She Screams In Silence

I was having dinner with my wife.
We we're around a table in a quiet and dark room.
It was cozy and painted in red and green.
The table had a stripped tablecloth on it.

(In some ways, it looked like the previous apparment on which we lived for five years.)

Somehow I knew that we were expecting you.

Suddenly, someone put the key in the door lock, made it spin and then opened the doorway.
It was you. You dressed exactly as the last time I saw you.

Somehow, you looked lighter than that last time.

You looked at us and walked to the table.
You said Hi and smiled to us.

Somehow you looked shy and insecure.

For a moment, we saw each other, face to face.
I wanted to be nice, but I was unable to smile.

I continued talking to my wife, but feeling terribly guilt.

You sat beside me in the table and said something nice about a picture of a cat that was hanging on the wall.

You said something like Cats are awesome.

I sensed you weren't comfortable at all.
All you wanted to do was to be nice with us.

It seemed that you were about to live with us.

In a way, it really excited me.
The chances to get along with you were so exciting.
But it also scared me.

I was afraid to falling in love with you.

At the time I had these thoughts, I secretly saw you.

You looked so fragile and pretty. 

Yesterday, I was thinking all day long to give you a call and say Hi.
I didn't. I'm not sure if I will. 

Despite All My Rage I'm Still Just A Rat In A Cage

I'm ill. I've got the flu.
I've been sort of sick since Monday.
I hadn't slept well.
Yesterday, I came home earlier than usual.
I slept too many hours.

I'm about to get ready to travel to the city.
None of these issues is relevant. 

Last Thursday, a couple of colleagues invited me to give a talk in a Sleep Research Course.

Today, I'm going to talk about how the microbiome impacts on sleep and the development of some neurodegenerative diseasses and neuropsiquiatric disorders.

I had less than one week to prepare this talk.

Originally, I wasn't invited to this course.

The sad events of the last week, changed many things.

I'm sort of nervous.
The talk I prepared it's sort of incomplete... or I think so. 

I'm still ill.

I dreamed about my PhD advisor and his Associate Researcher.

I was in his lab, performing a stereotaxic surgery with one friend of High school.

The surgery was a disaster. I didn't have all the instrumental I needed.
The rat was suffering and my friend constantly told me that he had saved the rat from death, several times. I felt so guilty.

I hold the animal in my hands and I tried to give it comfort. It was really suffering. 

There were another guys in the lab, attending to a seminar.

As I was looking desperately for a heavy drug to give peace to the rat, the Associate Researcher walked close to us. She gave us a speech that, somehow, I had heard before, a few times. She was selling the idea that going to a Neuroscience Meeting was the best idea everyone could ever have. Deep inside, it seemed that this meeting was going to be the most boring thing in the world. She told us her speech so enthusiastically and smiling.

Also she said, in a pretty low voice, as if she didn't want us to hear it, that my advisor was going to be the star on this Neuroscience Meeting. So, in the end, it seemed that the point was that the lucky volunteers would be his slaves. 

She wore a dress with stamped flowers on a black background.
She seemed more honest than she seems in reality.
She didn't use heeled shoes –as she always does in reality– and she seemed shorter than she seems in reality. 

I was so desperately looking for ketamine.
I wanted to give a peaceful death to the rat, but I was so silly and proud of myself that I didn't want to ask her for ketamine.

Then my advisor walked beside me.
He seemed really angst. He had his stereotypical face of "Get out of my way, you useless dumb!" His gesture evoked on me some unpleasant feelings... but, somehow, they were not as intense as they used to be almost ten years ago. At the end of my postgraduate studies I really hated my life and I even developed some level of alcoholism, addiction to smoking and a couple of psychosomatic illnesses. 

These feelings left a pretty clear example on my dream. 
A rat was in agony and my advisor just didn't even know... or didn't care. 

Also, I had the impression that he was so tiny and that I could just beat him up and throw him a few miles away from me, with a pretty small effort.

My dream was an astonishing metaphor. 

Despite All My Rage, I'm Still Just A Rat In A Cage

Friends Don't Mean A Thing

I need to stop these thoughts. 

They come like an annoying internal voice.

This voice always whispers to me.

All day long, it whispers negative things. 

It is a hard habit. 

It is present in all the aspects of my life. 

It makes me sick. 

It makes me see the dark side of everything I do. 

I'm about to go to a birthday party.

I have to travel across the city.

It sickenings me, too. 

I've been thinking why I avoid this type of meetings. 

There is always a guy who appears out of nowhere and starts to say silly things about me -or about what I do- and I am unable to give a smart answer. 

It's a dilemma. 

Should I ignore him, or should I explain him why he's wrong?

When I decide to explain him, he just changes the topic. 

Should I laugh and pretend he's funny as hell? 

Maybe I should nod and smile. 

I am a slow-minded man. 

I am a troubled man. 

I always have. 

I guess I just need to don't care about what people say.

They always speak about things they barely know.  

However, they make me feel uncomfortable. 

Sometimes I wish I could be as simple as them. 

They seem to be happy having kids and cars.

Nonetheless, they need to go to the church each Sunday morning. 

They need someone to tell them how to conduct their own lives. 

They need to find a mystical force to have a reason to work all day long. 

They need a mystical force to tolerate their miserable existences. 

Maybe they don't even have time to realize how much they hate their jobs. 

They find happiness on TV. 

They find happiness on loud music.

Always the same song, or any song. 

They don't even have a favourite band. 

They go with the flow. 

It's OK. 

But I can't ignore them, when they speak about things they don't understand. 

I can't ignore them when they assume each one around them is the same. 

We're not the same.

Even when we f**k it all. 

These thoughts increased yesterday. 

I feel kind of dizzy and I have a stomach ache. 

I would prefer to stay at home. 

I'm sleepy and nauseous. 

I would prefer to employ my time in a different way. 

I can't stop these thoughts.

They are like an uncontrollable disease. 

I've been thinking how will it be when someone appears out of nowhere and start to say silly things. 

It seems likely that I am going to be breathless and speechless. 

Like I frequently do. 

Later, when I arrive home, I will be complaining about it and the response I should have given will appear and I will regret to be such a slow-minded man. 

On the other hand, it is possible that nobody speaks to me. 

Look at the bright side. 

(My whole existence is for your amusement.) 

Creep

My Heart Is Broke, But I Have Some Glue

When people think about to travel to the future, it is likely that they think about money. 

It is likely that they think to buy a Sports Almanac, just like Marty McFly did. 

In my case, I will travel to the future and I will return without money and even more disappointed than I was at the beginning.

When I originally published this post, I was about to have a job interview via Skype.   

It was an opportunity to work in a private foreign University. 

They looked for a psychologist with experience in teaching.

It was even better if the candidate also had experience in research. 

It was my profile, which is rare. 

80% of opportunity jobs in my research field are devoted to specialists on sophisticated techniques of molecular biology and they don't even consider behavior as a relevant issue.

A lot of these opportunities employ specialists on these techniques as workforce, and are focused on the study of plants and microorganisms.  

The main point of this type of research is to produce valuable food and to increase the exportation and the sales of these products.

As the interview approached, I was even more nervous. 

I was supposedly watching a soccer game on TV.

Nigeria and Iceland played at the Volgograd Arena. 

Even though I enjoy World Cup -I have watched all of them since USA '94-, I couldn't stop thinking about the interview. 

What if I started to behave as an idiot?

What if I started to sweat like crazy?

What if I started to stutter? 

What if I suffered a blackout? 

What if the interviewer was a neurotic?

I have always been better doing what I do, rather than selling what I do. 

I am a researcher, not a salesman!

(In any case, what I sell is research when I write original papers or when I write research projects).  

The interview was more friendly than I expected. 

The interviewer was a young girl and she was too polite. 

At the end, the job offer was a really good one. 

I felt pretty fine. 

The salary was awesome.

They gave you benefits, they paid you vacations once a year... 

All I had to do was to do the same activity I've been doing for the last ten years almost for free. It really sounded like fun. 

For the entire day, I was thinking about it.

Didn't I deserve a job like that?

Of course. 

I became SNI shortly after I ended my PhD. 

I have experience in teaching at both undergraduate and graduate levels. 

Thought this job would be the opportunity I had always been waiting for. 

I was so enthusiastic, making plans with my wife. 

All I ever wanted was to have enough money to buy my own house.

Raising a baby and doing it in the best environment and with the greatest comforts. 

As I re-write this post, I feel so miserable. 

On July 17th, I received an e-mail from the interviewer. 

While it happened, I was answering the comments the reviewers had made to my last original paper as a first author. 

We employed a postnatal overnutrition murine model to explore the role of an orexigenic system from the lateral hypothalamus. 

On the last decade, this system has been studied on genetically obese models. 

One of the reviewers was particularly strict. She even asked us to re-analyzed the entire data. The paper includes behavioral, pharmacological and Western Blot data. 

I saw the e-mail notification and my heart started to beat like a war drum. 

I finished the comment I was working on and checked my e-mail. 

It seems that rejection is inherent to my life.

I fail over and over again. 

The most common phrase I have ever read is

"We're sorry to inform you..."

(How many times have I read this phrase?)

I am pretty used to bad news. 

I am kind of tired. 

Maybe I should have learned how to fix cellphones or cars. 

What I like to do is barely attractive to the society. 

Once I assimilated the notice, I e-mailed the interviewer.

I just wanted to know why did they had just decided that I was not the best candidate.

She insinuated to me that her boss decided to hire someone else, from the same University. 

At the last hour, her boss apparently decided to change the profile they were looking for. 

I am a lucky guy in love, but a disaster to get a real good job. 

For years I've been working just because I like what I do. 

For years I've been working for free on holidays and weekends.

(For years I've been dealing with people which think I am a loser because I don't have a car.)

You could say that most people are like that, but you don't know that I form part of less than 1% of the economically active population in my country.

(I am pretty sure that you don't even noticed that Spanish is my native language.)

I will write on this post about my experiences with job interviews. 

I'm about to have one and I'm so nervous!

This opportunity would completely change my life and I want it so badly to happen. 

Also I would like to write about all the kind of jobs I've had.  

Maybe the post will focus on a girl I met when I worked in a hotel. 

Or maybe on a German girl I met when I wanted to work as tourist guide in Playa del Carmen.

My Heart Is Broke, But I Have Some Glue

I've Been Waiting Like A Knife To Cut Open Your Heart

I met her when I was 17 years old, and I thought she was the most beautiful woman. 
It was my first week at the University and I saw her standing next to a classroom. 
She had short black hair and wore tight jeans. 
She was smiling and seemed completely happy. 
Wonder how would it be to be by her side.
Wonder what was her name.

A couple of years later, I met her in a class.
We started talking about science fiction.
She loved science fiction movies.
She knew alot of cult authors and movies. 

For some reason I dunno remember, we kissed in a cemetery.
It was on a saturday midday. 
Later we met in a party.
We started to hang out, and for years it was awesome.

Saddly, she had an ex.
The guy was pathetic.
She was under pressure, 'cause the guy was so sad that had threatened her.
He said that he would kill himself if she was not his girlfriend.
He said that he would kidnap me and hurt me, just for the pleasure of see me suffering as he was suffering. 

He was desperate and pathetic. 
Even when he was older than us, he had the mind of a child.
One day, she and I argued 'cause her exboyfriend was calling up her all the time.
I was jealous and angst, and she called me by her boyfriend's name. 
Obviously, it was a habit.
She used to argue with him.

She was my first formal girlfriend and I loved her so much.
I felt indescribably sad and ill.
Hated her and didn't want to talk her anymore.

A month later, we fought and she behave like a stupid girl. 
I reacted like an animal. 
She suddenly was a princess, 'cause I had been rough.
I did not know in which way I had been rough and asked her, but she refused to tell me what was wrong.
I reacted like an animal and I hurted her. 

I was a jerk-off and she was a snob.
It ended up after god and bad days. 
It happen almost fifteen years ago. 
She's happily married and she has a couple of kids.
I'm happily married to, but yesterday I had a fight with my wife.
I am starting to think that I am a problematic man. 
I am the common factor in relationship fights. 

The Crying Tree Of Mercury