Dear Vincent, This is a Hungry Ghost.

Dear Vincent,

This is a Hungry Ghost.

Dear H. Ghost

Hungry Ghosts crave more attention than is available. They mourn and wail and wallow more than is reasonable. Hungry ghosts are not happy for their friends, or for the bright-eyed shiny rich entrepreneurs on Facebook. Their feelings and cravings are more enormous and grotesque than what you would envision in your ideal picture of yourself. Starving your hungry ghosts does not exactly work. Somehow you still have to feed them.

I heard that every few weeks, Chinese monks escape over the monastery walls to get drunk on some disgusting vodka. And that the serene meditators of California go out for an obligatory burger and fries after their retreat. So they wouldn’t get too pure. So their hungry ghosts would not get too hungry. I love these stories.

My hungry ghosts are eating unwashed carrots out of the bag. They are not quitting coffee, or folding the hanging laundry within an acceptable amount of time. They are dreaming illusions of grandeur and longing to jump into bed with someone impossible. They have not forgiven my perfectly darling mother. They are naked and hungry and lonely and sad and still somehow beautiful. And somehow, you still have to feed them.

Love, Erica. 

Send your imaginary and un-imaginary emails to Vincent, or to me. The secret email address is ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com. Love to you and your Hungry Ghosts.

Compost and Me


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, Are you lonely? Do you have a pain body?
Today is Holy Thursday and I'm having a holy hell of a time meditating
Dear Vincent, I was floating on the joy of feeling seen, heard, felt and loved by you, last Tuesday, November 21

Dear Vincent, Yesterday was the seven-year anniversary of me not puking in my mouth, or in the toilet.

Dear Vincent,

Yesterday was the seven-year anniversary of me not puking in my mouth, or in the toilet. I had big dreams of writing a beautiful and redeeming poem, but then it turned out to be one of those days when I had to surrender to the humbling yet life-saving magic of cutting myself a break and grabbing a sandwich and a nap. At least there was some reluctant dancing. And in my head the poem goes something like this,

Seven years later

still not as grateful

as Oprah.

The ghosts are still hungry.

It was beautiful of you to imagine that this might have been any different.

And brave that you walked on anyways.

Love, Erica.

Send your imaginary letters to Vincent to ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)(com).

With Love to your Hungry Ghosts


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


Not Separate From All That Is
The Benefits of an Ashtanga Yoga Practice, Part Two
Fat Days for Boys

Dear Vincent, During my month-long hiatus without you, I invented the Shiny Chrome Orgasm. And I basked in my Nun Friend's soothing and maternal bosom of unconditional love, and I got a cleaning buzz. I think I am going to make it. Welcome home

Dear Vincent,

During my month-long hiatus without you, I invented the Shiny Chrome Orgasm. And I basked in my Nun Friend’s soothing and maternal bosom embrace of unconditional love, and I got a cleaning buzz. I think I am going to make it. Welcome home.

Childhood memories equal, the fairy tale, The Princess and The Frog. I remember the frog, crouched on the Princess’s dinner table, and lapping up peas from on the Royal Family’s golden plate.

 Are we able to accept all the ugly things without the promise that deep down the ugly things are actually beautiful and that one day they’ll transform out of being an ugly frog or an ugly toad?

Toads, in my opinion, are a little bit uglier than the frogs.

Can we love the things that are

inherently and likely

ugly forever?

For example, the toads, or else the thick and cakey fungus under certain people’s toenails?

A Shiny Chrome Orgasm is when you polish the chrome of the faucet of your sink to the point that the sight is orgasmic.

Shiny Chrome Orgasm

A friend pointed out that combined with the taps, the whole thing is rather phallic, and isn’t that a little bit exciting?

Childhood memories equal Mrs. Vanden Bosch’s Grade One Halloween Concert. I am dressed up as a beautiful princess, but our song is about a field full of pumpkins. My best friend Ellen gets to be the special pumpkin with the solo. Of this, I am exceedingly jealous. The song is about some special pumpkin who has some special magical way of singing the words, the Boo-Hoo-Hoo. Maybe this turns frogs into handsome princes. Or maybe it burns the whole field down. In any case, I am devastated that I don’t get to sing the Prestigious Pumpkin Boo-hoo-hoo solo. Even before I skipped grade two and was irreparably labelled the Strange and Gifted child, I felt that surely I deserved all the main parts.

And the Princess, she felt like she did not deserve to have to go to bed with the ugly frog. Except the ugly frog had rescued her precious golden ball from the bottom of the pond, and in return he’d convinced the princess to make quite an elaborate promise.

“Promise me,” said the ugly frog. “That you will love me. That you’ll let me be your friend and play with you. Make me a place at your table where I will eat from your plate and drink from your cup. Then, take me to your bed and we can sleep peacefully together.”

Some people might say this qualifies as a little bit of coercion. The Princess was crying very hard when she lost her ball, and the frog sort of pounced upon her vulnerability. And it was in the olden days, and once she’d already said yes, she was not allowed to change her mind about taking the frog to bed.

So first the poor princess was helpless because her golden ball had fallen to the bottom of the pond.

And then she was helpless because her heart’s desire depended upon an overwhelming and impossible promise.

This story does not leave me feeling very equipped.

Place your ugly frog upon a silky and exquisite pillow, and there will emerge your dashing tender-eyed prince.

And

Or

Ever since I went off Prozac, my brain’s been invaded by a voice.

And the voice comes ready with a hand.

And the hand is ready to slap.

The voice really wants to be the main part. Sometimes the voice won’t shut up until the hand wacks me on the face over and over again. The voice wants everyone to hear and know its rage and how excruciatingly disappointed and disgusted and at the end of it rope that it feels with, well,

I guess me.

And the hand keeps slapping because it’s so set on the belief that no one will ever understand me, and this is what I deserve.

Main Special Gifted Pumpkin sings, “The Boo-Hoo-Hoo.”

All the Generic Pumpkins sing, “The Boo-Hoo-Hoo.”

I still cannot remember the line about why the Main Special Gifted Pumpkin was so special and gifted.

All the palaces in the fairy tales look exactly the same.

My nun friend has the softest cheeks and the most soothing bosom. I saw her at a funeral, and she said so many nice things to me. It was like I was at my own funeral.

“Oh, Erica,” she said. “It is so good to see you. You’re so beautiful. Don’t ever change. Stay just the way you are.”

I cannot repeat what my Nun Friend said without weeping, if somewhat delicately. Her words, they shut up the voice and they canned the hand for one whole week. And I got a cleaning buzz, and I invented the Shiny Chrome Orgasm.

I forgot to say that the princess was the youngest of the seven daughters. The youngest and the most beautiful. And she loved to throw her golden ball up in the air and then catch it. Once she got married, I wonder if she kept throwing her golden ball up in the air. Throwing it up in the air, and then catching it.

Main Special Gifted Pumpkin sings, “The Boo-Hoo-Hoo.”

All the Generic Pumpkins sing, “The Boo-Hoo-Hoo.”

Welcome home, Vincent!

There is probably something symbolic about the golden ball falling to the bottom of the pond.

Our golden balls are falling to the bottom of the pond all the time.

Main Special Gifted Pumpkin sings, “The Boo-Hoo-Hoo.”

All the Generic Pumpkins sing, “The Boo-Hoo-Hoo.”

Oh Erica, you’re so beautiful. Don’t ever change. Stay just the way you are.

In therapy, I always get to have the main part, and surely, this is one reason why I like it.

Welcome home, Vincent.

Love, Erica.

P.S. In fact, once she married the prince, the princess kept her golden ball safe and sound on a purple cushion, under a glass dome. Cause what if the ball fell into the pond again and some better frog prince showed up. The End.

Please send your imaginary emails to Vincent to ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com.



Grade One. Surely I deserved all the main parts.

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


Rumplestiltskin


Dear Vincent, It seems no matter who I'm having sex with, I ugly cry every other time.


On Thursday, January 4, 2018, I did not end up flying to the edge of Newfoundland and embarking on a long westward frigid and impossible walk across Canada in my boots that tend to become damp and cold within seven to 98 minutes of putting them on for the benefit of everyone’s mental health which feels like an emergency and also chronically neglected and in memory of Simon Girard who jumped off the roof of Sherbrooke Street’s le Tadoussac on Sunday, January 4, 2015.



Dear Vincent, My last orgasm felt like it was healing for my kidneys.

Dear Vincent,

My last orgasm felt like it was healing for my kidneys.

How is your vacation going?

Everyone in Montreal is relatively ecstatic because the world is melting and the weather, it is no longer exactly horrific.

As for me, I get to have a cleaning buzz. Sometimes when you do the same thing over and over again, even it hurts your forearms, then you get to have a buzz. How nice for me to get to have a cleaning buzz today at 6:03 p.m. I am laughing at myself having a cleaning buzz as I cross Rivard Street on the way down Mont-Royal.

Being a cleaner is like getting paid to be a person. I think that’s what everyone wants. To get to be a person, whoever you are, and get paid for it. I am laughing at myself once again.

Love, Erica.

Vincent is on vacation, but you can still send him your imaginary emails. Or you can send them to me. The secret email address is ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com. Hope you are living the dream and having your favourite kind of cleaning buzz. Love, Erica.

Living the dream.


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, I was floating on the joy of feeling seen, heard, felt and loved by you last Tuesday, November 21
Dear Vincent, Are you lonely? Do you have a pain body?
Dear Vincent, Looks like you got some sun.

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

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

Dear Vincent, Now you know I have that thing where you love your therapist.

Dear Vincent,

Now you know I have that thing where you love your therapist. Your Bumble profile is pretty decent. I’d say switch your main profile pic from the furrowed selfie amongst famous paintings (though this makes you seem cultured, intelligent and potentially rich) to your windblown face in front of the mountain. Not with the kangaroo. That’s cute, but some women find animals to be too obvious a ploy. Always lead with your Windblown, I’m About To Orgasm Sex Face. I rehearsed a last minute live performance in front of your Windblown, I’m About To Orgasm Sex Face and the performance went reasonably well.

So you swiped right by accident? Does this at least mean you think I’m a little bit cute? Please can you say, I have excellent legs? Just once.

In our session, I reverberated and told you all about all the Dear Vincent letters and how I post them on the Internet, and how one day I hope they will make an excellent book called, Mondays without Vincent. And yes, for months and months, I did thoroughly long for the book to end with a scandalous and life-changing wind blown orgasm in your windowless office on a Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon.

Oh well. Turns out you are two to four years too young for me anyways. Mostly I like to date outside of my decade. That way my boyfriend is more able to double as some sort of dad.

In your windowless office in your chair where you sit so still with your knees just slightly apart, you used words like “Unreciprocated,” “Impossible,” and “Once a patient, always a patient.” I am glad you have such excellent professional boundaries. These have never been my gift. My gift is, “Professional Impossible Crushes.” P.I.C.

P.I.C’s, these infuse my cells with love and they permeate my heart. You have been the perfect P.I.C. because your eyes are so kind and so beautiful and you make me feel so safe and you leave just about everything up to the imagination. I would have loved to be exceptional and unique and original but I guess this thing where you love your therapist is in fact quite common. It is an immense relief to know that it does not necessarily disqualify me as your patient. Probably I will continue to pretend that secretly, I am your favourite. But I will try to convince my cells to fully comprehend the sentence, “A good therapist will never take you out for a sandwich.” This means that when I masturbate, I’ll more or less refrain from picturing your face somewhere near my crotch or behind me or on top of me having a windblown orgasm. So far it’s been a hell of a time getting off. And I can’t help but wonder if maybe you jerked off to me, maybe just once or else twice. And if all of us are actually just wandering around the world, playing imaginary roles in imaginary costumes. And if the truth is, we all end up taking off our costumes and picking up a sandwich and masturbating to one another when we get home.

Love, Erica.

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

Erica Live on Facebook seems to have begun
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, Today I might tell you that I love you, or else I might ask if you too are a Scorpio, and if so, is it your birthday?
Dear Vincent, It seems no matter who I'm having sex with, I ugly cry every other time.
Dear Vincent, Thank you for responding to my hysterical phone call.  


Mythological Unconditional Love (M.U.L.)