Never Has This Job Application Received Any Response Until Last Saturday

Recently, I came upon an job posting looking for a publicist for high-end art events.  I have approximately zero experience being a publicist and have attended approximately seven and half art events in my life. For this reason, I pulled out all the stops on the application. The Jujube Speech made an appearance. To my surprise, I actually landed an interview.  

This is what I sent. It may or may not be as inspiring as my Lululemon application, but since the interview didn't make me cry, I feel like the whole endeavour was quite a success.

About Erica Schmidt:

Name: Erica J. Schmidt.
Twitter Handle: @mypelvicfloor
Blog: exuberantbodhisattva.blogspot.ca

About Exuberant Bodhisattva:  Likely, you already know what exuberant means. Bodhisattva means “an enlightened being who, out of compassion, forgoes nirvana in order to save others.” I am only a moderately serious bodhisattva. My policy is to try and do the best I can with what I have at the present moment.

University Degree:  Yes. 2007-2010. B.A. from Concordia, with all the happy artsy people in Montreal.  Did a double major in Translation and Creative Writing.

Excellent Spelling:  Yes.  When I was in grade one, Mrs. Vanden Bosch gave me a jujube every time I got a perfect spelling test.  My mother made me store them in a plastic bag because she didn't want me to eat jujubes every day.  By the end of the year, I had 47 jujubes.  Mrs. Vanden Bosch said that in total, I only made eight errors.  I ate all the jujubes during the year-end movie party.  We watched Rescuers Down Under, Duck Tales, and Bedknobs and Broomsticks. All I can remember is the slow accumulation of jujube acid on the inside of my cheeks.  Then my tongue went numb.  Mrs. Vanden Bosch skipped me into grade three.  Now I have Gifted Child Syndrome, and I never ever make spelling mistakes.  

Day Job:  In January, I returned from a three-month trip to India. Since then, I have been earning my living doing freelance translation contracts (French-English).  Just this week, I relocated to Montreal. In addition to translation, I will happily mop, babysit, teach yoga, write and/or BE A PUBLICIST upon request. Before India, I worked at a Montessori School from January 2013 until August 2014.  There, I told pre-school children to push in their chairs and put the blocks away in French.  Going back to pre-school was fun, but I definitely missed semi-colons. My former bosses rave about my mopping, composting and toileting skills. To quote them, “Erica's toilet conversation with toddlers and bum-wiping skills are ‘without parallel.’” Everyone is good at something.

Other Selling Points:  Bilingual, Interesting Hair, Flexible Spine

Portfolio of Creativity

(Please see links and attached files. I have also attached a regular old C.V.)

WASHROOMS (attached) - copy for the bathroom walls of a Montreal restaurant. I did this as a favour for my friend Fern, former Art Director at Cossette. Now Fern is in Delhi working for Wieden+Kennedy. Life is very exciting.

 

 

I read “Choose Yourself” by James Altucher and my oxytocin levels increased immediately – An enthusiastic article promoting business guru James Altucher’s empowering book, “Choose Yourself.”

Excellent Dieting Advice: Are you strong or are you skinny? 

What to do when you’re bored in India: Brand New Mysore Clubs

Feel free to read about my other ecstatic adventures at exuberantbodhisattva.blogspot.ca.

Please note that although I am partial to irreverence, I can also be deep, meaningful, and sincere.  And though I love to talk and write a great deal, upon your request, I can be impeccably succinct.

 I LET GO (attached) - a quirky and digital self-help book that provides unconventional yet life-changing suggestions on how to let go.  It used to be on sale for $2.00 but I raised the price to $2.99 when the price of coriander in India went up 300%. In an act of spontaneous generosity, I have sent you a free pdf copy.  The illustrations were done by my good friend and fellow yogi Sara E. Enquist.
It would be wonderful to meet you in the near future. I would love it.

 I LET GO, by Erica J. Schmidt, Illustrated by Sara E. Enquist
$2.99 on Amazon

I am grateful for your time. Thank you, Name of Job Poster. 

Sincerely,

Erica Schmidt

In her reply, the job poster said, "I agree. Everyone is good at something." She wasn't sure that I would be good at being a publicist, but kindly helped me to arrange an interview anyways. At the interview, the first thing the company director said was, "It doesn't look like you have ever done anything like this." I agreed with him but did my best to compensate with charm and good looks. We had a rather nice chat. He seemed moderately enthusiastic, although I have yet to hear from him. I guess we'll see. In the meantime, I will happily translate, write, mop, potty train, compost, walk dogs, walk people, teach yoga, lead butt exercises and/or be a publicist upon request. Feel free to hit me up.
 
The End



High-end Vagina Art Pin
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
I Let Go

People Walking/Letter Writing Skills


How I Will Elevate Lululemon
The Group Interview
Applying for a Job at a Bra Store (excuse to talk about My Eternal Tits) 
Job Interviews, Plus Why I Am Different From Margaret Atwood and What I Don't Gain From Humping Duvets (Excuse to talk about Margaret Atwood and Humping Duvets
The Potty Party

The Kiss Test

Today is my mother's birthday.

It is also the birthday of the first boyfriend I ever had in high school.

The third boyfriend I ever had in my whole life.

Who were my other boyfriends?

Boyfriend #1:  Kindergarten with Ms. Stroman.  His name was Ben.  A few months before kindergarten started, my mother took me for my first hair cut.  The hairdresser named Terry had short straight dark brown hair.  She had man's hair and a man's name.  I thought it was confusing.  But at least she was very nice.  She thought that my blonde unruly curls that fell past my chin were very sweet.  She and my mother agreed that they would be even sweeter if they were shorter. A big bowl of curls on top of my head.  So she chopped the hair around my head and soon there was a bowl of curls above my ears and all the way around.

"Oh that's adorable sweetie," said my mother from behind the hairdresser chair.

"Isn't she cute?" said Terry the hairdresser.  I didn't know why Terry called me a she.  Now that my hair was so short, I looked like a boy.  That afternoon we were supposed to go swimming.  My bathing suit was white with red stripes and a blue flipper-the-dolphine jumping just above my bellybutton.  I knew that I couldn't wear this bathing suit anymore.   With my hair so short, everyone would know that something was wrong. 

I made my mother take me to the department store where she bought me ugly green and blue shorts that I would wear every day now that I was a boy.

Then I arrived in Ms. Stotman's junior kindergarten class.  My hair was still short. Terry had trimmed it just before school started.  On my first day of school, I wore my "Party Animal" sweat suit.  Lime green pants and a sweat shirt with lime green sleeves and a white body with some monster type animal and the words "party animal" on it.  Very flattering.  But at least I wasn't pretending to be a girl.  During free time, Ben and I met in the dress-up corner.  He suggested that I put on a tutu.  I decided that this meant that I was a girl again. I put on the tutu right away.  On the playground, Ben and I kissed on the lips.  Our parents let us hang out with each other on the weekends. We traded stickers. 

Once at Ben's house, we took off all of our clothes in the backyard, turned on the hose, and then sprayed each other and the windows of the house. Inside, the couch got wet. Ben's dad got a little bit angry at us and gave us pretend spankings while we were still naked.  The naked spankings felt thrilling.  After junior kindergarten, Ben and his family moved to Australia. 

During senior kindergarten, Ben sent me a postcard:

“Ben says he loves you and misses you and wishes you were here.”  LOVE BEN

That was the last I ever heard of Ben. 

Boyfriend #2:  I got my next boyfriend in grade one in Mrs. VandenBosch's class.  His name was Kevin.  Halfway through grade one, Keven had to wear braces on his legs like Forrest Gump.  So his legs were always in the shape of a triangle.  To walk, he had to swing them to and fro.  Then he had to go to the hospital to get an OPERATION.  I don't think that we became boyfriend and girlfriend until after that.  When Kevin returned to school, he had to use a wheelchair.  I remember waiting on the pavement for the school bell to ring and we kissed on the lips many times.

Then I skipped grade two and lost all my friends and my boyfriend.  When you're in grade three, you're not allowed to kiss boys in grade two.  Absolutely not. 

Boyfriend #3:  This was the one who was born on October 9th. The same day as my mother.  We met in grade nine band class. I played the trombone and he played the saxophone.  We both had braces.  At the school dance, he asked me to slow dance.  In grade nine, I was in love with Michael Brown and Alex Crampton who were both on the swim team.  I saw them every day at practice but they were way out of my league.  So when the saxophone player asked me to dance, I said yes.  I hated dances, but slow dances were the easiest because you didn't need any coordination or rhythm. The guy decided how much space there was between you.  The saxophone player decided there wouldn't be too much space and I could feel his boner between my legs.  I felt mostly neutral about this experience, but a little bit cozy.  The next week, we went out for lunch every day.  There were no boners and no kissing and I felt okay about this.  On Friday, it was his birthday.  I made him a big chocolate cake.  At the end of the day, he asked me out.  Like would I be his girlfriend.  I said I would think about it.  At swim practices, while we were doing our abdominal exercises, I asked everyone what I should do.  Michael Brown said that I might as well go for it.  I thought the world of Michale Brown so I figured I would follow his dating advice.

That night, I called the saxophone player back and said that yes, I would go out with him.  The next week, whenever we went out for lunch, we held hands.  At the park, sometimes he would put his arm around me.  I tried not to lean over in the opposite direction.  Every once in awhile, he would put his face full of braces close to my face full full of braces and then I couldn't help it.  I would look the other way. 

At night after swim practice, we would talk on the phone. A lot of the time, I would do my homework at the same time.  I was an excellent student. The saxophone player always called me "hon." At the end of our phone calls, he would say, "Bye, I love you."

Sometimes I would say I love you too, and sometimes I wouldn't.  At swim practice, while we were doing our abdominal exercises, when people asked me how it was going with my saxophone player, I would get all red and wish that it was time to jump in the water. 

One day we had walked home to my house for lunch. All the way there, the saxophone player kept leaning over towards my face and I kept lurching away.  His breath didn't smell that great and I felt certain that our two sets of braces would end in catastrophe.  If Michael Brown or Alex Crampton had braces and they'd wanted to kiss me, maybe it would have been different.  We'll never know.

When we got to my house,  my mother was giving a piano lesson.  There were fresh white buns on the counter.  The saxophone player put her arm around me and led me in front of the radiator, which was right next to the counter with the buns.  The saxophone player had a better strategy this time.  With both hands around my waist we stood before each other face to face.  I knew he was going to lean over soon and I knew that lurching away would have been rude and awkward.  Luckily, I had another strategy.  I had the buns.  I grabbed a fluffly white gluten-filled bun and I shoved it in the saxophone player's face. 

He seemed a little taken aback.  We sat down at the table and had lunch.

Eventually, in the backyard, I gave in and we made out briefly.  Our braces didn't get stuck and it  could have been way worse.  Still, throughout the whole 45 seconds of it, I kind of wished it was over. 

I broke up with the saxophone player over the phone the night before my birthday.  In total, our relationship lasted three weeks.  For my birthday, he'd bought me a big expensive basket of vanilla scented soaps and body sprays from the body shop. He gave it to me in band class even though we were broken up.  I thought that was nice of him even though fancy soaps usually give me rashes.

I sprayed the body spray on my neck.  At swim practice during abdominal exercises, Michael Brown made fun of the smell. 

Mike Brown, Perth Ontario's Olympic Star

Since the saxophone player, I have devised something called the KISS TEST.  The KISS TEST means you kiss me and afterwards, if I want to kiss you again, then you pass.  If I don't want to kiss you again, then you fail. Usually once you fail, you cannot take the test again.  Over the years, some people have been allowed to take the kiss test again, and pretty much every time, they kept failing.  It is a very accurate test.  I'm proud of myself for inventing it. 

Although perhaps without our braces, the saxophone player and I would have done better.  We'll never know, just like we'll never know if Michael Brown and Alex Crampton would have passed my kiss test. 

In any case, it doesn't matter anymore, since according to Facebook, Michael Brown, and Alex Crampton and the Saxophone Player are all happily kissing.  I am happily kissing too.  The Boatman passed the Kiss Test with Flying Colours. 

 The Boatman, Kiss Test Winner, 2011-2015

This confirms my belief that there is a successful kiss test out there for everyone.  Thank goodness.
Success in Kissing is available to all who seek it.  Those with braces and those without.  Be persistent, be patient, and in case of catastrophe, be sure to have some buns within reach. 

The End.
Happy Birthday to My Mother and the Saxophone Player.
Here is our friend Gluten. Always there when we need him. Or her. Or them.

Gluten, Always there for us despite everything.

Created by the Boatman at verysatisfied.com.

Follow the Boatman on tumblr.

 

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

 

Haircuts, Mothers, Kindergarten Friends

I Fired My Psychologist

Why I am like Jane Fonda

 

Ecstatic Adventures of the Exuberant Bodhisattva

 

 

Keira Knightley's High Vagina

My friend “Cassandra”was lying topless on a beach on one of those tropical, paradise kind of islands somewhere in the Caribbean.  Although Cassandra looks excellent topless, she was having horrible suicidal, I-hate-myself-and-want-to-die thoughts.  Million-dollar luxury sailing yachts were drifting past her.  On each yacht there was a 22-year-old topless woman whose boyfriend had bought her the yacht.  Each 22-year-old woman looked excellent topless.  They looked excellent, and they owned a yacht and they got to keep it.

Cassandra was thirty and she didn’t have a yacht that she got to keep.  She started to cry because she felt like a failure.   Big, sad, suicidal tears.

“I will never ever be a twenty-two year old with a yacht,” she wailed.  “Ever.”  It was true.  She was right.  It would never happen. There was nothing she could do.  

“I will never ever be a twenty-two year old with a yacht.”

At first glance, this seems like the sorriest excuse for a human tragedy in the whole world.  Probably it is, but I can relate.  I have been on that beach, topless and sad.  I have spent hours, if not days, staring at topless women on yachts.  I was staring at the women and the yachts last night at 11 P.M.

The Boatman and I had just finished watching a movie called “A Dangerous Method.”  It was about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung in their early days.  One of Carl Jung’s first patients was a woman named Sabina, played by Keira Knightley.  Keira Knightley put on a brilliant performance.  When she had her shirt on, and when she didn’t. 

After the movie was finished the Boatman and I googled Kiera Knightley to see what other movies she had been in.  There were dozens.  Atonement, Pride and Prejudice, Bend it Like Beckham, Never Let Me Go.  All this was fine with me until I saw Kiera Knightley’s birthdate:  March 26, 1985.  1985.  Same year I was born.  Kiera Knightley was 27 years old and already she had been in more movies than I will ever be in in my whole life.  What a useful thing to think about. Then I did something even more useful.  I looked up Kiera Knightley’s height and weight.  Kiera Knightley is 5 foot 7 and 100-110 pounds.  I am five foot eight and I haven’t been 100 or 110 pounds since I was in grade five.

Alas. 

No being a movie star for me.

No 100 or 110 pounds for me. 

Plus Kiera Knightley does charity work and I do not.

Keira Knightley. So thin and so talented and so charitable.

I grumpily went on Facebook where I saw I’d received a message from a lovely friend of mine who I hadn’t heard from in a long time.  Like me and Keira Knightley, she was born in 1985.  At just 26 years old, my friend has a great job in an awesome city and she just bought a new condo by herself, and she’s practicing part of the third series of Ashtanga Yoga.  I looked up her last posture.  Urdhva Kukkutasana C.  It’s like the 11^th posture of third series. 
 

Urdhva Kukkutasana C, the 11th posture of Ashtanga Yoga's third impossible series. The Yoga Sutras recommend that we cultivate friendliness towards this man's success. This man's and my friend's and all the Third Series People's.

I have never been able to do more than four postures of third series for much more than four weeks.  After four weeks, my pelvis starts to disjoint and complain.  But my friend could do it.  She could rock it.  And her pelvis never complained.  I was jealous of her pelvis.  I am still jealous. My friend has had to deal with anorexia for over a decade, and still, I am jealous of her and her job and her pelvis and her yoga postures.

Last night with tears in my eyes, I announced to the Boatman that I felt upset and unworthy because Kiera Knightley had been in way more movies than me, and my anorexic friend had a better pelvis.

He turned off the television  for two seconds.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.  Then he turned the television back on.

I think that he felt about the same way Cassandra’s husband felt while she was mourning her twenty-two year old yachtless topless self.  Moderately to severely disgusted. 

Yoga Sutra 1.33 recommends that we cultivate friendliness towards success.  This is wonderful advice, but last night I was pouty and miserable instead.  I made the Boatman turn the TV off again.  I waited for him to feel sorry for me.   He didn’t. 

I sat on the couch and I pressed the flesh around my navel together.  The space between the flesh made a crease and the crease looked like a High Vagina.  Although I am not one of those gluten free people, and sometimes I even eat corn chips, I do not have a Big Fat Wheat Belly.  There is hardly any flesh around my navel. 

And yet, I am capable of making a High Vagina. 

As I stared at my High Vagina, I realized that my goals were strange and perverse and dumb.  Wanting to be Keira Knightley or my anorexic friend with the awesome pelvis or a topless twenty-two year old on a yacht was dumb.  As dumb as aspiring to eradicate your High Vagina.

The whole world has a High Vagina.  Even the gluten-free people.  Even Kiera Knightley.

Keira Knightley has a High Vagina, and it is almost as ugly as mine.

The End.
 

My High Vagina. Thanks to the Boatman for the photo.

The Keira Knightley Charitable Foundation encourages you to please cultivate Friendliness towards:
 

My High Vagina (see above), 

My Very first Self-help e-book, I Let Go,

My Twitter Account:  @mypelvicfloor.

And my Facebook Fan Page:  Ecstatic Adventures

Forever on the Lips

Peanut Butter, Pubic Hair

Not That Kind of Girl