos, whatever you want is no problem. I am happy that the yellow in my tie dye skirt matches the yellow in my splash n boots shoes. Highly trendy.”

The Hippie Skirt and the SplashnBoots shoes. SplashnBoots is an outrageously successful children's band whose members I am related to. Their theme colours are blue and yellow, just like my zero drop sneakers. 

“I rigged the tarot deck so that all the good cards faced upright and the bad ones were reversed. But since I moved to delhi the cards don't come true anymore. The cards say upright even when it all turns into massive chaos. I don't think they work anymore. I might need to give them up.” 

“It sounds bad but I got into a conversation with some guy who complimented me on how good I was at crossing the street. I am actually excellent. I just looked at the bus driver and he stopped. Imposing Nova Scotia ethics onto Delhi traffic. (Please don't worry)  Anyways, this guy ended up coming to a café with me and it wasn't sketchy at all. Not all Indian men want to get into your pants. Maybe a bit, but not excessively.” 

Spiritual Pants. Again.

"Kind of sick of wearing hippie clothes. The skirts drag in the puddles. It seems Delhi is a lot more cosmopolitan than Mysore. Women wear jeans and leggings or whatever they want. I suppose it's better to dress more conservatively in the more touristy areas. Or anywhere unknown. And some Indians seem to like pyjama pants. For badminton, and powerwalking. My friend Fern has quite a fancy wardrobe. Prada and the works. She is also about a foot shorter than me. And if I’m going to pull of the Prada dress, I will need to do something about my leg hair.”

“My ex-boyfriend sent me an article about the risk of loneliness and premature death, and how lonely people sometimes make choices that don’t help their loneliness. Haven’t heard from him much since he sent it.”

“Did your toenail fungus cleanse end up working? My toenails are a catastrophe right now. Half of both big ones broke off. I don’t know why all of the sudden. Too much papaya? White carbs? Everyone’s fungus mixing together? So gross.

Have you looked into colonics yet? Other cleanses?

Maybe I am having a people cleanse right now. Resetting my social skills. The idea, I think, is that if you don’t interact with people for a certain amount of time, your habits of interaction totally change. I’ll let you know how that goes.”

“The cleaning lady messed the Tarot cards up so that some of them were upside down. I did some readings with the flipped around deck, but it seemed too scary and devastating. If the cards predict a bad day in Delhi, it could be truly horrific. I decided to rig the deck again. I think it was a good plan.”

“Though I have the Internet, being here reminds me a bit of Vipassana. Barely a soul to talk to, and people barely see me. And when I think of people I know, I am filled with love and longing, as though nothing could be more beautiful. 

It isn't a terrible feeling, but I miss the humans.”

"I am trying to go to sleep but I keep checking the Internet for friends. I want someone to cherish me and tuck me in with a deep love. And well, there is only me."

“I got my vag and legs waxed on Wednesday. Also found a pair of jeans in Fern's closet that sort of fit. I think they might be Bobbi's. One size too big. But both the jeans and the waxed vag sort of helped my morale.”

Me with waxed vag in Bobbi's Jeans

“I forgive you for not writing back about my vagina.”

The End.



The Lotus Temple, Proof that I do more than sit around and take selfies.
Off to Udaipur tomorrow!

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Now I am in Delhi

Now I am in Delhi.

How and why did that happen?

For months I have been meaning to tell you about “fuck blinders.” According to the urban dictionary, fuck blinders is a phenomenon that occurs after fucking very profusely. When the profuse fucking is over, people afflicted with fuck blinders are unable to see, find or accomplish very much of anything. They walk around in a daze, as though they have blinders on. All this may be true; however, the Urban Dictionary doesn't know everything. I happen to have a very dear friend who was crowned Queen of the Butt Club in Mysore last year. She and I have our own special definition of Fuck Blinders. According to us, fuck blinders occur pre-fucking. So you meet someone and this person permeates you with the feeling that the two of you must absolutely have sex, despite obvious reasons why this is a horrendous idea. Popular reasons include a lack of emotional availability, incompatible values and lifestyles, and/or geographical distance. Fuck blinders render you blind to all these issues. So you have sex anyways. The act of sex tends to have a solidifying and adhesive effect on fuck blinders, though everyone is different.

Fuck Blinders are hard to attain, especially post break-up. Amazingly and pathetically jaded, these days, I often make speeches about how relationships are beautiful lies with inevitable expiration dates. Loose-fitting and slightly transparent fuck blinders may materialize when the option is nearly impossible and the expiration date imminent and evident. Such fuck blinders are rather short-lived.

And well, all this relates perfectly to buying a one-way ticket to Delhi.

Since August, I have found myself sadly low on the Mental Health Spectrum. (Or high? I’m not sure. The Mental Health Spectrum is another invented entity whose definition you can probably sort of guess.) On August 1st, I moved downstairs from the apartment I was in and immediately felt terrible. I felt like I was staying in a grey soulless hotel. As far as apartments go, it was somewhat decent besides being a little messy and infused with the smell of weed, both things ostensibly temporary. I even had my own yoga room. And yet, right away I craved an exit strategy.

I called a friend who had just had a baby. (Not the Queen of the Butt Club.) The baby slept peacefully in her arms as I wept in the most distressed and un-delicate fashion possible. I wailed that I should probably move to Nicaragua.

“I’ve been waiting for this phone call,” she said. The reality of breaking up with the Boatman, moving away from Halifax and a million other changes was sinking in. From her perspective, I was doing reasonably okay. From my perspective, I felt like a broken disaster. Somehow I made it through the month of August. Over the summer, I completed more freelance translation work than I’d done in the entire year. By the time that was over, I was totally strung out and distraught. I dreaded going home to my soulless grey hotel room of an apartment. In my desperate misery, I felt like I was too much of a burden on my friends. I became increasingly isolated and lonely. One night, I barged out of my apartment onto the streets of my Montreal neighbourhood, where I cried inconsolably and unapologetically. As I reached a corner, I saw my friend riding his bike.

“I’m super high,” he said. “How are you?”

I proceeded to melt down even further.

“You can’t just cry in the middle of the street!” he told me. I would argue that this is a matter of opinion. But my friend strongly urged me to seek out professional help. A rather obvious recommendation; however, I found it frustrating since I have been going to therapists and expensive friends since I was thirteen years old. Plus a decade of wholehearted yoga practice. And some daily meditation. Butt exercises, manic walking, spirit walking. I have tried ten million things. Prozaac didn’t work. Probably there was no more hope.

As it turns out, every neighbourhood in Montreal has a crisis help line. I called them in my distress. It was a good opportunity to practice French. They were helpful in a generic kind of way and I got an appointment within three days. I am glad that such things exist.

Although I was grateful for the outlet, alas, the days of crying in the streets were not yet over. A few weeks later, teary in an alleyway, I called my super trendy and hip friend Fern (STAHFF) who works in advertising in New York. I mourned over my sad aimlessness and incapacity to manage the details of life.

“Dude,” she said. “Why don’t you go use my flat in Delhi?” Fern used to work in Delhi and then she switched to New York. (See how trendy and hip Fern is? You should see her wardrobe. More on that later.) Her apartment would be empty and available until the end of December.

And there they were. Fuck Blinders for Delhi. Sometimes it’s good to try and look beyond your fuck blinders. Other times, just let them do their magic and mask your doubts. The hell with pros and con lists. Look straight ahead. Move to a dirty, crazy city, fuck an impossible match, and/or make a baby.

Oh yah, Fuck Blinders are entirely necessary for planning to have a baby. Baby Fuck Blinders, it’s called. Essential.

Anyways, I made it to Delhi last Friday.  What a crazy world.

Thank you to everyone for their support. And huge gratitude to Fern.  This apartment is extraordinary.

Much love. Oh, and Happy Divali and New Moon!

I will do my best  to blog as much as I can. As you might have noticed, I have tons of things to say and seem to be oversaturating my pen pals.

The End.

My Magnificent Bed


A street near my house. Not a good place for crying.
What have I done?


Day Before Departure. Delhi Fuck Blinders Firmly Secured

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