I fired my psychologist and wrote this post to save you 320 bucks and provide you with almost as many thrills as a Stephen King novel

Maybe it's good when your psychologist pisses you off. Probably a lot of psychologists would say that it is excellent. I am firing my psychologist anyways.

Psychologists are expensive. Most of them are around 150 or 160 bucks a pop. And that's for fifty minutes. Not even a whole hour. They use the last 10 minutes of your session to absorb your angst and take notes.

The love of my life from elementary school is a psychologist now. His name is Alex Crampton. My grade one teacher Mrs. Vanden Bosch said that I was a gifted child, and so after grade one, I got to be in Alex Crampton's grade three class. At the end of the year, the school put on an underwater ocean musical. Our grade three class got to be the starfish. Me and Alex got to say the opening starfish line together. I was thrilled.

"They sparkle and shimmer oh so bright. The starfish is really quite the sight."

Our costumes were big clunky stars made out of bristol board. Mine was yellow and covered with sequins and glitter. At the time, Alex had a big black eye from getting hit in the face with a soccer ball. I thought he looked very cute.

We nailed our lines together. Then all of the grade threes did a little song and dance about starfish. "Star light and star bright, We make such a pretty sight."

Mostly the dance was extending our arms at different angles and wiggling our fingers. The wiggling fingers were supposed to make everyone think of shimmering starfish. Starfish aren't very cuddly. I don't think that Alex and I ever got to touch each other. I would have remembered that perfectly.

In grade eight, I remember writing a story on a computer in the home ec room. It was about a character named Martha. Martha might have been a hippopotamus. I'm pretty sure she wasn't a human.

The story began with,

"A very long time ago, perhaps last Wednesday...."

Perhaps last Wednesday, Martha the hippopotamus or whatever animal she was went for a walk in the forest or did her laundry or some other mundane thing. Alex Crampton read the first paragraph and said,

"Wow, you're such a good writer. I never met another writer like you. You're the best writer I know. Except for Stephen King."

My heart glowed beneath my chest, and then it melted. My cheeks got all red. When I was in grade eight, I used to blow dry my long, thick curly hair. Then I brushed it until it grew wavy and enormous and as thick and coarse as a horse's mane. Underneath my overalls, I wore homemade tie-dyed t-shirts. I wanted the overalls to conceal my nipples. I refused to wear a bra because I was too flat-chested and I thought that people would make fun of me if they saw me wearing a bra when I didn't need one. As far as making it or making out with Alex Crampton, I didn't stand a chance.

I think this might be grade seven. Obviously I also played the violin.

Now Alex Crampton has a beautiful baby and fiancee and a PhD.

I limit my Facebook stalking to about once a year.

When I found out that Alex had his PhD in psychology, I was surprised and somewhat jealous. Alex never seemed to like school that much. He was busy with swimming and girls. Meanwhile, I was a mega-nerd. At grade eight graduation, we all made silhouettes of our heads and wrote down what we wanted to do when we grew up. I wrote that I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher with my PhD.

Now I am essentially a kindergarten teacher's assistant with no PhD.

I throw tantrums on my way to work.

At work, I spend hours with bottles of lysol, spraying tables and blocks so that the children won't get diarrhea. They get diarrhea anyways.

I have also been to way more psychologists than Alex Crampton. It takes a lot of lysol spraying to pay for each session.

I'm sure that Alex Crampton is worth your money.

While Alex Crampton was getting his PhD, I was puking in my mouth. Now I'm puking in my head. My most recent psychologist kindly informed me of this during our last session.

At our first appointment I mourned, "I'm a gifted child, but I'm not doing gifted things." He told me that the hallmark of happy people is that they're in touch with their own values and they chase after these values just like my Big Black Dog chases the raccoon he wants to murder.

For our next session, I had written down all my values. Yoga, the Boatman, my dog, writing. External affirmation, physical health. I turned on my Verbal Machine Gun and rattled off the list to my psychologist, whining and blabbering away between every point. The job with the lysol gets in the way of everything. I will never have enough money. Nothing you do can ever make you happy. I ended the long list of sorrows and grievances and money and lysol with "I really wish my mother had never had me. I am angry at my mother for having me."

"You're ruminating," said the psychologist. "Do you ruminate a lot?"

"Yes," I said. And wasn't it interesting? I used to puke in my mouth, and now there's puke in my head. And I call out for my mother during sex and having an orgasm is very difficult. "I'm a writer," I said. "I talk a lot."

"When you talk that fast, I shut off," said my psychologist. I told him that I thought you were supposed to talk a lot in therapy. He said that therapy wasn't just that. It was about creating a mutual relationship. "And when you talk like that, I feel like I'm not a real person."

What real person charges 160 bucks an hour for a mutual fucking relationship? Being a psychologist and not letting your patient blabber away is kind of like being a prostitute and not giving blow jobs. It's unrealistic and guaranteed to reduce your clientele.

"When you're like this with Robbie, does he turn off?" I admitted that sometimes he does, but I don't pay him, and often he finds me quite entertaining. Then again, he could just be lying because I'm so excellent in bed. Grinding someone who's calling out for her mommy is super sexy.

My psychologist suggested that he let me know when I'm ruminating in session. And that perhaps during my day I could have a bracelet that I can look at when I feel like I'm slipping into a frenzy. A Frenzy Bracelet. Maybe the children can make one for me out of painted macaroni. We can market Frenzy Bracelets and sell them for 160 dollars each.

The other thing he told me to do was to pay attention while walking the dog. I pay lip-service to meditation and mindfulness and yoga, but my head is all over the place and I'm apparently not "walking the talk."

I left feeling like I'd failed the session. Maybe it would be very useful for me to discuss these feelings in therapy. Probably it would be excellent. But like I said, I am firing my psychologist anyways. Who can resist firing someone who makes 160 bucks an hour? When will I ever have this opportunity ever again?

If Alex Crampton lived in Halifax, perhaps I could go see him. I could ask him about his beautiful daughter and fiancee, and how he manages to keep fit. But until Alex Crampton moves to town, I think I will focus on being the best writer he knows except for Stephen King. Maybe I can resurrect Martha the Hippotamus into a brand new short story. 

A long time ago, perhaps last Wednesday, Martha the Hippopotamus had a Frenzy. Then the expensive doctor gave her a macaroni bracelet and she stopped calling out for her mother during sex.

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

 

Three Things to Make the World a Better Place

When it all comes down to it, we all have about three things inside of us that will make the world a better place. It's a good mental exercise to think of more than three things. Ten things. A million things.  But if over the course of your great big life, you're able to pull off your three favourite things on your list, you will probably change the world. Last Friday night, I was sitting (and perhaps drinking) on the couch with my boyfriend the Boatman and our cool friend Liz. I surveyed everyone on their Three Things and wrote them down.

Here they are.

The Boatman

The Boatman and the Maxi Pad

1. At school they should bring back Shop and Home Economics class.  Everyone is fighting for music and arts, which is important, but in the long run, it would probably be more useful for people to know how to fix things and make things than it will be for them to play the clarinet.  The Boatman played the saxophone in high school.  Maybe that's why he's so good at giving head. I think the long-term benefits of music are evident.  But it's true, nobody knows how to fix and build anything anymore.  Kids should be learning how to build things and fix cars.  And cook and clean and sew.  First this, then the clarinet and then maybe algebra. That's what the Boatman thinks. 

2. Finance Class. In schools, we're very fixated on how to get a job. We start planning by grade seven, or earlier.  But once we get a job, a lot of people don't know what to do with their money.  Nobody's teaching kids about budgets, or mortgages, or even how to get a student loan. Money is this vague stressful thing for a lot of people.  Most people get all their ideas about money from their parents.  That's two people's opinions out of the whole world. The Boatman is passionate about the Finance Class just as he is passionate about Excel Spreadsheets.  He'll spend days watching youtube excel tutorials.  He wants to spread the joy.

3.  Sex Ed (As you can see, the Boatman is very big on Education.)   Sex Ed shouldn't be about teaching children where their hair is going to grow, or how to put condoms on bananas.  We should be teaching kids how to have sex.  How to get and give pleasure.  How to talk about sex. It shouldn't just be the clarinet players who get to be good at giving head.  Everyone deserves a shot.  Our sex hero Dan Savage goes on this rant regularly on his podcast. The hell with putting condoms on bananas.  Probably the whole world can do this with their eyes closed. And we all know where the pubes are going to end up.  This isn't so important. What's important is knowing that sex is supposed feel good.  Really good. And if you want to know how to make it feel good, you should talk about it. And probably schools should hold a Vagina Appreciation Day.

Those are the Boatman's Three Ways to Change the World.

Now it's my turn.

Two pictures of me and the things I should have learned in Sex Ed:

My Three things:

1. A diaper-free world.  I've ranted and raged about this one. In our so-called developed countries, children are able to make complete sentences about sour pineapples before they are able to shit in the right place at the right time. In India and the majority of other developing countries, there are no diapers.  Parents figure out what sort of noise and grimace their babies make when they have to go and accordingly pull their pants down and sit them on a pot. By the time the kids are a year and a year and a half, most kids can piss and shit in the right place at the right time. With diapers, kids are enabled to be cut off from the sensations of their bodily functions.  Because we don't respond to our infants' signals of having to go, the signals and the awareness stop.  At two, children have to relearn the sensation since it is no longer socially acceptable to shit in their pants.  Being two is difficult and traumatizing enough as it is. I feel like the whole set-up is unfair and excessively challenging for everyone involved. And it is bad for the environment.

Isn't it obnoxious when people who have born absolutely no children dispense parenting advice? 

Absolutely.  It is absolutely obnoxious. But as they say, "those who can't do, teach."

2. A chair-free world. Wearing diapers for the first couple of years of life likely has horrendous repercussions on the state and our relationship to our pelvises, lower backs and sexual organs.  But what's even worse for us is the amount of time we spend sitting in chairs.  The two-year-olds at the Montessori school are capable of doing the most beautiful squat. Pelvis elevated, knees behind toes.  But what do I have to tell them when they're squatting on a chair, doing a puzzle or eating snack?  "On your bum, please!" Tighten your groins and lower back from and early age!  Begin the journey towards cardiovascular disease, erectile dyfunction, hip and knee replacements, osteoporosis, obesity, and a generally painful and shitty life, NOW.

Last week I had a dream that someone asked me whether or not I wanted to have children. “Hell no,” I said.  “Why would I bring children into this world?  They get 6 months to two years of happy boob sucking and then the rest of it is a big disappointment.  Our whole education system is just preparing kids to sit in a chair for a really long time. You go to school where you have to follow the rules and put things back on the shelf and sit on your bum in a chair.  Then when you finally grow up and finish university, and get a job, guess what you get to do? Sit in a chair. No, I am not bringing children into this world.”

I think that I make this speech once a week. In my dreams, and while awake.  While, standing walking, or sitting in a chair. Maybe it’s a little one-sided.  But nobody ever died from an exercise ball.

3. The whole world should do sun salutations every morning.

5 Surya namaskar A’s.  If you’re feeling really enthusiastic or ambitious, go for some b’s.  Sit down, not on a chair, fold forwards, take some deep breaths. Sit up, take some deep breaths, try and lift yourself off the floor then lie down.  Or just skip the whole sitting down, lying down part.  Just do some sun salutations. Do one sun salutation.  Stand on your two legs, or however many legs you have.  Find your breath.  Raise your arms above your head and look up at the ceiling.

Kino MacGregor, doing Surya Namaskar A. Your sun salutations don`t have to look like that. Just do your best. And you can do it anywhere you want. In Bali, or in Dartmouth.

People think they need to do elaborate and fancy yoga postures.  They think they’re too busy to do yoga. They’re too stiff and too busy and it’s no use.

Everyone has time for a sun salutation.

I tried to be a rich and famous yoga teacher for awhile.  I think I was too ambitious.  If I go back to teaching yoga, my goal will be for everyone to learn how to do sun salutations, and to do a couple every day. 

All you need are sun salutations.  They will reverse the damage from wearing diapers and sitting in chairs for so long.  This is what I recommend.   Now you have read my three thing for making the world a better place.  Here are our cool friend Liz’s Three Things.



Our cool friend Liz



1. Diapers are acceptable at any time.  Liz is a producer for Vice.  She’s a busy lady, and sometimes she doesn't have much time to go to the bathroom.  Well, fair enough, I suppose.  Although we all know my views on potty training,  if  I am ruthlessly honest and envision myself pissing in a diaper, it does seem rather exciting and arousing.

2. Social Media- Help! What the shit are we supposed to do about social media? With Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Blogs, Google +, it is eating up our entire lives. No wonder adult diapers seem so appealing. It is all too much, too overwhelming. People should cut down their social media time by at least 75%. Some good suggestions for using your salvaged time: drinking, having sex, eating chips, handstands.  You can do these things every day. Liz also suggested smoking, but I say that was just the liquor talking and so I am omitting it.

3. Creative Exposure. I like this one. People need to be exposed to creativity every day. Watch someone make something, help someone make something, make something yourself. You can make a movie, a radio show, a biodegradable poem, an ugly children’s toy, a blogpost, a macaroni necklace.  There are lots of things that you can make.  You can expose yourself to creativity while wearing a diaper, or in your bare bum.

And that’s the end of our Three Things to Make the World a better place.  Everyone has at least three things inside of them.  What are your three things?  How will you make the world better?

Your three things need not be groundbreaking and monumental.  Just some things you really believe in. Some way to make the world ungeneric.

In the future, 2016, I will write haikus about a Generic Married Man.

I hope they make the world a better place.

The End.

The Big Black Dog made the world a better place over and over again.

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

Three Outstanding Gifts to Buy Your Loved Ones on Black Friday
Performative Text Messages
Memoirs of a Brief Affair

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.

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

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