That marks the third time I can write that.  In fact, I’ve written it here before.  I haven’t read that post in some years now–I appreciate the hopefulness and the blush of reality.  And the McKagan quote, but that is practically a given.

My last drink, this time, I scarcely remember.  I mean, I remember the night (which is saying something for last year), and I know it was finishing off a bottle of Jameson, but that’s partially because I planned it that way, and it doesn’t have the sway and quality of the wine I mentioned in 2007 in my memory.  It was just another drink.   I couldn’t get drunk to save my life–despite polishing off several bottles of various types (it is a wonder I could move on the 28th, given the variety of the night before) before finishing the Jameson (and that was nearly half a bottle).

I went into the night knowing exactly what I intended to do. I felt nothing physically.  Emotionally, I was devastated.  I was once again at the same crossroad, only this time the threats (oh you Faustian bargains) were far more palpable.  I wasn’t going to live through this.  It wasn’t just a matter of sanity (though that was well in question too).  I was dying. If I may borrow from my favorite literary trope, I could hear Mephistopheles–and he was not wearing the poodle suit (what follows is from Historia):

And it came to pass between twelve and one 0′ clock in the night that a great blast of wind stormed against the house, blustering on all sides as if the inn and indeed the entire neighborhood would be torn down. The students fell into a great fear, got out of their beds and came together to comfort one another, but they did not stir out of their chamber. The innkeeper went running out of the house, however, and he found that there was no disturbance at all in any other place than his own. The students were lodged in a chamber close by the rooms of Doctor Faustus, and over the raging of the wind they heard a hideous music, as if snakes, adders and other serpents were in the house. Doctor Faustus’ door creaked open. There then arose a crying out of Murther! and Help! but the voice was weak and hollow, soon dying out entirely.

When it was day the students, who had not slept this entire night, went into the chamber where Doctor Faustus had lain, but they found no Faustus there. The parlor was full of blood. Brain clave unto the walls where the Fiend had dashed him from one to the other. Here lay his eyes, here a few teeth. O it was a hideous spectaculum. Then began the students to bewail and beweep him, seeking him in many places. When they came out to the dung heap, here they found his corpse. It was monstrous to behold, for head and limbs were still twitching.

Ah, to bewail and beweep.

For as much as I loved the taste of whiskey, I hated that night.  I hated it that night.  I hated that I couldn’t feel anything anymore.  I should have been in a blackout, but I wasn’t so blessed.  I packed off to bed and awoke with another ferocious hangover (that I felt) and went to work.  I hated myself. And wondered if anyone noticed.

Day 1 was just like normal, tinged though it was with a death’s anniversary (and, no, it didn’t escape my attention that December 28, 2010 was the one year anniversary of the Rev’s death.  It felt, actually, weirdly appropriate).  Except that I wouldn’t go home and drink that night.  Or the next. And one day (hour, minute) at a time, I put together 366 again.

I blogged on Day 2, sounding remarkably rational, quoting Knapp (whose book sits in my office now):

I sometimes think of alcoholics as people who’ve elevated [the search for a fix] to an art form or a religion, filling the emptiness with drink, chasing drink after drink, sometimes killing themselves in the effort.  They may give up liquor, but the chase is harder to stop. That’s why you hear people in AA meetings talk about thinking or acting alcoholically long after they’ve put down their last drink. The search for an external solution goes on: I want something.  I need something. “My husband is acting like an idiot,” a woman said at a meeting not long ago.  “I have to remember that the solution is not ‘Get a new husband’.” (61)

Did I mention the whole Faust parallel yet? Seeking.  Always seeking.

Day 366 was pretty normal too–at least this version of normal.  Awakened with no hangover (yeah!) and joint pain (not so yeah), went to work.  Annoyed colleagues and cleaned my office (hey, the network was down).  Came home and annoyed the dog.

Yep, this is certainly what passes for normal around here.

Save for this:  got honest with my boss.  I make no particular secret about me, my addictions, and my sobriety–my students link to this blog, and I talk openly, when appropriate, with some colleagues and students.  But not with my boss (well, one of them), though her assistant knows.  I owned up when showing off my new tattoo (in celebration of 365), and she asked if it was a Christmas present.  It seemed the right moment to be honest with her.  She’s perhaps the first person I’ve told who would really have been surprised (I guess–it felt that way), so that was…weird.

But, good.  One more step.  One more night the demons are kept at bay.

Hi!

The adventure this week is with my brand-new Nook, which I’m still slightly ashamed to own, but as it facilitated my reading of a left-petite-behind-several-hundred-pages-ago Stephen King novel, 11/22/1963, I am at least not suffering the post-King agony of my aching hands.  And I’ve moved on to a complete collection of Sherlock Holmes, which is no slouch in the length-and-therefore-heft department either.

Oh hell…I seem to have a penchant for big books, don’t I?  I’m sure there is a penis joke to be made here.

So, King.  He’s the author who provided the primary rationale for me to never own an e-reader (which made the situation that much more comical to me), as I have a rather unfortunate propensity for throwing Stephen King books upon completion, most typically because of the cutesies that would get plugged into so many of the novels, particularly those in the Dark Tower series (and especially Dark Tower itself, as I recall).

None of this should suggest that I don’t like King–I do, though I suspect it is often more in the vein of why I like John Saul than, say, Kate Atkinson. King (and Saul and a host of my other standbys) is nothing if not comfortably predictable.   And 11/22/1963 fits right in his oeuvre, even with the suggestions he noted in the afterword (including, apparently, a new ending, as proposed by his son, author Joe Hill, whose 20th Century Ghosts keeps right on wowing me years after publication.  Horns was comfortably funny (at times), and I’ve tortured a couple of classes with Heart-Shaped Box, which should be in the hands of all metal fans).  The characters, the cars, the action, the setting (of course) are familiar–like old friends who, as the books suggests, appear in multiple strings of possibility–multiple harmonies within King’s universe.

Perhaps weirdly, I had occasion recently to talk to another King fan (not the odd part) after an Avenged Sevenfold concert (still not the odd part) because I was carrying around a Norwegian mystery that had survived two nights in the pit with me.  After the show, I wasn’t quite ready to face the two-plus hours of rural roads home, so I gave into my 15-year-old fangirl and went out to the bus area.

(Note:  This is not the Matt story, those of you who have already been so blessed.  The book was present but went unreferenced at that encounter…which was less than 24 hours previously…holy crap.  When did I sleep??  The Matt story is a fangirling for another post).

A7X’s bus was, of course, behind the gates, but the other bands were more or less left to the whims of the fans.  In the course of avoiding being run over by screaming BVB fangirls (so small!  so cute!  holy fuck they are young!), I ran (almost) into Johnny 3 Tears from Hollywood Undead.  He noticed the book, picked it up out of my hands, asked (reasonably) why I had it (why this was became slightly more obvious moments later), and noted that I needed better reading material.  And then asked if I had the book in the pit, noting that I was slightly to stage right, yes?  I’m sure I looked at him like he was daft (which is better than my reaction might have been had I not heard him do the same to someone else already–naming pretty much exactly where they were, in that case, seated), but I nodded and agreed that the book’s survival was miraculous.  And because I am still learning the fine art of conversation, I challenged him to suggest better material.

He produced King, asking if I’d ever read his favorite King novel (and clearly assuming I had not, silly man), Hearts in Atlantis, which is also one of my favorites, in no small part because it is not as predictable or self-referential as he became in the books that followed.  He was quite charming (and clearly aware that he was), and we chatted a bit more about King, agreed we could probably wax poetic on the subject for many hours, and I wandered off into the great beyond of Northeast Georgia.

The conversation was odd and memorable not because of who it was with (though that part was at least unexpected), nor the situation (I find some of the coolest readers at concerts), but because when he asked what it was I liked about, I couldn’t answer easily.  I stuttered out something–the characters, the length (the damn things do have the benefit of taking a while to read), but as I walked away, the word that kept swimming to mind was comfortable–like the hoodie I was trotting about in.  I suspect we really could have talked for some time about King, but we probably would have gone in circles–because that is what so much of the post-Dark Tower (and DT itself) does.

11/22/1963, like so much (all?) of King’s later works, is self-referential (that is, referring to King’s other works), though not to the irritating degree achieved in some of his novels.   In fact, it would be all but impossible for this novel to avoid such references, set as it is (in part) in Derry, Maine, where so many of King’s works have been set before.  In fact, to fail to make mention of the murders from IT  or other happenings set in King’s Derry would have left the novel hollowed for long-time readers, I suspect (it certainly would have for me.  I started IT hunting as soon as we landed in Derry).

But, in the end, it was just a comfortable, familiar ride, complete with a few giggles at the expense of teachers (especially English teachers).  It didn’t grab me in the same way that Lisey’s Story and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and Duma Key (and Hearts) did; it didn’t frighten me in the way The Stand did in the post-apocalyptic so-fast-it-felt-more-like-a-publisher-deadline-than-an-ending glimpse of the future (that said, it was far, far, far better than the dreadful Cell).  But, if you want a good book to whisk you a way and not challenge you too terribly much, 11/22/1963 will likely fit the bill (otherwise, I’d suggest one of those noted above or the short story collections, which are fairly wonderful).

The original post, as best as I can figure, referenced my health…odyssey, which is ongoing.  But, what the hell, it took Jake Epping (of 11/22/1963) years to perform the action he intended, and it took Odysseus 10 years to get home, so, what, three four (*sigh*) months is a cakewalk so far, right?

Apologies for giving into my inner-Baroque German with the parentheticals.

Why, yes, I am the cutest cat in the world. Thanks for noticing.

after a rather unfortunate encounter with a car; he was taken by the local police to the vet we take the big guy to and, well, Mo just happened to come home with me one afternoon about 5 years ago (the vet just may have suggested that my penchant for wacko cats would be helpful).  Mo is a Bengal cat–his nickname is short for Mowgli.  He’s of the brown spotted tabby variety, and he does possess the beautiful golden glitter in his fur that the breed is known for.  Has a terribly charming pumpkin-orange belly, too.  And he’s lovely, lovely, lovely.

Being a Bengal, Mo “should” conform to the following description:

Whether they are fishing in the aquarium or playing in their water-bowls, fetching balls for their families, taking walks on a leash or climbing to the top of the highest cupboards, Bengals are constantly on the move and are perfect for anyone who wants to interact and play with their cat daily.

This is not Mo.  Mo, in fact, is none of these, save for “cat.” Mo is, as the saying goes, just FINE: fucked up, insecure, neurotic, emotional.  Also wildly high-strung.  Of all four of my current animals (and the three that preceded these), I probably identify most readily with Mo.  One gets the feeling that Mo would be who Mo is, regardless of his experiences.

Yes, there are two competing theories to what drove Mo to take a leap in front of a moving car.  Mo may be one of the fleet of feral cats in this community–he has a notched ear, which is typical of the ferals who were caught and released after neutering (which would certainly explain some of his…resistance to humans).  It is entirely possible (likely, even) that Mo was abused during the first two years of his life, before he came to us via our awesome vet.  Mo cares not one whit for men nor small kids.  He’s not keen on women, either.  In fact, he seems to be altogether misanthropic.  He is, however, very fond of other cats, and he does allow me the opportunity to pet him at dinner time. He even seems to appreciate it.  He also allows me to hold him in order to trim his nails, so he probably doesn’t totally hate me; he might even trust me a tad.

But, again, one gets the feeling that Mo would be high-strung irrespective of his history.  High-strung and Mo appear, indeed, to be synonymous.  And boy do I understand that on a deeply personal level.  All the therapy in the world isn’t going to change that for either of us.

He does have the marvelous benefit of being far cuter in his high-strungness than I.

This is a sobriety post, though it may take a while to look like one.  It’s also a bit all over the place.  Apologies for the scatteredness.

A few months ago, I wandered into tumblr.  I don’t recall now how it happened.  Probably it was some sort of livejournal bourne accident…though, having said that, I’m not so certain that is a rational assumption.  Livejournal is far more engaged in navel-gazing than tumblr, so the link going that direction seems somewhat unlikely.  Tumblr posts can manage to mention livejournal, insanejournal, greatestjournal, journalfen (okay, so probably not this one), mibba, and facebook in a single rant. LJ does well to post about other LJ communities [and this from someone whose own LJ points specifically to a number of fanwank communities (best non-LJ example)] .

However it happened, I stumbled in and upon in.  Around that time, I began posting my horror via Twitter*–horror mostly at the fansites I was tripping across and the…um…how do I put this?…internal logic that drives them.  Internal logic like:  Why do people mourn band member X; he wasn’t Kurt Cobain.

Actually, the internal logic is rather more closely akin to the internal logic of, say, Twilight.  For those of you blessedly unfamiliar with Twilight (how??), here’s an example of Meyer’s, er, logic, courtesy of one of my favorite, terribly amusing tumblrs, Reasoning with Vampires:

Meyer is scary, no?

Tumblr–perhaps because, in part, of the particular nature of the microblogging there–tends to have this kind of logic floating about (Meyer’s book, not Reasoning’s).  Not exclusively, mind; I’ve seen a number of awesome feminist debates and some excellent addiction support.  I’ve also seen a professed desire to be “raped” by (fillintheblank celebrity).  And a whole kettle of “OMG, I hate this fandom!” wanks.

One other thing I’ve noticed is my own tendency to retract from laying claims–including to my own desires and opinions.  Increasingly, I’ve noticed myself doing it in my real life (that is, I’ve noticed it more, I don’t think the overall rate has increased).  I’ll make a claim and then hedge to make the other person comfortable.   And I do it all the damn time, even on subjects about which I am both knowledgeable and confident.

Part of this is an honest desire to refrain from steamrolling conversations.  Much of it stems from fear and shame.  And those habits of mind, I have to remind myself, are the same ones that drove me to drink.

The feelings of fear and shame associated with elements of my life I adore have been around for a long while–at least since 8th grade (I distinctly recall being rather more bullheaded in earlier years, and I’ve nothing specific to point to–like getting my ass kicked (though I did get a fairly solid punch to the head on about 8th grade)–as the cause of this switch, not even boy-craziness, because I was pretty far gone in that regard well before age 13.  Many of the early exchanges were about music.  While my experience in that matter is hardly unique, it was memorable–getting yelled at (why did we rely so heavily on raised voices?) classmates for my music obsessions (GNR included).  Sadly, I came to be at once strident and ashamed about my musical habits (I could get into knock downs, but eventually learned to hide names and favorites unless I meant to be deliberately provocative).  Well, when in public, music was a guilty pleasure.  My bedroom walls told a different story (both in what covered them and what they “heard”–I imagine that those walls still retain the memory of Appetite for Destruction, for as often as they heard them).

Those habits of mind, I have to remind myself, are the same ones that drove me to drink.

The door-length Skid Row poster on my closet door that was, as it turns out, completely visible to those on the street below, is another story.  I’m sure you can imagine what else, as it turns out, was completely exposed.

Rather than own up, I turned bandom into innuendo,  like the time three of us stayed overnight in Trixter’s hotel rooms (they guys had moved on to the next city, but took pity on our not-even-18-nevermind-the-21-needed-to-rent-a-room-there selves and left us with the keys).   I vividly recall how I told that story after T and I waltzed in during 3rd period, and I assure you the parenthetical remark was not included.  I elided my shame about the band I was then obsessing over by turning to allusions to sex–because it was more comfortable to be imagined whore (for there was little in the way of sex-positivity among the seniors of my high school class)–than fan.

Better whore than fan.

You should hear the Danger Danger story sometime.

Better whore than fan.

Jeez.

Those habits of mind, I have to remind myself, are the same ones that drove me to drink.

So, when I read the groupie-blogs (of which there are many) or the naming-themselves-as-wanting-to-be-groupies blogs (of which there are more), I get it.  I get the drama and the cat fights.  I get the odd pieces that look a bit daft to the outside world.  Trust me.  Been there.  Moreover, I understand why it happens in a semi-anonymous environment.  When I read the fangirl chatter, I get it.  I even sort of get the absolutely-hysterical-now-that-I’m-here-but-probably-was-just-as-bad reactions to band marriage and (as happened this summer) the dreaded thirtieth birthdays.

As a result of whatever drives my habits of mind, even in my adult life, I tend to separate my desires from my reality.  The difference is that I now correct people who call me a groupie (seriously.  At least two colleagues, in perfect innocence, replied to my remark that I was going to follow Avenged Sevenfold for a couple of nights by remarking with glee “oh, you’re a groupie??” In high school, I might have said yes.).  I maintain separate blogs that, in theory, won’t meet, so that I can fangirl away in one and remain relatively academic (if occasionally fangirling.  and academic is likely the wrong word for this joint) on the other.  Tumblr is a neat, strange world (as is Twitter, if you dig too deeply), full of imagination (and role-playing–fascinating.  Also, terrifying) and play.  But it is also a place of fear and shame–hiding and pretending and hoping never to be discovered.

Those habits of mind, I have to remind myself, are the same ones that drove me to drink.

Music is essential for me in sobriety, both the aural and physical sensations.  I mentioned this here before–and to my class this week–that music is very much a physical experience for me.  I need to feel it.  And in my descent into alcoholism went alongside a separation from music–particularly live music.  When I am in the moments of my music, I don’t feel fear and shame.  I feel…whole.  Together.  And not because my brain turns off (though that is clearly true at times).  I was very much engaged in music and–yes–fandom before I went off the rails.  In some ways, it answered the nagging lack–performed what AA calls the spiritual awakening–in my life for years.   I need music in the way I need meditation and community.

Another colleague mentioned last night that she’d heard an Avenged Sevenfold song on the radio for the first time in the days before–she’d simply never heard them before (and how, after knowing me, I’ve no idea).  She asked her husband, before hearing who it was, if this was a Dream Theater or Rush (?).  She then looked at me levelly and said “I can see why they appeal to you.  The drums.  The dramatic guitars.  It’s so you.”

As a matter of being honest, I do have a tumbleblog (or however the fuck you spell that), and it can be found here.  Should you be brave enough to look, you will note a decided, though not exclusive, influence.  I apologize for nothing, including (especially?), the rather untoward fangirling over a non-curl.  And over a vocalist, a fact I simply don’t know what to do with.

That said, the blog is, like A7X for my colleague, so me.

*Clearly I am playing the “how many social networking sites can I mention in a single blog post” game.

Of the three AFD-era band members published so far, I enjoyed McKagan’s the most. Adler’s was painful in a I-can’t-even-finish-it sort of way, and while I enjoyed much of Slash’s book, I too often felt like I was reading Anthony Bozza–particularly in the quirky little questions and pseudo-cliffhangers. Folks who have followed McKagan’s post Guns-career and especially his writing will be unsurprised by how engaging the book is; folks who recall only the Duff of Use Your Illusion will be stunned. Readers looking for more salacious detail about the band once heralded as the world’s most dangerous will be disappointed. The memoir treads lightly–for the most part–there.

The same weekend I read Duff’s autobiography, I read Jack Grisham’s, which is titled American Demon.  For those who don’t spend their time mired in punk memorabilia and whatnot, Grisham hails from the early days of Orange County hardcore, most memorably for most in T.S.O.L.  Unless of course you were among those confronted by Vicious Circle, in which case, indeed, your memories may be a tad biased on the matter of the man.  And possibly his bands.  Grisham has rather oddly become a centerpiece in my class this semester, partially because his remarks in American Hardcore are themselves rather memorable, and also because it’s rather difficult to ignore that Slade in What We Do Is Secret is modeled on him (nor do I think it is intended to be ignored–and modeled isn’t nearly a strong enough verb).  As a result–or perhaps this is a matter of causation–I was drawn to the book.

While I’d undoubtedly recommend the book to someone, I’m not altogether certain who.  If you were running with Grisham at the formation during the heydays of OC hardcore, certainly it might be a take worth examining.  If you have any interest in the roots of OC hardcore, you still may enjoy it, though it doesn’t pretend to delve into punk for the most part, though he provides the obligatory and, frankly–given the rest of the book–mundane take on “real punk”:

Real punk is not being able to hold it together for your college degree, or for your long term, forty-hour-per-week day job.  Real punk isn’t fun or glamorous; real punk means that, against all your best intentions, you’re sitting in a lonely apartment with your head in your hands wondering how the fuck your destroyed your life again.  Real punk means that whatever you love is gonna be gone unless you get a touch of divine intervention–and as I said before, God doesn’t give  a fuck.

Real punk does suck.

[...]

…remember, history is rarely written by those creating it. So, I’d be careful what you read and believe. [...] Columbus didn’t discover America, Edison didn’t invent the light bulb, and your favorite old-time real-cool punk band or singer wasn’t. (202-203)

I’m not sure what put me off more–the arrogance (I’m reading Jack Grisham, what else was I expecting?), the hyperbole (Edison!  Columbus!  Punk!), or the everyday wrapped in an air of revelation. As my students can testify, he’s hardly alone or original in those claims about punk.  Of course, it could simply be that I get irritated by any claim to know what “true/real/whatever” punk is.

It is all about me, after all.

As a recovery narrative–it isn’t.  I won’t go so far as other reviewers (and Grisham himself) to laud this as a book unlike the score of other books written by and about addicts in that it doesn’t end in redemption.  The publisher puts it this way: “Eloquently disregarding the prefabricated formulas of the drunk–to–sober, bad–to–good tale…”.  And, yes, the redemption narrative stops short–we don’t watch demon Jack recover, but that’s less a result of the narrative strategy than when the timeline of the book halts.  Fairly easy to avoid redemption when you stay out of the recovery part of the tale (and, indeed, there is that–Grisham has been sober for more than 20 years).  And, as more than a few examples can point out, mere sobriety does not necessarily render one a saint.  Nor a nice guy.  Nor even tolerable, nevermind redeemed and/or good.

Of course, it was intriguing enough to make me want to chart where the book belongs within the canon (such as there is) of redemption narrative and the sub-canon (far more codified) of the Faustian narrative, though that’s not quite what he produced here.

The book is worth reading, provided rape, various forms of violence (inflicted on women, men, children, well, everything, actually), and descriptions of alcohol and drug abuse aren’t triggering.  Also a general tendency toward asshole–it’s difficult to come away liking the narrative voice, though I certainly enjoyed the playfulness and the turns of phrase.  His description, for instance, of alcohol, was…uncomfortably familiar (and the very thought of Grisham in my head decidedly freaky):

Booze is a synthetic taste of God, created by man to satisfy a closeness that wasn’t there when he, the man, was created.  God, in His infinite wisdom (and need for acknowledgement), left a spiritual hole in man that only God could fill.  This way, man would have to search out his Creator to feel whole, and then than Him for being created.

Shit, that was a mouthful of words just to say that booze makes you feel all cuddly and warm inside. (45)

Okay, so not really in my head, but, yeah.  I smiled.  I even whipped out the highlighter.

Two books arguably about similar topics (white dude, hardcore punk, addiction, and in Duff’s case, life thereafter), but wildly, wildly, oh so incredibly, different.  If ever two books could showcase what differences in narrative tone and thesis can do to a story, these are ready for the pairing.

Go forth and read, my children.

One of those three statements is a lie.

For the small population of folk who knew me in high school and with whom I still maintain some contact, some of the following may ring familiar.  For most of those who met me after TG was born, it will not.  I’m not sure how much, if at all, I’ve discussed my less-than-stellar high school career with anyone who wasn’t unfortunate enough to be there at the time.  I was, in short, a poor student.

I didn’t turn in work, and when I did it tended to be half-assed.  “She doesn’t live up to her potential” showed up in reports so often that my mother just came to assume that it would be there, should she bother to look at it in the first place.  Even in drama–the one place I marginally excelled–that remark came up year after year (what potential, exactly, my director meant, I’m less sure.  Certainly wasn’t acting).

During the last two years–no, that’s not accurate…During the entire span of high school, I was depressed (not something in and of itself particularly surprising in that age range).  I was ill, too.  The illnesses started in 5th grade.  On Thursdays.  Pretty much every Thursday for about 12 weeks that spring semester (beginning February-ish), I would report to the nurse’s office before or at the start of lunch, before we would switch classes to my afternoon teacher, Mr. Kern, who was, as I recall, in charge the day’s lessons for  social Sciences, science, and math (that may well be incorrect).

I was afraid of Mr. Kern.   Nice guy–very demanding.  Saw through my bullshit.  See, Thursdays were the day I returned from gifted-school, a separate site I attended on Wednesdays.  Invariably, I’d forget to do or bring my homework for Thursday, the end result of which was a demerit.  Ten demerits equalled detention.  I recall only having detention once that year–Mr. Kern had to drive me home because my mother couldn’t get off work and my father was in…Idaho (?)…somewhere of that nature.  Possibly he was in California.  I don’t remember any more.

So, given that I only had detention once, I must have done my homework occasionally, but I do remember how sternly Mr. Kern would look at me when I didn’t have it.  Abject failure in pigtails.  Again.

I felt awful.

On those Thursdays in spring of fifth grade, my mother would dutifully come get me and take me to the doctor, though my temperature was seldom above about 99.5 F.  In the meantime, I’d wait in the nurse’s office, and my teachers–usually in the order of Ms. Whitaker (morning–language arts), Mr. D or one of the rotating bands of physical education teachers, and then Mr. Kern.  Each would glower at me (increasingly as the weeks went on), wondering aloud if there was anything really wrong with me.

I felt awful.

True enough, I was usually hiding from my homeworklessness, but…here’s the rub…each week that occurred, when my mother dutifully took me to the doc-in-the-box, I tested positive for strep throat.  And each time I took the 7 or 10 (I don’t recall which) regiment of antibiotics faithfully.  And scored a positive the very next time I arrived.  They finally shot me up (literally) with long-acting penicillin–stuff was thick enough to leave a scar on my hip at the injection site.

No further Thursdays to the nurse, and, as I recall, no further missed homework on Thursdays.

I felt better.

Somewhere in high school, it happened again.  Missed days.  Forgotten work. Trips to the doctor.  Feeling utterly exhausted all the time.  Mono spot and strep tests that rang negative each time, though the glands in my throat remained clearly swollen.  Sometimes, I just couldn’t do more than lay on the couch and stare at the dog, who was nonplussed  by the whole affair.

After a few months of the “what the hell is wrong” routine, a doc at the navy hospital drew a few vials of blood (for which they had to use a butterfly needle made for kids, my veins were so bad and my blood pressure so low**).  The results came back with a very high–I recall him stuttering when he said it–Epstein-Barr Virus titer.  He ran the mono spot test again.  Still negative.  There was talk at the time about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which was the celebrated-diagnosis of the day.  Though studies (in about 2003) would indeed correlate the high EBV numbers, negative mono test, and the wandering host of other symptoms I presented with (aches, odd respiratory ailments, headaches, poor sleeping, etc.) with CFS, the syndrome was regarded then, as it still is, as largely psychological.  In other words, it’s all in your head, please get over it. For a year or more we went through the same series of tests with the same results.

I was still not doing homework and increasingly wanted nothing more than to NOT be in school.  And, I felt awful.

I could still do things–particularly things I enjoyed, like going to concerts or participating in theater.  I’d be too exhausted to do anything else after the fact, but I could do them. As a result, I came to the conclusion eventually that it was indeed all in my head and the physical symptoms were a manifestation of the depression I was experiencing, and that I was, as it was widely assumed, making myself sick (or playing sick) in order to get out of dealing with school.  And sometimes, that felt true, as I would miss doing something and begin a spiral that would involve–eventually–missing school.

I was choosing to be sick so that I didn’t have to continue to be the abject failure (though I now seldom sported pigtails).  Over the past nearly 20 years, I’ve carefully managed stress levels, however, even going so far as to choose a career with built-in vacation times, in order to ensure that I didn’t push myself too hard and make myself sick again.

Now, I want you to look at that again.  Simultaneously, I held the belief over the course of 20 years that I had the ability/control to make myself sick (or was faking it to such an astounding degree that I skewed the medical tests) and that I had to take care of myself to prevent it from happening again.  And for these twenty years, it’s never occurred to me that those two beliefs might be mutually exclusive.

My work situation changed recently.  Since 2007, I’ve slowly given up those built-in down times by shifting my responsibilities away from teaching and toward administration.  Even when I worked and planned and did stuff during those breaks (and I did), they felt different.  And, as I predicted (while believing myself to be inherently lazy and inclined toward shirking my duties), I don’t take care to take breaks anymore that don’t involve some insane level of activity–physically and mentally.  This year has been the worst–I’ve taken to telling myself that I just have to make it until June.  June.  Just hang in there.  Forgive yourself the mistakes.  Hang in there.  Hang in there.  Hang in there.

And then I’d realize there was something else I’d meant to do.  What was it?

The illness of the last three weeks feels so much like high school that it scares me.  I feel deflated.  And when I need to ramp up energy, I can (sometimes), but it means that other things can’t and won’t happen.  I’ve been chastising myself for months now about the things I’m forgetting to do,  the details I’m missing.  For being lazy. Forgetful. In case anyone is counting, yes, the cervical (neck) glands are indeed swollen.  Perhaps it’s just the flu.

I’m sort of waiting for Mr. Kern to arrive, demerit board at the ready.  Of course, I no longer need him, since I’ve utterly internalized the conversation.

I tried working the steps on the matter of how I feels, and got as far as step one when I realized that I’d never allowed myself to imagine that I was sick.  Really sick.  Not faking it.  Not trying to get out of doing something.  I  mean, there are things I am currently avoiding, but it’s because I have no energy for them, not because I have a burning desire to argue over what it is I haven’t done.  I’m putting the majority of energy into work, so home and me are getting left in the dust–I’ve nothing left.  Nothing.

What if I turned the conversation about the 5th grader around?  What if she was forgetting her homework because she was sick?  She wasn’t necessarily aware that she was sick, but she lacked the energy to complete the task–perhaps even to recall that there was a task.  What if she was that sick?  That exhausted?  And that inclined to assume she was at fault for everything–even being sick.  It had to be purposeful.  It had to be her in control of the illness–it couldn’t be that she felt awful.

Awful is easier to ignore when engaged in something that one enjoys.  Reading is, and always has been, something of a distraction for me.  I could feel awful, get lost in a book, and feel marginally less awful for a while.

What if the depression, which was co-morbid in both 5th grade and high school, did not cause the illness, but was caused by it?  And made the forgetting worse. And what if it doesn’t matter which was the chicken and which was the egg and which came first?  What if it just is?

I was depressed and I felt awful.

I am depressed and I feel awful.

I’m working on the depression and the shame.  I think that work has kicked the door open for me to begin to imagine that I didn’t do wrong in high school and in fifth grade.  There was a finite amount of energy available to me, and I didn’t know it.  I blew through it just trying to keep up with every one else, and I blamed myself for not measuring up.  Clearly, I was in control (and, perhaps, this was another area where I grasped at straws to make myself believe I controlled something) and had something to be ashamed of.

How in the world did I convince myself that I controlled when I developed strep throat?  That it was my fault?  WTF?

So it’s not that I don’t have an iota of a clue what’s up.  I don’t know that the CFS is back.  I’m not certain I want to walk that road in the medical establishment again (there is nothing, after all, to be done about it).  I’ll go in, get the appropriate tests to ensure that it isn’t anything easily dealt with (at which point I’ll be irritated at myself for waiting so long to go in).  But, if they come back negative, I don’t know what I’ll do, and, at the moment, I’m leaving that with HP, who at least has provided me with an avenue here to see that maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t me.

Which makes me feel, oddly, a little better.

*168th post/confession/whatever. No other numerical significance I am currently aware of.

**Recent information suggests that the low blood pressure is part of the host of problems, as the brain doesn’t get as much as it otherwise would.  This speaks, perhaps, to why, as I have long believed, I improved when I got pregnant.  My blood pressure went up and reached normal for perhaps the first time in years, allowing some of the damage to heal.  I was a damn sight more active and a FAR more engaged student during that period than I had been before.

I’m still not doing my fifth step here, but I am going to use some of what I discovered lurking there as a springboard for discussion and, well, quite frankly, to make myself write and be honest.  I need to write, and I need to practice honesty even more.

Most of my fifth step can be categorized into   3 or 4 discrete groups: shame and silence being preeminent among them.  Both my sponsor and my therapist have separately observed that the vast majority of the specifics and the subgroups could probably be listed under the first of these. So, we begin this little adventure into the mind of kitsch with the mental habit that might be referred to as my default response to life.  I find this rather comical, because heretofore I would have thought anger or anxiety, but, damned if shame doesn’t appear to undergird the majority of BOTH of those responses.

In keeping with this blog’s working assumption that everything is academic, let’s begin with a foray into the lexicographical history of shame, and a related amusing anecdote.  Shame has three categories, according to the OED, two nouns and one verb with roughly 14 definitions between them (and a host of sub-definitions).  Number one, however, is “the painful emotion arising from the consciousness of something dishonouring, ridiculous, or indecorous in one’s own conduct or circumstances (or in those of others whose honour or disgrace one regards as one’s own), or of being in a situation which offends one’s sense of modesty or decency.”  I’m particularly fond of the appearance of the terribly British “indecorous” herein.  The definition requires an emotional response (painful, at that) and having done something or found oneself in a situation that inspires said painful emotion.

A friend recently provided the distinction between guilt and shame, and, no kidding, did it without missing a beat.  A paraphrase of her capture: guilt is about something you have done; shame is about who you are (or something you think).  I tend to conflate the two–the emotional experience I typically call guilt, is usually shame run rampant.  More often than not, the response arises out of such deeply engrained emotional habits that I don’t see it coming until I’ve already been smacked across the face (brain?).

Certainly, I have “shame” moments over things I’ve done that would fall into the category of indecorous (and not always while drunk, mind you–indeed, I am wildly capable of seriously bad ideas while stone cold sober.  Perhaps even more than when drunk since alcohol had the singular positive effect of making me stop. freaking. moving.).  So, yes, I’ve done things I am ashamed of.  I think that’s probably true of every one of us.

The more pressing problem is that shame sends out tentacles into my life and pops up in the damnedest of ways.  When I went to Uproar in Washington D.C. (awesome show, by the way), I met Craig Mabbitt, one of the guys from Escape the Fate, in the parking lot after the show.  I was with three women I’d met in the line for the pit.  He and his buddy asked if we wanted to party with them and Black Tide.  First reaction: Hell yeah!  I can drink all y’all under the table. Second: Hey–going to turn 36 in a few days and I still got it!  Third:  Wait, he’s already several sheets to the wind and there is likely more where he’s heading.  Dangerous.  Very dangerous. Fourth:  Wait, are the guys in Black Tide even of legal drinking age?

The thoughts happened in relatively quick succession, and I thanked him as politely as possible, begging off owing to the drive I was making to Virginia Beach that night/morning to see the show again the next day.  I was proud of myself.  Got in my rental, drove to Waffle House, got the obligatory post-concert waffle and coffee, and drove on to Virginia Beach, arriving at my hotel at 4:16 am.  During the drive, I started to feel guilty, or, as is probably more correct, ashamed.  Of what, I couldn’t say. I hadn’t done anything other than go get a waffle and coffee.  I said no.  I was a good girl.  I chanted this over and again until I fell asleep at the hotel around 5, but I still felt off when I left for the show a few hours later.  It was later suggested to me that what I felt wasn’t shame so much as discomfort that I couldn’t name and consequently defined as shame.

Perhaps.  All I know is it felt awfully familiar.  And the central thought?  I shouldn’t have been in the parking lot at that point in the first place.

Shoulds are a bit of a problem for me.  Especially nonsensical ones.

I should, for instance, have been smart enough to avoid alcoholism.  I know, intellectually, that isn’t true.  I am one of those who could not experiment and walk away; this is simply who I am, and the only cure treatment for my particular disease is a fellowship of people with the same affliction.  But, intellectual knowledge aside, I am shamed.  And I have twice (perhaps three times–it’s difficult to say with the last one) relapsed as a direct result of the shame of alcoholism, and, more pointedly, the ways in which my disease affected my husband.  I am not (yet more shame) a particularly easy person to live with when sober (granted, that was true of me drunk as well, but I was blacked out most of the time, so the record from my point-of-view is a bit silent on the matter).

I can’t pinpoint what makes me difficult to live with exactly, and I am aware that much of it is driven by a need to be perfect that manifests, as has been described to me, in my “shoulding all over myself.”  And I do.  What I should do.  Why I should do this rather than that.  How I should feel.  And, worse, how you should feel.  And to shut off that voice, to make me feel like a better, kinder, easier to deal with wife, twice I decided it was easier to just fucking take a drink and pray I could control it this time.

There was not and never will be a “this time” for me in that regard.  I simply cannot control my consumption of alcohol.

And guess what?  Yep, shame.  I was supposed to be (I should be) better than this.  Than those members of my family who preceded me in this disease.  Why should must I be better?  Because I am such a pathetic piece of existence in the first place.

There it is.  The center of my shame.  The unshakable conviction that, on the whole, I am a monster undeserving of even my own respect.

And it took writing this for me to see the bottom (maybe?) of all that shame.  Oi.  It took the fifth step–and writing shame over and over again–for me to even see that was the emotion I was experiencing.  And, as per usual, it took a song running through my head over and over and over–listening to it compulsively without knowing why I needed to–for me to hear it.

I first heard the song referenced in the title of this post at Uproar.  I knew what it was about, because before Escape the Fate began to play it, Craig (vocals) and Max (bass) introduced it with the title and a brief introduction to the subject–alcoholism & addiction–Max’s in particular, by his own admission [now, I grant, it took me very little time to realize that while the song might manifest my understanding of alcoholism and addiction, Craig was using it in different context--that part was much clearer 1) when I met him after the show (a delightful boy, tipsy as hell, but very sweet) and 2) in his presentation the next night which was a decided celebration of alcohol consumption].  When he introduced the song, pointed to himself as “liar” and to Max as “monster” (Max pointed to himself at this as well).  I should note that what I knew of the band prior to that show was minimal–I’d read about them somewhere–enough to know vaguely about the band’s history, but I couldn’t say why I had read about them nor if I had heard anything by them before.  But, when Max walked out on stage, he had my attention.  Why?  Well, he plays bass, so that was easy, and he’s easy on the eyes, and it was rather hard to look away from the bundle of energy that was Max that night.  The last of these was probably most of it (indeed the easy on the eyes part occurred to me only after I looked at pictures later) because I recognized something in him–the manic energy that only addicts really possess.  And if there is no other singular guarantee with me and bands, there is this:  if there is an addict* on the stage, I’ll find him or her and zero in (ask me how GNR went for me.  Go ahead).  Every. Freaking. Time.

One of the only lines of the song I could understand clearly that night (though the next night the sound quality was such that I understood every word of every song–which was kind of rad), was “I am a liar, I am no model figure, I am a monster, and I am ashamed.” I listened to that song over and again for a month before it dawned on me why.

It was not so much that I needed to hear affirmation that “I am a monster” or liar, but because I needed something external to define for me what I was so uncomfortable about following my fifth step.  What had been there and not quite been articulated fully (the old “more will be revealed” adage).  Why I felt so bad that morning in Virginia Beach after doing exactly nothing:

“My own reflection is the one sight that I cannot bear.”

I can’t imagine that changing.  Really.  Cannot do it.  But, part of the last two steps forced me to consider if I was willing to let go of this particular self-image which is, at best, abusive.  And to consider, too, letting go of its corralary (and the next blogging victim) silence.

*This should not be construed as me doing an inventory on his behalf. He cops to being an addict, and presently clean, if not sober.

Spoke to my sponsor, talked to a friend, told my therapist, and confessed in a meeting.  All of those were good.

What I discovered in the weeks that followed (it has been 24 days since the last post, after all), was that while I felt okay–even pretty good–I wasn’t really doing all that well.  I stopped writing (obviously), reading for pleasure, and generally enjoying myself.  I can’t even muster up the excitement for going to Uproar next week (that may be a habit of mind, in that I fear I’ll be disappointed–something will prevent me from going–so I don’t think about it.  Don’t worry over it.  Don’t get excited about it).

All of those are red flags for me–that I’m sliding into despair (and given that despair has been a herald for relapse–depression isn’t always followed by relapse, but relapses are always preceded by depression, it’s troubling for a number of reasons).  I’m working on the depression (action.  action.  action.) and the red flags (clearly, since I am writing right now–and writing without a clear objective–just to DO the act).  And while nothing in the last few weeks looks or feels like December did–I remind myself often what December was and what my hands looked like as they shook in the car.

In theory, I am on step 6, but I am struggling with it, which suggests a couple of things.  First and foremost, I am probably over-thinking it; given that has been the case with every preceding step, I can’t imagine that isn’t part of the trouble.  A friend observed that if one is stuck on a step that it may be a sign that one is need of looking at the step before.  And, in truth, I have realized resentments I neglected to confess to myself, nevermind to my sponsor, and perhaps that is part of the struggle right now as well.

I found myself in a dark spot this week the likes of which I’d not seen in a very long time.  I can’t even remember the last time (yeah, I know, even if I could, would I want to?).  Events and stressors and pressure and red flags coalesced into a serpent in my brain that whispered all manner of bleak thoughts, beginning with the refrain from a Misfits song, “Die, Die My Darling,” which would have been (and should have been) quite comical if I hadn’t been so depressed.  I’m not sure what to make of my brain defaulting to Glenn Danzig nor if my brain was trying to be helpful or hurtful with the song selection.  All I’ve got on the matter now is, wow…what the fuck?

In other examples of what-the-fuckery (and utter obviousness–I’m not even sure what seemed so significant at the time, now), I realized what draws me into punk and metal.  Well, not all of what draws me in.  Just one element.  I was listening to Betty Blowtorch, who I simply do not write about enough, and the compilation album produced after Bianca’s death (almost 10 years.  Holy shit), Last Call, which has both “Get Off” and “Teenage Whore” (a song I over-identify with, but BB gives me a safe out because the lyrics shift).  Listening to her–especially in “Get Off”–the voice she gives to rage.  The willingness to give voice to rage and pain and not swallow it down like another fucking pill.  A willingness I’ve long lacked.

And I do–do swallow, that is–swallow the rage and pain and words and feelings and whatevers.  I swallow them so they don’t come out and ruin a carefully and protectively cultivated image of the nice girl.  The consensus striker.  The good girl.  The rage and pain and words and feelings and whatevers I swallow become resentments.  And that resentment–those pills–fuck…those are better than narcotics.  I can coast on the burn for days…weeks, even.  I find myself capitalizing on the pain and anger I’ve swallowed–adding to them, seeking more of the like.  Trying to find the high again.  The high of the self-righteous. The high of the eternal martyr.

So listening to music that gives voice to the rage gives me an outlet less fraught with danger.  I listened to Godsmack on the way home today to channel the ferocity and have it said and done before I got home (I stupidly allowed myself to skip lunch today and spend much of the time worrying over emotions and actions that are not my own and what I did/can do/haven’t done).  I can be a bad girl for a few minutes.  Let the rage hang out, then shut it away.  Safely.  Where no one will see it. No one will accuse (and, huh, mosh pits.  Small wonder at their appeal, no?).

And I wonder why I struggle with a step asking me to be willing to ask for release from my character defects. Some of those defects–the silencing in particular–keep me in what I regard as a position of safety and security, even when it can rapidly unbalance.  I’m so afraid of not being the person I am expected to be (or, as my sponsor and my therapist each might note here, what I *think* others expect of me) that I’ve a death grip on the defects.

Then again–consider the alternative.  A cold December morning, shaking hands.  Revisiting the days when I hallucinated before I sobered up the first time–could feel my wrists splitting apart of their own accord.  Begging for release.  For an end.  Have I ever really acknowledge the cutting of days long gone but still so close to mind?  Or that tattooing and piercing are in many ways the safe outlet for the same?  Have I ever really acknowledged the suicidal ideation of those hallucinations years ago?  That’s how far gone I got.

So can there really be a question about step six or any other step?  Because I sure as fuck don’t want to be there again.  Ever.

Years ago, I wrote a story in which one of the main characters was a Mary Sue, and not even a particularly clever attempt at disguising the sueishness.  I may have even called her by my own name.  Give me marks for honesty, will you (then and now, for that matter)?  What was noteworthy about this particular Ms. Mary Sue is that she was an alcoholic, years before I would come to terms with my own alcoholism.

Though, again in truth, perhaps I was already becoming consumed to the point of awareness.  I knew where I was headed.  I warned myself with my own Sue.  I, of course, entirely failed to heed my own warning.

The scene I recall most vividly from the piece involved Ms. Sue’s continuing struggles with recovery.  She was in recovery, but the people around her felt she was overdramatic–that her drinking wasn’t that bad, because most of it had occurred out of their line of sight.  So she didn’t talk about her recovery, except with the one person–a fellow addict–who recognized her for who she was.  Who saw through the veil.

I’d forgotten that part of the set up until I started typing.  Could I have called it any closer?

In the scene I recall with some clarity, the two addicts are without home, having donated their homes and families to their addictions, their recoveries, and their silence.  They sit on New Year’s Eve in a hotel room, staring at a bottle of Jack, listening to the drunken revelry outside the doors and windows.   The bottle just sits there, getting bigger by degrees.

This was written in the years before–before I became a connoisseur of whisky and bourbons, before drinking became a nightly sport, before I looked down and stared at my shaking hands one December afternoon.  However much before, I nailed the moment.  The obsession.  This thinking about the bottle; or, rather, the haunting, more than thinking.  It’s far more frightening than mere thinking.

The bottle in reality, unlike the bottle of the story, doesn’t sit in my line of sight.  I put it up when I found it today–up in the cabinet away from my prying eyes.  G had meant to take it with him to see his brother, I guess.  He left it behind, along with the sardines.  The sardines, notably, are not haunting me, though they are equally here and equally put away.

The wax-topped bottle, though, sits not exactly at the forefront of my mind, but it’s there.  A ghost for every thought.  Just there.

I don’t care for this feeling.  This disturbance.  This whatever-the-fuck to call it.  I don’t like it being here in the house, though it sits in a cabinet where it is not, in point of fact, the only one its kind.  The rest of the bottles haven’t called to me over the months (in fact, at least one has, I believe, rested there since the first sobriety dance in 2007).  And this one isn’t calling…exactly.  It’s just there.

I don’t want it to be here–in my head. I can’t pour it out, as I don’t want to smell it (and, yeah, it would be wasteful and I’d have to explain that to G) as it goes down the drain or thereafter.  Can’t just pitch it (see also, wasteful).  Thinking I’ll donate it to a friend tomorrow.  Someone who knows.  As I posited for my poor Ms. Sue, who did, in fact (fiction?), survive her night sober, the bottle sits far bigger mentally than physically.  It consumes far more headspace than it does physical territory.

It’s just there.

Or which one will be the last, for that matter.

What needs to be said, brutally and beautifully about addiction and Amy Winehouse’s death can be found in Russell Brand’s “For Amy.”  Read it the whole thing, but here’s a taste:

All addicts, regardless of the substance or their social status share a consistent and obvious symptom; they’re not quite present when you talk to them. They communicate to you through a barely discernible but un-ignorable veil.

A softer, but no less apt tribute by Duff at Reverb:

I only know that addiction is a lonely and terrifying place to be. It’s not glamorous, and addiction does not care if you are well-known and rich, or a loner-hermit with no dough.

They are both entirely worth the read.

Addicts, the ones I’ve encountered in the last few days, myself included, have reacted with a bit of recoil:  Experience, Strength, and Hope is ALWAYS tempered by the reality that reminds what the other path will hold.  Amy’s death is one such reality.  And before her Andrew. Kurt. Janis. Jim. Jimi. Jimmy. Layne.  And scores of others heralded by first name to the family of fans and by so much more to friends and family, some of whom might have waited for the call.  And waited.  And prayed it was a cry for help or a resolution to find another way.  Accident or intent is irrelevant when the other call comes.

A penny dropped. And with it went a voice. A godmother. A friend. A daughter.