Mythological Unconditional Love

Some people say that happy romantic relationships depend on the beautiful lies couples say to each other.

“You are unbelievably perfect for me.”

“No one could ever be as wonderful as you.”
“I was miserable before I met you. I’m so glad the moon told me to kiss you. You’re the best kisser of life.”
Etc.

Yesterday, I felt deprived of such beautiful lies. And I wrote this Haiku:

Haiku: M.U.L.

 

Mythological

Unconditional Love is
Something I’m missing.

Some of the 12-step people invented something called Sexual Addiction. S.A. I did not feel like researching all that much about this condition, but my understanding is that Sex Addicts (also referred to as S.A.’s) seek out sex and love to remedy their low self-esteem. Or maybe they are lonely.

 

I did the twelve steps a couple of times for my eating disorder. For step three or four or five, I had to compile all of my character defects. I wrote each character defect on a little slip of paper. The first time I compiled my character defects, I threw them all into the Lachine Canal, near Griffintown. That was in 2009. I imagine that the Lachine Canal must be full of character defects. In 2011, I wrote out my character defects again. This time, I put them in my homemade God Box. Before I moved to Halifax, I gave the God Box to Simon, my ex-ex boyfriend who I wrote a mediocre epistolary novel with. The novel was called, The Little Savage and the Hermit. Simon was the Hermit. I am trying to refrain from referring to Simon as my ex-ex boyfriend who jumped off a building on January 4, 2015, and this is going not that well.   

 

I don’t know what happened to the God Box. It was covered with splatters of paint. I used to be quite artistic.

 

Beautiful lies are the best cure for character defects.

 

“I love you even though you get peanut butter all over the walls.”

“I love you more than spelt bread.”
“Your vagina makes up for your obnoxious meltdowns, even though you have questionable groin welts from misguided attempts at pubic hair removal.”

As I mentioned, I am missing the Beautiful Lies. Perhaps I am an S.A.

 

R.S.A. equals Recovering Sex Addicts and such people do not seek out sex and love as remedies for low self-esteem and loneliness. I wonder what they do instead.

 

I think it is a bit dumb to pathologize loneliness into a vague disease or unflattering label. Probably the S.A.’s and R.S.A.’s are the same as everyone else. They’re just bad liars. I can relate:

 

“Everyone wishes they were my duvet.”

“My crooked do-it-yourself haircut is spectacular.”
“I am the funniest writer in the world.”

The End.

 
Selfies are the ultimate beautiful lie.

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Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go, a self-help book by Erica J. Schmidt

Why I am like Jane Fonda
God Box

Memoirs of a Brief Affair
Performative Crying in Alleys
Performative Text Messages

Still Me

Now I am in Delhi

Now I am in Delhi.

How and why did that happen?

For months I have been meaning to tell you about “fuck blinders.” According to the urban dictionary, fuck blinders is a phenomenon that occurs after fucking very profusely. When the profuse fucking is over, people afflicted with fuck blinders are unable to see, find or accomplish very much of anything. They walk around in a daze, as though they have blinders on. All this may be true; however, the Urban Dictionary doesn't know everything. I happen to have a very dear friend who was crowned Queen of the Butt Club in Mysore last year. She and I have our own special definition of Fuck Blinders. According to us, fuck blinders occur pre-fucking. So you meet someone and this person permeates you with the feeling that the two of you must absolutely have sex, despite obvious reasons why this is a horrendous idea. Popular reasons include a lack of emotional availability, incompatible values and lifestyles, and/or geographical distance. Fuck blinders render you blind to all these issues. So you have sex anyways. The act of sex tends to have a solidifying and adhesive effect on fuck blinders, though everyone is different.

Fuck Blinders are hard to attain, especially post break-up. Amazingly and pathetically jaded, these days, I often make speeches about how relationships are beautiful lies with inevitable expiration dates. Loose-fitting and slightly transparent fuck blinders may materialize when the option is nearly impossible and the expiration date imminent and evident. Such fuck blinders are rather short-lived.

And well, all this relates perfectly to buying a one-way ticket to Delhi.

Since August, I have found myself sadly low on the Mental Health Spectrum. (Or high? I’m not sure. The Mental Health Spectrum is another invented entity whose definition you can probably sort of guess.) On August 1st, I moved downstairs from the apartment I was in and immediately felt terrible. I felt like I was staying in a grey soulless hotel. As far as apartments go, it was somewhat decent besides being a little messy and infused with the smell of weed, both things ostensibly temporary. I even had my own yoga room. And yet, right away I craved an exit strategy.

I called a friend who had just had a baby. (Not the Queen of the Butt Club.) The baby slept peacefully in her arms as I wept in the most distressed and un-delicate fashion possible. I wailed that I should probably move to Nicaragua.

“I’ve been waiting for this phone call,” she said. The reality of breaking up with the Boatman, moving away from Halifax and a million other changes was sinking in. From her perspective, I was doing reasonably okay. From my perspective, I felt like a broken disaster. Somehow I made it through the month of August. Over the summer, I completed more freelance translation work than I’d done in the entire year. By the time that was over, I was totally strung out and distraught. I dreaded going home to my soulless grey hotel room of an apartment. In my desperate misery, I felt like I was too much of a burden on my friends. I became increasingly isolated and lonely. One night, I barged out of my apartment onto the streets of my Montreal neighbourhood, where I cried inconsolably and unapologetically. As I reached a corner, I saw my friend riding his bike.

“I’m super high,” he said. “How are you?”

I proceeded to melt down even further.

“You can’t just cry in the middle of the street!” he told me. I would argue that this is a matter of opinion. But my friend strongly urged me to seek out professional help. A rather obvious recommendation; however, I found it frustrating since I have been going to therapists and expensive friends since I was thirteen years old. Plus a decade of wholehearted yoga practice. And some daily meditation. Butt exercises, manic walking, spirit walking. I have tried ten million things. Prozaac didn’t work. Probably there was no more hope.

As it turns out, every neighbourhood in Montreal has a crisis help line. I called them in my distress. It was a good opportunity to practice French. They were helpful in a generic kind of way and I got an appointment within three days. I am glad that such things exist.

Although I was grateful for the outlet, alas, the days of crying in the streets were not yet over. A few weeks later, teary in an alleyway, I called my super trendy and hip friend Fern (STAHFF) who works in advertising in New York. I mourned over my sad aimlessness and incapacity to manage the details of life.

“Dude,” she said. “Why don’t you go use my flat in Delhi?” Fern used to work in Delhi and then she switched to New York. (See how trendy and hip Fern is? You should see her wardrobe. More on that later.) Her apartment would be empty and available until the end of December.

And there they were. Fuck Blinders for Delhi. Sometimes it’s good to try and look beyond your fuck blinders. Other times, just let them do their magic and mask your doubts. The hell with pros and con lists. Look straight ahead. Move to a dirty, crazy city, fuck an impossible match, and/or make a baby.

Oh yah, Fuck Blinders are entirely necessary for planning to have a baby. Baby Fuck Blinders, it’s called. Essential.

Anyways, I made it to Delhi last Friday.  What a crazy world.

Thank you to everyone for their support. And huge gratitude to Fern.  This apartment is extraordinary.

Much love. Oh, and Happy Divali and New Moon!

I will do my best  to blog as much as I can. As you might have noticed, I have tons of things to say and seem to be oversaturating my pen pals.

The End.

My Magnificent Bed


A street near my house. Not a good place for crying.
What have I done?


Day Before Departure. Delhi Fuck Blinders Firmly Secured

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Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go, by Erica J. Schmidt

Day Trip
Brand New Mysore Clubs

Business Ideas on a Tuesday
How I am violent

Where is Emma Fillipoff (One)

 

Why I Am Like Jane Fonda

Passionate about purple leg warmers, grueling butt exercises, and the eradication of oil pipelines, Jane Fonda and I share a great deal in common. Before I had yoga videos, I had Jane Fonda’s advanced cardio workout. It was something upsetting like one hour and forty five minutes. But Jane never seemed to tire and it was thus with great enthusiasm that I followed along with the bouncing, pumping and squeezing of various body parts. My hair was more dishevelled than Jane’s perfect feathered down-do, my sweat, more profuse, and my ten-year-old athletic wear much less spectacular than her belted pink and purple leotard, her grey leggings, and of course, the excellent purple legwarmers. Even so, Jane never made me feel alienated from her supreme and elite fitness endeavours. In fact, as Jane rapidly whipped through ninety-six and a half tricep kickbacks, I felt like she was looking right at me.


Resist. Photo From Here.

“Resist,” she urged me. I did, determined to overthrow the wobble of my underarms. What does Oprah call those? Flags. How ridiculous. Although flags and Oprah have their place. I used to watch Oprah on Wednesday afternoons, my only night off from swim practice. That’s how I learned about Jesus whispers. One day the show was about people who had made some sort of horrible distracted mistake that had ended in someone dying. There was a woman who had backed her car over her grandchild, and another who had fallen asleep at the wheel and driven her car full of her kids over a cliff. A third woman, who had hit and killed a cyclist felt like the whole thing could have been prevented had she listened to the voice inside her head.

“Those are Jesus whispers,” Oprah told her. “And I wanna thank you for coming on the show today because now everybody out there watching will know not to doubt that voice ever again.”

Oh Oprah. Despite listening very intently, I never had much luck with the Jesus Whispers. Fortunately, Jane Fonda’s voice on a podcast called “Death, Sex & Money,” had a similar effect. The podcast transcript came out on June 18, 2014, which happened to be the third-year anniversary of Epic Day, the wonderful day when I met the Boatman on a boat at my friend Fern’s wedding. After that, I moved to Halifax and we lived happily ever after.

On the podcast, Jane (my dear friend) spoke about her divorce with billionaire cable executive Ted Turner, her third husband. Ted was fun and good-looking, and he had a beautiful home on beautiful acreage.  Being married to Ted was easy and “safe.” Then, about ten years in, Jane had the revelation “that if I stayed with him, I could never be a fully realized person” (Jane Fonda in Episode 30 of the Death, Sex & Money podcast, with Anna Sale). This is where the Jesus slash Angel Whispers came into play. Said Jane:

“I felt like Virginia Woolf, only I had two angels in the house. One on one shoulder saying oh come on Fonda lighten up!

The guy’s got two million acres of the most gorgeous land in the world and he’s funny and he keeps you laughing. And on the other shoulder there was an angel with a very soft whisper saying, Jane, you can stay with him and die married, but you’ll die not being whole. And so I opted for the whisper" (from Episode 30 of the podcast Death, Sex & Money: Jane Fonda After Death and Divorce).

The notion of being a fully realized person is rather vague. And probably, everyone is always whole, whether they listen to their angel whispers or not. But I get what Jane meant. Before I moved to Halifax, I had just come to the end of more than a decade-long relationship with eating disorders. My most prevalent symptom was puking in my mouth, over and over again until whatever I had eaten became bitter and acidic and disgusting. While I was in the throws of my eating disorder, I always imagined that the eradication of my symptoms would coincide with the emergence of a new and beautiful Erica. A Whole Erica, who didn’t fret about silly things, who didn’t get overwhelmed and melt down, who didn’t fight with her mother. All this and more would be the prize for not puking in my mouth. It is hard to do things without expecting a prize in return. Fame, Money, Weight Loss, Prizes, Sex. (FMWLPS). I want all of these things, though perhaps finally I can do without the weight loss. One big prize that I felt would surely make me Whole was finding a long-term partner. Until I met the Boatman, success in this area had been minimal. There was Simon the hermit, who I met on a biodegradable yoga mat. In the name of art, we got drunk and fucked around as we attempted to write and publish our groundbreaking epistolary novel, The Little Savage and the Hermit. Despite the creative excitement and exhilarating recklessness, mostly it felt messy and not that whole. One day, after waking up with Simon in a room that reeked of vomit and vodka, it occurred to me that perhaps I needed a year off from relationships. Somehow I would get myself out of Montreal, take my space, and figure myself out, whatever that meant.

Less than a month later, I met the Boatman. We had our Epic Day. Beneath the light and guidance of our friend the Full Moon, the profuse making out began. Of course the Boatman was wonderful. Of course the day and the night were magical. And when the Boatman invited me to come live in his house in Halifax, of course I said yes.

Although I was never particularly enamored with Halifax, like Jane Fonda’s marriage to Ted Turner, living with the Boatman was safe and relatively easy. The Boatman was fun, supportive and loving. Unlike Simon, who mostly considered me to be a fucked up disaster, the Boatman believed in me as a person. I was set up in a house with a hedge and a dog. The Boatman’s mother bought me fancy clothes. For the first year or two, I had lots of time and space to practice and teach yoga, and write. And when I got the job at the Montessori school, the Boatman supported me through my perpetual state of overwhelm.


Me and the Hedge Clippers

On our Epic Day anniversaries, the Boatman and I wrote similar things on our cards. For now, the Boatman’s cards to me are stored in a box in Halifax. I remember the drawings of the moon, and the gist of most of the words.

“I’m so grateful and lucky to have met you.” “Nobody else is as wonderful as you.” “I could never find anybody else but you to talk to about potty training and poops, and the dress-up box." "I'm so glad our friend to moon helped us get together." “I can’t imagine what my life would be like without you.”

Whoever you are with, it can’t be like anyone else. We are all precious and irreplaceable. I couldn’t imagine what my life would be like without the Boatman. Yet when I listened to Jane Fonda speak of her angel whispers, I was sad to realize that deep down, I didn’t believe I was capable of pulling off life on my own. If I hadn’t left Montreal, would my life still be infused with vomit and vodka and Simon, all the way until he jumped off a building?  

Oh well, I thought, the first time I heard Jane on the podcast. There was no way we were going to break up. That September, I went to India for three months.  I missed the Boatman immensely; however, I discovered that in fact, I could maintain some kind of autonomy without him. I lived in four different apartments; I organized day trips, and Butt Club, and even coined the term "Spiritual Pants." Every day, there was someone to eat curry with. The entire thing was so delightful.

Spiritual Pants

But my token fly-to-India-and-have a meaningful-revelation-about-your-life was, “You kind of completely hate Halifax, and you’ve barely been happy for a really long time.” When I melted down to the Boatman over FaceTime, the first thing he said was, “Well, I really can’t move.” There wasn’t much to be done, but fly home and see what happened.

My first day back in Halifax, I obsessively calculated how much money I would have to save if I wanted to get back to India the following November. If I was going to stay in Halifax, every year would need a decisive exit strategy. The financial verdict was about 900 extra bucks a month, tricky in Halifax, the land of Nepotism and Underemployment. Still, I could give it a try and hope for the best. I wasn’t ready to fuck off just yet. The Boatman and I avoided discussing the situation and I went about my days, struggling to breathe.

Finally one day in February, the Boatman replied to my ten thousandth anguished rant about friendlessness and loneliness with the words, “You could leave.” I felt a distinct sense of relief and I paused briefly before deciding that I should mourn and wail, since his words meant my world was collapsing.

I made an appointment with my psychologist, who I called My Expensive Friend. He happened to be one of only a handful of friends that I had made in Halifax, after more than three years. My Expensive Friend didn’t think that I should do anything too drastic in February. He helped me to write down goals on Index Cards. Go to a potluck. Invite your friend Lindsay out for dinner. Organize the Halifax Butt Club.

Halifax Butt Club. Note the Purple Legwarmers
Mysore Butt Club, Et. Al.

Jane Fonda Butt Club. See how we are similar?
Photo taken from this dizzying video.

Although the Halifax Butt Club enjoyed two rousing sessions, it was all too little too late. For Valentine’s Day, the podcast Death, Sex & Money rounded up highlights from the past year of interviews. Sure enough, as I trudged up the hill to the Boatman’s house, Jane told me about her angel whispers once again.

“Jane, you can stay with him and die married, but you’ll die not being whole. And so I opted for the whisper.”

Soon it would be time. I was gone by the end of April.

As Dan Savage says, a relationship isn’t only a success if it ends when somebody dies. Unfortunately, our children’s diapers and underwear are covered with princesses, and our world seems to hold a bias for the Forever After People. The good news is that all of the people - me, you, Jane and everybody else- all of us are whole. 

Some people’s paths may lead them along with one person by their side the whole time. Surely, this can be beautiful. I may have a shot at this later. In the meantime, I get to be a little bit like Jane Fonda. Depending on your Jesus whispers, you might considering joining the club.

Jane Fonda speaks out about Fossil Fuels. Go Jane. Image taken from this page.

Seventy-seven years old, Jane Fonda says that “when a woman is older, sex is better. Partly because she doesn’t give a fuzzy rat’s ass anymore… she knows her body, she knows what she wants, she’s less afraid to ask for it. If it doesn’t work out, so what?” (Jane Fonda, on Death, Sex & Money). I think that’s great. From now on, I will aim to have sex like I’m seventy-seven.

Four years ago today, I met the Boatman on a boat, and he kissed me under the moon.

In fact, the first time we met wasn’t actually on the boat. We met some other time, in Fern’s kitchen. I made the boat part up, for the sake of the Blogging Fairy Tale. I am as terrible as the folks who make princess diapers. Oh well. 

Boatman and Me, Blogging Fairy Tale

Every day can be an Epic Day. The moon is always your friend.
Happy Epic Day, to the world, and to the Boatman.
I’m so grateful and lucky to have met you. We are so lucky for the time we had together.

The End.

All Jane Fonda quotes are from Episode 30 of Death Sex & Money – Jane Fonda: After Death and Divorce

Subscribe to Anna Sale’s Death, Sex and Money on Itunes. New Episodes come out every other Wednesday! And it's free!

Follow Jane Fonda on Twitter: @JaneFonda
Follow Anna Sale on Twitter: @annasale
Follow Death, Sex & Money on Twitter: @deathsexmoney
 

 

 

The Boatman and Me, Again. Well, we made some cute photos for the internet. One More:

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Follow me on Twitter: @mypelvicfloor

Fame, Money, Weightloss, Prizes, Sex: I Let Go ($2.99)

Jane Fonda is a Cuttle Fish. Are you a Cuttle Fish? The Ocean Invertebrate Personality Quiz

Everyone is a Hermaphrodite
Why I Am Different From Margaret Atwood and What I Don’t Gain From Humping Duvets
How I am Violent, by Erica J. Schmidt
Another Break-Up: The Benefits of an Ashtanga Yoga Practice, Part Two

 

 

The Benefits of a Vegan Life Coach

Long or short, every temporary source of sexual gratification leaves you with something that will follow you all the days of your life. The Vegan Life Coach was hardly an exception to this. Having long ago processed VLC inflicted pubic hair, forehead wrinkle and vaginal recorder baggage, I remain primarily and perpetually grateful to him for his following areas of influence:

1.       An unwavering commitment to the Ashtanga Yoga practice. When I first met the Vegan Life Coach, I was certain that six days a week was far too many. I was entirely set on taking every Tuesday off, for no particular reason. The Vegan Life Coach convinced me otherwise. Eventually the Vegan Life Coach was banned from the studio. Darby said that he caused too many disruptions. I, however, kept practicing as though my life depended on it. Perhaps it did. The habit stuck for seven and a half years.

2.       A fancy looking bottle of red wine that costs less than $12. It was called Borsao, and it had an orange label. I think it was from Spain. In 2007, it cost $11.45. When I brought it to parties, I appeared quite a lot more sophisticated than I really was.  At their first sip, my hosts would nod, so very approvingly. “Just pairs well with everything, doesn’t it?” I’d say. As though I had any idea.




Borsao, Very Fancy



3.       Excellent Guacamole Recipe. Today’s blog has resorted to a list. Will it also resort to recipes? No, absolutely not. But here are the ingredients, from most to least: Avocadoes, tomatoes, red onions, garlic, salt, turmeric and cumin. The Vegan Coach said that it was all very good for inflammation, and cold sores. I like to eat guacamole with corn chips which is probably also very fabulous for inflammation and cold sores. When I moved to Halifax to date slash live with the Boatman, corn chips became a food group. This was one of the Boatman’s many wonderful areas of influence. The big secret is that Restaurant Tostitos are actually much more delicious than any of the colourful organic types that come in biodegradable packages. We experimented extensively. I am going on a picnic today, in case you couldn’t guess.

Excellent Guacamole, from comfytummy.com
Perhaps VLC Guacamole looks like this.
Food Selfies are typically beyond me.



Not surprisingly, the last time I saw the Vegan Life Coach was at a vegan restaurant. His skin glistened with sweat, and he appeared rather thin. He demonstrated a polite and convincing level of interest in my life in Halifax, my job at the Montessori school, and my creative endeavours.

“So, what are you writing about these days?” he asked.

“Oh, well, a bunch of stuff,” I replied. “I still write about you sometimes,”

“Well, you know,” he told me. “What you write about other people reveals a lot about how you feel about yourself.”

I couldn’t make this guy up if I tried.

The End

Avocadoes

A note about avocadoes: Everyone has experienced the dilemma of avocadoes being either terribly hard or mushy and brown. Together, the Boatman and I derived deep wisdom about avocadoes. Hopefully, this will follow us all the days of our lives. I am sharing this wisdom with you now. Should you find yourself in possession of a hard avocado, put it in a paper bag. You can place it next to ripe or ripening bananas, though I myself feel that banana flavours morph into everything they touch. But the paper bag, this works. Once the avocadoes are soft to touch, put them in the fridge. There they will transform into a state of magical creaminess, and for quite a long time, this magical creaminess will remain available for you to spread across toast, or crackers, or to dice into salad, or mash into guacamole, or engage in whatever other applicable avocado activity you can think of.

Good luck.

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More goodies from the Vegan Life Coach, which reveal a great deal with regards to how I feel about myself:

The Day Yoga Almost Gave Me A Stroke       
The Sperm Cleanse
(Ashtanga Yoga and Oral Sex was reverted to draft.)

 However you feel about avocadoes, you should definitely watch the Vegan Life Coach video at least once. I have definitely watched it at least once. OM.

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

The Benefits of an Ashtanga Yoga Practice, Part Two

Ocean Invertebrate Personality Quiz (for those of you without a Vegan Life Coach)