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
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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)

 

Hip Replacements and No-Knead Bread versus Chapped Nipples and Low Sex Drive

“Either I’ll end up writing year-end letters about no-knead bread, hip replacements and mango chutney, or I’ll be stuck blogging about my low sex-drive and chapped nipples.”

I came to this conclusion at 11:45 P.M. on Christmas Day. The Boatman and I had just returned from a delightful carolling event at our friend Julie’s parents’ house. Accompanied by Julie’s brother Tom on the piano, we sang from old Shopper’s Drugmart ‘Tis the Season carolling pamphlets. When it was time for “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” Julie’s mom divided up the lines. Robbie and I got “Seven Swans a Swimming” which we enthusiastically rehearsed several times before the song began. Throughout the lengthy song, many of the other carollers were distracted by wine, conversations and Julie’s adorable child who was wandering around the living room stealing everyone’s cellphones. Not Robbie and I. We didn’t miss a beat.

Afterwards we hung out in the kitchen, and being the nosy person that I am, I came across a year-end Christmas letter hanging on a bulletin board.  The author opened with a compelling sentence about the smell of baking no-knead bread wafting through the kitchen as he wrote these words. I skimmed down the page, and learned that the author’s significant other had been through a hip replacement that year, but had recovered in time to oversee her garden and the production of mango chutney.

I looked up and saw Julie’s father Alain. “Who are these people and why did the write this letter?”

“Well, you know,” he began in his charming French accent. “They are re-tired, no kids. They travel the world and come home to bake their bread, and write this.”

“My father has a friend who writes these letters every year. Fills the page front and back. My father can’t read a word of it.”

“No kids,” Alain said again. Julie’s child, Alain’s grandchild, toddled by pointing up towards the window and tilting his head back and forth.

“Lune, lune, lune, lune,” he kept repeating. He loves the moon. And Cheerios. Soon he would head towards the cereal cupboard where he would crawl in with the box.

 

Every time one of the mothers at school gets pregnant I feel dead inside and jealous of their clear, tangible purpose that no one will ever question them about and that will last them for their entire lives.

One Friday night a couple of months ago, as we were lying in bed, the Boatman and I decided that we were not going to have children. That day, I’d been masturbating on Facebook when I came across the Mommy Blog of the cool girls from my high school. She’s a Mompreneur. Just Another Mompreneur, she humbly calls herself. I devoured most of the seven posts she’d written. With honesty and humour, the mother of two described her fecundated life filled with boogers and diapers and chapped nipples. When her partner comes home every evening, she has absolutely no desire to fuck him, but derives true, legitimate pride and joy in the fact that she was able to transcend the day’s chaos and prepare him a healthy home-cooked meal.

As I lay in bed, I considered the Mompreneur’s existence. I take pride and joy in my sex-drive. And my nipples. Also, I absolutely despise cooking.

When the Boatman, a regular entrepreneur, arrives home long after I do, I have rarely cooked anything. I tell him that while he was gone, I humped the bed twice and he tells me that he’s proud of me.

“I don’t want to be a Mompreneur,” I told the Boatman that night. “I don’t want to spend my day at home chasing after toddlers and then blogging about my chapped nipples and low sex-drive. Plus I would hate having to cook dinner for my family every day. Hate it.”

“Yah, I don’t really want kids either,” said the Boatman.

That settled that. I would become a BarrenWomanPreneur. But now I’m worried that instead of having kids, I’m doomed to write nauseous year-end Christmas letters about no-knead bread and mango chutney.

For some reason, the chapped nipples and no-knead bread is less disturbing than my current endeavours, which include gathering all my menstrual blood into a peanut butter jar and posting it on the internet.

I’m not sure why.

The End.

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
Just another self-help book, I Let Go

Menstrual Blood, Peanut Butter
Mythological Unconditional Love
What the fuck should I do with my life? Part Two.