Mr. Raspy, a Mosquito, & a Mild Electrocution

Ah, I finally made it. Here I am.

I didn't actually think I would sit here today and record. Didn't think I would get here. It's been such a long journey just trying to get here today.

And the journey has been from bedroom to microphone. Amazing.

Because yesterday I decided:
Tomorrow, Sunday, beautiful summer day here in Buenos Aires, I'm going to sit there and I'm going to record another Midnight Mind Moment. So I'm going to go to bed early tonight, get some rest, and be able to record just fine.

Here I am.

And so, as sometimes my life likes to show me these very interesting Netflix shows in my real lifetime, I went to bed but had a lot of trouble falling asleep because I had a visitor in my room last night: a mosquito.

And for mosquito, the family mosquito, they see my body and they just see it as an all-you-can-eat buffet. And when they bite, they leave these welts, these itchy welts, and so the whole night there I am trying to hide under sheets, because even through a thin sheet they still find a way to sharpen the little beak, or whatever you call that thing they have, and they get you. At least me.

So I was on vigilant state last night there, waiting and hiding.

And finally this morning I woke up and I saw the mosquito on the wall. Nice and happy. Satisfied. Its little belly full of my lifeblood.

And so, I kindly gave it help into its next lifetime, and there it goes.

But then because I didn't sleep that well, I woke up with a raspy voice. Kind of like one of those dry, itchy throat voices. And I thought, I can't record this. I can't record it like this, because seriously, this morning I sounded like a Simpson character.

You know:
“Hey, here we are, another Midnight Mind Moment, I'm gonna talk to you.”

So I thought, nah, I'm gonna wait. Do something for my throat. Maybe I'll do a warm-up, some vocal warm-ups, try singing a Whitney Houston song.

And since I never could before, well, today it just reminded me that I couldn't.

What else could I do? Gargle with vodka? What do they recommend for the throat? Doing those kind of things.

So anyway, I just let the day pass and the voice was better.

And I just don't sometimes understand how this works. I tell my body, myself:
“Hey, tomorrow let's go do this.”

And the body says:
“Sure. Let me pretend I didn't understand what you just said and give you something completely different. Why don't we do this instead? Why don't you stay up all night getting bit by mosquitoes? Why don't you wake up as Mr. Raspy and go and try to record that episode with that really interesting topic you want to explore?”

And then later on, when you go to record, you plug in the headphones and the headphone battery is dead, so you gotta recharge that.

And then once it's recharged, you go and try to open up the balcony door and you get electrocuted because you're touching the headphone amplifier.

And so I'm quite shocked to be here.
Literally.

And it just amazes me.

It reminds me of when...
How does that phrase go? I'm not really good with sayings, but:
“Don't tell life what you want because then it'll throw a wrench in it,” or it'll screw it up or something like that.

Click it and don't drink and drive unless you drink before you drive.
I don't know.

It's those kind of phrases that don't really stick with me.

So, I mean, this happens quite often.

Whenever I say:
“I want to do this. I'm excited to do this.”

The body says:
“Ah no. I have different plans for you.”

Such as last night.

And the other night as well, trying to sleep.

I have this relationship with sleep which is:
sleep exists for other people.

But for me...
I'm redeveloping this relationship.

We've gone to therapy.
Couples therapy.

And I can understand sleep's point of view, but...
you know...
I still want to sleep.

So on the nights I say:
“Hey, okay, I really need a good night's sleep.”

Hey, five o'clock in the morning, wide awake. I can already hear the birds singing.

And then I start getting sleepy.

And I'm like:
“That doesn't really work.”

So it just makes me think of different ways to get around this body thing.

It's like, I can't try to trick it.

I can't say:
“Okay body, tonight I don't want to sleep.”

Because the body will say, like a genie:
“Your wish is my command, sir.”

And poof.
Six o'clock in the morning.
Still wide awake.

And so, it's this thing that I go through quite often, trying to figure out how to be able to dance the tango romantically with myself instead of being there as two people fencing, trying to kill each other.

But at the same time I can't really kill the other essence of me because we're here to fight to stay alive.

So such an irony there.

So it's a moment.

I'm sitting here now, happy to be here. Happy to be able to not sound so raspy here.

And now it's time to talk about what I was going to talk about...
which I don't remember too well.

What was I...

Okay, well, since I'm recording this live without any kind of edits, I don't remember.

We'll be that in the next one.

But right now, at least I showed up with a pretty normal-sounding voice, electrocuted, without sleep, welts on my body, a smile on my face, and some alcohol in my throat.

No actually, no.
I just gargled with coffee.

That was much better.

So until the next time, here we are.