We see people brand new people

As I register and tell my name to a woman at the entrance of the auditorium and sign a sheet and she gives me a gift backpack, a folder with several documents and a badge with my name, I sort of remember that I came here, to this very auditorium, almost 20 years ago. Those were different times, I was just an inexperienced guy with a degree in Psychology, months ago I had just graduated from the School of Psychology. The opportunity to start as a teacher of a Motivation & Emotion course appeared out of nowhere. One of the members of my thesis jury used to work at Ibero, and I didn't know it, but then, at some point of the review process of my thesis, I asked him if he knew how could I get involved into academia, that I wanted so hard to acquire experience in teaching, all I had done was to give two or three classes of one of the courses of my advisor. 

I've been exhausted all week, between Monday, Tuesday and Friday I give 12 hours of classes, I still haven't adapted to this new stage of my life. I've also been writing a manuscript, it's a collaboration that someone proposed to me, this manuscript will be the second manuscript I write in 2025. Honestly, I haven't enjoyed the writing process, I am working against the clock, is not fun. I've been so busy that I haven't been able to go out for a run. For the last two weeks I've been waking up very early in the morning and starting to write this manuscript and studying and working for classes, and fixing some demanding bureaucratic issues. A month ago I was relatively free.

As I walk through the auditorium, I wonder how much the university will pay me. I can't stop worrying about money; it's a pain. I'm a Level 2 National Researcher, which isn't easy; I should receive the salary corresponding to this distinction, but all year I've been looking for an opportunity; I sent almost 15 applications for full-time permanent academic positions to almost 10 universities. None of them saw my potential.

Anyway, I look for a spot, find it, sit down, and have a flashback. I remember that Saturday, it must have been January 2005, I was completely different from who I am now, the only person who'd ever loved me had just sent me to hell, I didn't know how to teach a course, I was so näive, still lived at my parents house. 

I take a deep breath, I should be writing this manuscript. 

Then I see you. You're in the front row, your straight, horsehair-like hair drawing me in. It's so hypnotic and shiny. As if sensing that kind of mental empowerment, you slowly turned your head to the left. I sat to your right, and our eyes make contact. You're smiling at nothing, wearing magnifying glasses. I can't help but glance briefly at your breasts, and I'm shocked. I'm stupid. I shouldn't be thinking this. I wonder what it would have been like to meet you 20 years ago, I wonder what it would have been like to have sex with you. 

I'm sure I'll continue writing this manuscript when I get back home, but I'm sure I'll drink a couple of Jim Beams and also write a story about us, about how we met 20 years ago in a frivolous world, while academia is collapsing and we're listening to this Iggy Pop song about humans being like ice machines.

I Miss The Comfort In Being Sad

I wake up from this dream and it's 6:14 on Thursday, July 17th, you appeared out of nowhere, we're just “friends” on IG, I sent you a request in March, then I just had 200 followers or something like that (at this time, I have almost 750), and I did it 'cause we met and we spoke at a Sleep Medicine Conference, specifically when we attended a talk on Narcolepsy Type 1 and just as I was asking the lecturer if Sodium Oxybate was available in Mexico the microphone failed, your mentor and you were in the seats in front of me and you said Taking advantage of the break, Dr., I want to tell you that I saw your content on social media and I loved it. Perhaps I said Thanks and asked you if you had attended to my talk earlier that morning, it was Saturday, March 22nd. At 8: 30 I had spoken of Sleep and Metabolism and I had coordinated a Simposium, you said No and I smiled and the technicians fixed the microphone.

That was the last day of the Sleep Medicine Congress, I was more melancholic than usual, since October I'd been looking for full-time permanent academic positions at 6 or 7 seven universities, writing 3 or 4 Research Projects, several Letters of Intent and one paper that was published in February in a Q1 Journal. 

I'd already looked at you, it was impossible not to notice you. In addition to attending the Sleep Medicine Congress, you had participated in a poster session, you had given a talk a day or two before and you had won the first place of a research undergraduate contest. Many scholars had spoken to you, perhaps they were attracted by your clinician research project but also by your youth and your beauty, you must have been in your 20s. 

Besides being more melancholic than usual, I had been tired and sleepy in the entire Sleep Medicine Congress, I'm allergic to air conditioning and I had been exposed to a tons of air conditioning machines. At breakfast and dinner, I had spoken several times with a colleague of my age, he was also looking for a full-time permanent academic position, he had an academic profile similar to mine, we were disappointed, about to quit, to leave academia. 

At some point, when I became aware of your existence, I dreamed about you, the way you seemed to look at me, like if you were frightened or something, like if you wanted to tell me something, and I realized how easy it would be to impress you, and not because of you but because of the way it is, I remembered when I started as a Subject Teacher and students were easily impressed by me, they sort of saw me as a role model. Then, some of them, as the semesters ended, sent me weird e-mails and stuff like that. 

Anyway, the point is that I just dreamed about you, and it's 6:14 on Thursday, July 17th. 

In my dream, we were in my childhood apartment, there was another woman about my age, dunno why but the three of us had some sort of ambiguous relationship. It was early in the morning, we were in the bathroom. As I was brushing my teeth, you took off a bathrobe and you looked at me like if you wanted to tell me something, like if you were frightened or something, and I couldn't stop looking at your naked body, I wanted to feel you in my arms, feel your young and smooth skin, like if you were hungry for me. We kept in silence for a minute or two and then we kissed precisely when the other woman came into the bathroom. As she had some sort of relationship with me, it was awkward. Immediately I felt guilty, I guess she represents some sort of alter ego, how would I feel if I quit academia. 

In the real world, my colleague spoke me on the phone two days ago, he said he finally got a full-time permanent academic position, between March and July I've sent 3 or 4 more applications to 6 or 7 universities, I'm writing another paper, I got a Subject Teacher position at the same university where I started almost 20 years ago –it's like if I started from scratch–, everyone around me seems to get a full-time permanent academic position, I saw Game of Thrones last night, specifically the episode in which Stannis Lannister takes Melisandre on a table, she wore some sort of a bathrobe and she took it off, just like you did in my dream, there are no hidden messages, it is just what it is.

I should be in bed, I'll be sleepy all day long.

And now I'm ready to close my mind

 

As I walk thru an alley, looking for a bathroom, and I leave the university, I feel so relieved. For an entire week I had been obsessively working on my 20-min talk. Since I woke up earlier this morning, all I wanted to do was to give my talk, to end up with this tension and anxiety.

I'm about to enter the bathroom and I'm thinking about the near future in this university. Twenty years ago, I started here as a Subject Teacher, it was my first experience. I also think about the details of my 20-min talk and the interview, from almost two hours ago. I also think on how my colleagues gave me a tour across the university, whether I really have a chance to get a full-time permanent position or if things will continue as usual.

Suddenly a song appears in the middle of the alley, it comes from an invisible speaker hidden in the walls. Three chords from the electric guitar, followed by the bass and the drums, hit my brain. It's a fuzzy guitar, and I know that I've heard this chords a thousand times before but I cannot identify which song exactly is. I vaguely remember a woman singing it, maybe Kim Gordon, but I know this is not a Sonic Youth song nor a Kim Gordon song. Then, a man sings...

«So messed up I want you here

In my room I want you here»

... but I don't recognize the voice, it confuses me even more, I guess I was expecting a different voice but dunno exactly which kind of voice, it's like if I had heard this song a thousand times before and simultaneously for the very first time.

I stop walking and close my eyes, What's the name of this song? I wonder, and try hard to remember. 

It was possible that twenty years ago, when I had my first chance to be a Subject Teacher, I also walked thru this alley and that I also heard this song, maybe this song comes from the Radio Station of the Ibero, twenty years ago they had this Radio Station, it seems that I start from scratch, I will be again a Subject Teacher, but I'm twenty years older, I have an experience of almost 70 undergrad courses and I have published almost 20 papers in peer-reviewed journals, I'm National Researcher Level II. Dunno if this would be my last experience on academia, perhaps I will stop looking for full-time permanent academic positions, but, as Neil Young, more or less, said, music never dies.

I was sitting there in a comfortable chair

I walked out from this dream in which I was simultaneously a PhD student and a young professor teaching a Neuroscience course, the classroom was a big auditorium at the School of Medicine, we were more than 200 students and the place was barely enough for so many students. As a student for some reason I was late and I had to sit between a couple of men in a pretty awkward position. I felt suffocated and anxious and irresponsible. Like if that were not my place in the world.

Dunno why but I had no notebook but a Telecaster. It must have been 9 or 10 o'clock, the auditorium and the students reminded me of my first days as a PhD student in a Neurochemistry course in an auditorium at the Institute of Cellular Physiology, it was humid and hot, just like the weather between summer and autumn. At times, the place also seemed a fancy party hall.

As I felt awkward in this seat between a couple of men, I saw myself in front of the audience, as a professor. I was not exactly myself, but I knew I was the professor, it was some sort of a weird doppelganger. I saw myself as an enthusiastic professor, I looked like this guy performing Matthew Kimble, the brother of the main character of The new adventures of old Christine, maybe he appeared in my dream 'cause I recently saw him on Fargo, his real name is Hamish Linklater, but in my dream he was me and he was not an actor but a neuroscientist, and he was pretty young. He had a few tics, he constantly stuck out his tongue while he spoke and ran his tongue over his upper lips, he looked natural and enthusiastic. He had long, somewhat curly hair. His hair was so pretty. He was wearing a blue long-sleeved Benetton shirt, quite similar to the one I have. I kinda sensed that girls adored him, each time he spoke and ran his tongue over his upper lips and kept sort of freezed for a second or two, looking into infinity, perhaps organizing his thoughts, girls sort of murmured and sighed. The situation was funny, it didn't seem a PhD course, but a bachelor's degree course.

Hamish-myself walked in front of the blackboard with great confidence, and he spoke about the brain and how we have brain circuits for building a pencil and also a spaceship, but he really only touched these topics superficially. He looked pretty happy. He really seemed to enjoy his job.

Somehow, he took us to a place in which neuroscience seemed so cool and important, but, as I mentioned, he only touched these topics superficially. Nonetheless, the audience looked satisfied. At a point, he gave us a brief recess in which he took a marmalade sandwich or something like that, he said he hadn't had breakfast. Suddenly Hamish neuroscientist was sitting next to me, the couple of men had disappeared, and he smiled at me and winked, like if he knew we were the same person. One girl or two approached us and asked him if he'd ever play guitar just for fun, maybe at the end of the course. Then I realized Hamish had told the students he also play electric guitar and I thought of my Telecaster and wanted so hard to play a song.

I'm listening to this White Stripes album, I read somewhere that it was released 20 years ago and I think of you, the phone calls we had 20 years ago, when I had just bought Get Behind Me Satan and was so obsessed with you and dreaming about you while listening to this album. Did you remember me and saw me as I saw myself in this dream?

The sky is cotton candy

You appeared out of nowhere. In my dream I knew you, I knew your name, you were a student, and I was looking for something in a box, the box looked more like a wooden chair than a box and it was painted in blue. The wooden chair was placed at the desk, the desk was some sort of operating room. I was pretty focused in this sort of mental surgery.

We were inside a classroom, it was cold and pale. Lights were the kind of dim lights you'd find in an operating room. The day was so cold and cloudy. It was the end of a class. Students were leaving the classroom.

Accidentally I found a letter inside the box, and it was a letter from you, I knew your name, I pronounced it in my dream, our eyes met for a moment, you smiled. The letter was written on a white sheet of paper, had some paintings and a cryptic message, it looked like the artwork for Incesticide, Nirvana's B-sides album published in 1992, and the message implied that you were in love with me. 

I woke up and I don't know who you are. I forgot your name. This song hits my brain.

«I got my diddly spayed!»

«I got my diddly spayed!»

«I got my diddly spayed!»

Before going to bed I came to the studio, the cats knocked some things out of the closet and I picked them up and the situation reminded me of an Incesticide T-shirt I own. It's really nice, but I hardly ever wear it, it's too big for me. But the dream is not about a T-shirt. Or about you. You could be anyone. 

Maybe it's not that at all. 

Maybe it's that I'm getting old and it's about me returning to this elite university where it all began. Maybe it's that I'll find students like I did back in 2004 but I'll be older and I'll be mentally sterile.

Pain is the language that was spoken to me

 

Before I went to bed, I saw this video of a Marilyn Manson show in Rockville. Apparently, a guy recorded it with his cellphone camera. The sound was amazing, the guy must have been in the front rows. It looked like a cloudy afternoon, and I dunno why but, just when I saw Manson walking onto the stage, sort of wrapped in white smoke, and I heard the first lines of the bass guitar, I immediately felt that I was in Rockville, that I was a teenager, that music was the hardest drug I'd ever tried.

I woke up an hour ago, I have answered the comments that one referee made to a manuscript that I wrote and I sent to review to a popular science magazine, but I had a dream in which I was working at a university. Although it looked like my ideal job –an academic position for the rest of my life–, it seemed a silly job, it was not really what I expected to be.  Somehow I'd gotten that position in a very easy way. 

So, in my dream, I was with these guys. In the real world, I know one of them, I met him a couple of months ago, at a dinner in Monterrey, and we spoked about my employment situation as we drank a beer. This guy and the other two, at a point, walked out from the university and asked me if I wanted to go to eat at Tres Marías with them, in the car of the guy I know in the real world. It looked weird, it must have been midday on a weekday. The point is that my ideal job was a farce. 

Pull my brain stem out and unplug myself

I just walked out from a dream, it's 6: 30 am, I just cut myself in two, I cleaned up the vomit from the cats, they ate some sort of purgatory herb, 151 mg/dl of glucose, the day seems too cloudy, pretty closer to those yesterdays, when I was naive and had achieved nothing in academia, it's 6: 30 am, I'm listening to Rollins Band, Henry Rollins screams out something that sounds aggressive and painful, but I cannot stop thinking about what I dreamed.

We were together in some sort of auditorium, you were at my left, your sister was at my right, we were about to hear a lecture, maybe a false prophet of science, you were sad and cozy, with your big dark brown eyes, with those enormous Margaret Keane painting eyes, suddenly you started to touch my hand, I felt sort of excited, my mind started to fly away, then you started to touch your sister's hand, it was cozy. The audience was not aware of our existence, we were lost in the second or third row of seats.

In a moment you were touching my chest and then my abdomen and then you were caressing my crotch in a very slow and seductive way, you didn't stop looking at me, and I couldn't believe it, my mind started to fly away, I knew everything was possible between us, sooner or later, I would see you as I had always wanted to see you, since I saw you walking and wearing those tight-fitting leggings, when I was naive and had achieved nothing in academia and you lived for a period with your sister and me, it's 6: 30 am.

You kept caressing me, you did something that made feel about to explode, you kept looking at me, you told me something like: 

«What was that? It seems you really liked what I did! I liked it too...» 

My mind started to fly away, I knew everything was possible between us, sooner or later, I would see you as I had always wanted to see you, since I saw your crazy underwear when you lived for a period with your sister and me, everything was possible, I would see you sooner or later down on your knees, like that dream I had once, when the world was apocalyptic and we stared thru the window how a building collapsed in the early hours of a weekend, we were sort of drunk and we just had fucked it all, we had had a crazy night and had ruined everything for a few wild minutes of pleasure. 

estrella de miel tan beautiful

I'm drunk, I've heard the echoes of your loneliness and I've inhaled the signature of your hair, I'm drunk on you, I've seen your new nose and I'm in love with it, it really fits you, it resembles your original nose but it's better than your original nose, it really fits you, and I no longer want to think why you had cosmetic surgery. 

While we spoke about nothing and the apocalyptic sun was hiding behind the clouds of this sandy sky, two days ago, upon arriving in Monterrey, I just wanted to be so close to you, dunno why but I have a feeling we could have been friends in another time, maybe if we had known each other decades ago. So, as the van crossed the city and drove us from the airport to the Safi hotel, I just wanted to be free, to have a smoke with you, to drink a bottle of wine with you.

Now I'm drunk on your nose, on your loneliness, on your hair, on your moves, on your eyes. 

I'm feverish, lying in the bed of this room, 890 km away from home, closing my eyes, in the dark, thinking of you, trying to dream of you, in my dream we're here, in this bed, earlier you looked at me, you were on your knees, and I couldn't believe it, it was finally happening.  

Cuts You Up

It must have been April, 2007. I was listening this song of Peter Murphy. His voice and his music, thru my headphones, screamed strange memories of things that I didn’t live. Suddenly, you appeared and we started to talk about nothing. We were in the middle of an almost empty Ciudad Universitaria, between Torre de Humanidades and Las Islas, it must have been Semana Santa. You were no longer my pupil. The course of Sensation & Perception was over. It had been my first experience at UNAM as Subject Teacher, with a crappy temporary contract with a very low salary and a few hours of classes. I’d enjoyed it, but I was convinced that it could have been a better course. 

Dunno how but at the end of the course you had started to send me emails. I suppose you wanted to know how was it like to be a young academic. Also, you were sort of naive, maybe you saw me as a role model, or something like that. Then you asked me if I wanted to go to the movies, there we're not really nice movies to watch, except a movie of the tragic death of Princess Diana and another low-budget horror movie in which the main character was a guy in his twenties. We moved to the movie theatre, we continued talking about nothing, I was heartbroken, I'd been in love with a girl, the classic story: she’d rejected me, her ex had recently appeared, she didn't want to know nothing about me, I was obsessed with her, they were so happy together. I couldn’t get her out of my mind. And I told you so, and you didn't care and we sort of kissed later, in the middle of that horror movie, and we ate popcorns, and it was weird, I felt like I was kissing someone of my own family. Didn't like it. We never met again. This happened almost twenty years ago, but it seems it was yesterday. I wonder what kind of guy you think I am. I hope you’re doing well.

Be quiet and drive (far away)

 

I just found out on a Facebook page that «Deftones' iconic music video, directed by Frank W. Ockenfels III premiered on this day in 1998...», and I felt a little dizzy and I tried to ignore the fact that I have to start from zero again, yesterday I rejected a bad job opportunity, yesterday I officially knew about the third colleague who obtained her permanent academic position –none of them have the distinction of National Researcher Level II I have from January– and then I watched the video on YouTube for the first time, and now I wonder what was my life like back then, I must have been a sophomore in Psychology, maybe I didn't hate my life at all, I must have been in love of Lilly and dating Carmela, I must have thought I was an amazing beatnik-type writer, I must have written a thousand poems a week, I must have ignored school, I must have been reading Patrick Suskind and similar writers. Life must have been something hot and strange.

Was my life better than now...? I don't think so.

Antes de tres lunas volveré a por ti

Last night I was feeling a little dizzy and nauseous, before going to bed I'd eaten a bag of very greasy potato chips. I was watching a movie. I'd seen it before, but just finished reading the book in which it's based on this week. While Tom Waits as Renfield was eating a couple of bugs and I sort of pictured myself acting in the same character as him if someone had asked me to, suddenly I thought of you. 

Perhaps I'd checked my Instagram open account earlier and your profile appeared as “suggested for you”.

At a first glance, I did not recognize you. Dunno remember when was the last time I saw you, I just know it must have been on September, at the end of an Interdisciplinary Project class. There you told me that you were going to Poland, or something like that, on an academic mobility stay. You told me that you couldn't take the last part of the course and you asked me if it was OK for me. So much time has passed since then. I've been out of college for almost half a year, I started writing a MS, the MS was published a week ago in Pharmaceuticals, I've been surviving, I got sick...

In my dream I was walking thru the alleys of a weird high school, it looked like the typical high school I've seen in movies. It was a sunny day, I had a stomach ache, I wanted to threw up. Somehow I saw you in a bathroom, it was really dirty and it made me sick. You said “Hi” and smiled. Although I was feeling so bad, your presence sort of woke me up. Then I walked out of the bathroom and into a classroom and I felt so powerful as if I were a Roman emperor. 

I just woke up a few minutes ago, and I cannot stop thinking of this song by Mikel Erentxun.

Swallow My Pride

As soon as I wake up and I get ready to get out of bed, and I fight with the incessant morning sickness, the chorus of this song repeats in my head –«This ain't the summer of love», «This ain't the summer of love»–, and it doesn't really mean nothing but that I was thinking the entire night why should I start over again and again, why should I become some sort of ghost writer. 

Everything was OK on Monday, they said it was a Blue Monday, but I went out to get a haircut, I took an on line Seminar, I spoke with some colleagues, I ran 7 km, and I wrote about Blue Monday on my new literary project. And I did all the things that I usually do besides being a scientist with a record of ~20 published papers –the most recent one dated on April 2024, and, as I write these lines, I am waiting for the verdict of another one–, an academic with a record of ~40 undergraduate and graduate courses, and so on. That's not subjective. Starting in January 2025, the National System of Researchers gave me the distinction of National Researcher Level II. That's too much even for some academics with permanent contracts and with a longer academic careers than mine that I have worked with.

I even received a couple of good news. I worked on a new academic project, too. I finished a research project I started to write on Friday, too. Everything was cool. But I contacted her via What'sApp, I asked her how she was, she did the same, I asked her what's going on at the university I worked for the last 6 years. And then she said that things were some sort of tense, and that she just won a permanent full-time academic position. I felt my heart break, again. Not just because I competed for that position, too, and not just because the committee considered that my profile was not what they were looking for, but because she's the third colleague I know that was a temporary professor, as I have been my entire life, that got a permanent academic position. Also because we recently spoke about these things and we were worried about the same. She's a friend of mine, and it's nice that she's about to leave this academic uncertainty. A couple of years ago she received the distinction of Candidate for National Researcher and about 6 months ago, we used to talk every Thursday while eating at this university where I worked for the last 6 years.

Via a What'sApp voice note she also told me that, if I wanted to, she could incorporate me to her research projects, as a fellow researcher, at this university she got the full-time academic position. She also asked me why I don't look for another postdoc in the US –7 years ago, I finished my third year of postdoc–, things that we spoke before. 

I cannot stop thinking what's wrong with me. Should I start over again and again...? Should I become some sort of ghost writer...? Should I swallow my pride, again...?