Memoirs of a Brief Affair

RH stands for Radical Honesty and might make you think of the hemorrhoid cream. Hemorrhoid is one of those ridiculously difficult words to spell. A lack of hemorrhoids is a source of gratitude. Some people make a case for lukewarm honesty. Instead of the radical kind. I am not that kind of people.

A couple of friends suggested I start a new Haiku or poetry blog. Marriedman.com.

Haiku One. Memoirs of a Brief Affair.

In meditation,

I heard your wife say please stop
texting my husband.

I'd rather not stop.
It is super addictive.
What should we do now.

My dream was about

You guys getting a divorce.
She told your family.

I sat there, listened

as Susie crawled on my lap.
Jeremy said nothing.

I wanted to text

"You didn't try therapy."
Like you said you would.

"It's too expensive."

That was your excuse. But it's
cheaper than divorce.

End of Haiku one.

Seeking redemption,

I fold all my underwear
To look like a rose.

If you’re wondering how Facebook Rehab is going, well, between haikus to the Married Man, I am now posting selfies of myself wearing plush elephant masks and talking to owl puppets. They get tons of likes.

 

Plush Performances

My deepest fear is
I’ll still be sending haikus
To you in ten years.

Tonight at 6 p.m., I get to spark joy in the house of some banker/kundalini yoga instructor. Yesterday, on my way to Butt Club, I texted my most darling friend and mentor (MMDFAM) who generously invited me to my first threesome last spring in Toronto.   

Yesterday, 5:12 PM:  MMDFAM! How’s it going? I tried to get closure with the married man in person, since the haikus did not work. But nor did seeing him. We didn’t make out but I could not can it. I like him. He will never make me a well-fucked woman. What am I doing? Why can’t I channel all this energy into something useful? I feel addicted to the drama and the constant affirmation. It is so hard to focus on life. The Facebook Rehab is a bust. Soon it will be Butt Club. I love you. I’m sure your butt looks phenomenal. XO.

MMDFAM suggested that we raise a toast to INCREMENTALLY BETTER and the Baby Steps^TM method. But having said that, sometimes closure is overrated. Like folding your underwear into the shape of a rose. Butt Club was an enormous success. Four Participants. World record. The Married Man sent his congratulations. He remains in massive haiku debt.

When are we gonna

Bother with integrity
This just needs to end.

I finished translating the novel excerpt about terrorists on a luxury cruise ship. Several sentences needed to die. For example,

“Each of their faces displayed a victorious smile and the entire group exuded a nearly infantile excitement.”

Nobody got to exude a nearly infantile excitement or display a victorious smile. Also the vanishing box did not get to bid farewell with a foamy bluish whirlpool. I am giving the sentences closure.

“Though the men appeared curious at the time, their interest quickly faded as the vanishing box bid farewell with a foamy bluish whirlpool.”

And the love affair between the ex-marine and the captivating cruise ship acrobat didn’t seem to work out either. It died in chapter eight.

“Instead of answering, Charles stopped walking and sadly watched Bella’s figure gradually disappear, like a dream that tortures the heart as it fades into the distance, beyond reach.”

There’s no narrative

Closure is overrated.

The End.

 

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Crackbook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor

I Let Go, by Erica J. Schmidt

Prozac Made Me A Better Person
Performative Crying in Alleys
The Tidying Festival

 

 

Soothing Face Creams, Mushrooms, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Hiatus, Sex Pamphlet, Anemone, New Interview, Baby, Bunion, (Epi)Dermis

Friends and Fans!
Someone is paying money to do things. The things are:

-Translating relatively riveting sentences about soothing face creams. I am learning all about free radicals, atopic dermatitis and Vitamin A.

-Translating relatively riveting sentences about electrostatics, mushrooms, photosynthesis and rocks.

So the blog will be taking a short hiatus.

As long as I don't give myself carpal tunnel syndrome, when I return, you can look forward to:

-A Pamphlet about how even if within the first five minutes of meeting you, I tell you all about my orgasms, threesomes and rolled up duvets, we probably still shouldn't have sex. It is hard to get out of the sexual realm. One way is to write letters. Or spend a week with your mother. Or have an elaborate discussion about people's Ocean Invertebrate Personalities. I did that yesterday on the bus. Just as I predicted, the guy beside me felt like he was very much a Brooding Anemone, but his score made him a Royal Starfish. This happens more often than you might think. The guy was a psychology student and so it was nice of him to give my quiz a chance. 

Brooding Anemone. I've had a thing for you since childhood.
Ocean Invertebrate Personality Quiz



-An Asking People About Your Lives Segment with Shelley Fillipoff. Shelley was my beloved grade six French immersion teacher. On November 28,  2013, her beautiful daughter Emma mysteriously disappeared. I had the privilege of carrying out a heartwrenching and truly riveting interview with Shelley last Wednesday. I can't wait to put it all together.

(UPDATE! It's ready! Here's the first segment: Where is Emma Fillipoff (ONE))

 

In the meantime, you can watch the haunting Fifth Estate episode about the search for Emma Fillipoff. There were a few fact problems that Shelley wanted to clarify, but it is still worth the watch. Please note that contrary to what it says in the video, Emma and Shelley were not at all estranged during the year before Emma went missing.  The details regarding Emma's parents' divorce were also somewhat misleading. 

Emma Fillipoff
Watch the Fifth Estate: Finding Emma
(It's also on Youtube)

Help Find Emma Fillipoff on Facebook
 

Anyways, do check all this out for yourself. Thanks for your help and loyalty.

In Other News:

Baby

In case you were wondering, Matt Wiviott's partner who happens to be my dearest friend gave birth on Thursday. The baby is quite adorable from what I can see on Facebook.

Bunion

My mother's bunion turned out fine.

Epidermis and Dermis, A Draft

Epidermis:

The skin’s surface layer no longer regenerates as quickly. As it thickens, our complexion becomes dull.

Dermis:

Our fibroblasts, which produce our dermal fibers begin to weaken. The dermis’s elastin and collagen levels decrease, resulting in a slight loss of firmness.

The End. 

Selfie with Corn, in Perth Ontario

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go, self-help book by Erica J. Schmidt

Mother's Bunion
Asking Matt Wiviott About His Life
Yours Til Ekam Inhales

 

How I am violent, by Erica J. Schmidt

Since May, I have been taking an online course called, Embodying Ethics and Vows. It is with Michael Stone and Elaine Pierce. This week, our assignment was to write about how we are working with the precept of not causing harm (ahimsa) in our lives. Here's what I got:

How I am Violent, by Erica J. Schmidt

Instead of non-violence, I am thinking about violence. This makes me think of my relationships, especially with Simon and with my body, but with the Boatman too. Everyone saves their violence up for someone, for something. Actually, I have no idea what everyone else does.

It is hard not to tell the same old story over and over again. The story of Simon, my ex-boyfriend who I fucked at the Granola Party, on the biodegradable yoga mat. I was really drunk, and he wasn’t. Perhaps this should have been the last time. Instead, there was a big saga of alcohol, vomit, both passionate and ambivalent sex, and name calling. We wrote all this down in letters that were supposed to be published in brilliant books that were supposed to allow me to quit my three and a half low-paying jobs.

Simon used to say that I was like an eight-year-old sore loser tennis player. And I was always losing the match and so being with me was unbearable. He didn’t understand how the Boatman was able to stand me. Simon was probably more right about this than I was when I wrote,

“Sometimes I think that it would kind of be ideal for you to die.

Then our book would be a huge success.  I could feel somewhat sorry for myself, because a guy I fucked died and that is always traumatizing.  Everyone would look at me with odd sympathy. Especially if you committed suicide.  The sympathy would be immense.  Oh poor poor, Erica.  You slept with a sick and twisted soul.  Scarred forever.  How terrible.”

Highly mediocre writing, and unkind. This was from the second volume of the Little Savage and the Hermit. I wasn’t really into writing this book. Simon wanted the plot to be about how I finally got an orgasm. I felt like this was a dumb plot.

I am not the reason Simon jumped off his apartment building. I can just hear him say, “I would never jump off a building for you, you stupid fucking cunt!” His voice carries a tinge of love.

Simon’s most recent girlfriend gave me pictures and memorabilia from the funeral. When I first put the pictures on my meditation alter, I told myself that after a week, I was allowed to take them down. It has been awhile. They are still there. One of his photos is in a disposable coffee cup that is covered with the stream-of-consciousness poem I wrote during my French Literature Class in 2009. Simon kept this cup all the way until he died.  Those cups don’t biodegrade.

The alter, with spectacular lighting.

Simon once said that based on a study they did on rats in the 1970’s, I will never ever get cancer. The rats who expressed their stress by freaking out didn’t die or get any diseases. At this rate, I will live until I’m 98.

Not every day can be fulfilling and lucrative and productive. Some days are for melting down. Yesterday was a meltdown day. It was the first time I had woken up at 5 a.m. for a while. That could have caused the meltdown. I also don’t think I ate properly the day before. All the trivial and banal things tend to matter. Alas. I was stressed because I had this assignment to write, and Thursday is also blogging day. I thought that maybe I could combine the two activities, although I wasn’t sure whether or not the world should know that I told Simon it might be better if he died. As a creative practice, I have vaguely committed to myself and my four and a half fans that I will blog every Monday and Thursday. It started off being fun. Now I am starting to crap out.

Writing, with all its potential for redemption can also be violent.  Same thing goes for meltdowns.

My favourite person to have a meltdown with is the Boatman. No one can console and contain my eight-year-old sore-loser-tennis-player-self better than him. Plus I don’t really want to really want to impose this self onto anyone else. Some friends say that I should limit my contact with the Boatman. Otherwise, how will I possible get over him, move on. The idea of getting over anyone is so silly.  How can we possibly get over anyone?

Well, I suppose I am over the Vegan Life Coach. God bless the Vegan Life Coach, and his spirulina powder.

The Boatman and I talk once or twice a week. I try to make sure each time is not a meltdown. I try to ask him about his life. That was one of my goals when I began the ethics course. To ask people about their lives.

Yesterday, I called the Boatman in tears. “I can’t keep calling you like this. I will keep doing this forever.” For the rest of my life, for the rest of the world, I will compartmentalize myself to resemble a manageable and acceptable human being. Then when the eight-year-old tennis player appears, I will excuse myself to call the Boatman. I’ll be eighty years old, forty-nine years into a marriage, with seventeen grandchildren. Some blogging drama will emerge. “Excuse me, honey,” I will say to my geriatric husband. “I need to melt down to the Boatman.” The Boatman will be eighty-eight.

“It’s okay,” the Boatman told me yesterday as I fretted and wept about my lack of meltdown autonomy. “You can just call me.” Maybe they can make a special Boatman Meltdown App.

As for my body, well, I cannot believe the violence I have imposed upon it. Sri W. Ham Wrap was right. My yoga practice was super violent, and  I cling to things until they die.

People always say, “My poor body,” and/or “My body is not happy with me,” and/or my body is angry with me. I know what they mean, but I wonder who they are talking about.

Or what about, “my back was killing me?” My back was killing me the day I went to meet Simon’s girlfriend. Earlier I had spent two hours on my bike, to visit a friend. Now I was walking. I felt that if anything in my clicky, crooked eighty-year-old spine were to shift .035 mm the wrong way, the whole thing would surely collapse. Someone would have to wheel me and my body away.

"Jesus," I thought. People think about Jesus when their backs hurt. I remembered listening to Ashtanga teacher Tim Feldman talking about his herniated discs. He could barely move, but he thought about his guru, Pattabhi Jois, who said, “You taking your yanus.” So Tim started squeezing his anus like nobody’s business. Somehow this helped. Seemed a bit simplistic to me, or rather, perhaps too complicated. But what else could I do? As I walked, I brought my awareness to my anus and pelvic floor. I didn’t squeeze, I just thought about it. I considered how it was all connected to my feet that were touching the ground. And how my sitbones were also somewhat connected to my nostrils. And how the crown of my head sort of balanced on top of everything. There was still pain, but by the time I arrived at Simon’s girlfriend’s house, it felt like maybe things had shifted 0.035 mm away from me being in a wheelchair.

It is a good idea to try and keep your body happy.

This afternoon I’ll be taking a stab at my dream job. I am going to help a three-year-old learn how to use the potty. Very little is more grounding than helping someone else to take a shit.

The End.

The cup with the biodegradable poem on it
Follow me on Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook

My name is Erica, and I love coffee
Simon Girard, 1979-2015
The Benefits of an Ashtanga Yoga Practice, Part Two
Not Separate From All that Is 
The Real Me 

Michael Stone Teaching




Simon

2014: Year of the Spiritual Pants

2014 was the year of the Spiritual Pants.


Spiritual Pants in Fake Yoga Selfie

On January 1, 2014, I bet the Boatman twenty bucks that I could meditate for one hour without talking or taking a break. And I won.

Around that time, I had the brilliant idea that maybe I should become a nurse because I was obsessed with nursing memoirs, medical shows and diagnosing myself with all sorts of diseases on Google. Also, I thought it would be fun to get to wear purple scrubs and sneakers all day. I was relieved to have finally figured out my life’s purpose. In the meantime, I continued to work at the Montessori School. I had a terrible time getting out the door. The Boatman and I devised an imaginary sticker reward system. For every morning I left for work without a frenzy, the Boatman would give me an imaginary sticker. After a week or two of earning imaginary stickers, maybe I’d get a prize. The system was not super structured. Despite this, sometimes I did win some excellent pens.  The Boatman is good at choosing excellent pens.

I tried my best to be cheerful; however, I felt moderately grumpy most of the time. One night I dreamt that all the children were running around the gym with knives. A particularly adorable little girl had a huge pointy knife which she held up and aimed at my mouth. I was lower than her because I remember I could feel that I was busting my knee cartilage in an extra low hip width squat.

“Put the knife down,” I said.”

The knife stayed hovering about my mouth.

“Put it down,” I said again.

She brought the tip of the knife between my lips. Then I screamed in the night and the Boatman took me into his arms and said it was okay.

One Wednesday morning in real life, two little boys were pulling each other around in the pink and green and blue synthetic tunnel. To distract them from their dangerous game, I said, No, in French and crawled into the tunnel myself.

Wouldn’t this be very fun?

Very Fun.

The younger of the two boys jumped on me and I wacked my chin on the concrete gym floor. I sprung up, pulled myself out of the tunnel and walked away. I said nothing, sure that whatever I said would be yelling or crying, neither an appropriate response for someone in charge of a gym full of kids.

My chin was bleeding and I decided that I had a spinal cord injury. I insisted that my bosses let me go to a walk-in clinic to rule out my imminent paralysis. The doctor gave me a tetanus shot, a band-aid, and asked me to look up at the ceiling and then touch my toes. He said that everything was fine.

I bought my ticket to India in March. My plan to become a nurse did not progress beyond hammering every nurse I met with incessant questions, inhaling every nurse memoir at the Halifax library and watching the entirety of Nurse Jackie Season Six in two worknight evenings.

Nurse Jackie

Although I filled my journals with page after page of endless, relentless angst and complaints, I didn’t get around to finishing many blogs or other pieces of writing. Around the springtime, I considered deleting my entire online output when actor, celebrity and disability-activist Danny Woodburn expressed his horror at a trilogy of articles I had written for comedy website mobtreal.com. The Boatman convinced me otherwise and ultimately I only removed the offending words along with a bunch of pieces that I decided were pretty mediocre anyways. I republished the revised story, “Soul Fucking” and it has made it into the blog's all-time top ten posts.

 

Danny Woodburn, an actor I met while lifeguarding at the Westin Hotel
in Montreal. His Fan Mail inspired a valuable head trip.

Otherwise, besides a few fluffy posts on birth control and funerals, I didn’t put much out there. This became a constant source of low-level grief, but I hoped that leaving my job and going to India might help such things shift. In June, I hired a new psychologist who I called my Expensive Friend. The main purpose of the sessions was so he could sign a form confirming that I wasn’t too crazy to attend a Vipassana meditation retreat in August. It was my third time applying and I’d always struggled to get the I’m Not Crazy form signed, mostly because I haven’t bothered getting a consistent health care provider in years. In addition to signing the form, I thought that maybe my Expensive Friend could help me with my creativity drought and my bewilderment at how to earn money in a way that didn’t result in despair and devastation. My Expensive Friend was very kind. He gave me some writing assignments, meditation exercises and let me talk as much as I wanted. After several sessions, he said that it was wonderful meeting me but that he wasn’t sure he was helping me achieve my objectives. Perhaps my trip to India would work to clarify some of my issues. He didn’t exactly fire me; however, I feel this is the catchiest way of putting it.

My last couple of months at Montessori were more fun than the previous year and a half since I was allowed to speak English and didn’t have to endure the chronic frustration of not being understood. Before I left, my bosses provided me with a raving letter of reference that was meant for hanging on my fridge. They praised my mopping, composting and toileting skills. My toilet conversation with toddlers and bum-wiping skills are apparently “without parallel.” Hit me up if you struggle in any of these areas.

At the end of August, I flew to Montreal to finally attend my first ten-day Vipassana sit. Almost everyone I know was surprised to learn that I made it through the whole thing without breaking the noble silence rules. I cried more than anyone else there and at one point I thought I wasgoing to dislocate my sacrum and/or get a spinal cord injury. When I was finally allowed to talk, I talked so much and so fast that my throat got sore.  After Vipassana, I got back into sharing my writing again without thinking too much about it or worrying that I wasn’t writing something brilliant and literary like a novel.

Then I went to India. This was my first trip off the continent. It is a magical thing to be able to get on a plane and a day later, arrive in a totally different place where the leaves don’t turn brown and fall off the trees in October. Thanks to everyone who helped invent airplanes, and to the people who took the time to learn how to fly them.

On the plane, I wore the pressure socks that my father lovingly bought me, for fear my legs would swell up on the long flight.

Magical Socks

I arrived in Mysore and reunited with my Cool Friend From Belgium (CFFB) and met several other new friends, many of whom appeared on this blog under the guise of some similarly catchy acronym. My Cool Friend From Belgium and I started a Butt Club because my CFFB was concerned her butt was too flat and was causing problems in her pelvis. Another friend, the Queen of Butt Club (QOBC) was instrumental in leading all two of the Butt Club’s sessions. I will always be grateful to the Queen of Butt Club for this, but even more so for the time she took me downtown to a store that sells the most wonderful pants in the world. I call them Spiritual Pants, and I wore them almost every day in Mysore. They would be perfect for pregnancy, and for a brief period in Mysore, I thought that it would be so beautiful and magical to make a baby inside me. Then I changed my mind.

Sharath wasn’t scary at all. I really liked him and practicing in the shala was extraordinary. For me, it was everything it’s cracked up to be. When I told Sharath that my hip was “popping in and out” (not really, but it sounded like it), he told me, “don’t walk too much.” Lucky for me, everywhere I went in Mysore was about ten minutes apart, and anywhere further my Cool Friend From Belgium usually drove me. The various challenges I had on my left side didn’t magically vanish; however, there was definitely a significant and steady improvement that seems to be continuing on back in Canada even though it’s freezing and I’m walking all over the place.

During Vipassana, I wondered if maybe my body and psyche were maxing out after seven years of unbroken Ashtanga practice. Maybe Mysore would be my grande finale and I could move on to some “easier” yoga involving cushions and a lot of ropes. Pretty sure this won’t happen, and I think I’m going to try and stick out Ashtanga for another seven years or so. We’ll see.

The Boatman thinks I’ve grown up quite a bit since I left. Probably this is true, although I did blog about my pubic hair at least twice in three months and I went on and on about humping various kinds of bedding in approximately every other post. Also, in this picture with Sharath, somehow I look so young.

Me and Sharath, so young

From Mysore, I flew to London to meet the Boatman and his family at an extremely fancy hotel where we weren’t allowed to wear Spiritual Pants, Birkenstocks, or eat with our hands. The hotel was way too fancy for me and the Boatman, but thanks to very detailed instructions from the Boatman’s mother on what to wear at what time, we didn’t cause too much shame to the family.

Of course it was delightful to see the Boatman again. No one is as happy as they look on the internet, except for us.

Deep Love

The End.

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
Happy, Exuberant 2015!

Most Popular New Post of 2014: You Cling To Things Until They Die
Least Popular Post of 2014: Rumplestiltskin
Somewhat Underrated Post: Day Trip

 Most Heartbreaking Post: Do Not Kill Your Baby 

Catchiest but Most Misleading Title: Are you strong or are you skinny?
Pubic Hair Post #1: Peanut Butter, Pubic Hair (This title is also misleading)
Pubic Hair Post #2: Spiritual Beard, Secular Vagina

What I Learned in India



 

 

Other Things That Happened in December

Christmas Chakra Cards

I envision a beautiful Christmas card project. I will make dozens of beautiful Christmas cards with a different chakra symbol on each one. I will analyze each recipient and figure out which chakra they have excesses or deficiencies in.  Based on that, I’ll make their card.
“So it seems like you’re giving them compliments, but you’re actually analyzing people and covertly judging them,” said the Boatman.

“No. I’m picking the chakra that’s best for them. People who are moving get the root chakra.  People with terrible sex lives get the sex chakra. That’s not mean. It’s helpful.” “Sounds kind of like a smug Mean Girl criticism,” he says.

I work on the cards at a “Drink and Draw” evening at the Foggy Goggle.



All the Chakra Shapes

I trace the chakra symbols that I have already traced in pencil, in black marker and pen. The Boatman, a real artist, works on his brilliant comic series called “In the Future.” In the future, scientists are going to make a cute pink creature that eats our garbage and pees and poops some delicious edible matter.  So the pink creature is going to save the world, and also be a loving companion for humans. The other real artists at the drink and draw are working on fancy graphics and/or superheroes. They are talking about superheroes and Dr. Stranger, or maybe it’s Dr. Strange, or Dr. Strangelove. I only like comic books that aren’t about superheroes.

I smudge the ink across one of my moula bandha root chakra cards. It looks amateur and I feel deeply disappointed in myself. Now the real artists are talking about airports.

“I just hate the Chicago airport.”

“O’Hare? Me too. Can’t stand it.”

“There’s nowhere to sit.”

“I know. I just hang out at the bar right inside security. They see me so often, they can’t believe I don’t live in Chicago. I keep telling them I’m just always here for business.”

“I love Chicago. You know, I prefer it to New York. I really do.”

“Oh totally. Absolutely. Except for the airport.”

"Oh my God, you won't believe this. I was googling 'Superheroes' and my own drawings came up."

"No way."

"Yah, I never would have thought."

I check my Blackberry. My aunt who is dying of cancer has sent me an email. A couple of weeks earlier, I had sent her an email about my recent and greatest accomplishments. One of them was my blogpost about the three things to make the world a better place. My dying aunt congratulates me on finding the Boatman, but scolds me for putting up too much information on my blog. She says some things are not meant to go online and that my indecency has probably prevented me from being employed in the past and will continue to do so in the future. I feel deeply wounded. My chakra cards suck and my blog, which I once took moderate pride in, has sabotaged my entire life. Also, I have never been to the Chicago airport, I have never visited Chicago, and at this point I probably never will.   I tell the Boatman that I have to leave right away.

It is his fault that the blog is indecent because one of his ways to make the world a better place is to have better sex ed. To illustrate this, I posted a picture of myself with my vibrator that he bought me. In the future, I will not send this link to my relatives.



TMI, said my aunt who was dying of cancer. Her death has since passed. Sweet rest to Aunt D.W.



Over the next couple of weeks, I colour in the chakra cards with Crayola markers. Then I complain that they looked juvenile and amateur. The Boatman suggests that I try watercolours. This turns out a little better; however, I still berate myself for not producing something worthy of Martha Stewart's praise. Although I’d intended to mass produce these cards and send happy chakra wishes to a whole bunch of people I haven’t kept in touch with, I end up giving out around twenty, to close family, co-workers, and friends I know I’ll run into.

I send a purple crown chakra to my aunt. It says Merry Christmas, Love, Erica. And that’s it.

To everyone I missed, maybe it’s not too late, or maybe next year, I’ll try and start earlier. Or maybe and hopefully, your chakras are already all set.



The Leftover Chakra Cards. Now I realize that they are actually kind of pretty.  



Christmas Concert

For three weeks, the children practice four songs for the Christmas Concert. Jingle Bells, A Winter Wonderland, Frère Jacques, and Il neige (It's snowing, in French). The entire program takes about four and a half minutes. We rehearse twice a day. During rehearsals, the children sing exuberantly, waving their arms in enthusiastic gestures and making big crocodile claps.  The day of the concert, the gym is filled with parents, grandparents, small babies and other siblings. Parents point their i-phones and cameras at their children. The children stare back and sing nothing.

Christmas Parties

A couple Fridays ago, at the Boatman’s work party, I stand in a group of three people and yabber away in my typical machine gun style. The Boatman’s father comes up behind me, puts his hand on my shoulder and says, “Erica always says exactly the right thing, doesn’t she?”

Last Saturday, we went to the annual fancy family dinner at the Bicycle Thief. I sit on the corner of our table next to the Boatman’s father and ask him if he would mind if I watched his hip replacement surgery that is happening on January 3^rd. The Boatman’s father says to ask the boss, his wife and the Boatman's mother. The Boatman says that this means no.

The End.

Happy Holidays from the Exuberant Bodhisattva!
My Pelvis, unreplaced for the moment: @mypelvicfloor
Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
I LET GO 

 
Hip Replacements and No-Knead Bread versus Chapped Nipples and Low Sex Drive
 
Festive Posts from Christmas Past:
Sacred Fire
Poopy Mango Babywipes and the First Day of Christmas (contains some nudity)

 

Compost Girl

How I became the Compost Girl

On Friday afternoon, I took on an act of environmental heroism. One of my bosses was going straight out of town that evening so she didn’t have time to dump the compost at home.  My other boss was overburdened with her own small child, along with a big pile of recycling and laundry bags full of the children’s nap sheets and the dirty rags we use to wipe up their mess and the Lysol. My two remaining co-workers who both have cars didn’t think twice when my bosses said that this week’s compost would go into the trash. But not I.

“I’ll take it home,” I immediately volunteered.

“On the bus?” said my laundry and child-burdened boss.

“Why not?” I asked.

“You’ll get kicked off,” said Co-Worker One with Car.

“No, I won’t. Metro Transit owes me big time.” I explained that I carry around a carefully documented list of all the days that Metro Transit has made me wait excessively in horrible Halifax weather, and the three and a half times they made me late despite my unfailing punctuality at the bus stop. When I die, I will bill Metro Transit for the time and misery they cost me and all the money will go to vegetarian party sandwiches at my funeral. Metro Transit dare not say anything about the compost.

“The other passengers might give you dirty looks though,” said Co-worker Two with car.

“They deserve it for massacring my ears with the hideous music blasting out of their headphones,” I replied smugly.

“Well, that’s very noble of you,” said Co-worker One with Car, smirking.

“Yah, you’re like a superhero,” said Co-worker Two.

“Compost Girl,” said Co-worker One.

Both co-workers with cars started laughing until tears formed in their eyes.

“I don’t see what’s so funny,” I said. “I’m just taking one for the environment. I’m an environmentalist.”

“Can you please write a blogpost about this, Compost Girl?” said Co-worker One. “I mean, if you had a blog."

Co-worker One is the only one who occasionally reads my blog. My bosses don’t know about it because my blog is so edgy and controversial that it would definitely get me fired. Add the Adventures of Compost Girl to the existing heaps of menstruation, vibrators and potty training theories and this blog will only get edgier.

I poured the mountains of decomposing napkins, lasagna, Moroccan bean soup, mediocre hummus and whole grain crackers into triple layered Sobey’s bags. There were three bags in all. I lugged the bags down the hill to my bus stop on the Bedford Highway. The bus was nearly empty, but a construction worker and Muslim couple were sitting at the back where I sat down. Nobody looked up when I sat down and as the ripening odours wafted through the back of the bus, the couple continued their faint dialogue and the construction worker kept flipping through his Metro newspaper. The bus driver let me off at the corner of Robie and University Avenue.  I trudged the two kilometres home in Halifax’s standard un-Christmasy foggy drizzle. As I walked, the plastic bag handles dug into my palms and left red creases. After I dumped the compost into the green bin in our driveway, I smelled my hands. They smelled like vomit, but it was nothing a little biodegradable dish soap couldn’t handle. 

The End. 

Notes from 2016: I feel like I did this a second time. On the bus ride home, I'd somehow switched my phone into accessibility mode. I fumbled frantically to try to get Siri to stop yattering away at me. My bus stop came and Siri was still relentlessly dictating all my options which was extremely discombobulating. After I got off the bus, I decided to go the the Rogers store on the corner of Spring Garden Road to see if they could fix it. It wasn't until I'd gotten the customer service people to adjust my settings and finally silence Siri when I realized I'd completely forgotten about the two bags of compost. I must have left them on the floor of the bus. That day marked my last attempts at environmental heroism.

 



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