Weeds Between Buildings, Pictures On My Hard Drive

Out of nowhere I am seeing all these guys. They talk, they seem to have fun. I'm drunk. Again. Dunno when or how, but I am here. Again. A few moments ago, I was in the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror. My face gave me the creeps. It looked like I was totally fucked up. Again. I know I won't remember several things. It's another blackout. Dunno remember the first time I experienced one, but, at some point, I must have realized that I was speaking with someone else, about who knows who. We were inside a dark and noisy room, we were surrounded by a lot of people, and I said something, I sort of woke up from a dream and then I was talking, and this girl was looking at me, explaining to me that I wanted to get into the ladies room, and then I hated myself. 

A few days ago, I did it again. I went to the opening of a clinic, there was a lot of wine. I sat close to some sort of Raoul Duke, he was my mentor 10 years ago, and he started to talking about how I made him angry, I tried to not contradict him, but I remembered in particular a tutorial exam, he asked me something about my doctoral project and I knew the answer but I hesitated and then he said exactly what I was thinking, and I said it, and obviously I made him angry. Suddenly, we were talking about a professor that was his first PhD student, this guy drove racing cars and I met him in my last work at the academy. Duke at some point said Good Bye and then I moved to a group of colleagues, they were talking about silly things, but I really had to lead the conversation to another topic, we ended talking about politics and psychiatry. 

At some point, I went to the bathroom and I realized that I was so fucked up, I saw my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I had this stupid and uncontrollable smile, and flashbacks of these Korsakoff's psychosis –how gorgeous and elitist was this colleague I was talking with?–, and I just wanted to disappear. I hate to end like this. I must quit, stop drinking wine. I quit smoking twice. But I cannot stop drinking alcohol. I barely remember that someone gave me a smoke. That I said something wrong. I will feel so guilty. A thousand years from now.

Mama's Little Pills Spilled All Over The Floor

It was about to dawn.

We were inside of a dark small apartment, standing in front of a window.

We were in silence, watching the city.

Our shadows reflected in the glass of the window in a dismal way.

Our reflection reminded me of the most popular scene of Fight Club, except that we would not see how a bomb would make an enormous building fall to pieces. 

The sky looked like a giant mouth about to yawn. 

The clouds looked like an army of violent waves about to invade a warm ocean. 

The walls in the apartment were all painted in red and they reminded me of the excess of wine in my body. 

She just wore underwear and a T-shirt. 

She stared at me.

Her eyes were sad and tired.

She looked younger than I thought she was. 

Her long black hair shone in the form of an ambiguous cascade.

Somehow, it made me to experience a group of brief vertiginous images.

These images appeared in intervals in my fuzzy brain.

Soon they adopted the form of a headache.

Her long black hair also reminded me of her shadowy naked body. 

For a moment, I almost smelled the secret perfume of her skin. 

It gave me the chills. 

I was so angst and confused. 

I felt so dumb. 

What we had done?

http://www.ifccenter.com/films/fight-club/

She came close to me and made me hug her from behind.

As we still watched the city, I felt her skinny body.

It was like an open vibrating sore. 

Her body was so tiny and soft that it reminded me of a porcelain doll. 

I felt pity of her. 

I barely could stand beside her. 

I was dizzy and about to fall asleep. 

Also, I wanted to throw up.  

She was so stoned, too.

I looked down and saw a lot of pills on the floor. 

Somehow, I knew those pills were antidepressants.

She was on treatment 'cause she had tried to commit suicide in the last year. That's why we had started to get closer.  

We had started by watching movies each Friday. 

I just wanted to be supportive. 

One thing had led to another. 

Nonetheless, the pills spilled all over the floor made me think that maybe she was addicted to meth, too.

It also gave me the chills. 

What if I had just tried meth for the first time?

I was so drunk, tired and sleepy. 

The apartment was so quiet and warm, but my mind was a fierce storm.

I felt abussive and I wanted to kill myself, but I had the feeling that she was too vulnerable and that it was not an appropriate moment.

I was terribly ill and tied to her suffering. 

I just woke up. Still feel so guilty. 

At times, dreams are so revealing and scary. 

Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More

The Girl Was Never There, It's Always The Same

I had a girlfriend who loved to smoke pot and to do some other drugs. From the beginning, I always thought she was a snob. She talked about meaningless issues of her life, as if they were the most relevant thing in the world. She never heard me at all. 

Besides, she dressed all in fancy brand clothes and her language had an elitist affectation, so no one believed she was a junkie. I hated it, 'cause I was the opposite to her -I wore awful and old clothes, and never spoke of my life to anyone- and people immediately thought I was the junkie, including her parents. I didn't do drugs, I was just a poor shy boy. 

We had been together for a month or so. She was some sort of knucklehead. We kissed for the first time in a cemetery, in front of people who visited the tombs or their loved ones. It was a sunny day and I couldn't stop thinking in their grief and suffering, while our lips remained glued. I kept my eyes open. One tiny little girl stared at me with a grim look and an older woman put a hand on one of her shoulders and took her away. As they walked, the older woman shook her head and started to mourn. I felt guilty. Thought maybe the girl just had lost her dad and that they were visiting his tomb. 


We kissed for the second time in a retirement home, in front of older people. We were there in some sort of an extra class, with other class mates. Our teacher asked us to watch older people for understanding some stupid psychological topic. It was too damned boring. Elderlies were so excited, and I felt suffocated. They couldn't stop talking about their own lives, nor couldn't stop complaining about the way their families just abandoned them in that place. So, we went to a lonely room, and started to kissing. 

Besides my old and awful clothing, I used to have long hair -I had 20 years and didn't care about my bad looking-, and, unfortunately, an older lady saw us -and saw me from my back- and she thought we were lesbians and she started to scream like crazy. We had to run away from the retirement home. At one time, elderlies were screaming, so offended, and looking for us. Two women were kissing at the retirement home!

The third time we kissed, we were camping in a forest. My girlfriend started to put the tent in a place she considered to be nice, and asked me to buy some water bottles. I walked to the nearest village. In a few minutes I got there and bought four or five water bottles. I hadn't experience at all in that kind of journey, so I got lost when I tried to return to the tent. Walked for hours. It got dark and scary, and I couldn't find the place. It started to rain and I decided to walk to the village, again. I asked someone else's help and finally found the place where the tent was. 

My crazy girlfriend yelled at me. She was so mad. Asked me if I was stupid or what. Asked me if I wasn't aware of the risks of leaving her alone in the middle of a forest. Asked me many things. Of course I was worried about her, all the time. I had really tried like crazy to find her out. 

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In her rage, she never thought I was about to die. At one time, while I was lost and desperate, just about giving up, I drank the last water bottle I had bought in the village, and I started to run like crazy going nowhere. Suddenly, I tripped on a rock and rolled on a free fall along a hill and, somehow, managed to grab a tree a few meters from a cliff.

When she was a little bit quiet, she started to smoke. Didn't invited me, but I just took the pot away from her. It was the first time I smoke pot. It was raining, again. Got so high and I closed my eyes and started to dream about what would it be to get lost in the middle of a forest, or to die in an attempt to find out the tent where my girlfriend was.  

A Forest

Whatever It Is, That Girl Put A Spell On Me

We had flown from Ciudad de México to Tijuana and then walked to the border and took a train. It was almost ten o'clock, but it was sunny. It was so confusing. After we checked in at a Double Tree, we ate fish and chips at Old Town. We took a taxi to the San Diego Convention Center, to know how far was our hotel from it. We were just three PhD students, at the 40th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neurosciences. The meeting would start the next day. 

As we returned to the Double Tree, another lab partner, an undergraduate student, appeared out of nowhere. He was about to have a party at the hotel were he and some friends of him stayed. I wasn't sure to follow him, but the other two PhD students showed interest. I had to follow them. I didn't want to walk alone and to expose myself to be harassed by hobos.  

It was already dark. The hotel had a small pool and all the rooms were around it. It reminded me of the hotel were Earl, of My Name Is Earl, lived. Vicente guided us to the room. It was bigger than my room at the Double Tree, and it was full of undergraduate students. I recognized some of them from a psychology course I taught. Some of them recognized me, too. In particular, a girl named Minerva. I kinda had a crush on her. I think she knew it. It was silly, she was almost ten years younger than me. I wasn't about to flirt on her nor anything else.

Most of the undergraduate students were drunk, and Vicente told me that he was about to smoke Spice with Minerva. 

He asked me if I wanted to try. I did it. 

While the drug had an effect, Minerva told me how she and her friends had arrived to San Diego. Apparently, they just had travelled with half the money I had. It was amazing, they just had walked for hours. As she spoke, the drug made me feel so vulnerable and stupid. It was a potent drug, and I was getting paranoid. In the lab, we studied cannabinoids. At home, I used to smoke pot almost on a daily basis. I kinda knew that Spice' effects were heavier than pot and, to some extent, dangerous. 

All I wanted to do was to get to my room and take a nap, but Minerva looked really beautiful. I couldn't stop watching her. She continued speaking and I focused on her fleshy lips. Suddenly, her boyfriend appeared and took her away. I just felt ill and paranoid. He was a moron, and I think he was jealous. I would never have finished kissing his girlfriend. 

I walked to the Double Tree, sad and high. Fortunately, I wasn't harassed by any hobo.

In the room, I layed down in the bed and started to listening up Purple Haze. I couldn't stop imagine Minerva and her fleshy lips. I thought Jimi wrote that song inspired by a girl like she. At some point, I fall sleep.

For the next 24 hours, I felt stoned. As I walked thru the alleys of the San Diego Convention Center, I felt high. I couldn't focus on anything. I was only attracted to women, in a very sexual way. I desired Minerva like crazy and I looked for her all day long, but never saw her again. 

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I can't remember anything else. 

Purple Haze

Un ' Estate Italiana

Gus was my friend. He was older than me. 
I was on the last year of elementary school and he was in junior high. 
Everyday, after school, we used to hang out.
Basically we just rode our bikes here and there. 

Sometimes we even played soccer. 
There was some sort of soccer fever in our neighborhood. 

One day, we rode our bikes as usual, but Gus asked me to follow him to another neighborhood. 

It was July. 

A few hours earlier, Italy and Argentina had played at Stadio San Paolo, in Naples. On the previous years, Diego Armando Maradona had managed to get Naples soccer team' to win important tournaments in Europe.

He was an idol and had a lot of fans.
Some journalists believed that Italian fans would support Argentina, due to the devotion that some of them professed to Maradona. 

Nonetheless, tifosi supported their national team and booed and insulted the South Americans from the beginning of the match. 

Maradona had been the best player of the previous World Cup in Mexico 1986, but he was injured and his national team was a disaster and depended on his geniality. 

On the round of 16, in Turin, against the powerful Brazilian team -one of the favorites to win Italia 1990 World Cup- Diego appeared out of nowhere and dribbled almost the entire rivals midfielders' and then gave a pass to Paul Caniggia, leaving him alone in front of Claudio Taffarel. 

Caniggia took advantage of his position and scored the only goal of the match.  

On the round of 8, in Florence, Diego had failed a penalty kick against Yugoslavia, but Argentina -with an astonishing performance of Goicoechea- had made up to the semifinals.

In the beginning of the championship, Gus supported Brazilians, but he was so impressed by the geniality of Diego, that he supported Argentina on that semifinal match in Naples. 

We couldn't believe that Argentina had defeated Italy. 

Though Toto Schillaci scored first, PaulCaniggia tied the game and scored the first goal that Walter Zenga received in the entire tournament.  

We arrived to a fancy neighborhood. 
We stopped in front of an old house. 
He knocked the door and a bearded guy opened it for us. 

The living room was a disaster. 
It was full of drunk people and it smelled so bad. 

There were 10 guys or so, around a table.
They were older than us and the air was so filthy.  
They were dumbfounded.

Then she appeared. 

Her name was Toby. 

She was a gorgeous woman. 

Though she was clearly stoned, she could barely walk and her eyes couldn't stay quiet, she told us the price of the stash. 

Even though it seemed a very expensive deal, Gus agreed and Toby had no problems to fix and to sold us a joint.

We left the house and rode our bikes to his house. 
His dad had died when he was a child and his mom worked at a furniture store all day long. 

He turned on the TV and lighted the join. 

He smoked desperately. Later he coughed.

As the penetrating aroma of the burned grass flooded the living room, a sports' TV program was about to commence. 

The opening song was this song. 

Whenever I smell the penetrating aroma of the burned grass, for a second I think of Gus and Diego Maradona. 

tribunero.com

[Un ' Estate Italiana-Gianna Nannini & Edoardo Bennato]

This Is Not About Love

What was that? What was that you had that drove me wild? 

Though it happened too many years ago, I still think of you once in a while. We shared a few memories but they were so intense. At least, I think so. 

I still remember the madness of meeting you. 

Out of the blue, while I was bored and sad, when Silencios Incómodos were about to play, you approached to me and you asked me if I could light you up a cigarette. 

I was smoking and I gave you my Zippo and then you lighted your cigarette. Meaningless seconds elapsed and you returned it to me.

A few songs later I wanted to light another cigarette, but I couldn't find the Zippo. 
I thought you had kept it for mistake -I was a little bit drunk- and I looked for you.
When I found you, I asked you for the Zippo. 

Then I saw you in detail, under the dim lights of Foro Alicia. 
Dunno why -maybe I was drunker than I thought-, but I liked you a lot. 

As your closed eyelids reveal some kind of devotion, your lips tasted like youth.

They were soaked in alcohol and they were simultaneously tender and aggressive. 

A week later, we met in a park. 

Honestly, I didn't like you under the daylight. 

I felt abusive and stupid. 

You were several years younger than me!

We talked on the telephone for several months.

I got used to your voice. Guess I knew you and got interested on you, in this way. 

Sometimes you were the only person I heard all day long. 

I remember smoking pot one night and thinking about you. 

I was listening to Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine. 

I started to read a letter that you had written to me. 

It turned out to be one of the funniest experiences I ever had. 

Your words where so innocent and reflective at the same time. 

It seemed that you were just playing the fool. 

On that letter you said that one night before you were about to sleep. 

You were brushing your hair in front of the mirror and then you felt excited for an unknown reason. Then you took away your shirt and started to look your naked breast. 

You said that I could see your breast, though we were not closer friends. You wanted me to ask you to be my girlfriend. 

As the piano sounded on my bedroom and Fiona sang This Is Not About Love, I become obsessed with your breast. 

Had it been necessary that you had specified on the letter that you were wearing 36-B bras...?

Sometimes you were so direct and I was so stupid.

I used to feel terribly guilty.  

Another night we went to a bar to drink a beer.

We sit face to face. 

You wore a blouse with a neckline. 

The blouse was green and the neckline was amazing. 

I drank beer after beer. It was impossible to not sink into the abyss of your breast. 

Nonetheless, sometimes you were so cruel. 

I guess you got tired.

You were willing to do what I wanted, but I did not do anything. 

You said that I was too polite and too respectful and too different from the guys you used to hang out with, but you also incessantly said that I was a real bad kisser. 

I guess you just said so to provoke me. 

You wanted me to be a little bit disrespectful, but you got bored of my endlessly politeness and then you started to hate me and then you decided to ignore me. 

Our relationship finished. 

It was easy for you to broke with me, even though you were not exactly my girlfriend. 

They were another guys interested on you. 

Immediately, I felt so ill and I tried to write about you.

It was too recent and everything I wrote sucked. 

I started to care a lot about you. I wanted you to be my girlfriend.  

I wanted so bad to be with you, but you just rejected me. 

All the songs I heard were about losers and guys in love with wrong people. 

Each time I heard Extraordinary Machine, I felt so sick. 

I wanted to threw up. I wanted to stay in bed all day long. 

I thought you deserved more than words. 

Now I can write about it. 

[This Is Not About Love-Fiona Apple]