Blues

Today I am just feeling blue. Nothing special, or just special enough to get enough of the red out, leaving only that overwhelming, overarching blue. All the day I have been feeling close to tears, but nobody would have understood why. And those who could have understood, cannot comfort me.

And yet, I have dealt with tens of people today, talked at length with half a dozen, and the only one who noticed, of course, is the one closest to me. But not even her can know why, because she is not among those who would understood, and the telling would be too long.

So, I would like to save this blue funk for a moment when I really could enjoy it, sitting comfortably, listening to appropiate music, wallowing in self-pity. But we are going out in ten minutes, and I will have to keep on talking and listening to a few friends and many acquaintances, not the ideal medium to unload a part of that cumulative Weltschmerz. So, here I am, swallowing up my long expected blues, just for lack of an appropiate environment.

Oh, well. Probably I will cry in my sleep then.  ¶ 8:51 PM 0 comments

  Snow

Maybe is its rarity for me, something that either you get after a serious effort (like climbing a mountain) or a long travel. But it brings up the child that lives hidden in my hands, always waiting for a chance to play a little.

Snow can be used for fighting (with little damage but impressive effects), for building, and as a great excuse for not doing something else. After we had the biggest snowfall in years, we used the first excuse we had (a couple of overturned trucks) to avoid going home for the lunch break, and instead get a quick lunch at a restaurant close by and quickly get back to the factory, but not to work but instead to engage in a half an hour merciless battle. Ganging up against the dry people, attacking bystanders to get them to join the fun, once you were drenched enough, laying down to trace an angel, making a five kilo ball to drop on the unsuspecting plan engineer (only soft balls, this was fun, not a competition). By the end of it there was little good quality snow in the neighbourhood, and we got close to ten people involved at the same time (some twenty all together), so access to well covered cars became the reason for renewed skirmishes.

Once we could not feel the fingers (and parts of the face), time for a hot cup of coffee (more for hand warming than the coffee itself). And an attempt to work, mostly failed. The mood was fey, with people singing around, whistling, and generally smiling, except when we discussed the subject of getting home, with ice on the roads and darkness quickly falling. At the end, we all left early.

But there is still a bright spot in that careless half an hour, and the break of normal life that the white mantle represents.

It is good to remember how it feels to be free, even if the servitude is of our own choosing.  ¶ 2:16 PM 0 comments

  The Cycles of Time

It is curious how little we notice the individual changes of time. Today I realized I had been blogging for more than six months. And that just because the sun is again blinding me when driving to work (as I mentioned in Sunblind, the 22nd of September last year).

Maybe used to seeing blogs falter and fail, or just becoming filtered news links, I did not expect this interest of mine to keep strong for long. It has even achieved some of its objectives, in that I know much more about myself than I did when I started. Or at least that is what I believe.

And yet, as it happens with the Sun, most things remain the same. Drivers still are surprised of being suddenly blind. We still have those accidents. And I still feel trapped in the ruts of my comfortable life. Maybe more comfortable, but not yet feeling free.

And yet, how can you feel free when you know you are your own jailer, with the help of that big liar, time. So that means that I have not changed myself enough to feel free, just enough to be aware of my curtailed freedom. And that takes us back to the big dilemma of western society, am I willing to trade comfort for freedom? Will it be meaningful to do that trade?

The good spirits of two weeks ago have evaporated, and the return of the sun has something to do with it. One problem solved, it breeds new ones, while the other troubles keep festering in the dark.

I suppose I will keep solving problems till I realize it is a middle-age crisis what I am facing. And that has time again as the only cure. Time and resignation.  ¶ 7:20 PM 0 comments

  Why I hate St. Valentine's Day

(This is a mail I sent to a friend, slightly touched up, to explain why I did not feel like sharing the Valentine spirit).

I had fallen in love with a co-student in a study trip, which really was just an excuse to travel around Europe with most of the course, called the Equator crossing, as it meant that we had passed more than half of the full Chemistry studies.

Maybe it was the magic of Paris, maybe drinking beer in her room, or possibly finding out that there was no way back to the hotel other than walking, after we decided to burn our last money in a good restaurant, and talking for the two hour walk in the mellow September night. Whatever the cause, I was so smitten (and had broken up in December the previous year, so I was very single as well) that when we got back I just had to sign up for two extra courses as those were the only courses of hers I could study. Geek love.

She had broken up with her boyfriend in summer, but they still had an intermittent relationship. I should have learnt of that, as it would be relevant later, but I was too busy helping her and becoming her best male friend. I never hid that I wanted something more than friendship, and she never hid that she liked me but that she did not think it could work. Come February, and for the actual first time in my life I had someone I loved for that date. St. Valentine is not really popular in Spain, but there are tons of advertisement and pressure to exchange gifts. St. Shopping Mall is another way it is known among the students.

So, as the courses we shared (and we shared seats and notes) were the first in the morning, in an unusual fit of romanticism I pass by a flower shop just opened and ask for yellow tulips, her favorite flower and color. They had two, so feeling it was an omen, I took both. So there I was, one of the recognized single men in the course, single and introverted, with two tulips. And nobody to give them to. I am sure there was a certain curiosity who they were for, as certainly they should be for someone at the University. So I pass the whole morning with the poor tulips, and in the breaks between classes going to her classroom to see if she had arrived. I was not so lucky. The second time I appeared (I was unable to ask anything so I just looked around and left) they already had guessed who I was looking for, so I got a few catcalls, and some well intentioned advice. She had not come, and nobody knew why as she had said nothing the previous day, the same she had said to me.

She lived in a Women's Residence, held by nuns. Very typical Spanish, with strict curfew, severe rules concerning men visiting, and a couple of watchdog nuns. But after the hellish morning I just wanted the torment to end. I thought about throwing the tulips away, but after what I had already lived through, that seemed like accepting defeat. And anyway she was bound to hear about it from her companions, so I should better give her my version first. As well, I was a little worried about her disappearance.

So I got to the Residence, that was nine minutes exactly from my house, and eleven from the University, and asked for her. The flowers, now a bit wilted after all that movement, won me the right to enter the inner Court, to wait for her to arrive, as she was in. Before I could look around, a middle aged woman accosted me, after talking with the Sister Gatekeeper. She was my loved one's mother, who had come to Zaragoza to spend the day and shop around, and of course she had skipped class and gone with her mother. Now she, who knew and liked her "official" boyfriend, decided she had to know who was this stranger that came with those pitiful flowers to see her daughter.

She never liked me afterwards, even when in May we finally became an item. When I went to her village's yearly festival, in July, I had to sleep two nights in a bench at the station, because she would not let me use the granary as originally planned. And she did not miss me when we broke up. My weirdness rep went a step higher among my co-students, although for a time I was almost popular, come May, while everyone wondered what was my secret. Patience and perseverance. A few teachers joked about it most of the year, but I did not mind it, as I was the teacher's pet anyway. The superior Mother quite liked me, probably because the few times she jumped curfew she had perfect alibis already presented, and I looked better than the typical boyfriend of her pupils, studious and shy, and a flowerman.

I have given flowers a few times as presents, but only when I knew where the recipient was, or I had a key to leave the bouquet and a vase already in place. And never, ever, in St. Valentine's day.  ¶ 11:58 PM 0 comments

  Drums

As soon as Lent starts, we start to hear drums all around the city, and one of the main practise area is close to our home.

Not annoying drumming, of course. It is mostly in the evenings, from 19 to 21, and also in the week-end mornings, but never earlier than 10. Just the rythmic pounding, trying to get a hundred drummers get the same beat right.

Easter celebrations in Aragón require lots of drums. There are parades, religious figures paraded through the streets at the right times, and meetings, and events. All of them hallmarked by drums. Some twenty thousand people belong to the religious brotherhoods, and probably half of them play some kind of drums.

The most famous event, immortalized by Luis Buñuel, is "La Rompida de la Hora" (The Breaking of the Hour) in the small town of Calanda, where Buñuel was born. Drummers from all the country and abroad congregate to support the different parades, but specially to play uninterruptedly for one hour on Good Friday, till Christ's death. It is also very penitential, as most of the drums may end marked up in blood, from hitting the skin with the hand, the splits from the long hours playing, and pure misplaced devotion.

The event now has little to do with God, and yet it is terribly moving. Nothing can be heard, except from close by the laboured breaths and grunts of pain, over the constant tattoo of the drums and kettledrums. After a few minutes, everything resonates, walls, the ground, the people. All follow the hypnotic beat. And the beat, as people tire, starts to get faster, instead of slower, even if it might get a little more ragged.

It is impossible not to feel taken up by the sound, and anyway, at that moment there is no escape but to see it through. So many visitors, so many drummers, they spill out of town.

And then the real magic moment is when the time has come, the rythm reaches breaking point, and actually it breaks into total silence.

The Lord is dead, and the silence is so thick, so complete for those few seconds, that it is as if the world had stopped. Time is broken.

Then a sudden breath, when thousands exhale that air they were unconsciously holding. And life goes on.

People takes drums seriously here.  ¶ 8:54 PM 0 comments

  Masturbation

Ah, yes, the primary sexual activity for most of my life, and in retrospect, the more satisfying in absolute terms.

I will try to avoid the easy jokes and quotes, just to focus on the beneficial effects that indeed it has on me.

The biggest trouble is taking out any guilt or shame associated with it. It is just a personal gratification, in a similar scale to eating potato chips or a massaging armchair, but cheaper and healthier.

Being shy, I heard about but never saw (or even less, participated) in that teen male bonding activity, communal masturbation. For me it always was a private affair, and only remotely related to real women as well. I still differentiate completely solitary masturbation and shared one, which is really just one of several pleasure strategies in lovemaking, and not masturbation except in a technical sense.

Probably because in shared sex my partner is the focus of my interest, while in masturbation, I am my own focus.

As well, I tend towards verbal rather than visual cues for self arousal. Even when I recall visual images as starting material, they are just that, a starting point, while I build up elaborate word constructs, with usually a bigger emphasis on dialogue and fleeting images (a touch of silk, the yielding firmness of flesh, unfocused red hair...) than an explicit view or activity. So, I may be more aroused by a book than a magazine, helped also because I am unable to disconnect my literary critic, so bad erotic writing just makes me angry instead of horny.

In my highly ordered, manipulated lifestyle, masturbation however has two clear functions, as a safety valve when sexually unsatisfied, related to the subjects expressed in "Compulsory Sex", as well as in times of abstinence. The second, and most common one, is as a stress reliever. Quite similar in most ways to a shot of whisky. A break on the current thought processes, a time-out of limited length that helps me get into perspective the current worries. So now I have confessed why I may spend ten minutes in the bathroom before (or after) a critical meeting.

And why has this unusual subject come into my mind? Mainly because I have been a week without masturbating, something quite unusual since my heartbreak fueled monastic self punishments, fifteen years ago.

And it is also quite useful those few times I have trouble falling asleep.
  ¶ 9:34 AM 0 comments

  Secrets, revisited

I have mentioned elsewhere than I am a terrible gossip, both asking for and spreading. After all, the main point of sharing the good gossip is as an excuse to get the other person in your debt, so they have to provide some juicy secret of their own to compensate.

And I have also said that I cannot keep secrets. Which unfortunately is true. So far I have managed to avoid putting someone's else secrets here, but I have told and hinted here much more than I intended.

It is surprising how strong the urge to reveal a secret is. For me, it is a mix of pride (look what I know) and as well relief, as when the secret is no longer secret there is no need to avoid discussing, mentioning or referring to it. I tend towards blunt sincerity because keeping track of lies, half-lies and white lies becomes too hard. It is already hard to communicate with a fellow human being, than keeping track besides of what they really know is impossible. So, as long as possible I say the truth. You will lose some friends, but in the end, those that remain will be used to almost anything, and will appreciate the straightforward approach.

The main problem are unstable or depressed people. It is no good to start with "Looking bad today, no?" or "You look like shit". So that forces me to elaborate, and start asking questions to avoid the straight approach. And before I can say gesundheit I know the problem, the drug they are not taking, how life mistreats them, and how terrible things are.

As for them things are really terrible, and usually I am aware of that by then, I tell them so, offer my support and soon I am calling them to remind them of the medicines, or just to show them that someone cares.

Because I care, and that is the truth.

I do not care much about groups of people, and most of the time I think that randomly killing 80% of the population (and me the first, for proposing it) would be positive. Talk about revealing secrets.

On an individual level, I care. But as a typical westerner, only those people who get close enough to be recognized as people. Because I feel it is a critical part of humanity, to care, and may Hobbes be damned for being too pessimistic.

Well this got a bit far away from what I intended. That is the problem with secrets and me.
  ¶ 8:56 PM 0 comments