Not That Kind of Girl

November is some kind of national novel writing month. Every November, I feel flooded with guilt that yet again, I will not write a novel. One year I tried. Made the word count of 1750 daily words for a week or so. The novel was about the time I lived and worked at a house for people with intellectual disabilities. I called it “Two Spines.” The material was rich. I pull it out regularly but I have never been able to put it together into anything coherent. By about eighty pages, it feels useless and impossible. Torture, regret, self-loathing. Can novel writing month be filled with anything else? I told my mother about novel writing month and its ensuing guilt. She told me that sometimes she wishes that someone would cut off her arms so that she wouldn’t have to feel guilty about not practicing the piano enough. Perhaps guilt is genetic. Or endemic. Perhaps I will write a novel while I’m in Delhi. Or someone will cut off my arms and forever rid me of the guilt.
 
Now I am in Delhi.

In the mornings I try and meditate. I used to be good at meditation, but in Delhi, it is excruciating. To stay focussed, I balance a copy of Lena Dunham’s “Not That Kind of Girl” on my head. Maybe Lena Dunham would like that. It’s possible that I am the only person in the world who balances “Not That Kind of Girl” on her head while meditating. We will have to see on Periscope. All through meditation, I am dying for the Internet.

Me and Lena

“Not That Kind of Girl” is somewhat up my alley. A great deal of nudity, sex, body parts, menstruation and masturbation. When she was very young, someone told Lena that touching your private parts led to something that felt like a sneeze. Soon afterwards, Lena started masturbating and discovered that in fact, the result was more like a seizure. I liked that part. During the summer, a friend of mine asked me when I felt the most alive in the past few years. Without missing a beat, I told him about the surprise sex that Robbie and I had one summer afternoon. It was heavens parting squirt everywhere kind of sex. Magic Mushrooms Sex. Beautiful Sex. A sneeze sort of orgasm. The time was August of 2014.
 
When I think about that summer, sometimes I consider that this was the last time Robbie and I were truly happy. A bit sad. You never know when the best times will be over.
 
My Magic Mushrooms Friend says that if you're a squirter and you don't squirt, it can build up and cause neurosis. I met my Magic Mushrooms Friend on the online dating site Plenty of Fish in 2009. We never made each other squirt; in fact, we never even kissed. But he has taught me a great deal about drugs and squirting. My Magic Mushrooms Friend is a big advocate of learning to squirt by yourself. I have never figured this out. I find the duvet is limited in its ability to generate a squirting sneezing sort of orgasm. If Lena Dunham were me, I imagine that by now, she would have done a better job at figuring it out. Probably she would have published all of it: the Magic Mushrooms Sex, the sneeze sorts of orgasms. So now I am like Lena Dunham. In her book, there are excerpts from online messenger chats. I can see myself publishing such things. And/or excerpts of words I wrote to pen pals. And why not do this right now.

In Delhi, I write to my pen pals constantly. Nobody is as good at writing back as I am. Not even my mother. That’s why I need at least five or six or seven pen pals. Maybe more. If you’d like to be my pen pal, here is what you can expect.

WORDS TO MY PEN PALS:

“When I was squatting on a public toilet today it occurred to me that my vagina looks different than it used to. Like the labia sticks out more and is crooked. I am not going to google prolapsed vagina but I am wondering if my vagina has changed since I stopped doing ashtanga. Or maybe I hump the bed too much. Or stretch too much. Do you remember my labia sticking out a whole bunch? Okay thanks.”

“Oh man. Not sure what I was thinking I was going to do here. I feel overwhelmed and isolated and useless and dirty and gross. Just tried to order food and it was a shit show. Whatever. It's the same old me. Everywhere I go. I don't know what was so bad about my life in Halifax or in Montreal with my stoner roommate. I miss Robbie so much. I feel like I won't pull off anything with my life. I am too old for this. Sad noise.”

“Tonight for dinner I ate some canned beans in tomato sauce and couscous. Quickly going through Fern’s cupboard of non-perishable items. She has some questionable do-it-yourself custard, skippy peanut butter and two kinds of oatmeal. I will need to find the restaurants soon.”

“The Canadian winter seems so wonderful if it means fresh air.”

“I really don't feel okay. I feel like my friend’s four-year-old, so desperate for his parents to come see him in bed but it wasn't part of the agreement so he was left to wail on his own.  Going to have a shower and try to sleep.”

“Am I actually going to become self-reliant, self-assured? Feels like such a stretch. I am baffled by how people figure out their lives.  Like how my friend Fern has figured out such a beautiful home in this crazy city. She just seems to have livelihood all figured out. It's so impressive. There there, Erica. You'll figure out your life too. Or will everything just dissolve like the colours of your tie dye hippie skirt?”

“I finally got the balls to go to a restaurant. It was kind of a dive but I had an okay feeling about it. Chana masala, jeera rice. A ten year old girl who I thought was a boy came and stood beside me and talked to me the whole time. She asked me about Canada and said she really wanted to see snow. It was adorable. She even gave me her mother's phone number. I hope she won't be too disappointed if I don't text. Felt immediately better after eating, which is not always the case in India. I find when I first come to a new place I suffer low grade starvation as I try to figure out where I can safely feed myself... Not the best for a serene state of mind, though easily fixed.”

“It seemed I was the only person in hippie clothes in the city but I did some touristy things today and I feel like maybe anything goes. Spiritual pants, jeans, tie dye, moomoos, whatever you want is no problem. I am happy that the yellow in my tie dye skirt matches the yellow in my splash n boots shoes. Highly trendy.”

The Hippie Skirt and the SplashnBoots shoes. SplashnBoots is an outrageously successful children's band whose members I am related to. Their theme colours are blue and yellow, just like my zero drop sneakers. 

“I rigged the tarot deck so that all the good cards faced upright and the bad ones were reversed. But since I moved to delhi the cards don't come true anymore. The cards say upright even when it all turns into massive chaos. I don't think they work anymore. I might need to give them up.” 

“It sounds bad but I got into a conversation with some guy who complimented me on how good I was at crossing the street. I am actually excellent. I just looked at the bus driver and he stopped. Imposing Nova Scotia ethics onto Delhi traffic. (Please don't worry)  Anyways, this guy ended up coming to a café with me and it wasn't sketchy at all. Not all Indian men want to get into your pants. Maybe a bit, but not excessively.” 

Spiritual Pants. Again.

"Kind of sick of wearing hippie clothes. The skirts drag in the puddles. It seems Delhi is a lot more cosmopolitan than Mysore. Women wear jeans and leggings or whatever they want. I suppose it's better to dress more conservatively in the more touristy areas. Or anywhere unknown. And some Indians seem to like pyjama pants. For badminton, and powerwalking. My friend Fern has quite a fancy wardrobe. Prada and the works. She is also about a foot shorter than me. And if I’m going to pull of the Prada dress, I will need to do something about my leg hair.”

“My ex-boyfriend sent me an article about the risk of loneliness and premature death, and how lonely people sometimes make choices that don’t help their loneliness. Haven’t heard from him much since he sent it.”

“Did your toenail fungus cleanse end up working? My toenails are a catastrophe right now. Half of both big ones broke off. I don’t know why all of the sudden. Too much papaya? White carbs? Everyone’s fungus mixing together? So gross.

Have you looked into colonics yet? Other cleanses?

Maybe I am having a people cleanse right now. Resetting my social skills. The idea, I think, is that if you don’t interact with people for a certain amount of time, your habits of interaction totally change. I’ll let you know how that goes.”

“The cleaning lady messed the Tarot cards up so that some of them were upside down. I did some readings with the flipped around deck, but it seemed too scary and devastating. If the cards predict a bad day in Delhi, it could be truly horrific. I decided to rig the deck again. I think it was a good plan.”

“Though I have the Internet, being here reminds me a bit of Vipassana. Barely a soul to talk to, and people barely see me. And when I think of people I know, I am filled with love and longing, as though nothing could be more beautiful. 

It isn't a terrible feeling, but I miss the humans.”

"I am trying to go to sleep but I keep checking the Internet for friends. I want someone to cherish me and tuck me in with a deep love. And well, there is only me."

“I got my vag and legs waxed on Wednesday. Also found a pair of jeans in Fern's closet that sort of fit. I think they might be Bobbi's. One size too big. But both the jeans and the waxed vag sort of helped my morale.”

Me with waxed vag in Bobbi's Jeans

“I forgive you for not writing back about my vagina.”

The End.



The Lotus Temple, Proof that I do more than sit around and take selfies.
Off to Udaipur tomorrow!

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Soul Fucking

So I went to Halifax to meet the Boatman for the second time, and have sex with him for the first time. My timing was impeccable and my vagina started to bleed the second day I arrived. We still had a lovely time and gave in to fucking on soft white towels.  I got his penis and the towels all bloody. Even so, the day before I left, as we lay post-coital on the bloody towels, the Boatman kissed me and invited me to stay with him in Halifax for as long as I wanted.

The day I left Halifax was rainy and sad and I was still bleeding. I knew that I had to go back. In Montreal, there was only lifeguarding and yoga and a few friends. Not as good as the Boatman.  The timing was right. I was leaving.

On my last day as a lifeguard, my last Saturday in Montreal, I gave my celebrity friend Ronald a yoga class in his hotel room.  Ronald was playing one of the dwarves in a remake of Snow White. He happens to be of a small stature, a little person they call it, and he's extremely athletic. In his room, he had wooden benches to climb onto his queen-sized bed and into the shower.  We did yoga on the carpet.  His arms were just long enough to get his hands over his head.  It was hard for him to bend forward because his torso was so much longer than his legs.  Everywhere, his muscles bulged.
The class lasted 20 minutes.  Ronald said that it was fun and he gave me forty dollars.

That night, I invited Ronald to Parc Lafontaine, where I was meeting two friends to drink. With Ronald’s forty dollars, I bought Raspberry vodka and perrier, pita carrots and hummus.  I got drunk with the only guy I ever kept in touch with from my online dating career.  I call him my Magic Mushrooms Friend.  He does psychedelic drugs and is obsessed with female orgasms.  He thinks that both of these things are the cure for neuroses.  Someday I’ll try psychedelic drugs and the world will become one with all of my organs. So far my orgasms are not that powerful

When the world becomes one with my orgasms, I will see things as they really are.  The Buddhists are always talking about this.  Seeing things as they really are.  This frustrates me.  How are things really?  Whatever I see, it isn't how things really are.  I fuck and I see this.  I get drunk and I see that.  I never get the right answer. I need more orgasms.  I need more drugs.

My Magic Mushrooms Friend says that orgasms are the beginning and end of the world and that the secret to orgasm is knowing you can shit in your partner’s face while they’re licking your snatch.  You can shit and know that everything will be okay.  In the park, I drank 5 or 6 or 7 shots of vodka.

“I think I’m drinking too much,” I said.

“It’s okay,” said my Magic Mushrooms Friend.  “You can push a little tonight.”

What did we talk about?  Probably only about magic mushrooms and orgasms.  And about how I wanted to fuck the Boatman’s soul.  My friend Emily joined us and we ate more hummus and pita bread and carrots.  We waited for Ronald but it was too far for him to come so we offered to meet him at a bar that was closer. Benelux.  There was not much to drink there except for beer.  I was too drunk to care.  The strap of my sundress broke so I put on my bathing suit with my lifeguarding t.shirt and short shorts over top.

“Would you like to see my boob?” I asked my Magic Mushrooms Friend. My Magic Mushrooms Friend said yes and I showed it to him.  The left boob or the right boob, or both. Months later, on Facebook, he told me how much he appreciated this gesture.  I told him that he was welcome.

Ronald arrived and bought us all beer.  Now my boob was hidden and we got to talking about something that I wasn’t paying attention to.  I decided to put both of my legs behind my head.  Ronald took a picture.  Now I was wearing a black and white bathing suit with no lifeguarding clothes over top.  In the bathing suit, I wondered if I was still capable of standing up from a backbend.  I was concerned so I lay down on the bar’s dirty floor and made my body into a semi-circle.  Half a wheel or half a bridge or whatever the yogis call it.  My arms and legs were almost straight.

A yoga teacher I know says that doing yoga when you’re drunk is dirty. Why is it dirty?  You look almost exactly the same as when you’re sober.  After twenty-five tries of bending my arms and straightening them again I transferred all of my weight onto my legs and stood up.  

I didn’t want to forget how to do this ever again so I dropped back into a backbend and stood up a bunch more times.  Ronald came behind me and said, “You could do handstand drop overs.”   Ronald used to be a personal trainer.   He pushed my legs backwards over my arms and crashed my legs down.  We repeated this movement a couple of times.  To this day, I can barely pull this off by myself.

At the very same moment in Halifax, the Boatman was having drinks with his friends.  They were toasting my arrival.  They were toasting my existence.  The Boatman texted me to tell me, and I texted him back, “I WANT TO FUCK YOUR SOUL.”

Soon it was four in the morning and time to go home.  I hugged everyone, bending myself in half to hug Ronald.  My Magic Mushrooms Friend held me in his arms mumbling and murmuring and whimpering for what seemed like hours.  I have no idea what he said.  Afterwards, he texted me and thanked me for my majesticness. “We could have worked, you know,” he’d written.

I drove Ronald home on the back of my bike.  He sat on the rack, held onto my waist and rode me all the way to his hotel.  Maybe I could have gone upstairs to his hotel room where I’d given him a yoga class.  I might have discovered the answers to all the different questions of the universe.  I could have seen things as they really are.  At the very least, I would have seen his penis.  But I’d promised the Boatman that I wanted to fuck his soul.  The Boatman’s soul and not Ronald's.  Everyone I tell this story to thinks I missed an opportunity.  Even the Boatman. The Boatman and I have lived together for two years and seven months. We are in the habit of fucking each other’s souls on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.  The Boatman says that the next time Ronald or another cute celebrity who happens to be a little person comes along, I’m allowed to fuck him. He has permitted it, but I know it’s too late. 

The End.

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