About nine hours ago, my friend Simon and I attended the Body Worlds exhibit in Baltimore MD.   You know...the one where the German artist Gunther von Hagens used plastination to fill dead tissue with elastomers so that others can "see" the insides of a human body.  I did not know what I expected, but I certainly got more than I bargained for this afternoon.

While walking through the exhibit, I began to feel very flushed and hot...and then the weakness/lightheadedness became all that surrounded me.  I thought (on multiple occasions) that I was going to pass out.  I'm not here to make a religious statement about the use of cadavers in "art;" nor am I going to even begin discussing the plastinated fetuses exhibit (without a word between us, both Simon and I individually chose to ignore that aspect of the exhibit).  Rather, I would like to point out two distinct aspects of the exhibit which have left me with a woozy feeling the entire day.

First of all; I was in room after room full of dead people, who were tortured post-mortem, for art/science.  I've been to funerals, and although I do not enjoy them, I am not sickened...but being in room after room after room, staring at naked, filleted corpses was simply too much.  There was a grandfatherly-type man, dissected into "thick" slices to show what the inside of a human body looks like.  His face seemed as if it were a rubber mask, falling slack over his skull...

OK I need to move on; because the uncomfortable "hot feeling" is returning.

The second aspct of this show that scared me shitless was the cancer-ridden lung.  It was all black and puffy...and sickening; like a giant cotton ball with ink spilled all over it.  For anyone who doesn't know, I used to smoke...until November 17, 2006.  I just quit and did not smoke again...until I moved to The East Coast.  I smoked occasionally (mainly on weekends, and when I was drinking) from June of last year until today...but no more!  After seeing multiple cancer-ridden lungs in the exhibit, I can no longer even fathom having one cigarette during a night of drinking.  As I write this I'm shaking.  The fear is real and pervasive...like a stranglehold on my heart.  I will go to any length required to prevent my lungs from looking like those in the exhibit.  Even the thought of an occasional social cigarette or a "with alcohol cigarette" churns my stomach and causes panic to swell deep within me.

The Body Worlds exhibit has scarred me in some ways, but it has also added years to my life.