Dear Vincent, Now you have three pen pals.

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Dear Vincent,

So far you have three other pen pals. All of their names are secrets. Except for Sorrowful Simon. His name is not a secret.

“I have never felt enough to be with someone.”

One of your pen pals whose name is not Sorrowful Simon wrote this. So many of my friends have said the same sort of thing. That they will never be enough to find love. I have been known to say this myself. But the truth is, many people who have found love are actually rather obnoxious, or if you look at their lives, at least one or several components are a total disaster.

What does it mean to be good enough?

Dan Savage always says that to enter the dating scene you need to be in “good working order.” I imagine this means a minimum of wailing in alleys, throwing shelves across your bedroom floor, and as you like to say, having to put out all kinds of fires from six in the morning until bedtime. In fact, this past summer, my level of Good Working Order has been highly questionable. Likely, I was Out of Order. Even so, my Meditation Partner still seemed to appreciate the blow jobs, more or less. The Well-Fucked Woman says that Cock Worship and opening your throat to someone else’s genitals is redeeming, both for the cock owner and for whoever is giving the blowjob. You can even have something called a Throatgasm. What a thrill, though, perhaps first you need to be in Good Working Order.

Is peace around the corner? On Friday I moved around the corner to Hutchison street. Friday night, at a restaurant on Bernard, a Chiseled-Cherub-Faced 23-Year-Old Filmmaker asked me about my choice of Asian soup. He ordered chicken, and I had tofu, even though I’ve recently opted to try eating meat, instead of Abilify and Celexa. After our soup, we ate fortune cookies, which always allow for easy poetry. My fortune cookie said that my mind was “sharp, fast and analytical.” His said something about how he would soon meet an auspicious and valuable friend.

I told him I didn’t want babies, and he said, “But you never know. In a decade you might change your mind. You’ll be like a totally different person. I feel like I’m totally different from how I was ten years ago.”

My friend, it killed me not to say, ten years ago, you were having your first wet dreams. These are the pros of hooking up with a 23 year old. Endless earnest, innocent and adorable insight. The cons, I suppose are, what the fuck do I do with my daddy issues?

The next morning, I sent the Chiseled-Cherub-Faced 23-Year-Old Filmmaker my story, The Magical Rock Vagina Cleanse. He texted back gushing that I might be almost be a female counterpart to Charles Bukowski. His text generated unambiguous sensations in my vagina. Even though I am likely far too large him, and far too old.

All weekend I washed all the walls of my new apartment. And all the floors, and I didn’t cry once. Also, my washing machine arrived, and it purrs. Also, last Tuesday I forgot to tell you about this thing that I invented called mood sports. Mood Sports is you against your mood. One fun thing about mood sports is that they only contain one vowel. I always find this sort of thing so soothing.

While I was sleeping on Saturday night, Chiseled-Cherub-Faced 23-Year-Old Filmmaker texted me a peace sign, and asked if I was going nuts. At 5:17 A.M. the next morning, he reported that on his end, nuts weren’t had, but he made a ton of new friends. lol. Happy Face. Haven’t heard from him since.

Ten years ago I felt like a totally different person. I kind of feel the same way about last Tuesday. Everything always arising and passing away.

Happy full moon.

Love, Erica.

You too can write imaginary emails to Vincent. The project is called "Mondays without Vincent" and the secret email address is: ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com.

Vincent will be delighted to hear from you. He will write back as soon as he can.

Much love, Erica.

Going nuts tonight?
:)


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


Dear Vincent, Thank you for responding to my hysterical phone call.
Dear Vincent, Sorrowful Simon has written you a letter.
Chuckie the Horse and the Day Jack Layton Died

Yours til I'm a Post-Modern Literary Genius

Hi Everyone! Sorry to leave you hanging on the Magical Rock Vagina Cleanse. I'll announce the fascinating conclusion soon. The following post was meant as a Facebook status update for my new business, Deep Cleans by Erica J. Schmidt. Deep Cleans involves me sparking joy in other people's houses. As fate would have it, the post ended up being a little too long for Facebook, and so I decided to publish it here.

Yours til I'm a Post-Modern Literary Genius

Parting with the written word can be difficult. Everyone possesses at least one shoe box if not several crates of old course notes, journals and handwritten letters. Certainly going through these boxes later on can bring laughter and deep joy. Also, everyone wants to channel this material into the book they’re going to write in all their spare time. And how is that book going, everybody?

When I opened my boxes from Halifax last week, I came upon a FedEx envelope of a romantic personal correspondence from 2005. At a CPR course, upon performing a pretend secondary body check, my partner concluded, “Well, looks like you’re in pretty good shape.” Once the course was over, I delivered a rambly verbal machine gun speech. In it I must have mentioned how I believed that we could change the world by writing letters, by being pen pals. My CPR partner’s name was Cavan Van Ulft and he was eager to try and change the world with me.

For the next month or so, we wrote letters back and forth. He was living with his parents in Nepean, while I was working at an Easters Seals Camp. Cavan Van Ulft sent each letter in a brown 3 by 5 Manila envelope.

“Miss Erica Schmidt,” he would write in the first address line. Beneath this, he’d write a flattering and eloquent caption.

“Warning! May be habit-forming or addictive,”
“Post-modern Literary Genius,”
“The prettiest girl on the prettiest street in the prettiest town in Ontario.”

Cavan's Letters

His letters were always meticulously composed and handwritten on plain white paper. Both of us always wrote back immediately upon receiving the other's letter. My stationary varied from long thin strips of cardboard to red and blue paper, in case either red or blue were his favourite colours. I sealed many envelopes with frog stickers. “Sealed with sticky frogs,” I'd written on one envelope. Another time I included a lock of my hair.

Thursday, June 30, 2005

Dear Cavan,

Maybe your favourite colour is blue, or maybe it is red. Or maybe I should send you a fill-in-the-blank worksheet for you to send back to me. So that I will know your favourite colour. I could also ask you whether you prefer my sentence fragments to be written on stationary with straight lines on it or on blank sheets of blue and red (or some other colour) My next though might have been, do you maybe wish there were fewer sentence fragments and more complete sentences. Or vice versa. Unfortunately, however, this potentially brilliant series of complete and fragmented sentences was interrupted by a phone call.

It was you! I had piece of lettuce stuck in my teeth the whole time and you never said anything! How embarrassing. After flossing and brushing away lettuce and gingivitis (if I’m lucky), I have laid myself down in preparation for sleep…

My Letters

8 July 2005

Re: “Money is nice but it can’t hold hands.”

Dear Erica,

Your letter was beautiful! Thank you so much for sending it. I read it over and over. And the gifts you included in the envelope are amazingly thoughtful. It is very postmodern. Especially the bumper sticker.

(The bumper sticker was inscribed in blue and black markers, “Everything comes down to one thing,” it said. “The single key to mastering human existence is.”)

It is very postmodern. You know by now, no doubt, from my list of favourite things, that my favorite style of art is suprematism, so I am very into ambiguous messages that require input from an audience to be understood. So I think it’s just great. And also very clever…

You are constantly surprising me, exceeding my expectations, and delighting me. You are pretty irresistible, as far as I can tell. So don’t you dare stop – ever.

The Post-Modern Bumper Sticker

There are few people in the world who can compete with me in their eccentricity and intensity. Likely, Cavan Van Ulft was one of these people. The last time I googled him, it seemed he was trying to become the prince or ruler of an obscure island somewhere in the arctic.

During one of my days off at camp, I went on a “date” with Cavan. My parents drove me to Ottawa and dropped me off at the Rideau Center, where Cavan and I wandered around and he revealed his taste in jeans. Cavan was nice enough; however, I realized right away that my imagination had gone overboard, and that our in-person experience was doomed to be infinitely less exciting than our riveting correspondence. As tactfully as my 19 year-old self knew how, I told him so in my next letter.

Within a few days, I received a priority post FedEx package at camp. It contained all of my letters. The frog stickers, the postmodern bumper sticker, my lock of hair, photos of my dog.

In the weeks that followed, Cavan sent me several emails with the words, “PLEASE SEND MY LETTERS BACK” in the subject line. I believed this was ridiculous and have kept the correspondence ever since.

Rereading Cavan’s letters now, I now appreciate that they are absolutely exquisite.

19 July 2005

Probably as a result of the intense heat wave that we have been going through, the scent of your lock of hair has permeated both pages of your last letter and its envelope. In the slight breeze that's been blowing in my back yard, it has made everything around me smell like you. It is absolutely delivious. The only problem is that I frequently get lost in thought while sitting outside re-reading your letters and I think slightly sunburnt... because I kept taking deep breaths and zoning out and losing track of time. But it's wonderful nonetheless...

Everyone should be so privileged as to be the recipient of such generous and inflating epistles. I feel some regret at writing Cavan off as some crazy nut. I think he does deserve to get his letters back. After inhaling one last spark of joy from my favourite missives, I am going to try and track him down, to return his side of this unreplicable correspondence, and to wish him well.

The End.


Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go

Bodhisattva Business Ventures:
 
Deep Cleans by Erica J. Schmidt
Hippie Threads by Erica J. Schmidt
 
The Magical Rock Vagina Cleanse
The Tidying Festival
Yours til Ekam Inhales
 
Cardboard Box

Three Easy Strategies for Feeling Smug and On Top of Life

“I don’t know anybody who has lots of time who is happy,” Fern told me on the phone a couple weeks ago as I whined about my long angsty days, void of life purpose. The thing is I don’t know anybody who’s so busy they can’t think who is all that happy either. When I have too much to do, I feel violated and oppressed. Too little and I become self-loathing and miserable. How then, does one acquire a smug sense of being on top of life? I offer you the following three brilliant suggestions:

1.       Organize your Tupperware drawer.

 

I have a saying that goes, “Everyone loves a good Patrick.” My other saying is, “Most people’s Tupperware drawers are a total disaster.” It’s true. Very rarely have I ever belonged to a household whose Tupperware organization system did not lead me to fruitlessly search among melted and misshapen containers for equally ill-fated or non-existent lids. The quest typically generates more chaos in the designated Tupperware area and consequently, life seems far beyond the winning. Fortunately, you can make the decision to conquer your home’s receptacle mayhem.

 

In my life, I have had the enlightening experience of meeting at least two Tupperware Revolution Theorists. One woman, who also happened to give me my first Brazilian, recommends limiting yourself to three sizes, all of the same shape. The problem with this is that roommates and perhaps also partners generally come with a vast spectrum of Tupperware variation and they don’t usually like it when you chuck their things. Thus, this sort of Tupperware Revolution is not available to everyone. A second Tupperware Revolution Theorist suggests only storing your Tupperware with the lids in place. Sadly, this is close to impossible if your kitchen possesses any sort of space limitation which is almost inevitable. X-nay that, but thanks anyways.

You will have to discover the Perfect Tupperware Revolution that resonates with your soul and your kitchen. Everyone’s Tupperware Revolution is personal; however, certain universal principles apply. For example, throwing out mismatched, melted and/or super disgusting Tupperware is non-negotiable. So is wiping out any sort of crud or crumbs that have somehow made their way into your Tupperware drawer or cupboard. Don’t hold back. Trust me, it will be highly rewarding. Once you’ve decided which Tupperware continues to spark joy, it is time to arrange the plastic and/or glass vessels in the most logical fashion possible. I’m pretty certain that it’s better to keep lids and bottoms close together, but as I said, we are all responsible for our Personal Tupperware Revolution. For optimal smugness, be sure to take before and after shots.

 

The Waverly Household Tupperware Revolution

 

2.       Send Mail.

Sending mails requires extensive and empowering grown-up skills such as buying stamps, looking up postal codes on the internet and walking to the mailbox. The other selling point is, nobody ever died or cried from getting a postcard. I derive immense joy and satisfaction from sending people mail. This summer, I was delighted to come upon a man who sold vintage animal postcards in front of Metro Laurier. They were only fifty cents each. I bought dozens, mailed dozens, and it was so fun. Unlike Generic Married Men, whatever happens, animal postcards will always be there for you. 

 

 

 

Animal Postcard, Camel with Humps.

 

3.       Wash all your bedding and put your duvet back in its cover.

  

No need to get laid to wait until washing your sheets. The satisfaction of fresh clean bedding is everyone’s birthright. Having said that, the task of inserting your duvet into the appropriate corners can seem monumental. It’s almost worth settling for a mediocre partner just to have someone to help you with this. But believe me, if you persevere, you will succeed, and you’ll feel so smug and on top of life. Apparently, there are special tricks for flipping your duvet magically and effortlessly into the right corners. I don’t know much about this. You can’t be smug about everything.

 

Duvet-generated Smugness

 

The above activities are perfect examples of what you can put on your Ta-da List. A list that you make at the end of the day, the Ta-da List serves to officialise all of the day’s accomplishments, large or small. While to-do lists may generate pressure and performance anxiety, Ta-Da lists ensure smugness and fulfilment, even when your day was void of viral tweets and cervical orgasms. At the end of the day, do not let yourself hit the pillow in despair. Consider your commitment to Tupperware, personal correspondence, duvet covers or some other noble endeavour, and luxuriate in the truth that you are, indisputably, on top of life.

The End.
 

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go, self-help book by Erica J. Schmidt

Tips for Getting on Top of Life, with Gretchen Rubin

Business Ideas, on a Tuesday
Performative Crying in Alleys
The O's in the Toto have Hats
The Tidying Festival

 

Business Ideas. On a Tuesday.

Business Idea #1. On A Tuesday.

People Walker: Since moving to Montreal and quitting Ashtanga yoga, I have been walking all over the place, all the time. So far I have not regretted one step. Walking is delightful. In the process, you can listen to podcasts, talk on the phone, space out, or watch families wash their cars and play road hockey in alleyways. And I have found that I am gradually phasing out my clicky hip, crooked spine, eighty year old arthritis days. I have said this several times before and I still agree with myself: it is more important to me to be able to walk pain-free for long distances than it is to put my legs behind my head and/or bend backwards and stick my face in my crotch. While these things may not always mutually exclusive, for now my priority is drawing my femur bones back. I believe that walking can be just as spiritual as yoga. In fact, all my walking theories can be amalgamated into a philosophy called Spirit Walking which may hold the same marketing potential as Prancercize, an ecstatic and revolutionary success. And so my Excellent Business Idea is becoming a People Walker. This entails walking people up and down streets, hills, or wherever they’d like. As we walk, we can talk about femur bones, children, sex, food, or any topic that brings the client immense joy. Noble and spiritual silence is also an option. Everything is an option, even leashes. Business is open, as of this afternoon. Hit me up before I leave for India and/or I’ll walk you in Delhi!

Prancercize
Related Literature about Prancercize (Wikipedia)

Some Exciting Footwear Options:

 

Business Idea #2. On a Tuesday.

Letter Writer: When I was 20 years old, I came across a copy of the Artist’s Way. Written by Julia Cameron, the Artist’s Way outlines a 12-step spiritual guide to Higher Creativity. Besides her spiritual self-help books for blocked creatives, I had never heard of any of Julia Cameron’s excellent novels, haikus or theatrical productions. Even so, I embarked upon my spiritual journey with JC. One of the first things you learn on this Spiritual Path is a practice called Morning Pages. Morning Pages entails waking up thirty minutes earlier than usual, and then filling at least three pages with uninhibited writing. JC views Morning Pages as a sort of Active Meditation during which all the deepest desires and irritations of your unconscious emerge to the surface. According to JC, becoming aware of what is Deep Inside of You will bring you closer to overcoming the obstacles that prevent you from achieving your biggest dreams and becoming a real artist. For nearly a decade, I wholeheartedly devoted myself to Morning Pages. And then I decided to stop. I discovered that hammering my problems into the page for half an hour every day only exacerbated my angst and neurosis. It seems I already have a natural level of impeccable self-awareness. And as it turns out, self-awareness is somewhat overrated. These days, instead of whining in a journal of Morning Pages, I have begun to enjoy sending heartfelt letters and emails to my friends. Writing letters makes for a low-pressure and generous writing practice. Knowing you have an audience keeps the angst and self-absorption at bay, even if your audience is a forgiving and compassionate friend. Sometimes you end up writing decent sentences which you can use to inspire your other art. Almost always, the person is happy to hear from you. And so, Letter Writing is my Second Business Idea for this Tuesday. Between grade three and grade five, I used to send a letter to my grandparents in Manitoba, nearly every day. This might have been the peak of my life. Perhaps it is time for a New Peak. If you or someone you know would benefit from receiving letters or emails, as of today, I am an official Letter Writer. To insert a selling point, I have vast experience signing off letters in interesting ten-year-old ways. For example:

Yours ‘til the dew drops.
Yours ‘til the jelly rolls.
Yours ‘til the banana splits.

As business expands, I’m sure I will come up with something even better. I look forward to hearing from you.  Don’t be shy.

The Envelope I sent to my grandparents, circa 1995

The End.



Happy New Year Letter. Quite Irresistible

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

Yours Til Ekam Inhales
Pen Pal
Cardboard Box

The Benefits of an Ashtanga Yoga Practice, Part Two
Internet Diagnosis of the Week
Move Your DNA, by Katy Bowman

Pen Pal

Hop scotch is making a comeback, and I have a new pen pal.
 
Writing to pen pals is better than writing in my journal. I am not so self-centred or whiney.
 
My new pen pal just started practicing Ashtanga Yoga. Before that, she was practicing a style of yoga that didn’t make her body sexy enough. Although she has only been doing Ashtanga for two weeks, she says that her butt has already began to disappear. She worries that soon her rear end will be completely flat. And her arms are so “stupidly weak” that chaturanga is impossible. Well, she is quite a hoot. 

Me in Chaturanga, some time ago...

I miss Ashtanga. On Monday night, I skyped with Nobel, the Ashtanga blogger at Yoga in the Dragon’s Den. He wanted to hear about going to Mysore. We gabbed and gabbed about all the latest Ashtanga gossip, and I told him all about my trip. The exciting anticipation at the gate, Sharath’s gaze, the focus, the breathing, the sweat, the friends. It was such a wonderful and delightful time. And the Ashtanga sequence is so organized and beautiful. Nobel talked a bit about his practice and it made me miss jumpbacks and backbends. What a joy. I wished I could wake up the next day and just bust out the primary series. If only I could figure out my spine, my pelvis.

The next morning, instead of my usual geriatric routine, I did an incredibly slow version of serene and receptive Sun Salutations. Just the first kind, Surya Namaskar A. No pain. Perhaps that is my limit because yesterday, I tried Surya Namaskar B. Even with modifications, my hip got all clicky, as though it was jammed in the wrong place. As I have done so many times over the last few years, I pressed my hand against the outer edge of my left knee. The horrendous and upsetting noise erupted. Gross.

  

  Kino in Surya Namaskar A

I just don’t think this will go so well when I’m eighty. Or thirty-two. Oh well. Surely the path doesn’t stop here. People go on and on about the importance of committing to one system, one form. Keep dabbling and you’ll dig a lot of holes, but you’ll never hit water. Maybe we just need to make our holes a little wider.

My pen pal wanted to hear all about my spiritual achievements from last week’s three-day stint at vipassana. Something relatively sincere came out of me:

“Well, I don't know about spiritual achievements. It sounds trite and cheesy, but I think that the best thing we can hope for is radical self-love and acceptance, flat ass, stupid chaturanga and all. These practices are hard. The perfect form is deep inside you. If this perfection remains forever deep, so be it. Lift the corners of your mouth, and try to have a nice time.”

My ex-ex boyfriend Simon who jumped off a building used to say: “Deep down we’re all good people. But very very deep. On the surface, Assholes.”

These days, I am not so filled with jokes. My heart feels heavy. But love is somewhere. One of my dearest friends has a very new baby. Earlier this week I figured out how to bounce and squat him to sleep. Then I lay on my friend’s bed and he slept on my chest for twenty minutes. When I got up, my face glowed and my heart felt warm. My friend said the baby can do this because his heart has never been broken.

There are a lot of broken hearts out there. Broken hearts, missing limbs, and airplanes.

There are also a lot of babies.

The End. 

Baby Naptime Dream Adventures

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

The Benefits of an Ashtanga Yoga Practice, Part Two
You Cling To Things Until They Die
Lying Down Club
Yours Til Ekam Inhales