Clean and Elegant

Clean and Elegant

Monday 23 September 2013

The Boatman Invents a New Word

Most of the world is familiar with the verb, "to shart." Sharting occurs when you think you have to fart, and being in a somewhat appropriate location, you let loose. Go "balls out," as Nobel at the Yoga Dragon Den puts it. It isn't long before you realize that the fart comes with a wet, brown stinky surprise.

I had a roommate who once threw his pyjama bottoms in the garbage. I asked him why and he said, "Ya know when you drink too much beer and then you fart and it all runs down your legs?" He was talking about a shart.

It recently occurred to me and the Boatman that sharting had an opposite,  but it didn't have a name. The opposite of sharting is when you think you have to take an enormous shit. Your tummy's brewing and bloated and you know it's going to be huge. Maybe you have to go so badly that you cut in front of the old lady with a walker headed into the stall with her pink-shoed grandchildren. When you finally sit down and it's time for the beautiful explosion, all your poor anus has to offer is gas. The contours of the toilet bowl magnify both sound and odour so that the person who comes to relieve his or herself afterwards will be promptly armed with adamant accusations.

Until just a few days ago, there was no word for this tragedy. The Boatman and I considered the possibilities for at least 3 and a half days. Finally, last Wednesday, just before noon, the Boatman was on the can passing leftover breakfast gas when a breeze of inspiration came upon him and whispered into his ear the perfect word for farting on the toilet.

And the word was: Foop.

Definition: Farting on the toilet, when you think you have to poop prolifically.

Usage: "I was ready to crap out all the Harvey's poutine, but when I sat on the toilet, it was just a foop."

The Boatman, founder of the word, "foop." Once the Boatman wore a Maxi Pad, and it was a big success.
Now he has invented a new word. He's just one big success after another.
If you're a dog, fooping usually occurs on the grass.  For everyone else, it only counts as fooping when you're on the toilet. Just in case you're having a contest and/or keeping track.

The Big Black Dog has had many foops and sharts in his life and we love him very much.

Eliot,the Big Black Dog, pre or post foop or shart

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


Snow Day (contains more invented words from the Boatman,
but do not read if anything about miscarriages is triggering for you)
All the Lonely People, Rainbows, the Big Black Dog, and Sex
Poopy Mango Baby Wipes and the First Day of Christmas 
 

Monday 9 September 2013

No fucking good for anyone: Me and McGill Frosh

I arrived in Montreal for McGill Frosh Week a seventeen-year old relative kiss-virgin. Never had I ever seen a grown man's penis. It had also been over two years since I'd had a drink. One weekend when I was fifteen, I'd drank three glasses of white wine and proceeded to hotbox a shed out in the country with some friends. The evening led to hideous oversharing of deep psychological issues and how-to bulimia sessions. I ended up traumatizing my friends as well as vomiting several times. Subsequently, I renounced all alcohol and drugs, convinced that I was a raging alcoholic. I have since changed my mind on this matter several times. That said, at seventeen, I was fervent in my angelic ways. An aspiring Christian, I was going to study English Literature and Religion, determined to become a famous writer and find God and/or Jesus. At university I believed that I would study amongst likeminded young people like myself. I was ready.

The McGill student frosh experience began on the campus grass. After taking the subway by myself for the first time in my life, I walked up McGill College, wearing black clogs, a jean skirt and a little pink t. shirt over my La Senza hydralift bra that was meant to augment my ostensibly pre-pubescent breasts. (At the time I did not yet believe in the eternality of my tits.) It was barely 11 a.m. Music was blaring and hundreds of froshees were scattered across the field wearing baggy fluorescent green t. shirts and drinking out of tall plastic fluorescent green cups. I knew that my group was supposed to meet in the far corner of the field at the bottom of the hill. I imagined that we would begin by sitting in a circle, sharing our names, our majors, and perhaps our deepest dreams. This may have all already taken place, but when I got there, the party was well underway. My frosh leader with shaggy blonde hair and smudged make-up stood at the front of a scattered crowd.
"Hey Froshees! I'm Kelly. I'm your leader! Who's ready to get DRUNK?" Everyone except me screeched and screamed. I sat down carefully in my jean skirt so that no one could see my underwear. A guy was walking around applying red facepaint underneath everyone's eyes. I prepared myself to awkardly decline. I was not a warrior. But when he got to me, he went right to the next person.

"Who's going first?" Kelly screeched. She decided that she would go first to show us how it was done.

More cheering.
The guy with the facepaint came to the front and started clapping his hands. A pitcher of beer appeared from the crowd. These memorable words filled the air.

"Here's to Kelly! Here's to Kelly, she's a horse's ass.
Why was she born so beautiful, what was she born at all?"
I watched, horrified and wondering how everyone else seemed to know all the words.

"She's no fucking good to anyone, she's no fucking good at all.

Everyone seemed so delighted except for me.

"So.... drink motherfucker, drink motherfucker, drink."

Kelly started chugging the litres of beer as everyone screamed and clapped. With a quarter of the pitcher to go, the chant went on.

"What are we waiting, she must be masturbating."

At that time in my life, masturbation had never occured to me. On my fifteenth birthday, a few months before I'd written myself off as an alcoholic, I'd gotten drunk and announced to my friends that I'd never really made out with anybody and needed some practice. Lewis, the only single guy at the party (who also ended up in the hot box) volunteered. We made out enthusiastically for much of the evening and apparently I wasn't horrible at it. But we'd kept our clothes on and for me, the practice session hadn't evoked much thought of my genitals or anyone else's. I had been fairly certain that my sexless tendencies were the majority.  I didn't realize that almost everyone around me had spent a great deal of their adolescence considering their own genitals and everyone else's. And this wasn't over yet.

Kelly finished her pitcher and a skinny froshee named Brendan stood up to be the next motherfucking horse's ass. After watching the ingestion of at least seven more pitchers, it was time to go to the Peel Pub. I thought that maybe I would be saved from this, being only seventeen, but Kelly was all ready with a pile of fake ID's. Someone handed me the driver's licence of some overweight 24-year old with long black curly hair and darkish skin.

I felt my face get red and flustered and my heart pound as I imagined myself getting arrested at the Peel Pub for this poor attempt at fraud.
"Don't worry," said Kelly. "It'll work. I've been getting into bars here since I was 14." I considered asking Kelly what she was studying and then opted against it. Peel Pub was dark and crowded. I doubt the bouncer would have been able to see my ID had he decided to look at it. Inside Peel Pub it was more of the same beer pitchers and drinking songs. Someone pulled out a funnel. One by one everyone got pulled up to be sung into oblivion. Everyone but me. Clearly, I wasn't the motherfucking masturbating type. If only they'd seen me in the hot box. (Is that even the right way of referring to it?) I stayed at the Peel Pub for 10 minutes and then I went pee. The bathroom floor was saturated with vomit. It was not yet noon. I went home to my residence where I decided to take a nap. The drink mother fucker song permeated my head as I lay down and for the next seventeen days, at least.
I spent the rest of Frosh week napping, getting ahead on my course readings and exploring grocery stores. I wrote all this because although I am no longer an aspiring Christian who self-righteously abstains from alcohol, I feel that much of Frosh week is obscene and disgusting. People are outraged by the St. Mary's frosh scandalizing sex chant and rightly so. But as reports on the issue have admitted, the distastefulness has been going on for years and years. While the horse's ass motherfucking drinking song doesn't explicitly promote rape, it is hardly empowering for anyone involved. In both 2010 and 2011, students have died playing their drinking games. This is a tragic, shitty, and embarrassing way to go. No fucking good for anyone. As we reflect upon how those involved in the sex chant should be held accountable, I think that we should think beyond the Saint Mary's student union and beyond this isolated incident.

The End.

My Friend, Chuckie.

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


My Eternal Tits
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Slow Dance

Monday 2 September 2013

The Third International Mammal Day

The First Annual International Mammal Day occurred on September 4th, 2011. It began with the Hedge.


The Boatman trusted me with the hedgeclippers. I am as happy as I look.

Mammal Day is reserved for Mammal Time. Mammal Time is for engaging in all of your favourite mammal things: sleeping, eating snacks, lying on top of your loved ones, and possibly licking them. That's what mammals do. Traditionally and paradoxically, on International Mammal Day, the Boatman and I give ourselves fully to one Strictly Human Task. On the first International Mammal Day, we clipped the Hedge.

On the second International Mammal Day, we painted shelves. First we scrubbed them because they were very dirty. Here I am scrubbing the shelves. I am working very hard. And I'm wearing the same shirt as on the First International Mammal Day.  Like the shelves, it was very dirty.




 
Today is the Third Annual International Mammal Day. I don't think I have that shirt anymore. The Boatman and I and the Big Black Dog are lying around, eating snacks and licking each other. We are no longer fundamentalists, and so we are going to forgo the traditional Stictly Human Task. No hedge to clip, no shelves to paint, no deck to build. Likely, we are even too lazy to bother with a picture.

The End.
 
 

Happy International Mammal Day to You