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.

Let's Do Something Crazy, Absolutely Wrong

You were there, it was real. You didn't know I had been daydreaming of you, in the fog of my thoughts. I had been sick for almost a couple of weeks. Then when you asked me on the phone if I wanted to join you at the dining room, I thought “Ok”. And then we talked for half an hour or so. You spoke a lot, I told you a few things. Basically I told you how sad and frustrating it is to be like me. Like having this big desire of writing, a thousand ideas filling my brain like bees inside a swarm looking for air, and then to make a thousand mistakes while beating up the wrong letter in the computer keyboard. Basically I told you how bittersweet it is to be who I am. You know. I am experienced, I love my job, but I should have an opportunity to stop looking for temporary contracts. You know, I've been looking for opportunities my entire life. Ten years ago I was having my PhD dissertation, so far I have almost 20 published papers, ten years of teaching experience, I am National Researcher Level II. And in the near future there are no opportunities for me to stop looking for temporary contracts. These kind of contracts give me the opportunity to teach, but they're so short –from 3 to 6 months– and I can't perform my own research. Besides, they will not last forever. 

Of course I told you these things differently, not as I am writing of them right now. I am tired, Saturday morning is about to come. As I am waiting for the miracle to come, as Leonard Cohen whispers thru the headphones. I am asleep. It's 6: 30 am. And I've been wasting my waking time for almost an hour. 

As we spoke a couple of days ago in the dining room, I felt you were interested in my talk. It was weird. For times I remembered the way I had been daydreaming of you, when I was sick, in the fog of my thoughts. Sunlight irradiated your face. I hadn't seen the color of your eyes, neither the color of your hair. But sunlight made them look so warm. And you smiled all the time, and I couldn't stop telling myself that I was an animal, that I couldn't stop thinking that I would make it with you, that I would like to discover what kind of woman are you. Then you told me that you cried in a meeting. That you felt awful and silly. Then we talked about diseases.

I felt you sort of admired me. And I sort of remembered how it was our first meeting, 3 years ago. Then I was so sick of being some sort of academic outsider. I had 3 years working in the same university, but I was stuck. It was not the best time of my life. Then you appeared out of nowhere and you walked beside me and you ignored me. I saw you were so tall and I thought you were sort of conceited. I sort of hated you. 

Sunlight irradiated you face. You spoke about a couple of students that told our Department Head that they didn't like you. That they were not the biggest fans of psychoanalysis. I told you I understood your point. I told you about my own experience with a few students in the Covid-19 pandemic. When Zoom was the only way we could teach classes. When I had no recess, when I worked from 8 am to 10 pm on a daily basis, when students were some sort of ghosts behind the closed cameras of Zoom. 

I need go back to sleep. I have a terrible headache. I am tired. I am listening to Leonard Cohen, in particular this song I used to associate with an ex, but now I know I will associate it with you. I will remember this meeting we had a couple of days ago in the dining room of the university, as students walked and talked and ate around us. I wonder what did they think about us. I will remember how you behaved. The way in which you seemed to admire me. I don't know your age, I just kinda sensed that you're younger than me by the way you hear me and look at me, and I also kinda feel that I'm at this age in which people like you seem to know that I am not nobody. I don't know if I am being clear enough. I sense that people like you look at me as an experienced guy. Like if I were in an 'interesting age'. That I know something. That, if I wanted to, I could make it happen, that I could make it with you, that, ironically, I could make the biggest business of my life.

But I am just waiting for the miracle to come, as Leonard whispers thru the headphones. 

Look At Your Game, Girl

It could've been in November 1994. I just had bought the cassette. I put it in the recorder of the Jetta. Dunno exactly why or who, but John & Yoko were looking for someone in the streets, and they had left us inside the car. Ringo and George were making some silly jokes, or so. Probably they were excited for the video game they'd just bought. Probably it was another one of the style of that Flintstone's video game they'd played for entire weeks in the summer. 

In the same store they'd bought the video game, I'd bought The Spaghetti Incident?, the eight or nine cassette I'd bought in the same store in the last months. I was crazy about Guns N' Roses. I'd heard them for the first time in the last summer. On TV, they frequently showed the videos of “Estranged”, “The Garden”, “Live And Let Die”, “Don't Cry”, “November Rain” and “Since I Don't Have You”. I was almost 14 years old, a nobody, a teenager, and 'the most dangerous band in the world' blew my mind.

With their fifth studio album in my hands, I had their entire discography –in record time!, two-three months!

It was cold, dark and windy. 

Slash's guitar riff came out from the tiny music speakers of the Jetta. It gave me the chills. 

Dunno knew anything about the album or that song in particular. 

As the song progressed and my brothers made silly jokes, I just watched the photographs and read the lines in the booklet of the cassette. They were photos of the awesome logo of the band, of Duff, of Slash, of Matt... of the famous Axl's white & red Converse... and a sentence: 

A great song can be found anywhere. Do yourself a favor and go find out the originals.

Or something like that.

Then, after drums and bass and some sort of weird synthesizer's sounds, Axl's voice appeared. It sounded so soft, so warm and so sad. A thousand miles different from the ferocious screams of “Welcome To The Jungle”. 

The song made me think of 60's rock n' roll, and I liked it. The next song was a lot more punk rock. I guessed it was from the early 70's, or so. 

It was titled “New Rose” and it started with a little bit to understand words of Duff McKagan. Milliseconds later appeared the drums and then the guitar. Duff sang that awesome song. 

I was so excited! I was about to discover some old cool songs! 

Then John & Yoko got back to the car. 

John looked at me, he sighed, smiled and lowered down the volume of the cassette recorder. Then he turn on the Jetta's engine machine and drove us home. I took back the cassette from the recorder and put it in my walkman –I carried it everywhere– and then I put on my headphones and listened to the album all the way back home.

I should have heard it a thousand times.

Now, almost 30 years later from that first-time experience –the album was released on November 23, 1993–, I am listening The Spaghetti Incident?, again. And, again, I have headphones on. And I would like to write about many things –the origin of the album's title, the addiction issues of Steven Adler, how fun it is to play Slash's guitar riff of the Skyliners' song, how fun it is to play “New Rose” on guitar, how weird and cool and creepy it is to listen to the hidden track with that Charles Manson' song at the end of the album–, but I can't get you out of my mind. 

I got the flu and I am a little bit tired. For two-three days, I hadn't been able to sleep, but I finally could, and I woke up from this dream In which YOU appeared. It was so intense that it pulled me out of bed.

Then I wanted to read but I turn on the Mac, started to write in this blog –my wife & cats are asleep– and put The Spaghetti Incident? on Amazon Music –I miss so much those times in which we were not forced to pay any rent per month to streaming platforms– and put my headphones on, and, as music and words and hours elapsed, I couldn't get you out of my head. 

In my dream, we were so young and we were inside a bus. It was a sunny day. As the bus moved thru the streets, I couldn't stop looking at you. You were enigmatic and beautiful. Perhaps you were some sort of Frankenstein of all the women I have felt attracted to. Also, there was some sort of chemistry between us. I wanted so bad to ask you out. Our eyes met, and finally I asked you out. You smiled and I felt so attracted to you. You said Yes!, and, in an old-fashioned love movie style, we got closer and closer, seconds were like eons, and then we kissed. 

It was so intense! It seemed so real! It was so vivid!

I even have the feeling that my chemical senses are overloaded.

It is cold, dark and windy. I woke up like an hour ago, but I'm still some sort of dizzy.

Dunno know who you are. Nor why did you appear in my dream. But you made me feel I was 14 years old again.