Dear Vincent, I still wish I/ Was Miranda July.

Subject: I still wish I/Was Miranda July

Friday, February 8, 2019

Dear Vincent,

I have a saying that goes,

All your sadness is in your lungs.
I still wish I
Was Miranda July.

Just around this time last year, I published a tragic blogpost entitled, Everyone is one with the birds except for me. And I remember trudging downtown to teach yoga to the insurance people who did not like my Animal Flow routine, and on the way, I ignored a call from my optimistic and pragmatic bestie, since I was beyond Optimism and Pragmatism, and, 
adamant that I could not possibly get old if days like this were to prevail, I planned my death for March 18, 2025, the 14-year anniversary of not puking in my mouth, and I’d be 39 and four months and a couple of weeks, which is approximately my favourite age of dude, though soon this may prove to be somewhat too young for me.

Later that week in 2018, while everyone else was being one with the birds, I remember lying in the snow in front of some trees in Parc Outremont, and weeping from deep behind the bottom of my lungs.

On Wednesday night, I walked myself by those same trees, and I'd had the afternoon off, and I'd just bought the domain name Deep Cleans with Erica, and I felt bouncy and happy and I wondered, who was that, weeping from deep behind the bottom of her lungs? What a relief to be someone else, at least for now.

Everyone is one with the birds.

I got in to read at Grownups Read Things They Wrote As Kids again, and I am reading a couple of the emails from my Hotmail account during first-year university, and I was 18, and the emails are to Nandi who was my boss when I coached little kids on the swim team, and then Nandi moved to Calgary and he was 38 years old, and I had a crush on him, and we wrote back and forth. 

And so I have been into writing to distant 38 to 40 years old crushes for quite some time now. It feels so easy to love who I used to be, with all the hope and all the optimism. It's all very beautiful, though heartwrenching at times.

What I know for sure, by 18-year-old Erica:

“What I know for sure, as Oprah would say, is that life inevitably fluctuates, some days may feel like the act of falling into a sewer while other days see you soaring euphorically around the world.  Everyone around you wonders what it is that causes you to glow so intensely legally, morally, uncorruptly.  It's all very interesting though heartwrenching at times. 

I guess I am discovering that I am a very intense person and though I have to go through some amount of sewer moments, to put it cheesily, the rainbow/butterfly/pot of gold always reveals itself after a time… I don't buy that you're as happy as you make your mind up to be.  I think you're as happy as you're able to love and accept yourself and the people around you, life as it is, with and without miracles, its unpredictability, dissatisfactions, surprises, love, joy etc.  From the movie ‘kiss of the spiderwoman’ I heard the words ‘the best thing about being happy is the feeling that you'll never be unhappy again.’” 

Erica, 18
That feeling that  you'll never be unhappy again.
Plus groomed hair, skinny eyebrows, turquoise lasenza hydralift padded bra
and a watch.

The first half of the Every-Other-Wednesday-to-Thursday Vats-Of-Oatmeal-At-Least-Two-Half-Dying-Ferns-Plus-Expensive-Granola-Multiple-Baby Hump was cancelled this week. During the second half of the hump, the baby twins babbled, and kept reaching for the vacuum cleaner, and then in the afternoon, I got a cleaning buzz at the Self-Mutilating Parrot Family’s and even though my livelihood might be dipping back down to the poverty line, somehow I am not all that worried. When I die, I am sure I’ll have enough money to pay for my funeral. Will you come?

The best thing about being happy is the feeling that you’ll never be unhappy again.

Happy Friday!

Love, Erica.

Saturday, February 9, 2019

Dear Vincent,

I forgot to say that the day after the folding workshop, the base of my tongue told me to give the rest of the anti-keto-diet chocolate chip cookies to (dot dot dot) and his selling points are (dot dot dot)  and it seems he is old enough to stand in as a potential father figure. Let's hope he's not married, or gay, that he has an insatiable sex drive and believes in sexual transcendence, and thinks I’m vaguely awesome and that our attachment trauma is compatible. Yah, no pressure.

I’m just kind of tired of longing for my cells to dissolve in the kitchen as I get fucked. I am worried about menopause, and that it will come on fast.

Bonus from eighteen-year-old Erica:

“Some people have and always will have a tough time being happy.  I don't plan for this struggle to be a chronic aspect of my life but I do believe that an amount of suffering is essential for growth.
I have begun to religiously sing in the shower, I derive much pleasure from creative endeavors, not including essays, and also I think that there is a lot to be said for being honest. 
Real. truthful. 

Barely anyone lets it all out, due to a handicap of language and the human condition, which is apparently fallen, but there exists hope in unexpected places.  And no this does not necessarily refer to mind altering substances.  Anyways, I am eighteen years old.  That's it.  Young, but life can prove to be fleeting sometimes.  Therefore, the endeavor begins, to live fully with no regrets, climb out of the sewer when necessary, sing in the shower, and nap." 

Some days see you soaring euphorically around the world.

Some days see you soaring euphorically around the world.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Love, Erica.

However and wherever you may soar around the world, your correspondence remains welcome at the secret email address ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com. 

Let's hope he's not married, or gay, 

that he has an insatiable sex drive and believes in sexual transcendence, 

and thinks I’m vaguely awesome and that our attachment trauma is compatible.

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I Let Go

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Deep Cleans by Erica J. Schmidt (@deepcleanswitherica)

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Dear Vincent, You will be so thrilled to know

Deep Unyielding Depression 

Dear Vincent, Some other Vincent coerced me into a blowjob

Everyone is one with the birds except for me.

Three Quickies, including, I still wish I was Miranda July

I saw Vincent, Robbie and
the Married Man*
floating amidst
my mitochondria** and
Golgi Apparatus**


Some people they
end up
in your cells.
Who put them
there?
Oh I think
it was me.


Asterixes from the Title:


*Also, I dreamt that the Married Man sent me a video of his hot and edgy wife with excellent legs dancing on a stage in tie-dyed pants with her (and the Married Man's) perfect and perfectly dancing children.
"See,
she's not as obnoxious
as I made her out to be,"
was what
the Married Man wrote.


**Two of the only parts of the cell I remember from Grade Nine Science class beyond the cell membrane and the nucleus. My teacher's name was Ms. Rumball and she called my mom to tell me how loved the cell model I made out of paper maché. It was all her favourite colours, purple, turquoise and teal.
I really really really
love purple too.


On Not Using Brand-Named Q-Tips


I composted
the clumps of
toilet paper
filled
with ear wax.


I still wish I
was Miranda
July


What does it mean
to take care
of someone?
What does it mean
to be seen
and
held?
All my life
is a physical outlet.
I still wish
I was Miranda.


The End.

Don't forget
there's a tie-dye sale
tomorrow!


On the Yard Sale Strip
of Bernard
between Waverly and St. Urbain.
9ish to 4ish
Earth Day, April 22
Free Cookies.


Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go

Bodhisattva Business Ventures:

Deep Cleans by Erica J. Schmidt (@deepcleanswitherica)
Montreal Hippie Threads (@mtlhippiethreads)
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Five Days of Creative Recovery
What I think about when I think about brand-named q-tips
Performative Crying in Alleys

Deep Unyielding Depression

Deep Unyielding Depression.

I love this phrase, especially the word, Unyielding. As a second selling point, its acronym spells, DUD. How deep is your DUD?

My loving and thorough parents started sending me to therapy when I was eleven. Because of this and other theatrical tendencies, I believe I have the tendency to transform every un-exuberant moment into something unyielding and pathological.

And it has been awhile since we heard from Simon, my dead ex-boyfriend who jumped off a building on January 4th, 2016. What does Simon say this time?

Simon says: I wonder what I’d be like if, like you, I’d been sent to psychologists from the age of eleven. If a bunch of people had played around in my head the way children play in the bathtub-I think that by now I would have died ten times already. I’ve already died ten times anyways.

Ten times, or at least once. I’m not sure the bathtub analogy works in English. Simon and I used to fight extensively about translation.

Since I got back from India, I’ve been busy translating exciting phrases about soothing and luxurious skin creams and foams. My favourite is the foaming and emollient shower gel. You can use it in the bathtub or the shower.

Last week’s Catchphrase:

Do you want to be emollient and foaming?
I do.

This Week’s Catchphrase:

Deep Unyielding Depression.

So far the low-grade DUD has lasted 1.5 days. I think that the act of paying taxes has triggered Delayed Reverse Culture Shock. (DRCS.) Taxes, and a birthday party filled with babies. Everyone knows I don’t want babies. I don’t hate babies either. And yet, a great abundance of babies can make me feel lonely and empty, as though my life is unimportant and shallow.

Now is probably an excellent time to start making my own yogurt. Yogurt, or no-knead bread. Bacteria and/or yeast.

All your sadness is in your lungs.
I wish I was Miranda July.                               

Erica says to Simon: Aren't excessively self-indulgent, self-deprecating people irritating?

Simon says: Yes.

Erica: I hate people like me.

Simon says: Me too, but you’re not only self-deprecating. You also believe in yourself immensely. I have a theory on how this happens. Here it is: so one parent loves and cherishes their kid, but the other doesn’t believe she can do anything. You end up with a kid who turns into a half-shit, half-magnificent adult. Over time, one half swallows the other. Which half swallows what is yet to be determined.

Both of my parents thought I was magnificent.

There must be something clever to say about swallowing.

Me and My Sister, Being Magnificent.
I am not sure what is going on with the brown shit-like speckles.
Emollient foaming gels were not in the budget.

Certain skin creams produce a freshening effect upon application. Produce or procure. I googled “freshening effect” and everteen vaginal tightening gel natural intimate wash came up. In Montreal, it’s raining really hard.

Half Shit, Half Magnificent. This was the title of the poem Simon begged me to write. Simon didn’t like it very much. It’s true the poem was pretty terrible, but better than the one he wrote about my phosphorescent ass cheeks.

Hungry Halves. Contact Dermatitis. Another word I like is Unrelenting. Also, Unrivalled.

Are you seeking unrivalled comfort?
Yes.

I wish to be captured within a meticulous formula.

What they mean by everteen, this only just occurred to me. Everteen and the Intimate Wash. Gross, and rather upsetting.

My eye contours feel uncomfortable on a daily basis. Not everyone is as happy as they look on the Internet.

The End.

 

Me and my uncomfortable eye contours.
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My name is Erica. I love coffee.
Hip Replacements and No-Knead Bread versus Chapped Nipples and Low Sex Drive
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Why I am Different from Margaret Atwood, and What I Don't Gain from Humping Duvets