Dear Vincent, In my heart, I feel quite strange and lonely.

Dear Vincent,

In my heart, I feel quite strange and lonely. A strange and lonely thing to do is to attend a Silent Book Club where everyone sits silently and reads whatever book they are reading and we all bask in vague intellectual smugness and the beautiful potential we each possess before we open our mouths. In my youth, I used to impose an extensive reading list upon myself. Everywhere I went, I’d insist on devouring books that were meant to enhance my mind. The Second Sex, or Margaret Atwood, or failed attempts at the Odyssey.  On the metro, walking down the street, through every empty moment, in any empty chair or living room.

 

How joyful was that?

I’m not sure.

These days I do not read as extensively, or, as voraciously. But sometimes I try.

Last night on my way to the Silent Book Club, I dropped off a bag of extraneous clothing in front of a Donation Depot on Bernard Street. I tend to give away all my extraneous possessions nearly pathologically. Further down Bernard Street, I passed an older man and woman who were coming out of Lester’s where apparently they serve the best French fries in Montreal and once I saw my friends consuming enormous slices of yellowish cheese cake.

The older man said, “Well that would take away from the treat for when we get back.” I did not know what the treat was, or where the old couple was going, or if they’d already returned and had just consumed the treat together. But somehow, his words unravelled my strange and lonely heart and I wept reasonably delicately for about seven lonely steps on Bernard Street.

This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes

In the book I read at the Silent Book Club, the main character’s name is Richard. An enormous hole is taking over Richard’s back yard and is causing a structural catastrophe to his vast and fancy house. And Richard has begun to go to a doughnut shop every morning. The book is called, This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes. One evening at the grocery store, Richard comes upon a woman who is weeping between the lettuce and the tomatoes. The woman weeps because she is thinking about the salad she prepares her family every night and the salad has two kinds of greens and lovingly selected tomatoes and chick peas and a meticulous salad dressing, and her family does not seem to give a shit. There are so many salads like this out there, and so many strange and lonely tears in cereal aisles, or somewhere between the lettuce and the tomatoes, or in seven lonely steps somewhere on Bernard Street.

Now I am on page 126 of This Book Will Save Your Life.

Doughnuts, from my friend Shayna

I have an aversion to French Fries because in Grade Six French class we learned that 10 frites ont 110 calories and this seemed excessive. And I have an aversion to doughnuts because someone told me they take three days to digest, and they seem far too sugary and hollow.

Love, Erica.  

Send your imaginary and un-imaginary emails to Vincent, or to me. The secret email address is ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com. You can tell us about your favourite doughnuts, or the books that saved your life, or else your strange and lonely heart.

Strange and lonely solace from the Drying Rack
(April 4, 2018)


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Rideshare, Sterilization and Doughnuts
Taes floats your boat
Dear Vincent, Are you lonely? Do you have a pain body?


Exalted

Rideshare, Sterilization and Doughnuts

I once knew a guy named Benjamin Tracey. In his early 20’s, Benjamin Tracey worked with kids in social services. He felt traumatized by the epidemic of people who used their bodies to make children but didn’t have the skills or resources or kindness to take care of them.

“We need a program to stop cruel and incompetent people from having children. If they agree to get sterilized, they get 35 bucks. Then, after the procedure, we’ll take them to Tim Horton’s and we’ll buy them a doughnut. Any doughnut they want.” According to Benjamin Tracey, this is how eugenics should work in Canada. With doughnuts.  

Doughnuts. Which one would you choose
Doughnut Photo Courtesy of my friend Shayna
She likes to buy doughnuts on Sundays 

The rideshare van from Toronto to Montreal always stops at a Tim Hortons just past Pickering. I don’t know why it stops so early. It is barely an hour out of the city.

On Tuesday, I was lucky enough to get a spot in the ten a.m. ride share van. The  pick-up is at the Pizza Pizza near Sheppard-Young subway station. The van is late. A woman wearing pink jeans and a red jacket seems very anxious that they have left without her.

 

“Where is my ride-share? Can I use your phone?” She is carrying a couple of shopping bags. Underneath her red jacket, she wears a t. shirt with an enormous, glittery can on it.  The cat has terrifying turquoise glitter eyes and fur. Its paw is patterned in red sequins. The woman’s name is Irena.

 

I volunteer to sit in the middle seat, at least for the first half.

 

“Where’s the seatbelt?” I ask. The driver points to the ceiling. I attach the belt across my torso but can’t figure out how to make it hold my waist.

 

“Guess that’s just the middle seatbelt,” says the guy beside me. He is dressed all in blue and looks as though his name might be Michael. On his knee, there’s a brown baseball cap with the word OBEY on the front. Finally, I figure out that you can keep pull seatbelt in a very specific and special way, it will attach on the left and contain my waist. Now I don’t need to white knuckle the whole 401. That said, my driver seems to text quite a bit. It is kind of like driving in India, though because Ontario is much less magical and spiritual, I feel significantly less safe.

 

I open the ziplock bag containing the marijuana macaroon that a childhood friend has given me for the road. For a moment, I wonder if it has an obviously foul smell to it. Then I realize that in fact, the smell comes from the tiny white dog who silently sleeps in its fabric blue cage in the back seat. The owner is significantly larger than her dog, but she too makes no noise.

 

The macaroon is oily. Its effect is not profound. I lean back in my seat. The left half is two inches back from the right. The blue Michael dude curls up on his blue pillow against the window. Irena rotates her torso to the right, impeding on a quarter of my ass space. She breathes heavily as she looks out the window, sipping a Merit Selection peach cocktail that contains 20% pure fruit juices. We pass several trucks filled with concrete.

 

Pickering reminds me of swim meets and Timbits remind me of Monday night band practices. I played the trombone and our music teacher Mr Hurd was nice enough to bribe us with timbits Sometimes we would get timbits on the swim team, but if an important swim meet was coming up, all chocolate and doughnut products were forbidden. Apparently doughnuts take at least three days to digest. Seems a bit risky.

 

At the Tim Hortons, I think about Benjamin Tracey and the sterilization and the doughnuts. I do not buy a timbit. Neither does Irena. She cracks open another peach cocktail juice box and stands beside the drive-through menu, gazing at the red and orange images of fresh fruit smoothies. I nibble a little more of the oily macaroon. I thought that being high would be more fun. Maybe I am too hungover. The dog owner walks the tiny white dog around the parking lot. Blue Michael smokes a cigarette with the driver and complains that he can’t sleep. The driver complains that he’s sick of driving.

Back in the car, Blue Michael gets to work on his computer. Vigorously, he types green letters onto a black screen. On the right side of the screen, windows keep popping up. Janet has a party, the window announces. Janet looks like a 2-dimensional human Barbie. There is a long red rectangular box where you can click, Yes, I am attending, or No thanks. Another window pops up. Angela will be at a golf club cocktail. Will you attend. Won’t you attend.

Although we are barely halfway, we stop again at the Freshmart convenience store and Esso gas station in Kingston. I pee several times, each time taking note that if the washroom cleanliness does not live up to my standards, I will be rewarded with a free container of air freshener. Love from Esso. Our driver leaves to pick up the other driver at the mechanic’s. The white dog is still in the car and his owner seems a bit disappointed. Blue Michael sits on the edge of the curb, his ass crack ever so generously peaking out from his blue jeans. Nobody seems to worry that the driver could very easily keep the dog and the stuff and leave us stranded at the Kingston Esso station. Irena asks to use my phone a whole bunch of times. She calls her son but there is no answer. Afterwards she offers me white chiclets from Israel. I mix them with my Excel Whitening Bubblegum.  






Chiclets, courtesy of redstone foods.





The new driver finally comes back with the car. I remember him from the time I went to Toronto to visit Benjamin Tracey four years ago. His name is Johnny and he wears a hat.

 

“Please make sure you have your seatbelts on,” he tells us. He only texts once or twice. Nobody volunteers to switch with me and take the middle seat.  There is construction on the 401 so we drive along the St. Lawrence. In the front seat, an Indian business man examines his Excel spreadsheets. He has the loudest, most obnoxious ring tone ever and people call him all the time. Irena eats a bag of chips. She offers me some but my mouth is still full of bubble gum and chiclets.

 

I look at the Thousand Islands and turn on Dan Savage’s sex podcast. Dan offers cures for Cunninlingus Lockjaw and says that continuing to sleep with your ex-husband is not a terrible idea.  Having an ex-husband sounds so grown-up. The Boatman and I were never married, and so we never got to have a divorce. I close my eyes and imagine the cells of my knees and my thighs dissolving into the crooked lumpy seat. My neck feels very stiff. I keep thinking about my cells. Soon I feel a pressure building at the base of my nose between my eyebrows. I wonder if I have suddenly become so aware and intuitive that my third eye is awakening. It then occurs to me that the pressure is from my enormous white sunglasses.

 

Irena nudges me and asks if she can use my phone again. I help Irena text her son and tell him that we will be in Montreal at 3:45. She is impressed by how fast I can text.

Valleyfield, Saint-Anne De Bellevue. The van rolls in to Montreal at 4:04. Irena’s son is waiting for her. The small white dog is let out of its blue cage and onto Sainte Catherine Street. All over Montreal, delighted people carry baguettes, eat frozen yogurt and drink beer on patios. There are no doughnuts in sight.

 The End.

This is not fiction. Benjamin Tracey really invented sterilization with doughnuts. I take zero credit for it, though I changed Benjamin Tracey's real name and I think that I did an excellent job.

Once Benjamin Tracey also wrote a play about a tennis game. The backhands and the lobbing and the missed serves reflected some couple’s relationship. Simon used to say that I was like an eight-year old sore loser tennis who cried when she didn’t get her way. Simon isn't alive anymore. 

Very Attractive Photo of Me and My Sister.
You'd be extra lucky to land us in your rideshare van.

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Vipassana Diaries: Bus
Poopy Mango Babywipes, and the First Day of Christmas (almost contains nudity)
Day Trip
Selfies on the Happy Stairs (contains doughnuts)
Selfies with Brownies (self-evident)

 

 

Selfies on Happy Stairs

At the Halifax Seaport Farmers' Market, the Happy Stairs are where people sit and consume their strawberries or burritos or breakfast pizzas and bask in their own and everyone else's Happy Market Delight. Today there were fiddle and bass players who entertained the Happy Stairs People in our consumption.  Children bopped around to the music and everyone sighed and marvelled at how adorable they were. We even got a surprise man in plaid pants who indulged us in an impromptu tap dancing performance. 
 


The Happy Stairs, at the Halifax Seaport Farmers' Market
The tap dancer in plaid shorts danced away before I could take another unskilled photograph

 It is fun to look around and absorb the Magical Market Faces. I saw a man with bright blue eyes and a very Magical Market Face. I wanted to take a picture, but the Boatman said that I could hold him in my heart, instead of on my phone; in my emotional data, and not my cellular data. The Boatman was very proud of this clever line of his. He was also very happy with his sausage.
 


Boatman with Sausage
 

I judged the parents who imprisoned their large children in strollers, but I did not judge the Boatman for eating a sausage. For my Happy Stairs consumption, I ate some strawberries, an apple and an oversized espresso gluten-free cookie.

I can't remember when I started eating apple cores. So far I have not died of arsenic poisoning.

Now we are becoming like the despicable people on Facebook who are always posting themselves consuming or about to consume some immaculate and delicious food. How smug of us.

Our visits to the market always fill us with deep joy. To add to our joy, on our way out we ran into the marvellous musicians Rich & Kate. This lively duo combines clarinet, accordion, kazoo and vocals clarinet and accordion into a performance that is delightful for both ears and eyes. The Boatman met Rich & Kate at the White Rabbit Art Camp where he built things out of mud, made a bunch of drawings and also got an infection in his foot.

Here is the Boatman's Drawing of Rich & Kate:

 



More Boatman drawings of Rich &Kate on Tumblr at http://verysatisfied.tumblr.com
Follow Rich & Kate on Facebook
 



We watched them with love in our hearts as the Boatman finished his cappucinno, the kind he always buys at the Steve-o-Reno's booth.

The Selfie Series may or may not be over.

To conclude this segment, here are the beautiful doughnuts that my friend Shayna posted on Facebook in response to the first narcissistic selfie post, in which the Boatman and I prepare to eat market brownies on a Sunday morning. Shayna travelled a long distance to obtain these doughnuts and once she brought them home, she took a bite out of each one to see which one she liked the best. Like the Boatman and I, Shayna is not planning a wedding and she has no babies.

The End. 

Shayna's doughnuts.
Much love and thanks to the market vendors and musicians, and to Shayna for buying the doughnuts.

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I Let Go, by Erica J. Schmidt

Selfies with Brownies
Jujubes
Why I am like Jane Fonda