High School Reunion, Part One: Small Talk

Ten Conversation Starters for Transcending Small Talk at Your High School Reunion
 
1.       So good to see you. Are you married? Do you think you married the wrong person?

2.       You have children? Congratulations! How many? What has been your biggest parenting mistake so far?

3.       Wow! Your job sounds really boring! (Insert vibrant smile.)

4.       Who out of high school do you regret not hooking up with? Who do you regret hooking up with? Let’s discuss the circumstances that led to both outcomes.

5.       Are you estranged from any family members? How’d that go down?

6.       What issue tortures your brain at 3 o’clock in the morning when you can’t sleep?

7.       Describe your level of sexual fulfillment. Would you say you are very well fucked, sort of well fucked, underfucked, or not fucked at all?

8.       Have you uncovered any childhood trauma that causes you to repeatedly sabotage your romantic and/or professional life?

9.       What major health challenges have you encountered over the past ten years?

10.   Have you ever tried a threesome? Do you swing?

Bonus Haikus: Raising the Devil.

High School Reunion.
Prozac Reverberation.
I plucked my chin hairs.

I’m glad my roommate

Gave me this lovely blue dress.
Ready for small talk.

My mother worries
About my dress's sweat stains.
This is exciting.

Bonus Letter from my Grade Nine Boyfriend of Three Weeks

We both had braces and on a picnic when he tried to make out with me, I shoved a bun in his mouth.  Today, this boyfriend is exceedingly handsome and possibly rich. His letter is written inside one of the hundreds of handmade cards I used to give to just about everyone in high school in honour of any holiday I could think of.  I was especially good at drawing blue and purple elephants.

Grade Nine Boyfriend of Three Weeks: Erica UR cool. You shouldn't do all that crap for others. Doing some stuff is okay but you shouldn't do all that stuff you do or people will depend on you too much. Keep it real. And be a little selfish.

Grade Nine Boyfriend of Three Weeks just might be in this photo.
Thanks for the wonderful advice!

Bonus Haikus, Part Two

Preamble - I am in search a new haiku/texting boyfriend to replace and/or supplement the Married Man. Here are some thoughts on this matter:

I need a new muse.

The guy who tied me up last
Summer wrote to me.

He said he would not

Make much of a haiku friend
At least he’s honest.

The End.

 

Happy High School Reunion, PDCI! It was wonderful to see you all!

 

Bonus Photo from Mr. Wilson's 1992 Grade Three Class:

Guess who?!?




Drama Club Peeps!
I see glitter.

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
Erica's Self-Help Book: I Let Go

Mother's Bunion
Prozac Made Me a Better Person
Memoirs of a Brief Affair

The Kiss Test
What a Beautiful Face
Performative Crying in Alleys

Performative Text Messages

When I was seventeen years old, I watched my grandmother pull apart two-ply Kleenex on her death bed. She would rip each half into four tiny squares, using each section to blow her nose. Though she was dying of pneumonia, not a fiber of tissue was to be wasted. As I watched her, I had the clear thought that somebody had to tell the story of these tiny pieces of Kleenex. Otherwise what was the point?

I feel the same way about pouring my heart into a riveting and inspired correspondence with the Married Man, a.k.a. the Elusive and Illicit Texting boyfriend. Without publishing my efforts on the Internet, what was the point?

Don’t worry, Married Man. I won’t give you away. Your side of the correspondence stays safe with me. I am the Queen of Confidentiality.

And anyways, I’m saving my Memoirs of a Brief Affair for a different day in June. Today I am way too busy.

One of the most important things about having a boyfriend is he is there to reassure you that the welt and/or welts on your groin are not herpes or cancer. Just like the doctor said all seventeen times you waited and paced around the ER or walk-in clinic waiting room.  Someday I plan to conquer and master Friction, Exfoliation and Pubic Hair Removal. That day was not last Friday.

Poor The Boatman. He had to stand in for the Married Man as the recipient of my Performative Text Messages. Just like the Married Man and just about everyone in the world, he is not as good a correspondent as me.

Performative Text Messages

Erica, Friday, 12:56 PM:

I am going to quit masturbating for one week to see if the problem with my sex drive is the Prozac or overthinking linked to typical erectile dysfunction.

No one writes back. I have a hard time focusing. It seems I need three coffees and one nap every day.

I bought several moisturizing and exfoliating products for the bumps on my crotch. I thought that was a nice sentence.

Erica, Saturday 8:39 AM

Two groin bump photos. (Should I post these photos on the Internet? Such choices are always a toss-up.)

I am concerned about my groin welt. It hurts. It is hard underneath. No pus. (Pus is a surprisingly difficult word to spell.)

No tingles.

Yesterday I googled sarcoma.

Erica, Saturday 9:01 AM

I am feeling ignored. And I’m worried I have cancer.

Erica, Saturday 9:39 AM

My phD friend does not think it is cancer or herpes. I showed him the photos this morning at Olimpico.

Erica, Saturday 11:29 AM

What are you doing? The thing about iPhones is that you can tell when people read your texts. If you are too busy, you can copy and paste the following. “There, there. Head pat. I’m sorry you’re having a hard day. It doesn’t look like herpes to me and I don’t think you have cancer. I’m busy doing blank but I hope we can talk soon. Maybe you can have a nice performative cry in a bus shelter.”

Erica has a nice performative cry in the bus shelter on the corner of Bernard and Clark.

The Boatman, Saturday 2:55 PM

Hi Erica. Yes sorry, I was a bit occupied. (Dot, dot, dot: Erica omits something personal.) I’m not always up for immediate text reply. I find my phone takes a lot of energy out of me these days. Sometimes I’ll read a text but get sidetracked and then respond later. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. I do, very much! Good luck on your break from masturbation. It’s good to take breaks from things I think. I’m sure your welt is just fine. Did you get it from humping the bed too much? I’m off to trim the hedge and mow the lawn. I’m not happy about it.

Erica, Saturday, 2:59 PM

Okay thanks. I’m sorry about (dot dot dot) and that you have to do yard work. I am quite good at yard work and would have been happy to help you with it. I already failed at the masturbation break. I might go to a clinic tomorrow just in case but I am probably fine.

The Boatman, 3:07 PM

Sounds like a good plan. Thanks for the spiritual help with the yard work. I’ll send your crotch spiritual health through the ether.

End of Performative Text Messages.

My gift for yard worked emerged in the Performative Self-Love Letters. Once the Boatman took a photo of me holding the hedge clippers close to my crotch. The hedge is tall, the hedge clippers are orange, and I look so happy.

Yard work is one of my greatest gifts.

The End.

Post-Script: Performative Exfoliation with the Magic Eraser.

I do not recommend this, though recently one of my coolest friends gave it a go. She reported excellent and effective exfoliating properties.

“But it’s carcinogenic,” I said.
“How do you know?”
“It has to be. It’s Mr. Clean. And a graphic designer from Halifax who isn’t the Boatman told me.”

One of my coolest friends wondered if maybe the generic Magic Eraser brand was un-carcinogenic. I doubted it, and still do.

Mr. Clean Magic. Discover all the Cleaning Possibilities!

Post-Script Two
Groin Welt Update: Omitted until further notice.
Welcome to June’s exfoliating and explosive transformative creativity.
Transformative and Performative.
If you don’t know what performative is, ask.

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go, by Erica J. Schmidt ($2.99)

Kleenex
Performative Crying in Alleys
Why I am Like Jane Fonda
Dear Internet, Please be my boyfriend for five minutes.

Dear Internet, Please Be My Boyfriend For Five Minutes

How many more hours of my life will I spend waiting for someone to confirm that no, I don’t have a disease that is about to cause imminent death slash imminent foot amputation?

Yesterday, I told my friends that a very important reason why I need a boyfriend is so that he can reassure me of such things. For example, my ankle just below the talus bone has been bothering me. Sometimes the pain spreads ever so slightly up my calf. There is about 0.87 millimetres of swelling. Likely this vague pain is due to the sudden increase of walking on sidewalks and the sudden decrease in Ashtanga yoga and daily downward dogs. Obviously, I have jumped to the worst case scenario. Blood poisoning. The infection has entered my blisters that I got from my Birkenstocks. (Most of these blisters have callused over.) In Montreal, it is 26 degrees. Everyone is hot. Not me. I have a fever. From the blood poisoning.

At the table where I sat and told my friends about how I needed a boyfriend to tell me that my foot wasn’t going to be amputated, a darling ten-year-old girl listened intently.  

“Could a girlfriend help instead?” she asked.

“Well,” I said, not letting a teachable moment go to waste. “Girlfriends definitely work for some people. But for me personally, I have found boyfriends to be a better fit.”

Once someone told me that ten-year-olds are among the most loveable people in the world. I used to say that I peaked around ten years old, but this is probably unnecessarily pessimistic. The same kind of pessimistic as thinking that you and your foot are both dying of blood poisoning. Once my vagina stops bleeding, and imminent death is ruled out, I think I will start up again with the Downward Dogs.

IN THE INTERIM,

Dear Internet,
Please be my boyfriend for five minutes.

Thanks.
Love, Erica.

The End.

I was going to take a photo of my blood poisoned ankle, but I feel as though you can probably be my boyfriend without it. The Boatman used to be quite good at taking blog photos. He was very wonderful for many things, far beyond photography and vetoing blood poisoning. In fact, I am missing him immensely.

Internet diagnosing on the I-Phone
Photo Courtesy of Tiago D'Oliviera Photography and Film
Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go for $2.99


Yours til Ekam Inhales (Letters from my ten-year-old self) 
The Day Yoga Almost Gave Me a Stroke
Life and Death are of Supreme Importance