I read "Choose Yourself," by James Altucher and my oxytocin levels increased immediately.

I have owned James Altucher’s book “Choose Yourself,” for one week, and already it is covered in avocado stains.

Choose Yourself, by James Altucher

Choose Yourself, by James Altucher

James Altucher and I have tons in common.  We both recognize the immense value of taking a shit.  The benefits are physical, emotional, spiritual, physical, creative and financial.
If your bowels don’t function well enough to take a smooth and thorough dump, life is going to be more difficult than it has to be.

Also, James and I both have very curly hair that is usually messy.

Here is a picture of me reading “Choose Yourself.” You can’t see the avocado stains.  They are on the inside.  I am reading the chapter, “How to release the God Hormone.” It is based on James’ blogpost 10 unusual ways to release oxytocin into your life. At first I thought that oxytocin was the same as oxycontin, but I guess it is a little different.  Oxycontin is a narcotic while oxytocin  is this natural thing that your body releases when you hump your lover’s leg, or like someone’s post on Facebook, or eat a bunch of eggs and bananas and peppers mixed together.  The words are similar.  Just like the words vague, vagina, and vagus are similar.  James Altucher points this out in his oxytocin chapter and it made me laugh and release oxytocin. James says that when your vagus nerve is inflamed, you’ll feel pissed off and stressed out.  When it feels good, the whole world will seem orgasmic. Knock yourself out, everyone.

PROCRASTINATION

I just took a break from writing this post to hump the Boatman’s leg.  He was lying on the couch reading a book about philosophy.  I interrupted him and we had sex and now my vagina and vagus nerve feel spectacular. The feelings are not vague.

In his chapter, “The Seven Habits of Highly Mediocre People”originating from this post, James recommends Procrastination.  I am grateful for this and I find it convenient.

 “Choose Yourself,” has the tagline, “Be Happy, Make Millions, Live the Dream.”  I’m pretty sure that for James, what is most important is being happy.  On a couple of occasions in his life, James has had millions of dollars.  But he wasn’t happy and he wasn’t living the dream.  He was barely sleeping, his body was a wreck, and he didn’t have any friends.  In 2002, he lost fifteen million dollars in fifteen weeks.  He had a similar crash in 2008.

 

Each time, what got James back on his feet is something he calls the Daily Practice.   Essentially, it means taking care of yourself physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

What’s the use of millions of dollars if  you hate yourself and you have no friends and you can’t take a comfortable shit every morning?

The Daily Practice can be overwhelming if you haven’t pooped or had sex in a long time, and you’re tired and you hate your job and your brain feels stale and dead inside.  The good news is  James says that you don’t need to fix everything all at once.  Remember, we are only becoming highly effective, mediocre people.  No sweat.  We can all do this.

I was listening to an interview with James on  mygreenlight.com, and James says that if you are looking to begin somewhere, start by getting enough sleep and then recognizing the abundance that is already in your life.  For instance, James says, if you’re stuck in traffic, instead of being pissed off about wasting time, focus on the abundance of cars.  So many cars, so much human development.  So much prosperity.  Or at least a lot of car payments. 

From about January to the end of May, I’ve been pretty irritated about my life.  I’d been waking up at 4 or 4:30 a.m., cranking myself through a vigorous and somewhat neurotic yoga practice and then hoofing it to work where I nag at small children to push in their chairs and wash their dirty hands in French.  Every week, I was missing more than a full night of sleep, about two hours every night.  I became volatile, hysterical. I thought I would kill the children I worked with. My body developed these weird neurological twitches.  Throughout the day, my shoulders would shrug involuntarily. My esophagus would contract as though I were going to puke. Most mornings before leaving for work I would throw a hysterical fit about some tragic issue like how I didn’t have time to take a shit, my pants were dirty, the new kid was a total brat, and my boss would probably make me stay late. 

The miracle of yoga had never been less abundant.

Fortunately, about a month ago, my left knee swelled up on my way to work. 

Here’s my knee, after the physiotherapist taped it up and it looked like a scrotum.



My Scrotum Knee. My pants pulled down

Now I sleep in until about 5:30.  I do half as many yoga poses.  I am two hundred times less bitchy.

My knee is healing really well.  It doesn’t look like a scrotum anymore.

And my shoulder and esophagus twitch significantly less.

I have energy to do more of the Daily Practice.  I read. I write down ideas, even the stupid ones, not every day, but when I think of it, and don’t feel too self-conscious.  I try not to be so pissed off about everything.  That was hard when I was really tired.  Now I am not as tired and so it is easier.

It is also easier to see the abundance.  Before I would look at my work day and see eight and a half hours to kill and waste, plus the commute. 

Being grateful for what I had seemed impossible.  I could barely say thank you to the busdriver.  He was driving me somewhere I didn’t want to go.  When I thought of saying thank you, I’d get a lump in my throat and feel nauseous and ashamed. 

I’ve been forcing myself to say thank you to the bus driver, every day.  As I get less tired, I feel more sincere. 

Although I’m not making millions of dollars, or living the dream exactly, I am trying to be as happy I can be, right now.  Sometimes I feel bitter and disappointed that I don’t have as much time to write and do yoga as I want.  But at least I have some time.  More than most people. 

Also, there is some abundance in my job.  I get to walk all the time.  This helps me to not be constipated or fat.  The school has really big windows and I can always see the sky.  Plus the children are full of abundance. They are full of youth and snot and sometimes diarrhea.  And if you listen, they say many interesting things.

Last week, a five-year-old asked me if I had boobies.  An hour later, a two-year-old looked at me from across the sandbox and said, “Erica, you don’t have any nipples.”

James Altucher says that most people should quit their jobs.  Probably he is right.  Someday I will quit my job.  Or maybe I will get fired for my radical views on potty training. That is my dream. To get fired because of the potty training. But while I am waiting, I'm going to think about my nipples and laugh.

The End.

Thank you, James. You’ve done wonders for my outlook.  And you don’t need to pay me back for the book, because my life is already full of abundance.

Watch James Altucher explain Choosing Yourself, in 13 minutes:

 

Follow James Altucher on Twitter: @jaltucher

Check out James's Blog www.jamesaltucher.com

Me and my vagus nerve: @mypelvicfloor

Ecstasy, Exuberance, Oxytocin and Abundance on Facebook

I Let Go, self-help book by Erica J. Schmidt 

What the fuck should I do with my life, Part One
Not Separate From All That Is
Prozac Made Me a Better Person

The Sperm Cleanse

On Monday, my uterus or ovaries or some part of my reproductive system near my vagina was about to produce a new follicle.  Loads of creativity was about to erupt into my existence.  You can tell that this happened from the prolific, eloquent and delightful posts that have erupted onto my blog.  My last post was two weeks ago. The yogis say that men should save their seeds and avoid ejaculating regularly so that their bodies are not depleted from the arduous task of making new sperm.  My teacher Darby's son Shankara used to go on and on about this in teacher training.  There were only three men in our class and Shankara blamed this on the fact that all the other dudes were busy jerking off, blowing their loads.  After their strenuous masturbation sessions, they'd have no choice but to pass out on the couch in a half-assed attempt to regenerate their sperm.  The yogis say that instead of ejaculating out their dicks, men should apply various techniques such as squeezing their anuses and or moula bandhas.  Then the sperms will stay within them and the life force usually released in ejaculation can be redirected to heal organs or travel up the spine or something else that is similarly interesting.  Fluid Free Ejaculation.  I'm just wondering if perhaps the process of making new sperm could be healthy and therapeutic and inspirational.  Just as in exercise you break down muscles so that you can build newer, stronger and more, limber ones, it might be good to expel old stagnant sperm and then come up with something better.

Pattabhi Jois, Johanne Darby and Shankara Darby, inside his mother the day before he was born.



Today, Shankara likes to save his seed. And we know that he came from a good seed.

If a sperm is ever going to enter my uterus, I want it to be brand new and excited to be alive.  All this is very scientific. Probably sperms die anyways and the balls or whatever organ is involved makes new ones.  But is this as useful as a Sperm Cleanse?

In her awesome Ted Talk, "Loving Your Lady Parts as a Path to Success," Alisa Vitti talks about  the different phases of your menstrual cycle and how you can adjust and maximize your life according to the flow.  I wonder if there is a similar option for men.The vegan life coach used to say that he had to cum two times a day.  Less than that, I can't remember what happened.  More than that he felt drained and drowsy.  Just before we stopped dating he was figuring out the dry ejaculation thing.  He was very proud of himself.  Moula bandha and whatnot up his spine, and he felt SO GOOD.

At the time, most of the orgasms of my life were internalized and/or non-existent.  The vegan life coach never inspired either kinds of orgasm.  Not even that time I got drunk on the Easter weekend and went to his house and got more wine.  I lay face down blindfolded on his bed, and I felt something cold and plastic enter inside of me.  Whatever it was made a faint flute sound.  The tune was unrecognizable.  Then I recognized what the object inside of me was.  A recorder.  I wondered if the recorder had been inside anyone else.  In any case, it didn't do it for me.

Recorder teachers have terrible karma in this life time.  For their next life time, I imagine that things will be better.

Boy plays blue recorder

That was the End.  Approximately.

When I was a little girl, I played the recorder, and also the trombone.  I practiced very diligently.

This post was supposed to be about sperm, but the vagina got the last word.  The vagina, and then the recorders.

Happy Father's Day.

This Day has lots to do with Sperm, if you really think about it, or even if you think about it even just a little bit.

Sperms, Barbecues, and Mowing the Lawn.

The End, Precisely

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

Menstrual Blood, Peanut Butter
The Benefits of an Ashtanga Yoga Practice, Part Two
The Benefits of a Vegan Life Coach

 

Menstrual Blood, Peanut Butter

Every time your vagina bleeds, it means that you won’t become a mother.  My mother hated getting her period.   I remember the sobbing, the wailing, and the devastated voice.  “I’m getting my period,” she'd call out through tears. 

At least once, I saw a toilet full of blood.

It looked a little bit like this.

What the Blood Looked Like

I was around four years old when I saw the toilet full of blood for the first time. The people who wrote the Vagina Monologues complained that they couldn’t find any positive images related to menstruation.  How is this possible?  Look at the beautiful blood in this toilet.  It is hardly original.

Usually in life, your dreams don’t come true.  When I was a little girl, I dreamed of becoming an excellent brain surgeon, or president of the United States, or a nun.  None of these things have happened.   Maybe it is not too late, but probably it is.  That’s okay.  Other dreams have come true. 

Or at least one did.

A couple of months ago, I had the dream of pouring all of the internal lining of my uterus and whatever else comes out of my vagina into a jar throughout an entire menstrual cycle.  Then I would have all of the blood in one place.  I could look at it, keep it in my fridge, maybe water the plants with it, or use it for arts and crafts. 

Friends, it wasn’t easy, but I persevered.  Everywhere I went, I toted along my peanut butter jar.  If you aspire to do this yourself, I recommend opening the jar before you pull out the diva cup.  Opening the jar with a full diva cup can be a little precarious.  Good thing I have such excellent dexterity. Be sure to firmly secure the jar’s lid in place.  One evening, I took the jar out of the fridge where I kept it at night and showed it to the Boatman.  “Look at all my blood so far,”I said, holding out my right hand.

He was rightly mesmerized. 

Then he said, “Babe. Is that blood on your hand?”

Oops.

After five to seven days, the blood stopped flowing and the jar was as full as it ever would be.  For one and a half weeks, it sat on this refrigerator shelf next to the jam and the peanut butter and the ketchup and the vegannaise.   Beside the ketchup, there are jars of salsa and pickled turnips. Somewhere around there, you will also see a banana.  One and a half bananas.



My jar of blood, amongst other jars of other things

I hate veganaise and regular mayonnaise.  I also hate cleaning my fridge.       

Now it is Mother’s Day and blood is flowing from my vagina once again.  The peanut butter menstrual blood jar has long ago been carried away by a recycling truck. 

These photos are the only proof it ever existed. Behold the red, and see how it makes you feel.   
 

Thank you to the Boatman for supporting me in my dreams and taking such revolutionary pictures. 

Thank you to my mother for supporting me in my dreams and giving up menstruation at least nine months in my honour.

Happy Mother’s Day to my mother and everyone’s.

The End.



Menstrual Blood, Peanut Butter
Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
 
Exalted
The Boatman and the Maxi Pad
The Earth Will Shake Us Off Like Fleas

 

Bumster

One of the things that Montessori children take off the shelves is called “Boxes and Bottles.”  They take a container off of the shelf and inside the container, there are other containers called boxes and bottles, that the children must learn how to open and close.  Some of the containers used to hold perfume.  Others used to hold lip gloss, or the oil you put on your skin after ripping off your pubic hair with wax. 
 
Now all of the containers are empty.  The children must figure out how to remove the lids. And how to put the lids back on.  Sometimes the lids fall down onto the floor and it is somewhat exciting.  Sometimes they drop them onto the floor on purpose, but they pretend that it was an accident.
 
One of the containers in “Boxes and Bottles” is tiny, ceramic, and oval-shaped.  Probably it used to hold earrings, or some other jewelery.  On one side, there is a hinge.  When you open it, there are two ovals side by side, and it looks like a bum.  It took me several weeks to figure this out.  The children figured it out in about thirty seconds.


A Bonobo Bum.  Not exactly like Bumster, but worth looking at. It's like a flower bum.  The children would definitely like it. 

 “Bumster,” Leila declared, christening the little jewelry box as she set it on the table.  Bumster the container, the jewelry box.   Immediately, Bumster became the hero of the classroom.   That’s Bumster’s favourite book.  His favourite table.  His favourite piece of chalk.  When Jacob doesn’t push in his chair, or Sarah has stinky farts, Bumster must be called.

The children call Bumster by picking up little puzzle map pieces, pieces of Africa, and holding them up to their ears.

“Hello, Bumster,”  they say.  “Calling Bumster.  Alison pooped her pants.”  Or she picked her nose.  Alison is sitting in front of the puzzle of Africa.  She is giggling uncontrollably.  Her underwear is clean.  No poop. No toot.

We don’t say fart at Montessori School.  It’s a bad, inappropriate word.

No fart.

One morning, Jacob wasn’t being careful with his boxes and his bottles and Bumster crashed onto the floor.

“Oh my gosh,” gasped Leila.  “Is Bumster okay?”

Jacob bent over and looked.  It seemed as though Bumster had survived unscathed.

“He’s okay,” said Jacob.

“Well, we have to be careful with Bumster,” exclaimed Leila. “We don’t want him to get damaged. 

Bumster has a favourite book. It’s an illustrated French dictionary for children, with pictures of apples and forks and monkeys.  Everything the children want to know how to say. 

There is a certain reverence that takes place amongst the children when someone is working with “Boxes and Bottles.”  Bumster’s in the house.  Don’t touch that, it’s Bumster’s.  Don’t do that.  Bumster hates that.  Shh, Bumster’s here.

Then one afternoon, Bumster falls again.  Leila is busy, sewing a button on a square piece of cloth, or polishing a dog made out of brass.  One of Bumster’s oval’s has cracked. Damaged, very badly.  Leila doesn’t notice, and Jacob doesn’t care. 

“Oh no,” exclaims the Montessori directress, holding Bumster’s two ovals in the palms of her hands.   In one palm, Bumster’s oval is intact.  In the other, the oval is shattered.  My co-worker waits, palms open, in the middle of the room.  I watch carefully.

We are both waiting for grief. And a commemorative ceremony.  For Bumster.  None of the children look up from their work. Then Kate looks up from the wooden beads she is stringing on a thick piece of thread.

“Oh,” she says.  “It’s Bum Skirt.” 

My co-worker carries Bumster/Bum Skirt and places him in the garbage, full of paper towel that has dried the children’s washed hands.   They wash their hands at an unimaginable frequency.  Until their knuckles turn red and break open.  Bumster rests amongst the towels that dry these raw, red hands. 

Bumster or Bum Skirt.

No one knows anymore.

The End.

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

What the fuck should I do with my life, Part Two
Poopy Mango Baby Wipes and the First Day of Christmas
Locks and Keys
 

Potty Party

This afternoon, an eighteen-month old said "Potty" and I put her on the toilet and she took a shit.  It was one of the most satisfying things that I have done in a long time.

I have strong feelings about potty training.  It seems absurd to me that all over the world, babies are getting by without diapers and by the time they are a year old they are able to walk around and shit and poop, for the most part in appropriate places at the appropriate times. Apparently, during the first few months of life, infants naturally make a noise that alerts their mothers when they have to go.  If no one responds to this noise, they’ll stop making it and spend the next year or so of their lives filling their diapers full of piss and shit and sitting in it until someone notices and cleans them up. 

In North America, when children are around two years old, we decide that maybe they might enjoy the dignity and cleanliness of eliminating their excretions somewhere other than in their own pants.  The problem with this is that now they are two years old.  I have only been working with two-year-olds for a couple of months, but I have noticed that most of the time when I ask them if they would like to please do something, one of two things happens.

Either they burst into tears, or they say, “no,” at varying decibel levels. Two-year-olds are difficult people going through a traumatic stage of life.  Suddenly they are more aware of what they want, but due to language barriers or more often unrealistic expectations, they frequently won’t get it.  On top of this, they remain burdened by blocks they don’t want to put away, crayons they don’t want to share and now, piles of shit and piss that after a two-year urinary and scatological free-for-all, they are no longer allowed to keep sheltered in diapers snug next to their ass cheeks.  Modern potty training tactics include waiting for the child to show “interest” and “readiness” in the potty before suggesting a regular elimination routine or heaven forbid, removing diapers.  With the limited attention span and boundless angst that I’ve seen in most two-year-olds, I really don’t think that this is a very timely, logical or promising way of going about things.

Also paradoxical to me is that some children are able to create full-fledged sentences involving subjects, actions and complements before they are introduced to the purpose of the toilet and the implications of their colons and bladders.  Children wearing diapers today know the difference between an octopus and a shark, a panda bear and a koala bear.  Sometimes they make elaborate statements such as, “the pineapple is too sour.” 

I say, “Go take a shit on the toilet, and then we can talk about pineapples. And octopi.  With joy.”

I realize that keeping track of when an infant has to go and sticking it in a feces-and-urine- friendly receptacle seems strenuous and time-consuming, but isn’t that kind of what you sign up for when you have a kid?  I mean, the kid has already barreled through your love one’s or your own vagina.  Compared to this, I feel like the inconvenience and occasional mess that occurs when your baby needs to go are pretty minor.   Plus you’ll be done with diapers and most accidents a year and a half earlier than the average parent which will mean a sure savings in both time and money.

Obviously nobody will listen to me since I’ve never given birth, or raised a child, and I’ve barely worked with toddlers for a total of two months.  But I’m ready to devote my life to this.  I talk about it to everyone I meet.

“How was your day?” the nice lady at the grocery says. 

“Oh you know, not bad.  The children are wearing me out."

“Oh, you work at a school?”

“Yes.  With toddlers.  Did you know…”  I ask total strangers when they toilet trained their children.  I even brought it up with the guy who sold me my first mutual fund.  These conversations fill me with delight. 

“Why do you think you love it so much?” asked the Boatman.  He was standing above our toilet taking a piss. I didn’t hesitate with my answer.

“I’ve never been so certain about anything in my whole life.” 

“You’re gonna change the world, babe,” said the Boatman.  “One poop at a time.”  He said it and I’m ready.  Let’s make a new generation of babies who are toilet trained before they’re one and a half.  It makes so much sense for everyone involved.  And I haven’t even mentioned the mountains of diapers that won’t end up in landfills.  Or the gallons of bleachy water that the well-meaning eco-concious cloth-diaper parents won’t be using for laundry.  Or the little baby chakras.  I’m gonna leave the chakras out of this one.  No one wants to hear about little baby chakras. 

But the point is, Pampers and Huggies can kiss my ass.

We need a change, folks. Let’s make it.

And when it’s all over, we can have Potty Party.  

The Potty Party Song:

This is the Potty Party Song, by splashnboots, who I happen to be related to.  The Boatman and I have designated it as "Our Song." We recently sang it at a Karaoeke Party. Likely because both of us were toilet trained after the age of two, we were a bit weak on the verses which, as you will hear, are somewhat complex.  That said, we rocked the chorus.  I look forward to our next karaoeke opportunity.

This post is all over, but here's some valuable information on elimination communication, the common term describing the process of putting your baby on the potty:
EC simplified by an expert Mom, blogger, and author Andrea Olson
Some people, like Ingrid Bauer, a mother and blogger from B.C. call it Natural Infant Hygiene:  Check out her site at gentleparents.com.
And of course we have our friends at diaperfreebaby.org.
Hope your potty party's a blast. Feel free to tell me all about it.

Toilet Tales, a book I regret not writing.

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

Locks and Keys
What the fuck should I do with my life, Part Two
Three Things to Make the World a Better Place

Sacred Fire

Vile shrieks emerged from the kitchen. Incomprehensible animal sounds of deep guttural rage.  Everyone seated in my grandmother’s sun room tensed up.  What was that noise?

My mother and her stepfather were fighting about the Boxing Day salmon.  Apparently Howard had taken it out of the oven and messed with the tin foil as he was inspecting its readiness.  In the process, he had destroyed the salmon’s meticulous aesthetic presentation, which had caused my mother exceeding distress.

In the sun room we were playing a game called “Questions,” a conversation starter for dinner parties and other awkward situations.  My Grandma had just read the question, “Would you rather be remembered for your accomplishments or for your character?”

The explosive bellows from the kitchen died down and my mother came to join us in the sun room, a little red in the face and tight in the shoulders.  She huffed and puffed ever so slightly.

 “What’s the question?” she asked.

 My grandmother repeated it.

 Being remembered for character is not always a good thing,” she said.   

 “I agree,” said Robbie, my boyfriend at the time.  I used to call him the Boatman because I met him on a boat. “I would like to be remembered by my accomplishments."  His statement caused some scandal in the sun room.  How shallow and superficial, some of the company was thinking.  But the Boatman already has excellent character and so it is natural that he would wish to aspire to something else.

“Well,” said my grandma.  “I can see that.  I hardly got anything done in my life.  In my next life, I’d like to accomplish more,”   Of course this led to great objection in the sun room.  And tears.  First my sister started, then my grandmother and my mother joined in.  Tears on this side of the family are contagious.   All this emotion inspired my mother to tell us all about her recent singing lessons.

“So I went to see this woman and she gave me all these scales and breathing lessons.  She said I didn’t breathe right so I did her exercises every day. I worked really hard.  Then one week, my soloist at the church had to go away so I didn’t have anyone to do the introit.  So I brought the introit to the singing lesson.  It was only a few bars long.  I’d practiced it a bit before, breathing deeply of course.  And at the lesson, I sang it for my teacher who didn’t smile once through the whole thing.  When I was done, she just sat there.  Finally she said, ‘Well, maybe in a couple of years, you’d be ready to perform it.’”

Now my mother was crying and soon the other women in the family would join in.  No one in the Boatman’s family cries at family dinner and so this is always an interesting experience for him.  My mother wasn’t finished her story.  She continued on a mile-a-minute.

“I just felt so humiliated.  I mean, what a thing for a teacher to say to a student.  For a four-bar introit at a church service in Perth Ontario! And she was charging like 75 bucks a lesson!”

My mother went on to say that she never went back to the teacher.  But the story still wasn’t over.  The next day one of her 12-year-old piano students came to her.   The elementary school talent show was the following day and she wanted to accompany herself singing “Knock, knock knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” by Bob Dylan.  

She went through the song once and it was horrendous.  My mother almost told her it was a lost cause, but then she remembered her traumatizing singing teacher and was determined to coach her student through the song.  She spent a whole hour labouring through the song with her student until she finally sounded good enough for the Stewart School Talent Show. By the end of the story, my mother was in tears again.

“You know, if you’ve got a song, you’ve gotta sing it.”

Now the salmon was ready and my mother returned to the kitchen.  More guttural animal rage and screaming.  This time, Howard was insisting on serving the salmon that had bones in it. The fury was astounding.  After serving everyone’s plate, my mother sat down at the table.  This time, she fumed and huffed and puffed, visibly and audibly.

At the end of the supper, my grandmother and sister had planned something delightful that was guaranteed to raise everyone’s spirits.  Bananas Flambé.

Banana’s flambé, or fried bananas is the stuff of legends in our family.  When my sister Taes was three years old, she went to visit my grandmother in her house in New Jersey.  One day, Grandma told Taes that they were going to a very special restaurant where they could have a very special dessert called Fried Bananas.  So three year old Taes was tremendously excited.  She rushed through her dinner in anxious anticipation of the upcoming dessert. The waitress came with the dessert menu and Taes placed her order.  But alas, the waitress returned with very bad news.  The bananas weren’t ripe enough.  Taes screamed and wailed and made a huge scene, somewhat comparable to the salmon rage.  Rather embarrassed, my grandmother dragged her out of the restaurant.  The next day, Taes called Grandma into the living room where she was watching Sesame Street.  As fate would have it, Big Bird was making Fried Bananas.  My grandmother wrote the recipe down, and our family has been enjoying the delicacy ever since. So on this tense and brawling Boxing Day evening, the whole family gathered around the stove to watch the process.  Taes poured the vodka onto the simmering bananas. 

“I think maybe you need a little more,” said Grandma.   So Taes poured a little more. “Okay, here it goes, said Grandma.  And she threw in the match.  Flames burst up from the frying pan up to the ceiling.  Grandma and Taes froze, eyes widened.

 “Oh wow,” I said.

 “Oh my God,” said my mother.

 “Throw a towel on it, Mary,” called Howard.  “Mary! Put a towel on it!” 

 “Put a lid on that please,” said the Boatman. 

 Nick, my brother-in-law caught the whole thing on camera.  (The movie is entirely delightful; however, for some reason youtube has banned it due to copyright issues. Something about the word flambé, or bananas. We're not sure...)

Probably it took us about forty seconds to find the lid.  In the end, combined with vanilla ice cream, the Bananas Flambé was one of the most delicious things I’ve ever tasted. 

The End.

Happier Salmon Days
Sister in Salmon on Salmon with Salmon

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

Poopy Mango Baby Wipes and the First Day of Christmas
Family Visits and Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Other Things that Happened in December

 

Poopy Mango Babywipes and the First Day of Christmas

Winter this year seems so long that I no longer remember whether or not Christmas happened.  And yet, how could I have forgotten?  Christmas this year was an epic event.  The Boatman and I and the Big Black Dog drove all the way to Ontario, and back. 
 
But first we had to have a fake Christmas Eve and Christmas with the Boatman’s family.  Fake Christmas Eve dinner was on the 21^st of December at the restaurant the Bicycle Thief.  Our handsome waiter sat me and the Boatman and his siblings down at a booth.  The waiter  looked familiar.  Apparently, so did I.
 
“I think I remember you from Montreal,” he said.
 
“Oh really,” I said.
 
“Yes, we went to a couple of the same parties.”

“Oh really,” I said again.  Being a pretty cheap drunk back in the day, all those parties were a blur of vodka-based drinks, inviting people to free private classes, some mouth-to-mouth contact, and extensive oversharing.  I had another look at our waiter and began to remember.  Dark, almost black hair.  Piecing light blue eyes.  Yes, I could remember.  His name was Pavel and I’d had a huge crush on him.  I think I’d tried to find him on Facebook and pined after his silhouetted profile for two and a half days before deciding that I had absolutely no chance. 

The Boatman and I ordered elaborately titled martinis.  We had over 3000 km of driving and 4 Christmas dinners ahead of us.  This was no time for restraint.  Pavel returned with our drinks.

“Now I remember the party we met at.  Mae West’s birthday.  You know Mae, from the BC crowd.  You did all these contact improv moves.”  (Mae West's name has been generously changed for her privacy)

“What’s contact improv?” asked the Boatman.  Until that moment, I’d forgotten, but now I recalled.  Since taking a first-year dance elective called “Body and the Imagination,” I’d been obsessed with contact improv and insisted that people join me in my passion at every drunken experience during my undergrad.  My move of choice involved getting some guy (or several) to hold me by the waist and lift me up as I jumped and reached for the ceiling, spreading my arms and legs like a kid making a snow angel.  When it came to selecting contact improv partners, I was relentless, uninhibited, and perhaps not all that discriminative either. 

“That sounds like fun,” said the Boatman. “People must have really liked you.”

“I guess,” I said.
 
With a little more digging, remnants of Mae West’s birth came to me.   I had just completed 108 sun salutations for a fundraiser at Darby’s yoga studio.  Before arriving at the party I’d consumed beer and a burrito with some friends.  After so many sun salutations, the beer had gone straight to my head.  Mae’s party had a Valley Girl theme, whatever that means.  I had no costume, but tried to compensate with my exuberance and contact improv moves. 

At the Bicycle Thief, Pavel came back and asked how our martinis were. The Boatman and I agreed that the martinis were excellent.  Pavel was a very attentive waiter.  Attentive and talkative.

“So what brought you to Halifax?” he asked.
 
“This guy right here,” I said, pointing to the Boatman.

“Oh really? Me too. I’m here for a girl.  And how long have you been together?” he asked, as though he was expecting me to answer not very long.

Just over a year and a half,” I said, relieved my answer was not more pathetic. 

“Oh wow.”  He seemed impressed. 

The Boatman’s parents arrived and the Boatman’s mother ordered a bottle of white wine for she and I to share.  Everyone ordered delicious and sophisticated dishes.  Pavel had something to say about each and every one of them.  I realized that besides moving to Halifax for a love interest, we didn’t have very much in common.   My ability to comment elaborately on any sort of menu item is extremely limited. I told the Boatman that now I remembered making out with three people at that party.  The first was a nineteen-year-old girl.  At the time, I'd been twenty-four.  We were taking a pee break from the contact improv.  Girls like to pee together.  The girl was pretty and French, and her name was Valérie.  My mother’s name is Valerie too, but Valerie in English. 

While she was washing her hands, Valérie told me that she was bisexual.  I must have already peed and washed my hands. 

“Well, that’s very interesting,” I said. I can’t remember if we were speaking French or English.  Probably English.  When I’m drunk, I like to talk really fast and this is much easier in English.  “Would you like to kiss me?” I asked.  We embraced and made out for a good ten seconds.  It was fun.  “Wow,” I said.  “I’ve never done that before.”
 
“I don’t believe you,” she said.  But it was the truth.
 
We left the bathroom and I followed her around for a little while to see if she wanted to cuddle, but she seemed busy with her nineteen-year old friends.  Oh well. You have to try these things out when you’re young.  I left Valérie and wandered around the party looking for some other excitement.
 
Some guy was leaving and so I kissed him good-bye.
 
Then I saw that Pavel and his friend were leaving. 

“Oh you’re leaving,” I exclaimed. 

“Yah, we’ve gotta go,” said Pavel.
 
“Can we make out first?” I asked.  Only Pavel’s friend said yes.  So I made out with Pavel’s friend in front of Pavel and then they both left.
 
That night I slept over at the party on the couch alone. I think the best way for me to conclude this story is with the pictures of me and the Big Black Dog naked in the shower.  It was the night after our fake Christmas Day with the Boatman’s family, and before we would leave to drive to Ontario in the morning. All day all I could think was, “There’s not going to be time.”  On Fake Christmas morning, I unwrapped more presents than I’d seen since I believed in Santa Claus, and worried about the hundreds of things we had to do before leaving at the asscrack of dawn the next morning.   One of them was washing the Big Black Dog and his poopy anus. The week before, he’d alternated diarrhea with constipation and now he smelled terrible.  The 18-hour drive would have been torture.  At ten o’clock that night I tried spraying him with some no-rinse pet shampoo concoction.  I wiped his anus with baby wipes. 

The Boatman walked into the bedroom and said, “it smells like poopy mango baby wipes.”  My efforts hadn’t worked.  There wasn’t any time, but I dragged him into the shower anyways and now you can see us both naked. 

The End.

Eliot takes bath before his long journey.

Eliot wants out.

Life is frustrating and unfair.

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

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