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 Earth Will Shake Us Off Like Fleas

From my Bible classes at McGill, I remember that the disciples were not considered to be very smart.

“The disciples were dumb, dumb,” said Professor David Williams. But Simon Peter, he was the dumbest. Plus he didn’t run very fast. Poor dumb disciples. And it made it worse that Jesus was always uttering so many confusing things. On the way to the cross, a bunch of women followed Jesus, mourning and wailing for him. Jesus turned and said to the women, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!”(NIV, Luke 23:29)

Mourning and wailing. That is exactly what the women in my family do when they read Hallmark cards, or watch sad movies where people die. The worst movies are Beaches and Steel Magnolias. I remember Steel Magnolias. Julia Roberts had  something wrong with her kidneys. My mother and my sister mourned and wailed when she died.  In Beaches, Bette Midler’s best friend dies of some weird heart virus. More mourning. More wailing. Perhaps Beaches was even worse because Bette Midler sang "Wind Beneath My Wings" and this is such a devastating song.

Beaches. Too sad.

I am a childless woman. My womb has never born and my breasts have never nursed. Jesus said that one day I will be blessed. Jesus said so many odd things. Maybe he meant that being a mother is too difficult, too excruciating. No matter what you do, you will end up mourning and wailing for one reason or another. 

Steel Magnolias. Also way too sad.

***


Before he was crucified, Jesus kept asking Simon Peter if he really loved him. He asked three whole times. After the third time, Simon Peter became a bit frustrated. I can understand. Probably Simon Peter felt like no matter what, he would always get the wrong answer. I hate that. Each time that Simon Peter said, “Yes Lord, I love you,” Jesus would reply, “Feed my lambs.” Finally, after the third time Simon Peter replied, “Yes Lord, I love you,” Jesus said something different.

Peter, do you love me?

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” (John: 21:17-18)

That is a pretty good quote. Probably this is what being old is like. Someone dresses you in an outfit you don’t particularly like and then someone else decides where you will go today. Where WE will go today. Because all of the sudden, because you are old, you become part of an imposed collective. Just like in preschool, everyone is your friend. You participate in life’s activities as part of some high-pitched, squeaky-voiced WE.  WE are going outside now. WE need to finish our breakfast. WE are going bowling, to the market, to exercise class. Now WE are having a nap.

For a couple of weeks, I took care my friend’s grandmother who had Alzeimers. She was a doll, but sometimes it was very boring. And so I made relentless and mundane suggestions on how WE could break the monotony. Why don’t WE go to the park now, or to the library? WE should get a drink, or get some ice cream.”

“I’ve already done all that,” she said. “I’m tired. I’ve already done it.”

She was all done, and still, she had to get her hands dragged to somewhere she did not want to go.

***
One of Simon’s favourite things that I ever wrote was, “Everything stops bleeding. Even the dead people.” As usual, I was talking about the moon and my large thighs and menstrual blood. I do not know why Simon loved my sentences so much. On January 4, 2015, Simon jumped off a building and landed in a parking lot. I think about this all the time. There must have been a lot of blood.  

At the beginning of Acts of the Apostles, Judas got money for betraying Jesus. With the money, he bought a field. This is how it goes in the Bible:

"With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood" (Acts: 1: 18-19).

Judas exploded in a field. Simon exploded in a snowy icy parking lot.

Nobody is supposed to walk in Judas’s field anymore. When people don’t inhabit or walk on places, very interesting flora and fauna emerge. Apparently there is an extremely bio-diverse area in North Korea where humans aren’t allowed. I am not sure whether or not the no-human zone started as a field of blood. In any case, it is hard for people to believe that the world will become more unique when they’re not there.

The End.
(Post-scripts One and Two and Two Point Five below)

Now Exuberant Bodhisattva posts come out, every Monday between 4 and 5, and every Thursday around lunch. Sometimes there will also be surprise posts. Stay tuned:

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

Or I'm pretty sure you can also click on Subscribe at the bottom of this post.

POST-SCRIPT ONE

The reason I am thinking so much about Jesus is that on May 3, 2015 (evening of the full moon), I met Daniel on the corner of Brunswick and Bloor. Daniel sells used books in front of a building with the sign “Champion of the Waging” on one side and “Ales and Spirits” on the other.  The books are only three dollars each, or two for five dollars. Some books are on tables, while others just lie on the sidewalk. Daniel told me what happens when somebody’s liver explodes and he had a sort of scientific reason for how and why Jesus survived the crucifixion. “He was crucified, not murdered,” Daniel kept repeating. Daniel’s father recently survived and hemorrhagic stroke and Daniel told me about the difference between hemorrhagic and ischemic strokes. It has to do with what happens to the blood. And more people get ischemic strokes, the kind Daniel’s father didn’t get. Daniel talked about the moon, and serendipity, and how each day of the week is named after a different planet and/or the sun and/or the moon. He also quoted George Carlin who once said, “The Earth will shake us off like a bad case of fleas.”

George Carlin, “The Earth will shake us off like a bad case of fleas.”

 

I bought two books from Daniel.

The first one was, Long Quiet Highway: waking up in America, by Nathalie Goldberg. I am reading it right now. Highly recommended.

Long Quiet Highway: waking up in America, by Nathalie Goldberg.

The second one was, This Body, by Tessa McWatt.

This Body, by Tessa McWatt.

 

Post-Script Two

In fact, when Simon died on the parking lot, there might not have been that much blood. Everyone and the Internet says that when you jump off a building, your corpse becomes a mangled mess. But apparently Simon wasn't a mangled mess. He looked the same, except dead. There are so many things people say all the time that aren't true. Like when authors kill themselves, all their books become super famous.  People say this all the time. Well, it isn't always true. None of Simon's books are famous. My blog is more famous than his books.  Poor Simon. He hated my blog.  

I added Post-Script Two on Sunday, June 28, 2015. If Simon was still alive, he would have turned 36.

Simon Girard (1979-2015)
How I am Violent, by Erica J. Schmidt
Cardboard Box


Post-Script Two Point Five

Here is how the days of the week are named after planets and/or the moon and/or the sun:

Monday (English), lundi (French, lune means moon) = Moon Day

Tuesday (English), mardi (French) = Mars Day (not an auspicious time to start a new venture or yoga posture, according to some)

Wednesday (English), mercredi (French) = Mercury Day (Some say that mercury is a sad planet. Others call Wednesday Hump Day. Everyone loves humping.)

Thursday (English), jeudi (French) = Jupiter Day

Friday (English), vendredi (French) = Venus Day (Perhaps a good day for Love. The Rainman says, Fishsticks on Friday.)

Saturday (English), samedi (French) = Saturn Day

Sunday (English), dimanche (French) = Sun Day.

And so it seems that there are no days for Pluto, Neptune, Earth, and most tragically, Uranus.

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

Locks and Keys (about Mourning and Wailing)
Exalted (about Lent)
Why You Are A Hermaphrodite

 

Dear Internet, Please Be My Boyfriend For Five Minutes

How many more hours of my life will I spend waiting for someone to confirm that no, I don’t have a disease that is about to cause imminent death slash imminent foot amputation?

Yesterday, I told my friends that a very important reason why I need a boyfriend is so that he can reassure me of such things. For example, my ankle just below the talus bone has been bothering me. Sometimes the pain spreads ever so slightly up my calf. There is about 0.87 millimetres of swelling. Likely this vague pain is due to the sudden increase of walking on sidewalks and the sudden decrease in Ashtanga yoga and daily downward dogs. Obviously, I have jumped to the worst case scenario. Blood poisoning. The infection has entered my blisters that I got from my Birkenstocks. (Most of these blisters have callused over.) In Montreal, it is 26 degrees. Everyone is hot. Not me. I have a fever. From the blood poisoning.

At the table where I sat and told my friends about how I needed a boyfriend to tell me that my foot wasn’t going to be amputated, a darling ten-year-old girl listened intently.  

“Could a girlfriend help instead?” she asked.

“Well,” I said, not letting a teachable moment go to waste. “Girlfriends definitely work for some people. But for me personally, I have found boyfriends to be a better fit.”

Once someone told me that ten-year-olds are among the most loveable people in the world. I used to say that I peaked around ten years old, but this is probably unnecessarily pessimistic. The same kind of pessimistic as thinking that you and your foot are both dying of blood poisoning. Once my vagina stops bleeding, and imminent death is ruled out, I think I will start up again with the Downward Dogs.

IN THE INTERIM,

Dear Internet,
Please be my boyfriend for five minutes.

Thanks.
Love, Erica.

The End.

I was going to take a photo of my blood poisoned ankle, but I feel as though you can probably be my boyfriend without it. The Boatman used to be quite good at taking blog photos. He was very wonderful for many things, far beyond photography and vetoing blood poisoning. In fact, I am missing him immensely.

Internet diagnosing on the I-Phone
Photo Courtesy of Tiago D'Oliviera Photography and Film
Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go for $2.99


Yours til Ekam Inhales (Letters from my ten-year-old self) 
The Day Yoga Almost Gave Me a Stroke
Life and Death are of Supreme Importance
 

Rideshare, Sterilization and Doughnuts

I once knew a guy named Benjamin Tracey. In his early 20’s, Benjamin Tracey worked with kids in social services. He felt traumatized by the epidemic of people who used their bodies to make children but didn’t have the skills or resources or kindness to take care of them.

“We need a program to stop cruel and incompetent people from having children. If they agree to get sterilized, they get 35 bucks. Then, after the procedure, we’ll take them to Tim Horton’s and we’ll buy them a doughnut. Any doughnut they want.” According to Benjamin Tracey, this is how eugenics should work in Canada. With doughnuts.  

Doughnuts. Which one would you choose
Doughnut Photo Courtesy of my friend Shayna
She likes to buy doughnuts on Sundays 

The rideshare van from Toronto to Montreal always stops at a Tim Hortons just past Pickering. I don’t know why it stops so early. It is barely an hour out of the city.

On Tuesday, I was lucky enough to get a spot in the ten a.m. ride share van. The  pick-up is at the Pizza Pizza near Sheppard-Young subway station. The van is late. A woman wearing pink jeans and a red jacket seems very anxious that they have left without her.

 

“Where is my ride-share? Can I use your phone?” She is carrying a couple of shopping bags. Underneath her red jacket, she wears a t. shirt with an enormous, glittery can on it.  The cat has terrifying turquoise glitter eyes and fur. Its paw is patterned in red sequins. The woman’s name is Irena.

 

I volunteer to sit in the middle seat, at least for the first half.

 

“Where’s the seatbelt?” I ask. The driver points to the ceiling. I attach the belt across my torso but can’t figure out how to make it hold my waist.

 

“Guess that’s just the middle seatbelt,” says the guy beside me. He is dressed all in blue and looks as though his name might be Michael. On his knee, there’s a brown baseball cap with the word OBEY on the front. Finally, I figure out that you can keep pull seatbelt in a very specific and special way, it will attach on the left and contain my waist. Now I don’t need to white knuckle the whole 401. That said, my driver seems to text quite a bit. It is kind of like driving in India, though because Ontario is much less magical and spiritual, I feel significantly less safe.

 

I open the ziplock bag containing the marijuana macaroon that a childhood friend has given me for the road. For a moment, I wonder if it has an obviously foul smell to it. Then I realize that in fact, the smell comes from the tiny white dog who silently sleeps in its fabric blue cage in the back seat. The owner is significantly larger than her dog, but she too makes no noise.

 

The macaroon is oily. Its effect is not profound. I lean back in my seat. The left half is two inches back from the right. The blue Michael dude curls up on his blue pillow against the window. Irena rotates her torso to the right, impeding on a quarter of my ass space. She breathes heavily as she looks out the window, sipping a Merit Selection peach cocktail that contains 20% pure fruit juices. We pass several trucks filled with concrete.

 

Pickering reminds me of swim meets and Timbits remind me of Monday night band practices. I played the trombone and our music teacher Mr Hurd was nice enough to bribe us with timbits Sometimes we would get timbits on the swim team, but if an important swim meet was coming up, all chocolate and doughnut products were forbidden. Apparently doughnuts take at least three days to digest. Seems a bit risky.

 

At the Tim Hortons, I think about Benjamin Tracey and the sterilization and the doughnuts. I do not buy a timbit. Neither does Irena. She cracks open another peach cocktail juice box and stands beside the drive-through menu, gazing at the red and orange images of fresh fruit smoothies. I nibble a little more of the oily macaroon. I thought that being high would be more fun. Maybe I am too hungover. The dog owner walks the tiny white dog around the parking lot. Blue Michael smokes a cigarette with the driver and complains that he can’t sleep. The driver complains that he’s sick of driving.

Back in the car, Blue Michael gets to work on his computer. Vigorously, he types green letters onto a black screen. On the right side of the screen, windows keep popping up. Janet has a party, the window announces. Janet looks like a 2-dimensional human Barbie. There is a long red rectangular box where you can click, Yes, I am attending, or No thanks. Another window pops up. Angela will be at a golf club cocktail. Will you attend. Won’t you attend.

Although we are barely halfway, we stop again at the Freshmart convenience store and Esso gas station in Kingston. I pee several times, each time taking note that if the washroom cleanliness does not live up to my standards, I will be rewarded with a free container of air freshener. Love from Esso. Our driver leaves to pick up the other driver at the mechanic’s. The white dog is still in the car and his owner seems a bit disappointed. Blue Michael sits on the edge of the curb, his ass crack ever so generously peaking out from his blue jeans. Nobody seems to worry that the driver could very easily keep the dog and the stuff and leave us stranded at the Kingston Esso station. Irena asks to use my phone a whole bunch of times. She calls her son but there is no answer. Afterwards she offers me white chiclets from Israel. I mix them with my Excel Whitening Bubblegum.  






Chiclets, courtesy of redstone foods.





The new driver finally comes back with the car. I remember him from the time I went to Toronto to visit Benjamin Tracey four years ago. His name is Johnny and he wears a hat.

 

“Please make sure you have your seatbelts on,” he tells us. He only texts once or twice. Nobody volunteers to switch with me and take the middle seat.  There is construction on the 401 so we drive along the St. Lawrence. In the front seat, an Indian business man examines his Excel spreadsheets. He has the loudest, most obnoxious ring tone ever and people call him all the time. Irena eats a bag of chips. She offers me some but my mouth is still full of bubble gum and chiclets.

 

I look at the Thousand Islands and turn on Dan Savage’s sex podcast. Dan offers cures for Cunninlingus Lockjaw and says that continuing to sleep with your ex-husband is not a terrible idea.  Having an ex-husband sounds so grown-up. The Boatman and I were never married, and so we never got to have a divorce. I close my eyes and imagine the cells of my knees and my thighs dissolving into the crooked lumpy seat. My neck feels very stiff. I keep thinking about my cells. Soon I feel a pressure building at the base of my nose between my eyebrows. I wonder if I have suddenly become so aware and intuitive that my third eye is awakening. It then occurs to me that the pressure is from my enormous white sunglasses.

 

Irena nudges me and asks if she can use my phone again. I help Irena text her son and tell him that we will be in Montreal at 3:45. She is impressed by how fast I can text.

Valleyfield, Saint-Anne De Bellevue. The van rolls in to Montreal at 4:04. Irena’s son is waiting for her. The small white dog is let out of its blue cage and onto Sainte Catherine Street. All over Montreal, delighted people carry baguettes, eat frozen yogurt and drink beer on patios. There are no doughnuts in sight.

 The End.

This is not fiction. Benjamin Tracey really invented sterilization with doughnuts. I take zero credit for it, though I changed Benjamin Tracey's real name and I think that I did an excellent job.

Once Benjamin Tracey also wrote a play about a tennis game. The backhands and the lobbing and the missed serves reflected some couple’s relationship. Simon used to say that I was like an eight-year old sore loser tennis who cried when she didn’t get her way. Simon isn't alive anymore. 

Very Attractive Photo of Me and My Sister.
You'd be extra lucky to land us in your rideshare van.

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook

Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go

Vipassana Diaries: Bus
Poopy Mango Babywipes, and the First Day of Christmas (almost contains nudity)
Day Trip
Selfies on the Happy Stairs (contains doughnuts)
Selfies with Brownies (self-evident)

 

 

Ecstatic Dance

With unrestrained enthusiasm and joy, a three year girl greeted me at the Montessori school. Her curly hair flew in every direction as she bounced up and down, arms flailing all over the place.

“Erica,” she asked me through her breathless exuberance. “How’d you get here?”

And so the “How’d You Get Here?” dance was born. From then on, I broke out the “how’d you get here dance,” approximately two and half times per week. The flailing and bobbing is quite becoming when you’re a tall five eight with very large, very curly hair and extremely long limbs.

“Hey babe,” I said to the Boatman, bopping around in the hall beside the bathroom. “How’d you get here?” Then I went to the yoga room to meditate for 35 minutes. I think my heart remained in overdrive for the first thirteen.

Now the Founder of the “How’d You Get Here?” dance is almost five. Despite all the time she spends exuberantly dancing, hopping around like a frog and crawling on the floor like a cat, her Montessori work folder is always bulging with imaginative creations. She paints and draws constantly, often without even looking at the page. I can’t wait to attend her shows when she’s in art school.

As for me, my Montessori career is somewhat over. I have left Halifax, and before settling in Montreal for the summer, I have spent the last couple of weeks in Toronto. Here I am enjoying this odd, in-between place where I don’t exactly exist and nothing feels like it counts.

One of the great highlights of the Toronto visit has been attending Ecstatic Dance. Having lived a somewhat sheltered life, I have never attended a rave; however, many people have told me that Ecstatic Dance is a bit like a sober rave. At Ecstatic Dance, a deejay plays a vast variety of music, and everyone is invited to express whatever is deep inside their bodies. You are welcome to wear a tutu, and the tutu can be green. Halfway through, if you change your mind, you can always take the tutu off. Anything goes.  Some people crawl across the floor like crocodiles, or lions, or hop around like frogs. You can dance with long phallic crystals or magical green rocks. No one is allowed to make fun of you and this is very liberating. It is also very liberating that nobody knows that the only time you could ever dance in high school was after chugging 2 bottles of Mike’s Hard Lemonade concealed inside juice bottles in the Student’s council room. By the way, my sister was the student council president.

Sister and Me, Restrained Ecstatic Dancing, Halifax Harbour

So far I have been to Ecstatic Dance three times. I find I frequently pull out the “How’d You Get Here?” dance. The bobbing and bouncing and particularly the limb flailing seem to truthfully match what’s deep inside of me.  I also do a great deal of bending my crooked spine over to the right and twisting it in circles over and over again. When I get tired, I roll around on the floor in incoherent ways. If I consider the unrelenting misery that was February, I never would have imagined myself participating in anything so joyful and uninhibited. Then again, why the hell not?

Despite the fact that I wrote a book called “I Let Go,” I always hesitate to tell people to get over shit. After all, as Margaret Atwood says, Old Neurological Pathways Die Hard. Even so, if you claim to be one of those people who can’t or just doesn’t dance, I say to you, Get the Fuck Over it. Ecstatic Dance is perfect for you. Be a tiger. Be an octopus. Jump around like you’re three and a half.

At the end of Ecstatic Dance, the music slows down and you might get the chance to roll around on the floor with another person’s body in a relatively unsexual way. Not everyone has a temporary or long-term source of cuddling slash sexual gratification and I feel like this end-of-dance floor union provides a viable option. Last Thursday night, I rolled around on the floor with a man who was wearing an extremely tight and short black spandex mini skirt. Although I’d assumed that he’d chosen the skirt to reflect his deepest creative self, I guess he’d actually forgotten his shorts and had resorted to raiding the lost and found. All he could find was the tiniest spandex mini skirt in the world. I didn’t find this out until afterwards and thus, I felt quite safe and dancing with a man in a spandex mini-skirt. In some ways, it was very safe and in other ways, not so safe. Still, we managed to avoid catastrophe.

When it was all over, the Man in the Skirt and I chatted about who we were, where we were from and what our creative lives were all about. Within approximately six and a half sentences, I pulled out the “Oh yah,my ex-boyfriend jumped off a building in January” speech. All the people of Toronto have been amazingly receptive of this speech and for this I have been immensely grateful.  
The Man in the Skirt asked for my contact info and on Friday, he sent me a poem. I think it was about someone else ejaculating. Or it could also have been about conception. It seems like both of these things are popular poetry topics. It is always a bit fun when someone sends you a poem.

“You have such a wonderful sister,” the Man with the Skirt told my sister before we left. Ecstatic Dance makes you feel so wonderful about yourself. Life is very exciting. How’d we get here?

The End.

I forgot to mention that at Ecstatic Dance, quite a few people wear Spiritual Pants. It was quite a delight to see Spiritual Pants again. That said, I left my spiritual pants in Montreal and kind of feel as though the low crotch would impede my How’d You Get Here? dance.

Spiritual Pants and the Darling Canadians in Mysore, Green Hotel

So I’ve started a new creative practice routine where I post every MONDAY around 4 or 5 PM and THURSDAY around lunch time. One of my relatives who also happens to be a Social Media Expert claims that this is not the most auspicious social media time, but I have a Kale Phone and don’t tend to take this sort of thing into consideration. We’ll see how it goes. Stay tuned and free to follow me in whatever capacity seems to best match what’s deep inside your body:

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

Or I'm pretty sure you can also click on Subscribe at the bottom of this post.

HAPPY MONDAY!!!
Creative Practice, Simon's Genies, and the Exuberant Bodhisattva's Big Exciting Blog
Jujubes
Ecstatic Adventures of the Exuberant Bodhisattva
Darcy, which features a blue tutu

Ecstatic Dance takes place on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays from 7:30-9:30 at Dovercourt House, 805 Dovercourt Rd.
Ecstatic Dance Thursdays in Toronto 
The Move (Fridays)

 

Creative Practice, Simon's Genies and the Exuberant Bodhisattva's Big Exciting Blog News

Last Thursday evening at the end of Ecstatic Dance, which you can read all about tomorrow, I ran into a man carrying a pile of paper plates and an open package of plastic forks. He had been in charge of the birthday cake, but alas, there was no more. I’d been blabbering away about how I’d self-published an illustrated self-help book and the man with the plates and the forks seemed quite intrigued. I helped him look up the book on Amazon.

 

“My name’s Simon,” he said. We shook hands and inched our way to the top of the stairs outside the dance room. I stood at the top, and he stood two steps below.

“Oh,” I said. “I have a soft spot for Simons.” And thus, I’d arrive at the perfect segue to embark upon the “My ex-boyfriend jumped off a building,” speech. Thank you, to Simon the dead Hermit, who has provided me with so many fabulous pick-up lines that may last me the rest of my life. I told the other Simon all about me and Simon Girard’s three-part epistolary novel, The Little Savage and the Hermit. How most of it was terrible and embarrassing. How most of our relationship was terrible and embarrassing. But now that Simon was dead, maybe it was suddenly really important. The other Simon put down his plates and forks and embraced me out of nowhere.

“It’s something to love someone who suffers so much,” he said. “It’s amazing how people suffer so much…” For a few moments, we held our embrace on the stairs. Then the unrestrained conversation continued. The other Simon does something important that has to do with telephones and left-wing political parties. From what I understand, it is also good for the environment. His father writes piles of important books about various non-fiction issues. The last one was about the CBC and what he considers to be the ideal model for public broadcasting. When asked about my job, I said I do piece-meal work translating stuff from French to English. I’m not insatiably passionate about it, but I like to keep up my French, it is stimulating enough, plus I get to pick my own schedule.

“So if you had a genie, what would you ask for?” said Simon.

When’s the last time someone asked you that? It’s easy to just laugh off this sort of question. Since we all know that nothing in the world can make life entirely unrelentingly blissful. Still, what is so terrifying about considering what we want?

For me, I want a healthy, healed body. Regular sources of sexual gratification and intimacy are also helpful. I want regular, exuberant, uninhibited, and unceasing conversations about sex, yoga, bodies, eating disorders and people’s lives. I want this somehow incorporated into my daily existence. (I.E. ERICA, START A FUCKING PODCAST…) And the other thing that has created a consistent source of grief in my life has been the unrelenting notion that somehow I am failing creatively. That I am forever lacking a creative focus, a fruitful creative practice, and at the end of my life, this will leave me with Deep Regrets. The pressure of making something massive and groundbreaking is paralyzing and enormous. And then it occurred to me, what is wrong with making blogging your creative practice?

So maybe blogs are too 2008, and maybe they’re not the most literary or artistic or edgy mediums. But just because you didn’t get to be Margaret Atwood this time around doesn’t mean you don’t get to be a writer. There are a million different ways to be a creative person. And if your transcribed verbal machine gun provides you and even a mere handful of people with some joy and relief, well then, why not just run with it?

And so, I’ve decided that this blog, this random slew of sentences and awkward graphics will become my new, official creative practice. After beating myself up forever throughout torturous efforts to write novels and plays about foot fungus, I realize that it is through blogging, through these uncensored, reality-based words that I find my most natural and authentic voice. And although there’s some value in challenging yourself to create beyond what’s natural and easy for you, there’s also something terribly painful and futile about trying to fit into a mold that’s just not you. Margaret Atwood is Margaret Atwood. You get to have a Kale Phone.

Me and my Kale Phone

So that’s that. Thank you to the Simon who didn’t jump off a building for asking me about my genies. When it was time for him to go, he said, “You are such a delightful ball of candid emotional intimacy.” It is one of the kindest compliments I have ever received. I will try to live up to it as I go about my days.

The End.

Bless all the Simons I have known, Bless Ecstatic Dance, and Bless Toronto. I am here until Tuesday, at which point I am going to Montreal for at least the summer…  From now on, I am going to try to post something new, every MONDAY around 4 or 5 o’clock, and every THURSDAY, around lunchtime. Maybe I will also do that Throwback Thursday Thing on my Facebook Page, even though it is a little silly. I invite you to follow me however you would like.

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

Or I'm pretty sure you can also click on Subscribe at the bottom of this post.

P.S. Who remembers the Karadavasana duck? Seems like a lifetime away... 

Karandavasana Duck: created by my very talented artist friend Sara E. Enquist. Check out her website!
Yours til Ekam Inhales
Simon Girard (1979-2015)
Ecstatic Adventures of the Exuberant Bodhisattva