Dear Vincent, During my month-long hiatus without you, I invented the Shiny Chrome Orgasm. And I basked in my Nun Friend's soothing and maternal bosom of unconditional love, and I got a cleaning buzz. I think I am going to make it. Welcome home

Dear Vincent,

During my month-long hiatus without you, I invented the Shiny Chrome Orgasm. And I basked in my Nun Friend’s soothing and maternal bosom embrace of unconditional love, and I got a cleaning buzz. I think I am going to make it. Welcome home.

Childhood memories equal, the fairy tale, The Princess and The Frog. I remember the frog, crouched on the Princess’s dinner table, and lapping up peas from on the Royal Family’s golden plate.

 Are we able to accept all the ugly things without the promise that deep down the ugly things are actually beautiful and that one day they’ll transform out of being an ugly frog or an ugly toad?

Toads, in my opinion, are a little bit uglier than the frogs.

Can we love the things that are

inherently and likely

ugly forever?

For example, the toads, or else the thick and cakey fungus under certain people’s toenails?

A Shiny Chrome Orgasm is when you polish the chrome of the faucet of your sink to the point that the sight is orgasmic.

Shiny Chrome Orgasm

A friend pointed out that combined with the taps, the whole thing is rather phallic, and isn’t that a little bit exciting?

Childhood memories equal Mrs. Vanden Bosch’s Grade One Halloween Concert. I am dressed up as a beautiful princess, but our song is about a field full of pumpkins. My best friend Ellen gets to be the special pumpkin with the solo. Of this, I am exceedingly jealous. The song is about some special pumpkin who has some special magical way of singing the words, the Boo-Hoo-Hoo. Maybe this turns frogs into handsome princes. Or maybe it burns the whole field down. In any case, I am devastated that I don’t get to sing the Prestigious Pumpkin Boo-hoo-hoo solo. Even before I skipped grade two and was irreparably labelled the Strange and Gifted child, I felt that surely I deserved all the main parts.

And the Princess, she felt like she did not deserve to have to go to bed with the ugly frog. Except the ugly frog had rescued her precious golden ball from the bottom of the pond, and in return he’d convinced the princess to make quite an elaborate promise.

“Promise me,” said the ugly frog. “That you will love me. That you’ll let me be your friend and play with you. Make me a place at your table where I will eat from your plate and drink from your cup. Then, take me to your bed and we can sleep peacefully together.”

Some people might say this qualifies as a little bit of coercion. The Princess was crying very hard when she lost her ball, and the frog sort of pounced upon her vulnerability. And it was in the olden days, and once she’d already said yes, she was not allowed to change her mind about taking the frog to bed.

So first the poor princess was helpless because her golden ball had fallen to the bottom of the pond.

And then she was helpless because her heart’s desire depended upon an overwhelming and impossible promise.

This story does not leave me feeling very equipped.

Place your ugly frog upon a silky and exquisite pillow, and there will emerge your dashing tender-eyed prince.

And

Or

Ever since I went off Prozac, my brain’s been invaded by a voice.

And the voice comes ready with a hand.

And the hand is ready to slap.

The voice really wants to be the main part. Sometimes the voice won’t shut up until the hand wacks me on the face over and over again. The voice wants everyone to hear and know its rage and how excruciatingly disappointed and disgusted and at the end of it rope that it feels with, well,

I guess me.

And the hand keeps slapping because it’s so set on the belief that no one will ever understand me, and this is what I deserve.

Main Special Gifted Pumpkin sings, “The Boo-Hoo-Hoo.”

All the Generic Pumpkins sing, “The Boo-Hoo-Hoo.”

I still cannot remember the line about why the Main Special Gifted Pumpkin was so special and gifted.

All the palaces in the fairy tales look exactly the same.

My nun friend has the softest cheeks and the most soothing bosom. I saw her at a funeral, and she said so many nice things to me. It was like I was at my own funeral.

“Oh, Erica,” she said. “It is so good to see you. You’re so beautiful. Don’t ever change. Stay just the way you are.”

I cannot repeat what my Nun Friend said without weeping, if somewhat delicately. Her words, they shut up the voice and they canned the hand for one whole week. And I got a cleaning buzz, and I invented the Shiny Chrome Orgasm.

I forgot to say that the princess was the youngest of the seven daughters. The youngest and the most beautiful. And she loved to throw her golden ball up in the air and then catch it. Once she got married, I wonder if she kept throwing her golden ball up in the air. Throwing it up in the air, and then catching it.

Main Special Gifted Pumpkin sings, “The Boo-Hoo-Hoo.”

All the Generic Pumpkins sing, “The Boo-Hoo-Hoo.”

Welcome home, Vincent!

There is probably something symbolic about the golden ball falling to the bottom of the pond.

Our golden balls are falling to the bottom of the pond all the time.

Main Special Gifted Pumpkin sings, “The Boo-Hoo-Hoo.”

All the Generic Pumpkins sing, “The Boo-Hoo-Hoo.”

Oh Erica, you’re so beautiful. Don’t ever change. Stay just the way you are.

In therapy, I always get to have the main part, and surely, this is one reason why I like it.

Welcome home, Vincent.

Love, Erica.

P.S. In fact, once she married the prince, the princess kept her golden ball safe and sound on a purple cushion, under a glass dome. Cause what if the ball fell into the pond again and some better frog prince showed up. The End.

Please send your imaginary emails to Vincent to ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com.



Grade One. Surely I deserved all the main parts.

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Dear Vincent, It seems no matter who I'm having sex with, I ugly cry every other time.


On Thursday, January 4, 2018, I did not end up flying to the edge of Newfoundland and embarking on a long westward frigid and impossible walk across Canada in my boots that tend to become damp and cold within seven to 98 minutes of putting them on for the benefit of everyone’s mental health which feels like an emergency and also chronically neglected and in memory of Simon Girard who jumped off the roof of Sherbrooke Street’s le Tadoussac on Sunday, January 4, 2015.



What the fuck should I do with my life? Part Two

Part Two: Becoming A Princess and/or Having Children 
I could become a princess or a duchess and give birth to my prince and walk out to the world with an uncontracted uterus. 
 
When you ask them what they want to be when they grow up, all the little girls I work with have princess wrapped into some part of their desired occupation.

I want to be a princess chef.

A princess busdriver.
 
A princess policeman.

A doctor and a princess.

 

Little girls see these princesses on their diapers and their wallpaper, and they want to be them

Little girls see these princesses on their diapers and their wallpaper, and they want to be them

This is old news, but over the last couple of weeks, everyone was talking about Kate Middleton's uncontracted uterus. About the nerve she was sporting her "baby belly" to the whole world. Some people judged. Other marvelled at how brave she was. As though the scariest thing in the world is to reveal your uncontracted uterus.

Kate and her princes

I can relate. I fear the uncontracted uterus.
 
From a young age, my deepest fears included getting a double chin and having my stomach stick out more than my boobs. My boobs have always been tiny and so it wouldn't take much for my stomach to extend beyond them. To prevent the double chin, I used to read books and do my homework with my chin propped a pillow. To prevent the protruding abdomen, I was constantly doing crunches and sit-ups.
 
My stomach got hard and and chiselled. It's not that sad a story except once an osteopath told me that if I got pregnant, I would probably have a hard time. My abdominals would split in half and sag forever.
 
I'm ashamed that this terrifies me so much.

I'm ashamed that this is one of the main reasons I am terrified of having children.

One of the other reasons is that someone told me that since having kids, she can't use tampons anymore. They just slide out. As for the diva cup, alas, it leaks.

Apparently this is not that common.

Usually the vag recovers quite well.
 
If not, we all have high vaginas that will never ever desert us.

My High Vagina. Me and Keira Knightley both have one.

Once I wrote that birth was a Hideous Annihilation for someone else.
 
At the time, I think I was drinking too much.

Now I am thinking, What the fuck should I do with my life?

Despite my sit-up frenzies and pillow facelifts, I used to think that I would grow up and become a wonderful mother. I babysat like crazy and imagined that I would be like all my favourite moms, making whole grain banana bread, reading to my children, and having a job that allowed me to be around when they came home from school for lunch.
 
Now I am afraid of a saggy belly?

The saggy stomach, the tamponless vagina, probably these are terrible reasons not to have children. What are the good reasons?

Overpopulation. Climate change. Having children during a tornado or during the end of the world is impractical.
 
A couple of weeks ago I sent myself the following email:

Don't ever have children. No children for you. You are hysterical. Chill the fuck out.

I had just had a mammoth tantrum over whether or not to have a smoothie for breakfast, or oatmeal, or both. It was pathetic. 

27-year-old tantrums may be a good reason not to have children.
 
The other reason is, the kid may end up being just like you.

Fuck.

My friend Fern likes animals signficantly more than people, and children.

I was with her when she learned that someone who she didn't particularly like had given birth.

"Why the fuck did she have a kid? She barely has her shit together herself. What is it that makes people arrogant enough to believe that they are worthy of reproduction?"
 
She went on a rant about people passing on shitty genes and suffering and babies being bad for the environment. Her rant left me somewhat offended and taken aback. At the time, I had just begun to reconcile myself to contaminating the gene pool with my own hideous annihilation. This was before I got my job at the Montessori school.
 
Children are delightful for varying amounts of time. I might never be able to forgive my child if my stomach expanded and then never came back down to the same flat, hard formation ever again. What a horrible burden for the child to bear. It would have to spend its whole life making up for my sad saggy stomach. I tell myself that I would also resent a child if it wrecked my yoga practice, and that probably it would. But then I think, what is a better thing to do, to press into your hands and lift yourself off the ground with one leg behind your head and the other up your ass, or to make a real live person who in twenty years will probably be better at everything you’ve ever tried in your life?

Hard to say.

I guess we'll see how effective the withdrawal method turns out to be and then we'll find out, or we won't.  

The End.

What the fuck should I do with my life? Part One

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