Survey

To spark further open discourse about this topic, and to feed my own fervent need to find out interesting background information about others, I've composed a short survey that I'd just love for everyone to answer in the comments section. Answer as many as you'd like. I'm answering them too. Here goes:

1. What is your favorite physical feature? (you can list more than one)

2. What is your least favorite physical feature? (you can also list more than one)

3. What, if given the chance, would you change about your appearance? (you can list more than one thing)

4. In what shape would you categorize your body as? (for example: athletic, medium build, out of shape, chubby, skinny, pear shaped, apple shaped, curvaceous, lean, etc)

5. Was there a time in your life when you liked your appearance more than the present moment?

6. Was there a time in your life when you liked your appearance less than the present moment?

7. What is your favorite physical feature in a woman?

8. What is your favorite physical feature in a man?

9. What is your physical "dealbreaker" in terms of a prospective romantic interest?

10. Who, (celebrity, athlete, model, actual person you know) if anyone, has an ideal figure to you? (Men and women can answer in terms of either males or females here)

11. In what ways do you feel limited by your body?

12. Do you plan to "age gracefully" or attempt to fight the visible signs of the aging process?

13. If you have a significant other, are you happy with their physiques? If you're single, have you been happy with past exes' physiques?

14. Would you categorize your relationship to food as "eating to live" or "living to eat"?

15. Do you have an "dream" body weight or size? If so, what is it?

Please everyone answer!

Body Language

          Writing again, after taking such a long hiatus, is definitely not like riding a bike; I find myself forgetting the littlest of details, losing track of my organization and flow, developing writer's block by the first sentence, and basically forgetting what I even write like. Anyway, seeing as how I pushed for this month's theme and have yet to write a post for it, I'll try to make amends here. I actually find it curious that I chose this theme at all, as I'm not particularly fond of my own body, to say the least; its limitations frustrate me, my imperfections depress me, the notion that my figure is somehow enmeshed with my projected womanhood confounds me, etc.  This is perhaps why it's been an especially difficult topic for me to write about. Since I'm not ready to go full throttle here in terms of my own body image neuroses, I'll instead use one of my favorite mediums of artistic expression to illustrate what I find fascinating about how we, as sentient beings, relate to our bodies on more than just a functional level.

          This first poem is by William Carlos Williams, titled, "Dance Russe":

If when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,-
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely,
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,-

Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

          I love this poem because I so aspire to feel this particular feeling of complete and utter contentedness with my own physique, alone, independent from the gaze of others, away from the presence of any other bodies. I wonder how many out there actually feel as Mr. Williams does-- see their physiques as something that defines their individuality, something to celebrate and rejoice in, something that can happily exist as a "lonely" entity. I find this most interesting to me, as I seem to feel the most disconnected from my own form when I am left alone with it. In these moments, the negative narrator in my mind pipes up, speaks a little louder than usual, persuading me to crucify myself for not being aesthetically "better."

          The second poem I'd like to share is one of my favorite poems written by one of my favorite poets, EE Cummings, titled, "i like my body when it is with your" :

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you quite so new

          So, interestingly and opposingly enough, I relate very much to this particular poem. Though I may not like my body when it is with me and only me, I seem to appreciate it in a starkly different way when it is with the body of someone I care for. I see it in a new light (mostly from the adoring perspective of another), and in relation to another body-- how it interacts, how it is attracted to another's form, the things it does for and with this other body. It's a very uniquely specific feeling, connecting your body with another body, as though you are the only person in the world to experience it (though almost all humans, and certainly some various types of other animals definitely experience this very physical phenomenom).
          I understand the relationship between the body and the brain; I'm aware of the fact that our cognitive processes dictate our corporeal senses. And still, I am able to see the majesty of the human body-- amidst the seven billion of us out there, there has never been and will never be another Bethany Dawson. My body will never be duplicated (please do not go into a cloning debate), and my brain's perceptions will never be perceived within the confines of another's shell. This idea pleases me, and reminds me that the body is still a thing of mystery and magic in many ways, even though neurologists would have us feeling foolish for thinking much of this exterior vessel.

Album a Day: Rundown

Since I don't have the brainpower to look back at each in great detail, I've thrown the album covers up with a link to a song from each album that stayed with me and some brief reflections.  Going forward, I'll try to go into each more.  And I'll be returning to these no doubt through comments if not more posts in the future.

Can It Be All So Simple
The sample on this track is dreamy and dark.  Like tripping down a back alley with the Wu-Tang rapping away in your head.  It took a long time for me to find my way to listening to all of this album through in spite of the rage surrounding it right after high school around bonfires and garages and basements and bonus rooms.

Love Minus Zero/No Limit
The quick jump right into this song sends me back into a sleepy happiness.  It's such a light, frolicking tune.  I can't really begin to speak on the overall meaning of this album in Dylan's career and its influence on music, but I love this song and the entire album, especially the ending (Baby Blue).  Edward should really do what he did for the Beatles albums but for Bob Dylan's.  Just sayin'.

A Case of You
This is devastatingly deep and romantic and searching, which I guess is much of what this album is.  I love the stream-of-consciousness in the lyrics that is reflected in beautiful wandering of her voice.  I actually came upon this song before I went through the album because of finding an incredible cover first by James Blake.  I love that it's a whole case. "O Canadaaaaaaaaaaa".

Pretty Vacant
Couldn't get the thought out of my head of how much Carl Athey loved this band while listening to their songs.  Regardless, I can appreciate how much these guys pissed over authority and society and all the set ways of a man's existence.  I love this bit, "According to a later account by Jones, both he and Cook played on instruments they had stolen". Ah to be a filthy, spitting Brit. "We're so pretty, oh so pretty, vaaaacant!"

I'm Waiting for the Day
Way too many brilliant songs on this, so I tried to go with one that I hadn't heard much if at all before going through this album.  I also almost put "Caroline, No", but I love the drums and keyboard in this one that keep building and tromping along on it.  It reminds me a little of this song by a modern day band, Dr. Dog, who also seems to have taken a lot from the Grateful Dead and maybe The Band.  Anywho, this album is stacked with the soaring vocals of these so-called "Beach", "Boys".  I almost get more of a feel like they're in a chapel rather than on surfboards, and they're boyish faces are forever preserved singing in large stained glass windows.

Caught, Can We Get A Witness
From the cover art to the album name to the name, "Public Enemy", this album is relentless.  I love the combination of Chuck's voice, Flava's incessant chatting up the audience, and the constant shout-outs to the DJ, Terminator X.  "Fellas, you think we gonna sell out?" "No!"  Hip hop was so damn soulful and funky back in the 80s and early 90s, and I love how groups of rappers would just go back and forth between each other taking down a song in numbers.  So good.

All Tomorrow's Parties
This album unsurprisingly took me down a trip while browsing the bios of each of the band members and the influences and others involved in this album. It was eerie, sifting through the deaths of Nico and Edie Sedgwick and then seeing the wickedly aged faces of Lou Reed and Jon Cale.  Also, just trying to imagine the Warhol scene and parties and drugs and films is so impossibly foreign to me, but of course alluring like all the songs on this album. I love Nico's voice on it and in this song, and how it contrasts with Reed's trippy/heady lyrics and voice. I look forward to coming back to this one later in the future when I can let it really sink in.

Good Night
Like something out of the end of Peter Pan, I did not see this song coming at all.  Of course the album itself is epic and steeped in cult followings, and for good reason.  Again, I'm going to come back to this and all of these many-fold, and then I'll try to come up some more to reflect on.

An Album a Day

I'll admit it, I've grown a little weary of my 17 Youtube playlists of about 200 songs each, pulled together over a couple years now whenever I listened to a song, and the mood struck to "add to playlist".  Needless to say this mood struck often, and will continue to strike, because as you all should know if you don't already, I'm a Youtube (music in particular) addict.

In an effort to funnel spew of videos into something perhaps a little more structured and hopefully a bit more productive in a new way, I've started assembling some of the critically denoted best rock albums of all time, one per day, so that I can listen to them straight through as though I had legitimately purchased them in full form!  As sacrilegious as it is to not only not pay these timeless artists for their hard-earned work, pull together clips from online that are for sure not as good quality or even consistent with each other (or even may be live versions if I can't find the album's studio version(!)), and then eventually listen to it all in just one day (doesn't mean I won't come back to them!), I have to say that I haven't ever had this much success and pleasure out of digging into albums I'd always wanted to.

Basically, I got tired of waiting to take time out and listen to these albums and decided to sacrifice the proper environment to fully appreciate these important albums.  However, I consider there to be worth in laying the foundation so that I can come back to them for repeated listens with even a little background and some familiarity.  Plus, it's all just really amazing music and often times pushes me to hear what I normally might not be ready to try out.  I'll go more into how I select them in later posts, but it involves help from Digital Dream Door and Rolling Stone.

That said, I'd like to go through them with you all here on Demons.  Just note that the posts will likely be quite haphazard (reflecting the sort of approach I'm taking) and not as in depth as Edward's impressive works of depth and precision in his Beatles and guitar solo lists.  They also might not cover every album I listen to, or maybe they'll cover more than one at a time, but I just know I won't be able to keep up a post a day.

A Wrinkle in Time

I love the body.  It's wretched and beautiful.  To identify with something physical that has actually endured the years that you claim to your name is something that is nothing short of profound.  It is proof.  It is the manifestation of all the ideas, all the poetry, all the lusting, all the hatred, and all the love.  It is physical and cannot be denied or accepted, except by another in physical form.

Without it we'd be left to an existence, well, not far from the internet and The Matrix, whoa.  As cool and anonymous and free and unattached and fun as that may sound, there's nothing to hold onto.  And honestly, it actually would be a little different than the internet we have now.  Because here, we have something to hide.  I have a physical incarnation you are denied in experiencing me through this medium.  I have two eyes you will not meet.  If we all were just bodiless voices drifting around a void talking and musing and posting and friending and liking and responding, then we'd be meeting each other in full.  I'm meeting you in a percentage.  Here, I'm only part of what I really am.

But getting back to that grip hold.  I cling to my physical existence.  I pull my hair when thinking.  I scratch my ever-growing, never-stopping scruff.  I cover my mouth with my hand when looking at things and don't know why.  I fidget and function and twitch and watch and track and listen and hover and follow and jump and sleep.  I am a jukebox and a Richter scale machine.  These things may seem rudimentary or dull, but they are the key to my being outside of my mind.

It's not my mind that knows the touch of a loved one.  And it's not my mind that can smell their scent.  My mind can't chase after them.  It can't speak to them, and it can't receive their words.  It is my hand that knows their touch, my nose that finds them in the dark, my voice and ears that lets them enter my psyche with ease, and my eyes that I overvalue but still take for granted while watching them walk toward me.  We are assembled with every gadget and device and yet we still insist on muting our senses in favor of something spoon-fed to our minds (no offense internet blogs).

The extension of the physical form out from our minds is truly a gift, and there will never be enough dancing, singing, and sex to celebrate this.

Now that that is there.  I will say that our head can turn against our bodies.  Not that this should be news to anyone.  After preaching the glory of the corpus, I can't pretend that I don't worry about flab lapping up against my hips, threatening to trigger the beer gut in a matter of months/years.  And if I couldn't control it in time, there goes my health and my life span and my potential fatherhood, let alone years to play chess with other old crotchety men in a park as a balding, gray-haired ol' man.  These are the threats on the table.  We can take them and fear, or we can leave them and live. 

Perhaps that's too simple, but really, what is it all but atoms and molecules and compounds and bullshit.  We grow, we shrink, we scar, and we heal, or try to.  I intend to try and push myself to stay healthy, but in the end I'm going to end up battered and beat-up anyway, so it's not like I'm trying to preserve myself for some pristine natural history collection.  I'm using this shell, this thing, until I can't any more.  It's going down with me and I'm going down with it.  And in the meantime, I'll put it to rest.

The Human Form

The Body, Le Corps, Der Körper, El Cuerpo, Il Corpo, 身体, وكانت الهيئة, Jednostka

        Hundreds of thousands of ways to communicate it, express it, display it, depict it, objectify it, protect it, utilize it. It's the one thing all seven billion of us share as a species, the most easily detectable commonality-- the form which sets us apart from other animals here on earth. So, as we've (mostly me... sorry to disappoint) now decided a week into September, this month's theme will deal with all aspects of the human body. Seems vague and strangely biological, right? Well, it most certainly can be. If you relate to your body on a strictly anatomical and molecular processing level, then please, for God's sake, do tell! I know I'd be interested to hear. For all us others out their who have come to develop an, at once uniquely personal and yet somehow commonly shared, relationship to our exterior appearances, let us commence an open discourse with regards to this highly peculiar subject! (i.e. do dogs ever think about how trim their waists are?).

    I became quite interested in the body at a very young age-- commonly thinking of it as my armor, my protection against the grass I rolled in, the rocks I tripped on, the trees I climbed. As as a child my body was simply a physical extension of my overactive imagination. I didn't judge it, didn't overanalyze it, didn't worry about my heart rate, my breath pace, my muscle tone, my diet, my BMI, or what others thought of its shape or size. This changed almost immediately with the entrance into middle school and the realization of what being a "hot" girl meant to young boys. As shallow and limiting as this may sound, my body was no longer my armor, but rather my goods, it seemed. This led to my own perception that the body, at some point in young adulthood, transforms from it's true intentions as our outside shell into an exchangeable commodity embedded with a plethora of complex and self-created meanings. As soon as my own self-image was jaded, I began noticing corporeal depictions in art, in literature, in music, in movies, in magazines, in fashion, and in my day-to-day existence. I know my own views are unique and unhealthy, and, trust me, I will certainly go further into this as the month progresses (don't want to scare anyone off too soon!).

    I'm quite aware that men and women view their bodies much differently in terms of their uses and their overall self-images. Sex, age, sexuality, ethnicity, social class, mental health, etc all play directly and indirectly into our psyches (though this certainly varies considering the country into which you're born). This is why I hope to get a good amount of responses here this month. I'd love to find out what body image means to everyone out there--- Basically, how do you all define and feel about your mind's relationship to your physical appearance? Is it mostly positive or negative? Is it effected by your friends? Your family? Societal norms and pressures? Internal dialogues and delusions you're too embarrassed to share with others? Is it based in beautification? Athleticism? Laziness? Or sheer necessity and basic functioning to get you where you need to go? I'm simply fascinated by how our thoughts regarding our physique can at various times limit us, uplift us, destroy us, free us, or give us confidence.

    Clearly anyone can write about absolutely anything this month, even if it still vaguely relates to the body-- a cool story about an injury, a time your body failed you, a time your body's strength surprised you, etc. Basically, anything involving the human form is accepted here! I look forward to getting a variety of opinions!

Edward's Road to Recovery, Entry #1

First off, I want to apologize to all of the readers out there. I mean this from the bottom of my heart. This blog was my baby, and I had a lot of hopes and dreams of it becoming something special and bringing all of us together while allowing each writer to express themselves both creatively and emotionally. I have been completely absent on here since Sex Month back in June, and while I could say that I was busy with "more important shit," in truth I neglected my writing and commenting because I was lost in the depths of an intense drug relapse that ended with me shaking on a toilet uncontrollably in a seizure caused by an IV crack overdose. I want to make it up to you guys. I originally had an idea for this series that I would start writing about my time in day treatment rehab, chronicling each day as it was happening, but that proved too difficult, as there were a lot of things to take care of at that time and I didn't have enough time to really sit and concentrate and brood over my psychological neuroses that led to this relapse (I will talk later about how it wasn't even really a relapse, since I never totally gave up substance abuse in the first place). In any case, I will write about my road to recovery and happiness, away from the depths of polydrug addiction and depression and other woes, whenever the whim strikes me. My sincere wish is that this series will inspire others to share their own feelings of hopelessness, pain, and hope, and their own intellectual ideas about the nature of addiction and substance abuse, and how society deals with it.

I write this today while still sweaty from a brief workout at the gym, a place that I was paying $25 a month to be a member of even though I hadn't worked out there in almost two months (and I hadn't really consistently worked out in ever). This neglect of health and my interests symbolizes one of the most obvious facets of my substance addiction: it causes me to neglect the things that I am passionate about--whether they be my loved ones, my hobbies, and the things that I care about--because nothing is as important as getting loaded on whatever substance I find myself drawn to at the time. This is because these substances (for me, alcohol, opiates, cocaine, and meth/amphetamines) refuel the dopamine receptors (pleasure center) in my brain, which has lost the ability to maintain its own normal levels of dopamine through drug abuse and tolerance. I look back on my days of active use with disgust. Anyone who knows me knows that I have an obsession with cleanliness and health. How could I have gone days without showering, without brushing my teeth? Left my apartment in a squalid mess? Ate the kind of crap that I ate on a daily basis? I use this (Bethany would say OCD) obsession with cleanliness and organization, with health and strength, as a way to combat the self-destructive, yet soothing siren song of addiction that forever tries to creep up the walls of my consciousness and plant its egg of doubt in my dream of hope.

Let me try to backtrack here in our first entry to talk about how the last few months have been since my previous brush with opiates. It had been ten months since I had last gotten high on anything other than alcohol. I suppose on the surface, for someone not very educated on the topic of addiction, I was doing good, because drinking alcohol's a lot better than shooting heroin, right? When it comes to addiction, not really. Though I don't claim to have been at their level of dependency, I saw a great number of patients shaking and talking deliriously in the depths of their alcohol withdrawals when I was at rehab. Alcohol can suck your life and your wellbeing away just as fast as heroin can. In truth, my drinking was not as bad as my opiate use was in terms of how it affected my day-to-day life. It was probably worse for my health (alcohol being more of a toxin than opiates are), but I wasn't dead-broke and utterly physically dependent upon alcohol. I did begin to experience the symptoms of mild alcohol dependency towards the end of my ten-month binge, waking up in a bed soaked with cold sweat and piss, hands shaking uncontrollably, each day the same as the last. I wouldn't for a moment question whether I'm an alcoholic or not. I am one.

But most importantly, by continuing to abuse alcohol, I never really got rid of my addiction altogether. I never even really tried. I know that I acted all tough and optimistic a year ago when I was writing blog posts on here about how my life was going to change, but it was really all a bunch of bullshit. Yes, I really did believe those things. Yes, I did want to change. But I wasn't ready to take the necessary steps to get well. An addict can't go on using other substances like I was. An addict needs sober support. I can't just go to a therapist who I didn't even connect to and expect by doing that that my problems will suddenly up and disappear. What was most important with my drinking is that I retained the sly habits of an addict. I would lie about my drinking all the time, and hide it in shame after I told everyone that I was going to stop drinking (I did not have the strength to stop on my own without help). I would regularly get off from work at 5, alcohol having been on my mind all afternoon, drive to the nearest liquor store, and pour myself a very strong mix drink to drink on my commute home, already being drunk by the time I got out of the car at home. I blacked out almost every time I drank. Hangovers were an unfortunate part of daily existence that I had to learn to cope with. I cannot use any mood-altering substances with control. That is why I have learned I have to quit ALL mood-altering substances. That's how it is. I know it's hard for others to understand why I can't just have one drink, or drink socially, but I'm a person with the disease of addiction, and for me it's impossible.

Anyways, my drinking got worse and worse, to where I was occasionally drinking on my break hours at work, and, on weekends or off-days, drinking throughout the day starting in the morning. I went drunk to an ASAP (Alcohol Substance Abuse Prevention or something like that) class, which I was assigned to for driving under the influence in the first place. I was just drinking to shut my brain the fuck up. This isn't any different from shooting up cocaine or heroin or anything else. So really, my slip back into drugs was inevitable.

It started with some Percocets that I heard a friend was prescribed. I begged this friend for them, and offered them an exorbitant sum so that I eventually got them. I took all of the 20 pills in two different sittings over less than 24 hours, and wound up feeling slightly dopesick. My brain was again already hooked on the deadening warmth of opiates, something I hadn't even craved for months and months. My dad was prescribed them soon thereafter, and I stole large amounts of his, which he found out about, causing me even more pain and shame. Soon enough, I was back on heroin.

It is true what they say, that each relapse is darker than the previous one. Almost immediately (I knew this would happen, honestly), I was back at the same place I was before after months of using. I needed a big amount just to kill the withdrawals, much less get high. Every time I use again, there are more negatives and less positives. I stole money on a daily basis from work, pawned all of my prized possessions at home, and manipulated people I cared about to get drugs to shut my mind off. I don't regret my relapse and any of the actions it caused, because it made me who I am today and the suffering allowed me to hit a bottom that forced me into the treatment I've always needed, but I am deeply sorry to anyone I hurt or let down or manipulated in the throes of my completely selfish drug binge. I say this from the bottom of my heart.

Luckily by this point in my life I knew that I couldn't get out of this hole on my own. I knew that I needed help, and admitted as much to those around me. Although resistant to the idea at first, I ultimately knew that I needed more complete and organized treatment then I had received before. I needed to work the process that millions of addicts have worked before me so that they could get better: detox/rehabilitation, counseling, group therapy, sober support, and medication. I wasn't willing to do any of those steps before other than counseling, and that is why I never really got better. I will talk more about how treatment is going and went at the beginning in my next entries. I really truly have hope that this time I can finally slay this very real demon of addiction (please remember that addiction is never the root problem--something else always lies underneath, but what that is with me, I am not sure of at this time). But having hope without having a plan and support is a futile thing. I think I have all three right now.

One day at a time.

--Edward

PS: For anyone interested, my sober date is 8/26/11. As someone said in one of my meetings, I don't like to put too much focus on my clean time, since it is like you are counting down towards something that is going to end (these were his words, and although I don't truly understand them, I like what he had to say). For me, it just puts too much pressure on an abstract number that is ultimately meaningless. What matters is happiness.