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 teached 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.

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.

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...?

I'm Disconnected By Your Smile

The aeroplane stops over the sea, I can hear the roar of the engine, it seems it's gonna crash, I feel so excited, I sense the end of my world, the end of all my frustrations and my rage, and I cannot stop thinking about a fatal accident, the sea is so close, I know I can die, I feel so excited.

Out of nowhere, I remember that Smashing Pumpkins' song, that song I used to listen to when I was such a moron, when I was in my first year of Psychology, when I really didn't want to study Psychology, when I just wanted to become a beatnik... 

I close my eyes. I see myself back then singing in my mind...

I'm disconnected by your smile

I'm disconnected by your smile

I'm disconnected by your smile

... and I remember myself feeling so heartbroken for this girl, Lily, the one I loved back then, she was older than me, she was everything I wanted, she seemed so mature, she was so enigmatic, so distant, so smart, so cold, she looked like Cecilia Suárez, she was my everything, and one day at school I spoke to her and we sort of started a relationship, I asked her for her telephone number, we started talking about The Beatles, she was a big fan of The Beatles, and I called her sometimes on the telephone, and then somehow she became interested on me, and then she started calling me on the phone, and we spoked many many times thru the night until the dawn, and then two months later or so she quit school and we became some sort of girlfriend and boyfriend, she was sort of dating a guy older than her and she told me that she was confused, he was a dancer, and then one day after school I went to her apartment, she lived so close to the school with a couple of roomies, and it was so fantastic, I felt so excited, we ate pizza and we drew as we spoked about Van Gogh and Monet, and then we sort of freezed for a moment –we were alone, her roomies were at school–, and I remembered one of our recent calls on the telephone. She had told me What would you think of me, if I told you that I have a boyfriend and that I want to kiss him and that I want to practice with you? and it was so clear that it was gonna happen, and then I looked at her, I hadn't ever felt so connected to anyone in my entire (brief) life, and I took her beautiful hands and I kissed her and it was so silly, I felt we were some sort of robots or sister and brother or something like that, but the entire situation was so great. I felt my dreams had come true, I couldn't believe it. Then she went to live to the beach. She was a dancer. We used to write, she sent me tons of letters. I sent her tons of letters. We saw each other again years later, she was pregnant, she loved someone else, I'd had a girlfriend, an amazing relationship that turned so toxic, we had broke up recently, I was about to start my PhD, we were the same but we were not the same. 

In my dream I look at the sea thru the window, the night is so dark, I think of that Beatles' song.

Bright are the stars that shine

Dark is the sky

I know this love of mine

Will never die

And I just know that I am in danger, that I can die, and I start to record everything on my cellphone. 

Then I wake up from this dream but I am still dreaming –I am still on the plane next to the window– and I have a blackout, like if I'm so drunk that I cannot remember anything. I looked at the window again. The plane is still flying over the sea, the night is so dark, the water is so clear that I can see some dolphins and algae, and then I realized I do not know where my cellphone is. I feel so attached to my cellphone, my cellphone (in my dream) is some sort of Lily, my cellphone is my everything, and then I started looking for my cellphone here and there, and I feel so desperate, but somehow we just landed and people start to getting off the plane and I see a cellphone on the floor and I know it is not mine, but I feel that I am not alone, that someone else has lost his cellphone, too, and this is a metaphor of my life. I'm not talking about cellphones and airplanes –my life is like being on a plane about to crash–, I'm talking about your cellphone, the one you were checking at when I saw you yesterday at the dining room, the one you left for a moment on the table when you got up from your seat.

I pound on the computer keyboard. I think of myself at the dining room, yesterday. 

Dawn is breaking, my wife and my cats are still dreaming, I am listening to this song and I cannot stop thinking about your smile.

I'm disconnected by your smile

I'm disconnected by your smile

I'm disconnected by your smile 

And I don't know what's going on. And I don't want to think about it. I know this isn't real. I sort of sense that you're not real. I don't want to think about your smile, but I must admit that this song has taken on a whole new meaning. What's wrong with me?, I am just this moron...? Are you acting or are you as lonely as me...?

Crystal Water Covers Everything In Blue

I hate it. I just wanted to fall asleep. Had a hard day. I woke up early, got to the university, taught my neuropharmacology class at 8 am, spoke about LSD and Ken Kesey and T. C. Boyle and the Dark Side of The Moon and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, spoke about pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, absorption, distribution, proportion of water in the body, blood, plasma, serum, typical and atypical neuroleptics, Oliver Sacks, Awakenings, alcohol, benzodiazepines, applied an examination, go to my temporary office –would you believe me if I told you that I just received the distinction of National Researcher Level II of the SNII, almost ten years ago I was obtaining my PhD, I have almost 20 published papers but I've been always on the run, I've never had the opportunity to have a definitive tenured track position...?–, I read a paper of THC and dopamine –next Wednesday I will give a talk about brain mechanisms of marijuana consumption– and I felt so tired and empty, like if someone kicked out my brain, I evaluated some examinations, I read another paper, I received a few WhatsApps, I ate with a colleague, I returned home, the Uber driver drove a beautiful car, I got out of the car, I ate again, I drank a couple of Jack Daniel's, I listened “Alone + Easy Target” and “Resurrection Song”, I took an Uber to a concert, Madame Rita –the first band– started playing at 11 pm, Seattle Supersonics started at 12 am, the show was great, I drank three Victorias –1.2 L each–, I came back home and I fall asleep and I dreamed of you, Todokoro.

Why do you appear in my dreams?

I've only seen you twice in ten years. You are my worst nightmare. It's getting boring.

Since I was born I started to decay

Dunno why but I still remember when you called me up on the telephone last afternoon, I needed to ask you a favor, and I dunno why but I also still remember what I just dreamed a couple of hours ago... Maybe I'm just thrilled 'cause I got in touch with you. 

Whatever. 

I remember how that dream was so scary and how I was so brokenhearted. 

Vividly.

In my dream, this guy –with whom I should have a published paper in Nature Neuroscience– appeared out of nowhere. We were walking across empty and cold German streets, and then we got into a supermarket and then we left the supermarket and then we got into an old building, and so on, and then the dream became some sort of a Matryoshka-like story, like those of Christopher Nolan's, but this is not relevant. 

The most relevant thing is that you... You were spying on me.

I can't explain just why I knew it, but I knew it. 

I felt your presence behind my steps, like a ghost, like a shadow, like the wind.

Then, in a moment, I saw your reflection in a window. It was electrifying. I got shocked. Freezed. Dumbfounded.

I must have been sixteen years old, or so. My own reflection was younger, and I felt so weak and had no confidence in myself. As always happened when I was sixteen. 

What's all this fuzz about...? Are we running...? 

Are we hiding...?

oh, the guilt

It is raining. It is the middle of the summer. It is Friday. I'm about to pee. I'm about to log into a Zoom conference. I'm about to focus on a scientific paper. I'm about to fall asleep. I think I could do anything. I think I could do nothing. All Friday afternoons seem to be electrical. Even if it is not raining. Even if my life is a disaster. Friday afternoons are noisy and relaxing. A paradox. This Friday afternoon in particular reminds me of all those Friday afternoons when I was in high school. This Friday afternoon makes me wonder why did I waste my time for several years. All I did was moan and cry, to think about girls, fall in love with the wrong square-minded girls, to write about them, to feel guilty 'cause it seems to me that I was the wrong one, that I didn't fit in. I used to moan and cry, and to believe in a promising future. That, eventually, things would get better. And they did. I had several bad experiences, I met terrible women who made me feel worthless, who squeezed my heart like it was trash. Sometimes I felt like my life was over, that it would be the same, that I will not find my soulmate. But I found the love of my life, unexpectedly.

Today I ran 5 km in the morning, not my best record, then I went to the university. There, I had a couple of meetings with pupils –I'm their Thesis advisor–, and later I voted for a candidate to the Leadership of the Health Sciences Department. He promised to do everything possible to convince our colleagues to hire me, to give me the opportunity to become a permanent professor. It's almost five years since I arrived at this university, and I have not gotten anything except temporary contracts for two quarters per year. I am the perfect candidate for this position. None of the candidates are psychologists with a PhD in Biomedical Sciences like me, none of them have the experience I have, but the authorities decided to not give me the opportunity to compete. 

I was listening to Pearl Jam and waiting for my Uber in one of the school yards, trying to get rid of these thoughts, when D appeared out of nowhere. She said Hi and then asked me if I was able to be her Thesis advisor. She told me more or less her proposal and she asked for an advice, she wanted to know if that the degree was worth it. I could tell her that this Bachelor's Degree in particular has so many flaws, but I told her positive things. She's too young, why should I spread the truth to her...? 

J appeared later and asked me if it is true that I will not longer continue at this university. I got surprised by the way rumors spread. Sometimes it looks like pupils know things before academics do. I told her that authorities not only decided to not give me the opportunity to compete for the Leadership of the Health Sciences Department but that they don't think that I am necessary for the Department. How's that! I don't believe it! I like your classes so much!, she said. 

The Uber arrived. I felt a kind of bitterness. If someone with a billion dollars appeared out of nowhere and got an interview with the authorities of the university and knew about me, what kind of profile I am, and what kind of profile the Department has, I'm sure he/she would realize the pointlessness of financing anything at the university.

I know that in a few hours I'll be drunk. I will forget everything, I'll have a few blackouts –Gosh, reality it's so unfair and so harsh!– and I'll feel guilty. And upset. And sick. And frustrated. But, to be honest, nothing's wrong with me. Just like I realized in high school that the girls I fall in love with were square-minded, now I've realized the same thing: authorities are square-minded.

I wanna fly, I wanna ride with you

Veronica was already your associate when I met you. I barely remember when I met her, but I suppose that the first time I saw her, she was performing stereotactic surgery, she was standing on a stool, she couldn't have been much taller than me, less than five feet six inches. Underneath her lab coat, I kinda saw a tight blouse and a skirt and I couldn't stop looking at her legs, they were so awesome. It looked like she went out for a run frequently. She was also sort of angry, I believe I said «Hello» and that she didn't even say «Hi». Maybe she just faked a smile.

Then, on my first New Year's dinner with your research group, she got drunk. Too much wine. They said she did the same, year after year. She was so drunk that started to say some things out of context. At one point, she told me «I will teach you things you don't even know...», and she was not talking about any experiment we were collaborating in. Veronica continued: «You're gonna like it...», or something like that. They said she used to get drunk in every occasion she could. 

I wish this weren't true but meeting you was so traumatic, your lab was hell, I still dream of you. I traveled to the future and today it is not May 20, 2022 but March 13, 2025 and I just woke up from a recurrent dream, I'm coughing, beating on the MacBook keyboard, and I wish this was another dream or nightmare, but in my dream I was again at your lab, feeling mad and dizzy. It was the middle of the night, we were in some sort of meeting with students and I was afraid and angst, I didn't want to see you, I didn't want to be in hell. You wore yellow or khaki pants and also a ridiculous shirt and tie. But you also wanted me to work for you. You looked at me with that overacted face of anger and discomfort. 

Suddenly we were in your office, but it was a different office, not the one I knew, everything was upside down in hell. You ordered «You just need to do what I ask you to do, Marcel», and then I laughed and I told you «You really think I am an idiot, a guy who just follows instructions!», and you sort of started to got up from your seat –I was standing close to you– and it looked like we were about to fight, when Veronica appeared out of nowhere –it was the middle of the night–, and she was still your associate and she was wearing nothing but her lab coat, her tight blouse and her skirt, like she did the first time I saw her in hell. And I couldn't stop looking at her legs, and she was so close to me I could touch her. 

She stood between the two and smiled and looked at me. Her look calmed me, it made my blood stop boiling. Then she put her hand on my shoulder and somehow I knew I was dreaming and I could do whatever I wanted, and I wanted to touch her legs, but I just walked out from your lab. 

Outside, it was already dawning.

Now I'm sober and sad –life's so unfair!–, and I think of Veronica and her legs. I wonder why I dreamed of her, why I am still dreaming of you, I haven't been in your lab for a decade but I still dream of your lab that was hell, then I listen this song of Queens of the Stone Age, and I cough again and I am still beating the MacBook keyboard and it hurts –life's so unfair! And I don't remember exactly when but the image burns in my mind: I got drunk in the apartment where I lived when I was in hell, it must have been any Friday afternoon in 2013, and then I heard this song and couldn't stop thinking of Veronica's legs.

You Only Live Once

On this period of my life, I don't like to work on weekends. I used to do it when I was an undergraduate student, when I was a postgraduate student and when I was a posdoc. Then, I enjoyed it and I felt productive and I was passionate about my work. As time passes by, as I am always on the tightrope, as I get older, working on weekends is a dead end. Passion sort of vanishes with uncertainty. 

Sometimes, like today, I find it annoying and unnecessary. As I was jogging earlier in the morning, sort of waking up to this Saturday, with my eyes sort of closed to the shining sun, with my ears listening to Mark Lanegan's voice, I tried to not think about working on weekend, but, as I ran and ran and got exhausted and my mouth went dry, all my thoughts focused on the things I have to do today. 

Perhaps, my reluctance to work today has to do with the fact that I am in a bad mood. I will have to work on a review paper. I started to writing it by myself about half a year ago. Then, in December, in holidays, I finished and I sent it to the Principal Investigators I work with. It was really a though time. My future was uncertain. My contract ended in January. I was not so enthusiastic, but I finished the review paper. I received no feedback from PI's in the last five months. Now, they want me to start all over again. I see their point, but I'm in a bad mood. 

As The Strokes say (and many many musicians before them): we only have one life. 

What do you do with your time?

On the last days I've been watching again some random episodes of Breaking Bad. It's one of my favorite TV Series of all time. The dialogues are awesome. I saw an episode in which Mr. White tells Pinkman how he discovered, at a very old age, his true passion. He says something like “You discovered it at a very early age, and I sort of envy you”. 

I wonder what do I do with my time? Am I doing it right? Am I wasting my time?

I love to write since I was a kid. I love to read since I was a kid. And I have a PhD in which some of my duties imply to write; not literature, but scientific papers. And it is fun. I also have to teach neuroscience to undergrad students. And it is fun, too. But, sometimes, students are so apathetic. And I have no brain to read and to write about myself.

One In A Million

Twelve years ago, I was at my first SfN meeting in Chicago. It was really a big thing. It was quite impressive to see millions of researchers and students from all the world, sharing scientific knowledge. One day, I was waiting for a coffee in a Starbucks, inside the McCormick Place, and then Eric Kandel came close to me and asked me if I knew where could he pick up this badge and all the stuff. 

I told him where to go and he walked away. I couldn't believe it. Although it was for the wrong reasons, a Nobel Prize and I spoke in my first meeting of SfN! What was the probability...? 

I was so naive, foolish, and romantic that I thought that talking to Eric Kandel was a sign for me to stop pursuing my dream of becoming a non fiction writer and to focus 24/7 on science. Twelve years later I have twelve published papers in peer review journals, but a week ago the head of department told me that they will not renew my contract and I wonder what have I done with my life.

Like The Coldest Winter Chill

I'm pretty worried. I have a thousand things to do and I can't tell anyone. 
I feel so guilty, like if I were a lazy and irresponsible guy. 

The last couple of weeks, I've been working in home. 

The last days I went to the university, I shared space and time with four women.
Two of them are pregnant. Other is younger than me and probably she travels on a daily basis from Lerma to Mexico City and viceversa, and she's exposed to unknown viruses from unknown people. 

The other woman maybe has my age. She has told me that we knew each other when we were postgraduate students, almost ten years ago. She says someday I went to the lab where she worked and a friend of her introduced us. Honestly, I dunno remember that day.

Her husband works at a hospital and they have two kids. He was exposed to COVID-19 suspicious' patients the entire week. She was snoozing and coughing all day long and she told me that she was allergic and that she had forgotten her anti histamines. I believed her. 

Even though we avoided physical contact, some students went to the office. Some of them tried to give you the hand and some of them coughed and sneezed. 

Also, on an everyday basis I was traveling from my house to the university and back from university on public transportation. In Lerma, there are some sort of shared cabs and I took four of them each day. Passengers were pretty close to me. Some of them coughed and sneezed, like if they were harmless behaviors. It was impossible to keep distance. 

The last day I came back from university, I was OK. 

The day after, I had to go to the supermarket. We we're running out of food!

We took an Über. We did what we needed to do, as fast as we could. 

The supermarket was sort of empty. There were just a few customers walking here and there. 
I saw an elderly couple making their shopping and I suddenly imagined that my wife and myself could be those elders at some point, and I felt excited. 

Even though I have a bad feeling on that, I just can't stop thinking of one period of my life on which I can do all the stuff I love to do –writing, playing my electric guitars, reading–, just as I do now, but excluding all these horrible bureaucratic issues I sometimes have to deal with... and just giving a fuck for the entire world.  

It called my attention one thing: the section of canned food was almost empty. 

As we were about to pay our shopping, I started to have the chills. 

Later, back in home, I felt sort of ill. I had abrupt changes of temperature and I felt weak and sleepy. I felt my bones hurting, like if I just had walked for miles under a heavy rain. I was exhausted and I thought I was about to have the flu. 

On these days it's impossible to be unaware of COVID-19 symptoms' and I got worried.

Maybe I was just paranoid, but what if I was about to get sick...?, what if I would have to isolate from my wife and from the world...?, what if someone in the job had just infected me?

To things get worst, my wife is hypertensive...

I talked to my sister in law –she's a physician– and I told her how I felt and she recommended me to take some Paracetamol pills. 

I had a couple of terrible nights. 

I dreamt my colleague –the one who was coughing and snoozing in the real world– and myself had some sort of ill relationship. We were hiding from all the people who know us and trying to have a serious conversation. I sensed that she was pregnant and I was so afraid and I felt so stupid. 

As the dream progressed, the environment became darker and colder. It seemed that the Earth was getting sick, too. 

I also had hypnopompic hallucinations of my colleague and I woke up several times repeating a magic word who supposedly would end up this pandemic. 
Obviously, I was febrile. 

I had nightmares and I barely slept three or five hours per night. 

The entire weekend, I felt so weird. 

I convalesced watching some old Headbanger's Ball shows' with Alice In Chains on YouTube. It was very strange. They were premiering some videos of their 1995' eponymous album. I have heard that album several times, I like it a lot. I even own a physical exemplar of the compact disc. I bought it at El Chopo a couple of weeks ago. It's sad to realize that compact discs are in extinction pathways. 

Nevertheless, I hadn't watched their videos. Neither I had seen an interview of the band around that time. 

As I saw Layne Staley, with an heroin-addict appearance, trying to focus on the silly questions of Riky Rachtman, I realized that I never think of him as a contemporary of Kurt Cobain and Mark Lanegan –even though I'm a big fan of Tom Hansen's awesome novel, on which he describes, in a pretty rad way, how “heroin world” was in the early 90's–, but as a musician from another time and genre. 

I supposed my opinion is influenced by the fact that someone who I really dislike introduced me to Alice In Chains and that he was crazy about Mad Season. 

It was pretty strange. 

And, for a couple of seconds, as I died on my bed, I felt I was fifteen years old and that I was watching for the very first time an Alice In Chains' music video. I ended up thinking about myself back then. In resume: in 1995, my life wasn't as boring as it seemed to me. I just was a damned stupid. I didn't even know how to play “Queen of the rodeo” on guitar. All I wanted to have was enough time to read poetry, to write poems and to befriend with a crazy punk rocker girl. 

Now, as the disease spreads across the country and the authorities seem to give a fuck about the physicians, the small businessmen and the rest of the citizens, I have to deal with the fact that my colleagues might see me as an irresponsible lazy guy. 

(Really guys, believe or not: my life would be on risk if I moved from Lerma to Mexico City, on a daily basis.) 

I live in Lerma 'cause I have to teach classes almost everyday, 'cause I have academic meetings almost everyday... 'cause I have to work on a million bureaucratic issues... I don't have a car to move by my own resources and by my own risk to Mexico City. I don't even drive. I have not even had a driver's license!

Besides, I can't eat as a normal person. Moving implies many complications to me. 

A couple of years ago, I had a surgery and I can't fast for more than three hours and I cannot eat the food normal people eat. Moving is not a simple option to me, right now. 

My colleagues perform some experiments in Mexico City. They are allowed to do it before 14: 00. I spend three hours from my house to the lab. Public transport currently has some limited schedules. It's pretty complicated. 

Hate to say so. 

On this quarantine, I wake up early in the morning and I turn on the laptop and I start to work from 8:00 to almost 18:00 0r 19:00. 

Usually I have a couple of meetings via Skype, at last once per week. 

For two weeks I've been writing the discussion of a paper. Normally, I don't even have time to do it. I just, in general, dislike the data, but I must publish this paper, some way or another.

Right now, I have to write a protocol from a totally different research project... I have to make an awful tax process... I have to start writing at last one review from a totally different topic... I have to start to prepare virtual classes for the two courses... and I wish I could enjoy everything I do, but I feel so guilty. 

I really hate it. 

Heaven Beside You

Territorial Pissings

Still remember when my life was such a simple thing. I had a lot of time. I miss the way I could simply waste my time. I miss how silly I was, pretending I knew things I didn't know. 

I miss the way I could write stupid thoughts on stupid notebooks for entire nights and then go to bed at 3 or 4 am after a smoke and then immediately fall asleep and then wake up at 8 or 9 am feeling strong and lucid. I miss all of that. Sometimes I would like to smoke again. 

Nowadays, no matter if I don't drink nor smoke and no matter if I go to bed at 10 or 11 pm, I'm tired and sleepy all day long. It's so difficult to fall asleep and to not wake up at 3 or 4 am. 

On this week, some ugly things have happened. 

At this moment, my wife sleeps. She had a big impression on Wednesday and her arterial pressure is high since then. It really worries me. Her family has a history of hypertension, cancer and diabetes. Some of her aunts died due to these conditions.
Her grandparents had a million kids. I guess it explains, in part, why these diseases spread like air. 

She has told me that her grandfather used to gave her sugar piles when she was a baby. I've seen her having pressure issues. I've seen her having troubles with her sugar intake. She's addicted to candys and bread. I've told her that her grandfather is responsible for her curse. I feel pity of him. 

I didn't know him so much, but he apparently had a sad and terrible life. In fact, I'm not sure if he ever experienced happiness at all. His entire life he was a survivor. His only activities seem to be to breed, to have miserable jobs and to watch TV. 

I remember when her wife died, almost ten years ago. He started to behave like a zombie. He seemed to be unable to behave like a grown up. He said sad things all the time. No one was able to ignore him and he seemed too weak to care about it. 

It seemed that he didn't even own his own life. 

(Is there something more pathetic than that? I'm scared to be more pathetic than I know I am.)

I don't want to be such a desperate man, suffering in front of strangers and making them feel uncomfortable. I'd rather die than behave like a fragile man. I'd rather die than have such an awful life. I'm so scared to be weaker than I know I am.  

A few months after her wife died, he had a stroke. It was so horrible and sad. He started to fight against everyone. He was mad and ill and no one knew it. He died soon after. 

Before these ugly events, I had felt melancholic. Sometimes, on my way to work, I had thought on the irrelevance of my life. Sometimes I just feel so pointless and tired of my existence. No matter how much I try, my efforts seem to be powerless. The world seems to promote stupidity. It seems to be the way evolution will end with human beings. 

Who cares about research and brain function, or who cares about teaching about these issues to pupils –the things I do–, when you can sell silly products to silly people and get tons of money for them?

On this week, I've been sort of ill. I've had more negative thoughts than usual. 
There is an arrogant posdoc who represents the ugliest characteristics you could ever think about a researcher. He's a jerk off and a hypocrite and a conflictuated-frustrated man. He seems to be used to give orders and to believe he's so smart and proactive. He hasn't worked with us not even for three months, but he's asking for holidays. (Can yo believe it?)
He's abussive and lazy and he seems to be guided by one single ambition: to be recognized like a smart guy. He really pisses me off. I knew he was this way since the first time I met him. I have to deal with him almost two or three days per week. It's so annoying. He behaves like if he knew everything and he's so desperate to make it clear and also to look like the one who never makes mistakes. He always looks for the small opportunities to point out when someone else makes a mistake. He's a low quality person. Obviously, the way he performs experiments sucks. 

Also, I've had some silly fights with toxic strangers on Facebook. The situation makes me ill, too. It drives me wild. I just can't get rid of situations as easy as I would like to. All day long I'm thinking obsessively on stupid fights. It really pisses me off. I can't control myself. It's a curse. It is associated to my writing habits. I am used to think about my life, retrospectively. 

Last Friday, a friend of mine shared some news about decriminilization of recreative marijuana use. Since I obtained my PhD performing research on the physiology of the cannabinergic system on murine models –and so I am familiar to specialized information about marijuanas' biological effects and its potential to trigger neuropsychiatric disorders, for example–, it seemed too natural to me to made a comment about the risk of this decriminalization upon human health... specially on my country. We're a bunch of morons. We kill people for money. We take the eyes out of the face of a stranger just to take a place in the parking lot. We fight against people who think differently. We criminalize people by the color of their skin. We admire people by the quantity of banknotes on their wallets or the size of their automobile. 

A moron –I still haven't decided how to call him– appeared out of nowhere and he started to call me “ignorant”. I didn't want to have an argue, I didn't even think of him when I made that comment. I even didn't insinuate someone was an idiot. 

But he seemed to be so bored and frustrated and avid to look like the smartest guy on the entire solar system. Obviously, I reacted. Why should I allow him to call me an ignorant just for free? Is it normal to be violent as a primate who detects its life on danger, while employing a smart device that requires our thumbs to be controlled by our neocortex and our striatum and our spinal cord? 

The situation really pissed me off. This guy ended up insulting me in a pretty primitive way. I also insulted him, though I am not sure if he understood my offensive comments. He was just an ignorant brainwashed character, but I spent a lot of energy on the issue. 

Later, I had a meeting with my colleagues and I felt very stupid. As we spoke about some research projects and their viability to be approved by the Council of Department of Biological Health Sciences, I assumed that none of them spent time with stupid people as I just had done in the morning. 

(The guy on Facebook was so smart that he didn't see my message: health, not just money, it's important. He probably also thinks that I even haven't smoked pot.) 

A few weeks earlier, I had a fight with one of my relatives also on Facebook. It really pissed me off. I didn't want to fight, neither. He wrote a note about technology and he called it science. I read it and I just made a comment. I just said that “science” and “technology” are not synonyms. I've been working for almost fifteen years on academy. I'm a scientist. I have written scientific papers. I have spoken about scientific topics for pupils on diverse schools and on the radio, on congresses... so I guess I know why aren't they synonyms. He's a journalist and he's my relative, but he behaved like if we were a couple of strangers and the worst enemies in the history of humanity. The situation really pissed me off. It really deceived me, too. 

People love to look like an authority on all issues... even on the issues they don't know or they haven't imagined. People are so pathetic and they assume they're the smartest guys on Earth and that everyone else just learned how to write and how to read by miracle. 

A writer once said in a conference that we employ social networks like our ancestors employed knifes: not to cut meat, but to kill our enemies. Isn't it?

Sure I know I'm not a good guy, but I also know that I am not looking for fights for free. 
I'm not attracted to fight to strangers that probably just desire to leave a territorial pissing on Facebook. I guess I'll leave it. It seems that a stupid person will always come from nowhere to look for a fight. The most elemental ability of our specie seems to be to humiliate strangers on social networks. 

Whisper Secrets For Me

We spoke on the phone, two days ago. 

Though I pretended to pointed out that it was exclusively an academic call, honestly I just wanted to hear your voice. 

I wanted to tell you that I care about you, but I didn't. 
I am not sure if you would find it awkward. I understand that you don't care about it. I understand that you don't want to know a single thing about the world. 

You told me that you were carrying out a procedure for your daughter to obtain your husband's pension, and that it was so damn difficult. I didn't know what to say. I just remembered when I first met your husband and when I first saw your daughter. It was scary and I stopped thinking about it. I just can't imagine how painful is it to be you. 

I couldn't survive if I were in your situation. I wouldn't be able to handle such a situation. It would kill me, if my wife was dead. 

I would have liked to tell you that I really care about you, but, as usual, I felt somehow rejected, and, as the conversation progressed, I became nervous and I started to think which words I wanted to say to you and I became the very same idiot guy I have always been when I try to speak with you. 

It's a sickening personality complex. I suppose my interest in us to be friends makes me act like that. It reminds me of a friend I used to have when I was eighteen years old. It was a weird relationship. She was older than me and she really behaved like an older person. Her personality attracted me so wildly. I met her in one of my first classes at the university. I started to idealize her and I spoke to her after school.

She was so nice and we talked about The Beatles and about literature. She obviously had read many more authors than me. She had an interesting and funny conversation. 
She was pretty smart and she was a professional dancer. She had health issues. She was anemic and depressive. Her dad died when she was a girl. Her life was such a mistery for me.

We started to talk on the telephone. We talked and talked by entire nights. We had fun. We had a weird relationship. Eventually, we became more than friends, or so we tried. It started on the phone. On the previous days –we used to spoke twice per week–, I told her that I liked her so much, that she was so perfect and that I wanted to see her. At the time, she had another friend. He was older than us and, apparently, he was a professional dancer, too. He was a mature man. I was just a teenager. 

She was thinking about us for an entire weekend and then she called me and she told me that she also wanted to have a sentimental relationship with me. I was so damn happy. I guess I hadn't been as happy as I was then, before. Lily was all I ever wanted and I just couldn't believe that she was “more than a friend”. 

The relationship was a disaster. Each time I saw her, it was a stressful situation for me. I was so nervous, I wanted so bad to not make mistakes that I just became a stupid guy. 
It was so repetitive that she generally got mad and angst and dissapointed and exhausted. Once she even told me that she preferred to talk on the telephone rather than to see me.

I was so naive and silly. 

Then she moved to another city and I started to write letters to her.
I wrote her endlessly –I wonder what kind of nonsense things did I write her, and I suppose I would be ashamed of them– and she wrote me back. 

The last time I saw her, she thought she was pregnant and I was brokenhearted. She was in love with an Argentine artist and I was dealing with the fact that my ex-girlfriend –the longer relationship I had back then– just had married. 

(And, right now, as I remember those days and as I write this post, I feel I'm some sort of Marcel Proust copycat, writing a letter for you.) 

I still remember when we first met. 

I saw you in a small dinning room. I still remember the way you smiled. 
You seemed so shy and clever. I wanted to know you, but I was so shy to tell you. 

Each time I think about it, I wonder why didn't we meet long before. 
It would have been awesome. I am sure that, right now, everything would be different for both of us.   

Though we worked together for four years, only on the last days we shared an office –almost two years ago–, we started to have normal conversations. I really enjoyed. You seemed a human, after all. Maybe you thought I seemed a human after all, too. I sensed that you also enjoyed our brief conversations. We started to talk about nonsense issues. We started to act as normal people. Then I moved to another city. (Ironic, isn't it?) 

I wonder if someday we could just talk on the telephone as normal people.

Whisper Secrets For Me

Burn The Witch, The Witch Is Dead

It was the first day of classes of the year.

The university was really alive. 

They were dozens of students walking through the hallways.

I was in my small office, working on the last details of the class I was going to teach. 

I was just about to leave the office when I remembered that I needed an Epson projector. 

Then I walked, with my entire heavy bag, to the office of the Department Chief to asked her for the projector as I had done previously.

To be certain that it would not be a waste of time, I looked thru the window of her office and I saw she was there.

I found you on my way to the office.

We said Hi and it seemed that we were pretty familiar, though it had elapsed almost five years since the last time we had spoken.

You looked just as I remember you. 

Dunno why I felt so attracted to you. 

It seemed that we had had some sort of close relationship and that we were really god friends. We had some sort of trust that made me feel so comfortable.

I looked right into your eyes.

You had a witch glimpse. 

You looked like a witch. 
I was so surprised. I barely remember that you looked like a witch. 

I began to think in the witch of The Wizard of Oz. 
Somehow, you looked like Eva Green. 

I looked down and I saw your breasts. 
I began to think about your huge breasts.
They looked so warm. 

Back then, when I was a postgraduate student and my advisor forced us to have with him the last dinner of the year, we got sort of drunk. 

At the end of the dinner, as everyone was saying Good bye, we coincided in the room where we cleaned up every single glass equipment we employed on the lab. 

You were drunker than myself. 
I found you pretty attractive, washing a couple of glass cups. 

I was about to clean up my own glass cup. 

You saw me and smiled. 

I found you particularly nice to me. 

At a moment, I even thought you were making me a proposal and I realized that I had always felt sexually attracted to you and that I always wanted to touch your breasts. 

For a moment, I wondered how would it be to kiss you. 

In my dream, I stopped thinking about this memory, when I heard your voice on our way to the office of the Department Chief.

You spoke about your last paper and I told you that I knew about it because I had spoken with one of your pupils.

You asked me if I knew the details of the paper and I said No.

I sensed a vague feeling of disappointment in your face and I abruptly changed the subject.

I asked you about your daughter.

I realized that just a seconds before, you had told me that she was so big and I felt so dumb. 
I just had repeated a subject and it seemed that I wasn't listening to you. 

I sensed the same vague disappointment in your face. 

I just wanted to say that it might be cool to collaborate together, in an academic way. 

I just wanted to tell you so many things. 

I just wanted to tell you how difficult it was to prepare a bunch of classes from zero and to teach them and to have academic meetings once or twice per week...

I just wanted to tell you how demanding it was to coordinate collaborations here and there and to travel to Mexico City and to Juriquilla once or twice per month and to pretend to have time to write my own manuscripts and to perform my own research... but I felt so irresponsable and guilty.

We finally arrived to the office. 

The Department Chief was surrounded by dozens of pupils. 
It seemed that they were having troubles at attempting to built some sort of robot. 
The office also seemed a kindergarden.

She immediately gave me the Epson projector. It seemed more a tool box than anything. The box was yellow and it had a big thing that I employed to lift it up on my shoulder.

You did not stop talking and I knew my class was running by. 
Each second I felt more and more secretly attracted to you. 
At the end you introduced me to your lover. 
She was also a researcher and you kissed in front of me. 
I felt so dumbfounded and I woke up.

Why did I have this dream?

I suppose it's the first time I dream about you. 

Softer, Softest