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...?

The Line Begins To Blur

I still feel the cramps, like a thousand ants running thru my back, arm and fingers. Dunno if, someday, I won't feel them anymore, without realizing it. Dunno if there will be ever a night when these cramps won't wake me up, interrupting my dreams, like this dream I was in with one of my brothers chasing Trent Reznor. The NIN founder lived in an apartment on a horrible street in Mexico City. We needed so bad to speak with him. Suddenly we got to his apartment and knocked at the door, and he looked out the window, it looked that he was naked. A few seconds later, he left the apartment by jumping out of another window. He wore a bathrobe and Dr. Martens.

These awful cramps, this electric itch, this stabbing pain, this feeling of pins and needles running through my back, arm and fingers, interrupted the story, so I will not know. 

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.