Dear Vincent, It seems no matter who I'm having sex with, I ugly cry every other time.

Dear Vincent,

It seems no matter who I’m having sex with, I ugly cry every other time. Toronto was quite fun. I bought three pairs of shoes for ninety-nine dollars, and got to ejaculate on my sister’s living room floor. It was my birthday and I was trying on blue spandex and silver sequins with the Dead Inside Man. What a gift. I always like to say, never underestimate the powers of a good, hard fuck from behind. And/or, new shoes.

Thank you for trying to put me on the Gazette Fundraiser Poor People List. I think I am making myself out to be a more destitute and pathetic creature than I actually am. In fact, my couch is very large and very beautiful. And I have a washing machine, an RRSP, organic apple cider vinegar, no roommates, and now, new shoes. If you really want to help me, then accept me into your private practice, and just take my money. Or else can this whole borderline personality thing and take me out for a sandwich.

Love, Erica.

Dear Vincent,

I can’t believe you said that you’d rather read Winston Churchill’s memoirs rather than my own teenage memoirs, since unlike Churchill, I did not win the Nobel Prize. Churchill’s memoirs contain no rainbows. I heard he liked to take naps, and that he was an alcoholic. And depressed. Oh Winston. 

Glimpses of My Teenage Memoirs.

These days, people are saying the era of the personal essay - about when the gynecologist found a hair ball in your vagina - is coming to an end.

Before our last appointment, I went to the thrift store at Plaza St-Hubert, all bubbly that soon I would see you, and surely we would laugh and bask in the optimistic email I had sent you in real life. About my new shoes, cheese curds, chocolate covered almonds, surviving two consecutive family weekends with flying colours, and the good hard fucks from behind. At the thrift store, I like to look at baby clothes, seven-dollar pants, and ugly mugs. If ever beyond these imaginary letters to you, I end up writing my adult memoirs, I should devote a whole chapter to ugly mugs. This week, the St Hubert Renaissance Ugly Mug Winners were the Albert Mug and the Lorraine Mug. Both mugs are inscribed in big black serif letters with their respective names. The Albert Mug pictures the Mayflower at sea, while the Lorraine mug has relatively generic red and yellow flowers on it which matched Lorraine's name perfectly. I laughed profusely in the ugly mug aisle, imagining giving you the Albert mug as a gift, even though your name is not Albert. You wouldn’t have loved the Albert mug at all.

Oh, Albert. Oh, Lorraine.

When I saw, you didn’t mention the shoes, or the hard fucks in my email, and so I assumed you hadn’t read it or else were choosing to ignore it and this made me feel rather awkward, and later very devastated. I’d prepared a show and tell session, and showed you a pile of letters from 1994, the peak of my life when I’d written to my grandparents every single day for a whole year. All the envelopes were covered in rainbows. I wanted to show you what a beautiful dork I used to be.

Envelopes from 1994, back when I used to be a darling

All my life I’ve given imaginary men all the power to have all the answers. All the power, and all the ugly mugs. In real life, the imaginary men don’t even read your emails. In real life, the imaginary men do not meet your needs at all. You have no idea what a wonderful imaginary friend you used to be. Oh well. Now I know you used to play the violin, and then the bass. This is mildly interesting, though some people say that woodwinds and brass players are better kissers. I used to play trombone.

You told me that although I am good at recognizing patterns and stats, I should not to quantify my sex life with fifty percent ugly cries since this might be setting myself up for inevitable meltdowns. You mean well, just like you meant well when you tried to put me on the Poor Person Gazette Christmas Fundraiser List. In other stats, therapy feels like kind of a performance and almost a date. It’s a fucking head trip that seems to cause hysteria, every other time. I don’t believe in Borderline Personality Disorder. I think I might have to finish this memoir, Mondays without Vincent sort of soon. This makes me feel really sad. Next time I might tell you that I have a pretty big crush on you, and this could be a problem. Or else I might just ask you if you still play the bass, and if you’re in a band, and if so, what’s your band’s name, and do you ever sing.

Love, Erica.

Writing to Vincent is healing, but if you want an answer, you should write to me. As fate would have it, Vincent is awfully busy, and I am a much better pen pal, even though I did not win a Nobel prize, or go to grad school. The secret email address is ericaschmidt85 (at) gmail (dot) com. I would love to hear from you and will write back as soon as I can. Love, Erica.

I wish.


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Dear Vincent, When I get really upset, I need to be seen, heard, felt and loved by someone whose dick has been inside of me. Or else you.
Yours til ekam inhales.
Dear Vincent. Can you hold me? 

Dear Vincent, Today I might tell you that I love you, or else I might just ask if you too are a Scorpio, and if so, is it your birthday.

Dear Vincent,

Today I might tell you that I love you, or else I might just ask if you too are a Scorpio, and if so, is it your birthday. Yesterday I got a bit pissed off at my social worker. We were analyzing my answers to a sheet on self-care. I did not score very high on the line about going to a museum or a cultural experience. I do not want to go to a museum or a cultural experience. I want a sustainable sense of relevance and stability, affirmation and orgasms. Also, I want to feel safe.

For homework, the Social Worker told me to make a daily list of three things I am grateful for. A Grat List. Hate that shit. Grat lists make me feel oppressed, and like I am an underachiever. And a terrible person because I am not the single mother of a dying baby with cancer and no legs, and yet still, I seem to suffer.

Last week I saw three professionals regarding my mental health. The Social Worker told me to eat lunch, and generously wrote this down on a post-it note, smiley face and everything. My GP said to focus on protein and the psychiatrist said to do something creative, and that my struggles seem to stem from my personality traits. What do you mean, Dr. Perrier? Once I gain a sustained sense of relevance and stability, affirmation and orgasm, someone should give me 110 dollars an hour to sit in a windowless office and tell people they’re wonderful, and to have a bath, treat themselves to a goldfish, and go to a museum or a cultural experience.

Instead of a Gratitude List, one of my friends recommends a Self-Congratulations List. Items for the Self-Congratulations List equal

Eating something other than Chocolate Covered Almonds for Lunch.

Not Crying when two clients revoke your life purpose and announce that this week is in fact, not a good time for you to wipe the pubes off the sides of their toilets.

Insert something responsible such as invoices, flossing, signing up to pay for electricity and/or purchasing an expensive battery for your smoke alarm nearly two months after you moved into your apartment.

While I was on Prozac, I think I wrote a blog post about the Self-Congratulations List which I referred to as something very frightening and that was the Ta-Dah List.

While I was on Prozac, before it made me twitchy and suicidal, I think I was more grateful, more open to museums and to cultural experiences, less begrudging about taking out the recycling and more pleased with my Self-Congratulations Lists. My personality traits were approximately the same. My boundaries on the internet were approximately the same.

The Social Worker says I put a lot upon my shoulders.

Wouldn’t it be fun if we both ended up being Scorpios, and ran into each other at a museum or a cultural experience?

According to the Tarot cards, I should not send you this email for real, although I always want to. I’ll see you in your windowless office in approximately two hours and forty-five minutes. I’ll be wearing my red raincoat.

Love, Erica.

You too can write imaginary emails to Vincent. The project is called "Mondays without Vincent" and the secret email address is: ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)

Vincent will be delighted to hear from you. He will write back as soon as he can.

Much love, Erica.

This photo was taken before I could include "Shower" or "Got Dressed"
 on my Self-Congratulations List

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Three Easy Strategies for Feeling Smug and On Top of Life
Dear Vincent, Can you hold me?
Dear Vincent, Sorrowful Simon has written you a letter.

Dear Vincent, Three things that happened in my thirties were vertigo, and plumber's butt, and the voice that comes with a hand that's ready to slap.

Dear Vincent,

Three things that happened in my thirties were vertigo, and plumber’s butt, and the voice that comes with a hand that’s ready to slap. On Friday, October 6, I wrote a terrible poem about a squirrel, then opted to pop 2 mg of Abilify, and 10 mg of Celexa. I waited until after the full moon but I could not wait until after Tuesday, October 10 when Jupiter is supposed to move into Scorpio, or the other way around, or however that works. I could not wait any longer.

Ten days later, there are turmeric stains all over the fridge. I’ve decided that having an orgasm is more important than pharmaceutical sanity and/or medicated forgiveness. This is to say, I canned the drugs and this might go as terribly as the Squirrel Poem, “Dear Squirrel, I will not steal your peach.”

Dear Squirrel, I will not steal your peach

Sunday morning, on the branches of the tree outside my window I saw two squirrels, fatter than ever, humping and pawing and nipping at each other. It was the first time I’d ever seen squirrels engaging in anything that resembled fornicating slash oral sex slash picking crumbs or bugs out of one another’s fur. In India, the monkeys were fucking all the time, all over the place and very fast.


Where have all the squirrels been fucking all this time?

On Wednesday, October 4, 2017, I crouched at the end of the ABB to FIE shelves of the Mordecai Richler library next to my Abilify and Celexa, and a cardboard tube I’d found in someone’s garbage and a pulp novel by Laurence Brock called Borderline.


I texted my friend Benjamin Tracy a photo of the Abilify, and the Celexa, and the cardboard tube I’d found in someone’s garbage, and the pulp novel by Laurence Brock called Borderline, plus my fungussed toenailed foot, shod in a Birkenstock.

Abilify + Celexa + Garbage Tube + Scorching Pulp Novel + Fungussed Foot in Birkenstock

“Do you want some Abilify?” I wrote to Benjamin Tracy.

To my right were the remainder of the works of Laurence Brock, the novels, “Getting off,” and “Hit Me,” adding to “Borderline” which I think might have been written before they invented personality disorders.

Benjamin Tracy knows a lot about therapy. And drugs. In May of 2009, I went to Toronto to visit him on a sex trip. Once Benjamin Tracy declared that in return for sterilization, the government should offer incompetent people $35 plus a free doughnut of their choice.  Any kind of doughnut you want. Just please never ever have kids.

Benjamin Tracy recommended I keep the Abilify for myself.

I told him that for me zero orgasm and obesity equal dealbreakers when it comes to the drugs.

Benjamin Tracy said that neither of these things are as bad as crazy,

“Depends on the crazy,” I said.

“You’re contemplating long-term disability,” he said. Then, “Don’t be pessimistic”

I feel very pessimistic, but I’m hanging on by an orgasm and a recipe for golden milk.

Dear Vincent, Have you ever tried golden milk?

Dear Vincent, Have you seen the squirrels fucking?

Dear Vincent, How are you crazy?

As for me, I really struggle to leave a feeling unexpressed and without an audience. And I realize this is amazingly self-involved, borderline narcissistic, highly strenuous, masturbatory, inconvenient, inefficient, and, unlucrative. So too agrees the voice with the hand.

I would not accept a doughnut to restrict access to this womb. Doughnuts are notoriously difficult to digest. Also, I tend to boycott surgery. Also, this womb is already inaccessible. Also, my prize of choice would be an extremely high-quality microfiber cloth, or seven.

My mother has given me six reasonably good quality micro fiber cloths. You might call them fuchsia, or else magenta. When they get wet, their dye runs onto the walls, leaving bright fuchsia and magenta blobs. These blobs go pretty well with the turmeric stains.

Three things that tend to take over are, turmeric splotches, vinegar smells, and glitter. Plus the voice that comes with the hand that’s ready to slap. Four things.

Tumeric stains plus magenta has to be enough coherence for today. Next time I see you, I will likely have turmeric stains beneath my fingernails. I cherish your professional help.

Love, Erica.

You too can write imaginary emails to Vincent. The project is called "Mondays without Vincent" and the secret email address is: ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com. Vincent will be delighted to hear from you. He will write back as soon as he can.

Much love, Erica.

I went to the Slow Dance and was reasonably pleased with my outfit.


Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go

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Rideshare, Sterilization and Doughnuts
Dear Vincent, This letter is about saving a begonia.
Dear Vincent, Thank you for responding to my hysterical phone call.