Dear Vincent, Now you know I have that thing where you love your therapist.

Dear Vincent,

Now you know I have that thing where you love your therapist. Your Bumble profile is pretty decent. I’d say switch your main profile pic from the furrowed selfie amongst famous paintings (though this makes you seem cultured, intelligent and potentially rich) to your windblown face in front of the mountain. Not with the kangaroo. That’s cute, but some women find animals to be too obvious a ploy. Always lead with your Windblown, I’m About To Orgasm Sex Face. I rehearsed a last minute live performance in front of your Windblown, I’m About To Orgasm Sex Face and the performance went reasonably well.

So you swiped right by accident? Does this at least mean you think I’m a little bit cute? Please can you say, I have excellent legs? Just once.

In our session, I reverberated and told you all about all the Dear Vincent letters and how I post them on the Internet, and how one day I hope they will make an excellent book called, Mondays without Vincent. And yes, for months and months, I did thoroughly long for the book to end with a scandalous and life-changing wind blown orgasm in your windowless office on a Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon.

Oh well. Turns out you are two to four years too young for me anyways. Mostly I like to date outside of my decade. That way my boyfriend is more able to double as some sort of dad.

In your windowless office in your chair where you sit so still with your knees just slightly apart, you used words like “Unreciprocated,” “Impossible,” and “Once a patient, always a patient.” I am glad you have such excellent professional boundaries. These have never been my gift. My gift is, “Professional Impossible Crushes.” P.I.C.

P.I.C’s, these infuse my cells with love and they permeate my heart. You have been the perfect P.I.C. because your eyes are so kind and so beautiful and you make me feel so safe and you leave just about everything up to the imagination. I would have loved to be exceptional and unique and original but I guess this thing where you love your therapist is in fact quite common. It is an immense relief to know that it does not necessarily disqualify me as your patient. Probably I will continue to pretend that secretly, I am your favourite. But I will try to convince my cells to fully comprehend the sentence, “A good therapist will never take you out for a sandwich.” This means that when I masturbate, I’ll more or less refrain from picturing your face somewhere near my crotch or behind me or on top of me having a windblown orgasm. So far it’s been a hell of a time getting off. And I can’t help but wonder if maybe you jerked off to me, maybe just once or else twice. And if all of us are actually just wandering around the world, playing imaginary roles in imaginary costumes. And if the truth is, we all end up taking off our costumes and picking up a sandwich and masturbating to one another when we get home.

Love, Erica.

Send your letters to Vincent and/or Erica to ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com.

Erica Live on Facebook seems to have begun
Follow Erica J. Schmidt on Facebook


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I Let Go

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Dear Vincent, Today I might tell you that I love you, or else I might ask if you too are a Scorpio, and if so, is it your birthday?
Dear Vincent, It seems no matter who I'm having sex with, I ugly cry every other time.
Dear Vincent, Thank you for responding to my hysterical phone call.  


Mythological Unconditional Love (M.U.L.)

What does it mean to be well

What does it mean
to be well?

This is just me

playing cauliflower catch
with myself
under the overpass
on the corner of
Saint Laurent
and Arcade Street,
one of those obscure streets
no one ever lives on
or thinks about.

Silence and love

and the grace
of all your cells.

When does the silence

become like masturbation?
I like to consider
the space between
the deepest part
of my forehead flesh
and my skull.

Good thing

they’re well attached,
more or less.

It is fun to consider

other people’s foreheads
attached to their skulls
more or less,
as they catch the bus
choose their avocadoes
and navigate
the interwebs.

What does it mean

to be well.

Avocado theories

vary as much
as the foreheads.

I opted for a shower

Because I felt quite chilled.
I hope to see you on the bus
or sooner.
The End.


Silence and love and the grace of all your cells came from Matthew Sanford's words in this
On Being Interview with Krista Tippet and Matthew Sanford.

One day I drew a cauliflower
and an avocado.
I am running
out of selfies.



Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go

Bodhisattva Business Ventures:

Deep Cleans by Erica J. Schmidt (@deepcleanswitherica)
Montreal Hippie Threads (@mtlhippiethreads)
Instagram: montrealhippiethreads


This is just me giving myself grace on the corner of Saint Laurent and Saint Viateur at 3 P.M. on a Tuesday
The Benefits of an Ashtanga Yoga Practice, Part Two
Performative Text Messages 

The Tidying Festival

Cleaning is masturbation for the people on Prozac.

M.D. friends, I am due for a consult.

In the meantime, my apartment looks spectacular. The floors and the windowsills glimmer and beam.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Marie Kondo.
On Amazon.
tidyingup.com
konmarie.com

Essential reading for eager cleaners is of course, Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Marie Kondo’s unrivalled passion for keeping immaculate house began at the age of five, when the kindergartner felt compelled to devour housewives magazines. By junior high, she had embarked upon an “earnest” study of tidying, and each afternoon she’d come home from school, infused with enthusiasm and the resolve to tidy a different location. The fifth of every month was “living room day.” Another day would be, “pantry cleaning day.” Or perhaps she would “conquer the cupboards.” This woman has devoted an unimaginable number of hours devoted to creating a magical, clutter-free home. Her zealousness has led to the invention of the KonMari method, the key to abolishing mess and disorder for the rest of your life. Marie Kondo promises that her technique works for everyone, and even her laziest clients who suffered the most extreme cases of hoarding did not experience the dreaded “rebound” back to a disastrous living space. Her steadfast conviction fills me with such hope. As though life can be solved through fancy folding techniques and giving away your extra Mason jars you don’t need.

The heart of the KonMari method lies is determining what you should discard and what you should keep. After gathering all your items from a single category, you must handle each item lovingly, one by one. With careful consideration, you must ask yourself, “Does this spark joy?” According to Marie Kondo, everything you own must spark joy. If it doesn’t spark joy, it doesn’t belong in your home. Good luck with the toilet brush, folks!

For objects that don’t pass the joy sparking test, Marie Kondo recommends expressing gratitude for everything they once brought you. You might also wish them well as they embark on their new journey, to the dumpster or to the Salvation Army.

In my new room, the sparks are a little sparse, not due to a hoarding problem but because I am down to about three and a half suitcases worth of possessions. At the risk of being spark-less, and/or nude, I figured I couldn’t afford to throw out too many objects. I did, however, part with the threesome tights on my last moving day. Strangely enough, I saw some woman wearing them down the street from me. I hope they spark deep joy in her heart. But all this is to say that I did not spend that much time considering the joy-sparking capacities of my few possessions. I feel rather joyful about my new room slash Erica Museum.  That said, as I proceeded with my Tidying Festival, I discovered I had an enormous amount to learn about folding.

Perhaps like the old me, you believe that folding is no fun. To this Marie Kondo insists that “you have not discovered the impact of folding.” Folding must be done with great heart. As we fold, we should thank “our clothes for protecting our bodies. Folding is really a dialogue with our clothing.”

Marie Kondo believes that, “Every piece of clothing has its own ‘sweet spot’ where it feels just right – a folded state that best suits that item.” She maintains that, “There is nothing more satisfying than finding that ‘sweet spot.’ The piece of clothing keeps its shape when stood on edge and feels just right when held in your hand. It’s like a sudden revelation – so this is how you always wanted to be folded! – a special moment in which your mind and the piece of clothing connect.”

In Kondo’s mind, “to go through life without knowing how to fold is a huge loss.” At the same time, I can testify that spending Sunday morning talking to your clothing in attempts to discover how each item would prefer to be folded is somewhat frightening. Even more frightening is trying to master KonMari folding without first watching the Youtube video. I tried this and my clothes ended up spending four days in fat vertical rectangle shapes instead of in the way they always wanted – micro-thin and horizontal. My poor clothes were not grateful. Fortunately, I was able to make it up to them yesterday. The result is impeccable. Each item exudes comfort and appreciation. Having never been a neat freak, this is one of the most unlikely things I have ever done.

My Grateful Clothes

Also unlikely, last Wednesday a lovely pregnant woman hired me to clean her house.  I was really excited because she has a darling big black dog. For new friends and fans who haven’t read the archives, I used to have a Big Black Dog when I lived in Halifax. His name was Eliot and for a solid two years, he was a big star of the blog, and a highlight of my life. 

Eliot, the Old Big Black Dog. 

Although I derive immense delight from dusting and mopping, I expected that the pregnant lady’s adorable big black dog would be the highlight of my day of housework.

As it happened, the day turned out to be quite performative.

One of my friends who is writing a novel wanted to know what it’s like being a cleaning lady. I would say that it is similar to cleaning your own house except you don’t know where anything is. And if you are the sort of person who feels disgusted by your own mess, other people’s dust usually feels less personal.

People always say that children are easier when they’re your own. I’m not sure I believe them. But mess is usually easier when it’s other people’s. Unless you are on Prozac, in which case all forms of cleaning can serve as your new masturbation replacement.

I am on Prozac, and last Wednesday, I was ready to be invigorated via dust eradication. With exuberance and determination, I prepared myself to tackle the dust and the corners and the big black dog hair. My serotonin leapt at the kitchen counter’s newfound luminosity. Windex in hand, at around 11 o’clock, I went outside on the patio to conquer the dirt on the glass table.

(In truth the best technique for cleaning glass is vinegar and newspaper, but in a pinch, Windex will do.)

The Big Black Dog, whose fake name is a toss-up between Michael and Jeremy came outside with me. He promptly lay down to bask in the sun on the patio shingles. Before I finished with the table, I thought I saw MJ return to the house. Summer is sweltering for big black dogs. Once the table was done, I went inside to scrub the bathroom sink. Soon it would be time for vacuuming. I felt highly satisfied with my level of efficiency. I transferred the sheets from the washer to the dryer, and threw in a load of curtains.  It suddenly occurred to me that I had not seen Michael-Jeremy for some time.

 

To protect Michael-Jeremy's anonymity, photos of the old Big Black Dog 
have been used to evoke canine images in your head.

“Michael slash Jeremy?” I called out. No answer. The apartment was not enormous and it took me seven and a half minutes to make three thorough searches and realize that Michael/Jeremy the Big Black Dog was nowhere to be found. Had I forgotten him on the patio? Nope, not there.

Now I had lost the lovely pregnant woman’s dog. Worst fail ever. I imagined him jumping off the side of the terrace, and his injured body being lugged away by horrified animal rights activists. Or he had simply slipped away, soon to fall into the hands of irate city inspectors.

I happened to have a picture of M-J on my phone from a picnic the previous weekend.

“Mile End,” I posted on Facebook. “Has anyone seen this dog? Let me know.” I messaged my phD friend who is always drinking decaf lattes somewhere in the neighbourhood. No answer. I like to call my phD friend, The Mayor of Mile End. Calling out for Michael-Jeremy on the way, I went to Chez Boris Café to see if the Mayor of Mile End was taking advantage of Boris’s excellent doughnuts, and if he had come across the Big Black Dog. But alas, my phD Mayor of Mile End Friend wasn’t there.

I felt quite devastated. It was the first of June. June was supposed to be a month of explosive and transformative creativity, and now I was failing as a maid. Even though I am a thirty-year-old grown up, I decided to call my mother and shed some performative tears.

My mother recommended calling the pregnant woman despite my fear that this would result in long-term trauma. Maybe the pregnant lady would have an idea of where M-J had gone. I called and left the most serene message I could pull off on the answering machine. Highly performative.

For the next twenty minutes, I wandered around alleyways and asked random people if they had seen a big black dog. Nobody had. Finally the pregnant lady called back.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “It was the dog walker. I forgot to tell him you were coming. You must have missed each other.”

My life is an ecstatic adventure. Tidying up is a special event. The rest of the afternoon involved rather extensive wars with the vacuum cleaner and its multiple fancy attachments. For fear the machine was not to be conquered, I went back to my apartment to get our dirt devil.  I hope the sight of me in my short shorts hauling a bright red dirt devil through Mile End sparked joy in several people’s hearts.

Eventually, at least the bottom half of the fancy vacuum became willing to suck dirt up. Victory was mine.

If you’d like me to be part of your Tidying Festival, let me know.

The End.

Exquisite Folding with Marie Kondo.
Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor

I Let Go, by Erica J. Schmidt

The Erica Museum
Deep Unyielding Depression, Part One.
The Budgie Exodus of Mile End
Taes Floats Your Boat (re: doughnuts)

 

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!

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvic floor

Soul Fucking
Cardboard Box 
Spiritual Beard, Secular Vagina 
Are you strong or are you skinny?
List

Recycling Day

Monday, February 23, 2015

This morning I was vacuuming the living room as the Boatman was getting ready to leave. I turned off the vacuum cleaner so that he could get ready in peace. He kissed me and said I love you. Then I finished  vacuuming. I went upstairs to hump our rolled up duvet. We haven’t had much sex over the past couple of weeks and it is one of my several complaints. After a few minutes of humping, likely less than three, I arrived at my usual orgasm, whatever that means. And then I sobbed.  And I thought that somehow this sobbing orgasm masturbation scene could begin my next excellent book.

Now I am at a coffee shop called the Smiling Goat. In Halifax, they like naming things after goats. The Stubborn Goat. The Smiling Goat. The Smiling Goat has the most expensive coffee in the city. I came here during my first weekend in Halifax. In the Smiling Goat bathroom, on that rainy Saturday, I discovered that my period had arrived. Since I was on a sex trip, this was somewhat inconvenient. Oh well. We managed.

I am drinking my expensive latte and looking out the window. It is garbage day.  Also, recycling day. Some guy parked a recycling truck in front of the café. He looks a little bit like Simon would if Simon were a little bit fatter and a little bit taller. And alive.

I am not particularly good at seeing or describing what people look like. The Boatman says that I have Face Blindness.

The Recycling Guy is shoving long cardboard boxes into the side of the recycling truck. I open my Linked In profile to see if some sort of magnificent opportunity will present itself.

Someone has posted an inspirational message.

“Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.”



Inspirational Message



This is how I feel. Like none of the solutions will work. This is exactly how I felt before I wrote “I Let Go.” Exactly like this. Terrible.

Now the Recycling Guy is putting a plastic bag filled with bottles and cans into the side of the truck. Another bag is filled with receipts and empty vitamin pill bottles. The recycling truck rocks back and forth.

A man with a comb-over walks into the café. Across the street, a police officer parks his car and gets out. I am not sure what he is doing. He has avoided the comb-over by shaving his head.

I fuck around on the Internet. By the time I look out the window again, the recycling truck and the Recycling Guy are gone.

The End.

Unlabelled Footnotes:

-Making an authentic life and/or self-satisfaction an emergency won’t help you get there any faster.  

-Everyone says that if you don’t know whether or not you’ve had an orgasm, then you haven’t had one. People say the same thing about yeast infections. I’m not really sure if any of that is true.

-Something about being the party pooper that all the Happy, Successful LinkedIn people are struggling desperately to avoid. 

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Twitter: @mypelvicfloor

I Let Go, All Yours for only $2.99 U.S. or approximately $3.36 Canadian. 

Simon Girard (1979-2015)
Yours Til Ekam Inhales
Deep Unyielding Depression

 

 

Spiritual Beard, Secular Vagina

Yoga is about letting go of fixed viewpoints. After healing my sad and damaged relationship with my pubic hair, I decided that I still wanted to get it ripped off. My change of heart had almost everything to do with the fact that in Mysore, Pube Eradication costs between 300 and 700 rupees. This equals about $5.50 to $13.00 Canadian dollars. Good deal.

Due to Pube Eradication Trauma from another era, I selected the most luxurious option. Legend has it that the 300 rupees ladies use extremely hot wax. None of my friends who had gone had ended up with debilitating blisters; however, they felt this was maybe a risk. So Flaunt Beauty Salon it was.

Last Tuesday, my father and his girlfriend left for their tour of Kerala. I waved them good-bye from the coconut stand before immediately dragging myself and my abundant crotch all the way to the fancy salon in Vivi Mohalla. But as fate would have it, Flaunt Beauty Salon was closed. Apparently Tuesday is not a good day for new yoga postures or elite bikini waxing. Perhaps it has something to do with Hanuman. Whatever the reason, my pubic hair would remain attached to me for one more day, or at least until after lunch when I could re-evaluate the risk-benefit ratio of the Hot Wax Ladies.

Lunch was with three friends. We drove there on one scooter. Of course, I wasn’t the driver. Instead I blabbered away about my deepest values in life. In Halifax, I once hired a psychologist for 165 dollars and he told me to talkabout my deepest values in life.  In Mysore, I get to go on and on about this all day, and it’s even cheaper than waxing your pubic hair. That said, during the last two conferences, Sharath has reminded us that yogis don’t talk too much. Each time on my way out, someone has called out to me, “Hey Erica, did you hear that? You never hear yogis talking.” So far my only comeback has been to point out that during these same conferences in which Sharath has warned us about excessive babble, he happened to go on and on about lions and tigers and leopards and trees. So maybe a moderate verbal machine gun is okay, especially if I switch my subject matter to lions and tigers and leopards and trees. Although maybe from now on, I will reduce my scooter chatting.

This is to say that while I was yammering away about infinite patience and moula bandha, we had a mild crash. Traffic laws in India are vague, and there are quite a lot of scooters and cars buzzing around, along with a few buses. While crossing a busy street, a guy on a scooter pulled quickly in front of us, and we had a little fender bender. Our scooter fell pretty slowly to the left. My friend who was driving broke most of the fall with her hand and foot. I hit the ground skidding the pavement only slightly with my shoulder, hand and knee. Due to my longstanding fear of amputation and spinal cord injuries, I am not the best with accidents. But I feel like I could have been much more hysterical. And lucky for us, except for a few gashes and bruises, nobody was seriously hurt. The steering of my friend’s scooter went a little wonky, but the mechanic solved this problem by generously banging on it with a hammer on a couple of occasions.

After lunch, despite having no swelling and full range of motion in all of my body parts, I started to fret about whether or not I’d broken my wrist. After all, the fall had been similar to the time I fell off my bike in Montreal and broke my arm. My Cool Friend From Belgium reassured me with her osteopathic knowledge that broken bones typically perpetuate at least a some swelling. But surely there was some bone in your body you could break without knowing. After twelve and a half minutes of stressing, it occurred to me that perhaps it was an excellent time to go to the Hot Wax Ladies and get my pubes waxed off.   In fact, this proved to be an excellent cure.

The Hot Wax Ladies, around the corner from the Shala

“Not too hot?” I asked the lady as I lay sweating in terror on the vinyl table.

“No, no Madam,” said the Hot Wax Lady. She blew diligently on the wax which she spread on my vagina with a wide wooden popsicle stick. It was burning hot.

“No stressing, Madam,” she said. “Making wet, very sweaty. Very sweaty Madam.” In order to remedy my sweat, she dumped half a cup of baby powder all over my crotch. With each rip, I cried out more. Have to say though, she was amazing. The whole ordeal over in less than seven minutes and it made me forget entirely about my silent broken bones. Plus I walked home with zero pubes, zero pockmarks and zero blisters. Best of all the worlds. Except for the world in which I get to have sex with a real human being. Friday was the two-month anniversary of the last time I had sex with the Boatman. After an angsty morning humping the ugliest polar fleece blanket in the world, I sauntered over to a popular breakfast place to binge on chai. At the corner of my table, a man with a very spiritual beard was having a conversation about Brahmacarya. (The meaning of Brahmacarya is debatable. Most people think it has something to do with not having that much sex, and/or not ejaculating and/or only having sex with one pre-determined person when you are breathing through your left nostril.)

“You know Brahmacarya means you’re not even supposed to do it with yourself?” Spiritual Beard Man asked his friend. I thought of the ugly polar fleece bedsheet that had come with my apartment. There is no way it could be any more hideous.

Who made this bed sheet and why is it the ugliest thing I have ever seen in my life?

Later on, I had a whine fest with my friends on their balcony. In Mysore, some people like to use their balconies to practice fancy yoga postures in the afternoons. I tend to think that whining about your sad sex life is a better choice. A select few people in Mysore have the opportunity to have an appropriate amount of sex with an appropriate person. Unless they are totally obsessed with fancy yoga postures, these people have little need for using the balcony. Hence, “not using the balcony” has become a euphemism for the activities of people lucky enough to transcend their ugly polar fleece bed sheets.

“It has been more than two months for me too,” said my Chill Dog-Rescuing Friend from well, maybe she would rather I did not say. “After a month, I went kind of numb. I think I could tell people how to do this.”

“Not me,” I moaned. “I have no Spiritual Beard.”

“Well you did have a Spiritual Beard until you got all your pubes waxed off.” This bout of wisdom came from my Creative Intellectual and Astute Canadian friend. She too misses her husband. And she has already hired the Hot Wax Ladies twice, so she doesn’t have a Spiritual Beard either. My Creative Intellectual and Astute Canadian Friend (CIACF) is a big fan of cookies from the Chocolate Man. She buys a lot of them, but she is very good at sharing. The Chocolate Man also sells coffee. We think he is the third richest man in Mysore. First comes Sharath, and then the Coconut Man. Then comes Coffee/Chocolate Man. Due to the widespread lack of Spiritual Beards.

Anyways, let’s hope our friend with the Spiritual Beard is having a fun time with Brahmacarya. Those of us with secular vaginas may find redemption in cookies from the chocolate man and/or our ugly polar fleece bedsheets.

The Boatman has a secular beard to go with my secular vagina. I miss it immensely.

The Boatman looks a little bit like a beautiful cardboard pin-up in this photo.
And he is wearing a vagina-resembling pin:


 

Next time I will try to say a little less about my crotch.

The End.

  

 

Spiritual Beard Kiss at Airport

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No fucking good for anyone: Me and McGill Frosh

I arrived in Montreal for McGill Frosh Week a seventeen-year old relative kiss-virgin. Never had I ever seen a grown man's penis. It had also been over two years since I'd had a drink. One weekend when I was fifteen, I'd drank three glasses of white wine and proceeded to hotbox a shed out in the country with some friends. The evening led to hideous oversharing of deep psychological issues and how-to bulimia sessions. I ended up traumatizing my friends as well as vomiting several times. Subsequently, I renounced all alcohol and drugs, convinced that I was a raging alcoholic. I have since changed my mind on this matter several times. That said, at seventeen, I was fervent in my angelic ways. An aspiring Christian, I was going to study English Literature and Religion, determined to become a famous writer and find God and/or Jesus. At university I believed that I would study amongst likeminded young people like myself. I was ready.

The McGill student frosh experience began on the campus grass. After taking the subway by myself for the first time in my life, I walked up McGill College, wearing black clogs, a jean skirt and a little pink t. shirt over my La Senza hydralift bra that was meant to augment my ostensibly pre-pubescent breasts. (At the time I did not yet believe in the eternality of my tits.) It was barely 11 a.m. Music was blaring and hundreds of froshees were scattered across the field wearing baggy fluorescent green t. shirts and drinking out of tall plastic fluorescent green cups. I knew that my group was supposed to meet in the far corner of the field at the bottom of the hill. I imagined that we would begin by sitting in a circle, sharing our names, our majors, and perhaps our deepest dreams. This may have all already taken place, but when I got there, the party was well underway. My frosh leader with shaggy blonde hair and smudged make-up stood at the front of a scattered crowd.

"Hey Froshees! I'm Kelly. I'm your leader! Who's ready to get DRUNK?" Everyone except me screeched and screamed. I sat down carefully in my jean skirt so that no one could see my underwear. A guy was walking around applying red facepaint underneath everyone's eyes. I prepared myself to awkardly decline. I was not a warrior. But when he got to me, he went right to the next person.

"Who's going first?" Kelly screeched. She decided that she would go first to show us how it was done.

More cheering.

The guy with the facepaint came to the front and started clapping his hands. A pitcher of beer appeared from the crowd. These memorable words filled the air.

"Here's to Kelly! Here's to Kelly, she's a horse's ass.

Why was she born so beautiful, what was she born at all?"

I watched, horrified and wondering how everyone else seemed to know all the words.

"She's no fucking good to anyone, she's no fucking good at all.

Everyone seemed so delighted except for me.

"So.... drink motherfucker, drink motherfucker, drink."

Kelly started chugging the litres of beer as everyone screamed and clapped. With a quarter of the pitcher to go, the chant went on.

"What are we waiting, she must be masturbating."

At that time in my life, masturbation had never occured to me. On my fifteenth birthday, a few months before I'd written myself off as an alcoholic, I'd gotten drunk and announced to my friends that I'd never really made out with anybody and needed some practice. Lewis, the only single guy at the party (who also ended up in the hot box) volunteered. We made out enthusiastically for much of the evening and apparently I wasn't horrible at it. But we'd kept our clothes on and for me, the practice session hadn't evoked much thought of my genitals or anyone else's. I had been fairly certain that my sexless tendencies were the majority.  I didn't realize that almost everyone around me had spent a great deal of their adolescence considering their own genitals and everyone else's. And this wasn't over yet.

Kelly finished her pitcher and a skinny froshee named Brendan stood up to be the next motherfucking horse's ass. After watching the ingestion of at least seven more pitchers, it was time to go to the Peel Pub. I thought that maybe I would be saved from this, being only seventeen, but Kelly was all ready with a pile of fake ID's. Someone handed me the driver's licence of some overweight 24-year old with long black curly hair and darkish skin.

I felt my face get red and flustered and my heart pound as I imagined myself getting arrested at the Peel Pub for this poor attempt at fraud.

"Don't worry," said Kelly. "It'll work. I've been getting into bars here since I was 14." I considered asking Kelly what she was studying and then opted against it. Peel Pub was dark and crowded. I doubt the bouncer would have been able to see my ID had he decided to look at it. Inside Peel Pub it was more of the same beer pitchers and drinking songs. Someone pulled out a funnel. One by one everyone got pulled up to be sung into oblivion. Everyone but me. Clearly, I wasn't the motherfucking masturbating type. If only they'd seen me in the hot box. (Is that even the right way of referring to it?) I stayed at the Peel Pub for 10 minutes and then I went pee. The bathroom floor was saturated with vomit. It was not yet noon. I went home to my residence where I decided to take a nap. The drink mother fucker song permeated my head as I lay down and for the next seventeen days, at least.

I spent the rest of Frosh week napping, getting ahead on my course readings and exploring grocery stores. I wrote all this because although I am no longer an aspiring Christian who self-righteously abstains from alcohol, I feel that much of Frosh week is obscene and disgusting. People are outraged by the St. Mary's frosh scandalizing sex chant and rightly so. But as reports on the issue have admitted, the distastefulness has been going on for years and years. While the horse's ass motherfucking drinking song doesn't explicitly promote rape, it is hardly empowering for anyone involved. In both 2010 and 2011, students have died playing their drinking games. This is a tragic, shitty, and embarrassing way to go. No fucking good for anyone. As we reflect upon how those involved in the sex chant should be held accountable, I think that we should think beyond the Saint Mary's student union and beyond this isolated incident.

The End.

My Friend, Chuckie.

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