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.

Peanut Butter, Pubic Hair

Somehow I have made it through three and a half years of blogging without inflicting friends and strangers with my long elevator speech about pubic hair. Pubic hair used to be my Designated Issue. A Designated Issue is a matter you deem to be of such utmost importance that should you succeed at dealing with it, then all of your problems will disintegrate. Common designated issues include paying off your mortgage, finding a life partner, or perhaps finally achieving a sought after yoga posture. Once you cross the Designated Issue finish line, the whole world becomes easy. In my early twenties, this is how I felt about pubic hair. A good friend of mine from high school shared in my misery. Because we had thick curly hair on our heads, we were certain that the hairy reality down there was much worse than everyone else’s. The roots ran deeper and our razors left behind itchier, redder and more hideous bumps.

Also, I’d been traumatized by the Vegan Life Coach who had once complained that the hairy abundance on my nether regions was “not aesthetically pleasing.”

One summer I was back for a visit to my home town, when my friend and I decided that enough was enough. It was time to get our bushes ripped off professionally. We found a newly certified aesthetician who raved about the sugar wax she used to complete her full Brazilians. I have yet to find anyone quite as cheerful and enthusiastic about ripping out pubes.

“It won’t hurt that much at all,” she promised.  The cost was 35 dollars. We considered drinking beforehand but our appointment was at noon and we decided that maybe this was too early. My friend popped a couple of advil and I went in sober.

“This will be so easy. You’re so flexible,” said the Cheerful Ripper. Then I took off my underpants. “Wow.” she said. Our sessions took about 45 minutes each. I tried not to make too much noise. My poor friend cried out profusely and consistently. It was the closest I have come to witnessing a birth.

“You guys are hairy beasts,” the Cheerful Ripper exclaimed. When it was all over, my fellow Hairy Beast had sweat stains down to her waist.

“You’re going to feel so great though,” the Cheerful Ripper promised. As fate would have it, we felt okay.

Back in Montreal a few days later, I walked up the stairs to my apartment after biking home from the yoga studio. Something felt a bit off. In the bathroom, I found a large pinkish bump along my groin.

Even though I hadn’t had sex in ages, I felt absolutely certain that I had herpes. I walked across the street to the hospital where I begged for a spot at the walk-in clinic. Three and a half hours later, the doctor on call said that herpes was highly unlikely. She took a swab anyways and suggested I might come to the hospital’s anxiety workshops.

My herpes scare provided no cure for my Designated Issue. I made room in my poor student budget to get my pubes waxed off every four weeks or so. I also had to budget for alcohol since going sober was far too painful and humiliating. In the metro, I sipped Mason jars filled with fruit juice and vodka. Mostly I went to little spas run by Asian women. Alas, none of them had sugar wax and I often hobbled away with a burning, pockmarked crotch.

“Oh. Very hairy,” said almost every single aesthetician I went to.

“The ass?” one lady asked after forty five minutes of seething torture. I rolled over and spread my cheeks.

After a few months of this, I found a lady in Old Montreal who used sugar wax. Everything in her spa was maroon and felt very exotic. Even so, aggressive ripping was still involved and my pubic area continued to suffer from its fair share of blood and pock marks. At least I was pretty sure it wasn’t herpes.

One time the ingrown hairs were particularly bad.

“You have infection,” said the Exotic Sugar Lady. “You are touching. Don’t touch!” Through my vodka buzz, I tried to promise Exotic Sugar Lady that in fact, I didn’t spend my spare time rubbing my ingrown hairs. She didn’t believe me. Cheerful Ripper suggested using a dry brush. This brought only moderate success, and as my student loans dwindled away, I felt it was harder to justify the 50 dollar monthly expense.

I gave home waxing a try and managed for about a year. This practice left me patchy and blotchy. It also became less sustainable as my tolerance for drinking during the day consistently decreased. I asked my fellow Hairy Beast how the pube situation was going, and she reported, “I just shave the sides and call it a day.”

In preparation for my Sex Trip to go see the Boatman in Halifax, I decided I would try for a similar tactic. I used a combination of the sketchy toxic smelling nair, a new razor and some tweezers. The Boatman had no complaints, but within a few days I was itchy and pockmarked. Despite this, the Boatman still invited me to move in with him.

When I arrived in Halifax a week later, we obviously got into the habit of having sex every day. Eventually, the Boatman noticed my red marks that had become worse from persistent shaving.
“You know, babe,” he said. “You should just let yourself heal. Let it grow.”

Over the past three and half years, there have been a multitude of signs that the Boatman and I are meant for each other. The “Let it grow” speech is one of these signs. From a bare waxed vag to a seventies bush, the Boatman is happy with all of it.

“It’s all about variety,” he says. What a saint.

Judging from models at the Boatman’s life drawing nights, it seems that almost all adults around my age have joined the “Hairless Generation.” Although zero pubes can be fun, exhilarating and exfoliating, it should definitely not be obligatory. To be repulsed if someone lacks the bald crotch of a seven year old seems highly questionable.
 



Caption: Life Drawing Model from the Hairless Generation

Drawing by the Boatman

Follow the Boatman on TUMBLR at verysatisfied.tumblr.com

 

That said, I hear that in India, you can get yourself waxed for pretty cheap. I thought maybe this would be a relatively interesting experience for the blog. Since I don’t wear Kino shorts, I was all set to let my pubes grow for the occasion. Then my friend invited me to a secret silent pool for the afternoon. I decided that this would be an excellent opportunity to chat while attempting to even out the farmer’s tan that I’ve developed from constantly covering my shoulders. Of course I would come. With bells. Despite my sincere efforts to have a fully liberated crotch, I had mixed feelings about letting stray hairs poke out the sides of my red two-piece bathing suit. My waxing excursion would have to be postponed. So I shaved the sides and called it a day.

Probably red bumps appeared within approximately 27 and a half minutes.

Oh well. At least it looked like I tried.

The End.

 



The Kino shorts that got lost in the mail, giving me a pass on grooming.
Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
My $2.99 self-help book, I Let Go

Menstrual Blood, Peanut Butter
I cling to things until they die
Everything You Need To Know About Butt Club
Spiritual Beard, Secular Vagina