Dear Vincent, I forgave myself for not being Lena Dunham.

Dear Vincent, 

I have a saying that goes, Aren’t professional boundaries a bummer.

Also, Most people’s lives are a total disaster. Their lives and their Tupperware drawers and the corner at the side of their beds.

Also, the permafrost is melting in Siberia. 

Years ago, I forgave myself for not being Margaret Atwood. Today I am forgiving myself for not being Lena Dunham. I always thought I’d excel at being a Lena Dunham Sort of Person. But listening to an interview, it all sounds rather strenuous. She just detoxed from benzos, and she had to get a hysterectomy. Beyond cervical orgasms, I don’t have much need for my uterus, and yet, I’m glad I still have one. 

So I don’t get to be Margaret Atwood, or Lena Dunham, or have a cervical orgasm, and I’m forgiven. 

Photo Credit equals The New York Times. 
Thanks a bunch NYT!

Likely your professional boundaries are
More of a bummer 
than mine. 

The other thing I want to say is, Lena Dunham named her uterus Judy.

One brutal Tuesday morning last February, I decided I wanted to cut my life off at 39 years, 4 months and 19 days. But now I’ve decided I’d like to be alive when Oprah dies. This might be hard, since I could see Oprah sticking herself in a freezer, to be awoken in the year 2222. Her century-long dreams will be a deep green regal forest, and when she opens her eyes, she’ll feel so grateful, and she’ll know so many things for sure.  

Everything is Green. Love, Oprah
Photo Credit equals the Oprah Magazine, as shown in eonline.com. 
Gee thanks!

"Erica," says Margaret Atwood. "Where are you?"

It’s 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, November 4, 2018. Almost like I’m a normal person, I slept in until 6:13, even though it was Daylight Savings day. Fall Back. The star of my life’s most beautiful blogging fairy tale used to hate that. I’m in the middle of taking a shit. On the stove, the espresso pot is starting to bubble, and then off goes the smoke alarm. All my neighbours likely hate me. After the espresso, I bailed on my exercise routine, and my thighs seemed 1.5 cm. too wide on either side. The menstruation app announced the end of my fertile window. It was a dramatic Sunday morning rage, and I felt like I’d wasted the day. 

When I have insomnia, sometimes I listen to Oprah, and this is only a mildly embarrassing thing to say, and I’m still saying it. I always remember the episode when Elizabeth Gilbert told Oprah that every day, she gives herself a quest. For example, writing down the story of her life onto six index cards, or dragging herself out of the house and not coming home until she finds something beautiful and one time she saw a parade of elephants, maybe in front of the bank. She thought this was beautiful, not thinking of how much elephants in America tend to suffer. 

Anyways, my Sunday, November 4th quest was going to be

1) Buy an irresponsible lunch at the bulk food store.
2) Make an offering out of the massive hardened plasticene erect dick I’d made at Authentic Movement Class. 
3) Maybe try and buy jeggings since mine have holes in the pockets and holes in the crotch. 

In fact, the massive hardened plasticene dick did not get born at Authentic Movement Class. 
In the beginning, the plasticene transformed from a sharp brown rectangular prism, into a non-descript blob, interspersed with little dents from my fingernails. Our Authentic Movement teacher always tells us, Soyez les cadeaux que vous êtes, which means, be the gifts that you are, and she encouraged us to make a spontaneous sentence to go with our plasticene.

My spontaneous sentence was, 
Most people, if they were me, would have given up by now. 
I did not exactly mean this about the plasticene. I meant giving up about everything else. I did not give up on my plasticene.

When I got home, I moulded the generic non-descript blob of plasticene into a massive and exquisite erect penis, which stood next to a vagina type fold that got cradled inside a soothing-looking canoe-shaped brown bowl. All of this hardened into something vaguely permanent.

Now I am trying to remember what happened to the vagina type fold that got cradled inside a soothing-looking canoe-shaped brown bowl. There was no sentence to go with it. It was supposed to symbolize me feeling cradled and held and safe. I can’t remember what I did with it. 

As for the massive erect cock, I’d wrapped it in tissue paper and placed it in a small silver Simon’s bag from when I bought all brand new underwear, and the dick was ready for its perfect offering, and the bag rested at the bottom of my living room closet which is vaguely and scandalously unruly. 

Preparing for my Sunday, November 4th quest, I opened the Simon’s bag and beheld, the massive cock had broken in two. Now the offering would not be quite as perfect or as exquisite. Still, I remained committed to my quest.

As fate would have it, on Saturday, November 3rd, I had about 45 too many minutes to myself which led me to Google your name, plus the street my friend said you lived on according to reliable and top-secret sources. 

As fate would have it, Google had an address to go with the Vincent!

The address did not match the neighbourhood my friend said you lived in. She was kind and wise enough not to give me the exact number. But I decided that just in case, after my irresponsible bulk food store lunch, I would drag ass to the house with the silver Simon’s bag and the broken and massive

My responsible bulk food store lunch was soothing small plastic bags full of chocolate covered strawberries and almonds, unsalted but roasted no-peanut mixed nuts, and those weird corn chippy flaxseed crackers that likely cause immense turmoil to all your estrogen levels. 

The irresponsible bulk food store lunch cost five dollars and 35 cents and took me about three and a half minutes to eat. 

The Vincent House was just south of Jean Talon and east of the market, and not on the sunny side of the street. With aspirations of discretion, I crossed to the sunny side and looked up to the second floor of the shaded brick duplex. 

Against vast odds, the door opened! I hoped hard, but it was not you. The Other Vincent was taller, younger without a beard and with a tiny girlfriend. Other Vincent and Tiny Girlfriend walked down the stairs and over to a small grey Honda, and drove away. I laughed pretty hard for a pretty sad day, and did not leave the broken dick there. 

You must be so pleased that I forgave myself for not being Lena Dunham.
My friend Caroline’s reading a book called Zapped, and the book says all the Wifi is fucking up everyone’s sperm count, and essentially we’re all getting microwaved.

Faithful to my quest, I walked approximately 5.2 km all the way down to the Bay, and the jeggings did not look spectacular, but I still bought them. Two days later,  I would exchange them, and struggle to make peace with the way my thighs appeared wrapped up inside of them, and by the time I made this peace, they ripped in the crotch, and I might spend all of November buying jeggings and then, taking them back. 

I left the big broken dick on a bench underneath a burgundy umbrella somewhere near Place des Arts metro. The broken dick could be called,

What is your low-grade calling? Where is your testosterone?
Or else,
Some undying love is better off living a short life.

I have a saying that goes, You can’t fuck up a Sunday morning.
Also, The more sane I feel, the more my spine seems crooked. 
Also, You’re so beautiful. Hating yourself is so stupid. 

Love, Erica. 

So Mondays without Vincent is having a little reprise. Please feel free to send your own imaginary letters to Vincent or to me at ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com. 

10 000 Years of Buying Jeggings

Follow Erica J. Schmidt on Facebook
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Not That Kind of Girl

Dear Vincent, 

If Oprah does not invite you to sit in her decadent plushy green chairs in the middle of the Oprah Forest to discuss your beautiful soul’s beautiful hero’s journey, it’s possible this might be a blessing. It’s possible you might just be spared.

Love, Erica.

Dear Vincent, 

Elizabeth Gilbert says that, every time you have sex with someone, some small part of you dies.

The permafrost is melting in Siberia

Today is Holy Thursday, and Meditating is a Holy Hell of a Time.

Title:


Today is Holy Thursday
and Meditating is
a Holy Hell
of a Time


Text:


There are weeks and
months
of my life
when I have a total hell
of a time
meditating.


Everyone knows I like to meditate while balancing, "Women Who Run with the Wolves" on my head. "Women Who Run with the Wolves" is the only hardcover book I own.


In fact, that is not true.


I have a small hardcover book written by Eric Emmanuel Schmidt which I found in the Mile End Armoire where all the hipsters leave their junk. Altogether I possess five books. This includes Ina May's Guide to Childbirth which I'm only borrowing. 


The novel by Eric Emmanuel Schmidt is not big enough to balance on my head.


I like to keep
French novels on my bedside table
in case that helps me learn French
while I'm sleeping. 


Matthew Sanford is a yoga teacher and paraplegic and he says that balancing books on your head has similar benefits to handstand.


Other yoga teachers are somewhat concerned about headstand's risk to the cervical spine. 


Headstands are one of the three things I know about my therapist Vincent.  Vincent is learning to stand on his head. The thought of this warms my heart. Good for Vincent.


The other two things I know about Vincent are:
1. He seems to like citrus and apples.
2. He is skeptical about cooking with a crock pot as he believes that excess moisture might disrupt potential flavour. 


It's possible that Vincent also plays tennis, but this I cannot confirm. 


I did not quite finish what I had to say about balancing a book on my head. 


While I was in Delhi,
I balanced Lena Dunham's book,
Not That Kind of Girl
on my head.


I meditated in the beautiful living room of my Cool Friend Fern's swanky apartment.
(I don't have a lot of experience
with the word swanky)
One time at my sister's house, I also balanced Not That Kind of Girl on my head.
(I wonder if Lena Dunham meditates)


That book was reasonably entertaining. I finished it on the train to Agra on the way to see the Taj Mahal and my billionth fort in two and a half weeks. I ended up giving Not That Kind of Girl to some fourteen to seventeen year old rickshaw drivers. I hope they made it to part about female orgasms being like a sneeze or like a seizure. For whatever reason, this was one of my favourite parts. I also liked the chapter about death. Just like Lena's brain, my brain is constantly permeated with the possibility of death and imminent catastrophe.


Me and Lena. 
Such kindreds.


In addition to our death fixations, me and Lena both like sex and have each had our times in the sun with psychiatric pharmaceuticals. Unlike Lena, I never had a boyfriend who left me with the unforgettable knowledge on how to avoid tangling up your headphones forever. None of my boyfriends have helped me with this. Alas, and alack, more or less.


What I do
when I'm having
a total
or holy
hell of a time
meditating
with Women Who Run with the Wolves
on my head:


Some people claim that to meditate for 30 minutes per day holds immense benefits. In many cases, this is true. One time on Facebook, I came up with the brilliant equation, 3+6+9+12=30. That is to say, you can meditate in chunks and do laundry in between. Everybody loved this tip. Today I did not bother with chunks, and bailed after fifteen minutes. I also did not bother to stretch my hamstrings or exert my ass muscles.


But here are some other tips, for you, or for Lena Dunham or for anyone else who wants to meditate:


1. Instead of sitting, lie down. Lying down is badass and radical.


You can stare at the clouds,
or the clotheslines, or the squirrels.
Or, close your eyes. Give the earth yours cells, and unravel, with tears, or without.


2. Think METTA phrases:
Toward yourself:
May I be safe,
may I be happy,
may I be healthy,
may I live with ease, and/or be free, and/or taste the perpetual and delicious goodness of lovingkindness as often as possible


Toward your roommates and/or your mother: May you + the above phrases.
 
For the whole world: May all and/or may we + the above phrases


3. I'm sorry, I love you, I forgive you, I thank you.


Simon, my ex-ex boyfriend the Hermit told me this one. You repeat it to yourself slash to your ego. Or to people who are driving you nuts. After two days of this meditation, Simon claimed he was cured. Simon jumped out of this world on January 4, 2015. He gave the earth all of his cells. By now his body has transformed into something entirely new. I was lucky to know him.


4. Look at yourself in the mirror and repeat, "I love you just the way you are," or some other version of this. You can use a full-length mirror or just look at your face in the circle of your cover-up's compact. Please refrain from this exercise if it feels oppressive. I first learned of this sort of thing while reading Louise Hayes' book, "You Can Heal Your Life" as I considered various options for healing toenail fungus. One of the first things Louise gets her clients to do is to stare at themselves in a compact mirror and whisper to their faces, "I Love You." Most people cannot do this without weeping. I believed Louise and did not bother trying for a solid eight years. Now it is 2017 and the approximate anniversary of when Jesus washed his apostles' feed. I have taken up painting my ugly toenails purple. And somehow I am able to stare at my face in the tiny compact mirror, and whisper, "I LOVE YOU, ERICA."


On Tuesday, April 11, while I was staring at my face, I plucked only one stray hair between my eyebrows.


Like Lena Dunham, as a child of the nineties, I suffer from odd eyebrow chunks, and arbitrary bald patches. There's me and Lena, once again. 


The last thing
I have to say
is about citrus. 


But the second last thing is about Holy Thursday
when the Catholics get together
and wash each other's feet.


When I was nineteen years old, I was a bit of a darling. And I signed up to live and work in a L'Arche home for people with intellectual disabilities. For two years, I attended some sort of Catholic function at least two times per week. Many of us have a deep aversion to anything Catholic. I get that. The homophobia, anti-abortion discourse, and priests raping children - these make for quite the buzz kills. And yet, in my two years of kicking around the Catholics, I found that this brand of Jesus people are some of my favourites. Especially the nuns. I met so many spectacular and generous and delightful nuns. These humble women embodied service more deeply than anything I'd ever seen.


Anyways, the first time I ever ended up at a Foot Washing Ceremony was rather astonishing. I felt shocked to discover that it wasn't a metaphor. We were actually gonna take our socks off.  Everyone washed someone else's feet and everyone's feet got washed.


Through the whole thing, the song they sang over and over again went,
"If I your Lord and Master, should wash, should wash your feet,
how much more must you, wash one another's too?"


I have often thought that as the baby boomers age, becoming one of those foot technicians who clips ingrown toenails, shaves off callouses and vacuums corns would almost certainly secure a solid income stream into this digital age, and beyond.


Now I will conclude with a short poem about citrus that was written on Monday, April 10, the Full Moon's Eve, and 2017's most beautiful day so far, on which I felt devastatingly oversized and rather weepy:


The world is in bloom.
I'm having a fat day.
I did not know
that worms do not
like citrus.
Once I brought a mason jar
of citrus
mixed with vodka
up the mountain.
Two minutes ago
I looked into the window
and saw white pieces
of citrus in my hair.


The End.

A holy hell of a time
meditating
to you.


Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
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Montreal Hippie Threads (@mtlhippiethreads)
Instagram: montrealhippiethreads


Not That Kind of Girl 
We have no idea if the squirrels are happy/or/ if anyone is
The Lying Down Club

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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