Clean and Elegant

Clean and Elegant

Friday 16 February 2018

Dear Vincent, Sorrowful Simon has written you another letter, and it is deeply sorrowful.


Dear Vincent,

Sorrowful Simon has written you another letter, and it is deeply sorrowful. I told him you were going on vacation, and that I wouldn’t see you for a month. And that I knew the rope he was talking about, and that I’d been at the end of it, as recently as yesterday at 7:25 a.m, the morning of the New Moon, and yet another Eclipse that was supposed to change your life.

Yesterday I googled, “How to kill your inner drama queen.” The Christian View says, “a drama queen often uses gossip, slander, and manipulation to receive the attention she desires, but God calls us to a humble and selfless life.” Killing my Inner Drama Queen, IDQ some call it, seems about as futile as trying to fix the internet in India. It will never be four G’s. Maybe you’ll land one G. More likely it will consistently take you five to forty-seven minutes to load up Facebook. All your Skype calls will bite the dust.

Dear Sorrowful Simon,

People will tell you it gets better, and I’m not sure that it does, but I do know that it does change. And every once in a while, you’ll get a good day, or a reasonable afternoon, or a tolerable few minutes. I have a saying that goes, we’ll take that good day, however it comes.

This morning I googled, “How to stop loving your therapist.”

Psychology Today suggests, “Perhaps, since traditional therapists can seem somewhat scholarly and detached, it’s fun to imagine them dropping their guard (and their pants) and acting with breathless, unrestrained passion.” I would tend to agree.

Psychedinsanfrancisco says, “If you’re in therapy right now, I would put money on the fact that your therapist is in love with you. My old professor used to say, ‘I fall madly in love with each client. In the rare instance that I’m not in love, something is very wrong.’” This makes me feel somewhat better. I love you too, Vincent. And wish you a wonderful vacation. God calls us to a humble and selfless life.

My friend Caroline says, “Quieting your inner drama queen sounds like a courageous undertaking.” I wish that everyone had a friend like Caroline. I have at least four and half friends like Caroline. And I am lucky.

For weeks, I had run out of dudes to swipe on Bumble. Swiping soothes and rots my brain so I swiped all the Montreal Bumble dudes between the ages of 33 and 47. I’m sad that your Wind-Blown, I’m About to Orgasm Sex Face never reappeared. But the good news is, a bunch of  brand new, lonely people just signed up post Valentine’s Day. I swipe one face after another, and soothe and rot my brain.

Jack the Bumble Carpenter asked me, “What is your high-grade calling? Not just your distraction.”

A low-grade calling equals swiping dudes on Bumble and rotting your brain.

It could also be cleaning other people’s refrigerators because no one will pay you to do anything else. Though sometimes cleaning refrigerators feels like a high-grade calling.

Not everyone gets to see those jars of dried up capers. Sometimes I see it as a privilege.

High-grade callings equal too much pressure. I’ve never done very well with pressure. You know that.

Dear Sorrowful Simon,

It’s okay to imagine recuperating in a tuberculosis sanatorium. You don’t need to be a certain way. Imagine yourself however you must to get through. And today’s the new moon, so you may as well make a wish.

I’ve been thinking about the tiny chambers in my heart. Hallways, or else cages.

I found the Missing Piece by Shel Siverstein in the free book box in front of the pharmacy on Beaubien street on the way to your windowless office and next to the grocery store where they sell soothing quantities of some of my favourite snacks.
Sleepy with The Missing Piece

Topics I could get my PhD in: roommates, vacuum cleaners, butt exercises, the social effect of free giveaway boxes, morning routines.

It’s important to me to point out that – I, and not Jack the Carpenter-

Invented high grade callings.

Low-grade callings,

High-grade callings, and

The Drugstore Date, which is a romantic time at the drugstore, where you can take your blood pressure and buy emery boards, or packing tape, or dish soap.
What is your high-grade calling?
For now
All the callings
Seem like Masturbation.
And the latest sleeping bag hump feels like empty calories.
Second-hand jujubes that sting and crumble your teeth
Long before you swallow.
Love, Erica.

Vincent is going on vacation, but you can still send him your imaginary emails to ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com. Or else send them to me. Both of us would love to hear about your high and low-grade callings, killing your Inner Drama Queen, and other courageous efforts. XO.

On Valentine's Day I courageously took out the recycling.
God calls us to a humble and selfless life.


High-Grade Calling Equals, The Joys of Folding will Never Desert You
(A Folding workshop by Deep Cleans. Wednesday, February 21 at 7 PM)


Follow Erica J. Schmidt on Facebook
Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go

Bodhisattva Business Ventures:

Deep Cleans by Erica J. Schmidt (@deepcleanswitherica)
Montreal Hippie Threads (@mtlhippiethreads)
Instagram: montrealhippiethreads



Dear Vincent, Sorrowful Simon has written you a letter.
Dear Vincent, Now you know I have that thing where you love your therapist.
Dear Vincent, Now you have three pen pals.


The Drugstore Date






Wednesday 7 February 2018

Dear Vincent, Everyone is one with the birds except for me.

Dear Vincent,


Everyone is one with the birds except for me.
Inside
my
recycling box
remnants of coconut cream
rot along the ridges
of the can.
I have a saying that goes, “When I ask for mercy, mercy comes.”
And
if mercy isn’t here yet,
then,
you just have to keep waiting.
Mercy can be a poem,
a sandwich plus a nap,
or,
a translation contract about a sexologist
or annual furnace maintenance,
both reasonably effective at
alleviating the guilt of
not being much of a human, and
not writing something magnificent about
dying in a wishing well,
or squirrels,
or attachment trauma,
or some other redeeming topic.
Or
mercy can be a row of toddlers flailing across the sidewalk in their multi-coloured marshmallow snowsuits as they all barely grasp the same leash.
Or the flat vibrant faces of real estate agents on cardboard, their teeth impossibly long and impossibly white,
and their hair impossibly large.
Or when one of those weird blow up snowman or Santa lawn ornaments deflates and lies dead across the snow.
Or,
if mercy isn’t here yet,
then,
you just have to keep waiting.


Love, Erica.



Send your letters to Vincent and/or Erica to ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com.



What is the missing piece that stops you from real life?


Follow Erica J. Schmidt on Facebook
Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go

Bodhisattva Business Ventures:

Deep Cleans by Erica J. Schmidt (@deepcleanswitherica)
Montreal Hippie Threads (@mtlhippiethreads)
Instagram: montrealhippiethreads



Deep Unyielding Depression, Part One
Dear Vincent, This is what the Dead Inside Man says about killing yourself
Professional, Depressed