Mrs. Dalloway's Coffee Break

Last night, I had another dream about my home. I have those most every night now, ever since the selling of the place finally took place in December. Sometimes the dreams develop into nightmares and I wake up in the dead of night in cold sweat. Other times, like last night, they are more like what I have always dreamed about. Last night, once more, the honey-combed panel ceiling started bulging dangerously, especially in the living room, and some panels fell on the floor. This time, what was exposed above was not a giant insect hive, but instead an enormous attic space, almost as large as the house itself, filled with old furniture and boxes full of toys and picture frames and notebooks, apparently my old journals, which in real life I have safely filed inside a special cabinet in my own apartment; old Sarah Kay posters on the walls, a huge easy chair underneath a small window, perfect for curling up with a book: a little girl’s fantasy. I was mesmerized. I was amazed and ecstatic...

Since I wrote the story concerning my workmate, and friend, Hanks’ upcoming heart surgery, and endured people’s accusations as to how it read like a love letter and I was like “Yes?”, the news of his recovery has been of great interest to some, who only read about it, not knowing him at all, on this site. Well, like already acknowledged in one of the earlier stories, he is fine, folks, he is great. When he came in to the salt mine to greet people and have some coffee and ice cream with his family on the night before Christmas, I was doing some chores in the back, and hearing his voice and recognizing it as his, chatting with my workmates of the day, I have to say I became quite undone and teared up, so I had to wait a while before I could show myself out front, because showing up crying would have seemed a little iffy, wouldn’t it? When I was able to make an appearance, it was so lovely to see them all so joyful and glad, Hanks his old self, there was no sign whatsoever of his...

The inferno of the weekend passes, not lingering anymore, as the dawn of sanity arrives with household chores; vacuum, clean the bathroom, mop the kitchen, wash the dishes. Mrs. Dalloway gets down to business, with pleasure, such pleasure and willingness and enthusiasm, Mrs. Dalloway with her hidden wild heart. The demon is banished for now, as the kids are at school, the spouse at work, and the day stretches herself in front of her like a seductive, lime-scented, milky-white, promising, nubile mistress. Fearless, Mrs. Dalloway looks at her, smiles her most alluring smile. Oh, darling, how I missed you. You have to only stand there before me like that, delicious and cloudy and misty like this morning, gorgeous and naked, with a few leftover Christmas pounds on your lovely hips that only make you look even more bewitching and beautiful, and I feel like grabbing those exquisite hips and pulling you against me and giving you the most wo...

Let’s be rude, bigoted people. Let’s be real pricks for a while. Let’s trust innuendo and hearsay, and never corroborate anything ourselves, or ask others to elaborate on or explain their arguments. Let’s take stuff at face value. Let’s interrupt, because hey, our point of view is the best one. Let’s only take care of our own. Let’s forget about such useless values as sense of compassion, empathy, or sense of humor. Let’s not respect others, or hold their points of view in any esteem. Let’s make hasty, rash decisions and jump into conclusions. Let’s never tell our fellow men they look beautiful, or that they did good, or that we care about them. Let's in fact be real skimpy with the praise. Let’s not ask what the other person means, and instead hold a grudge for twenty years, always reliving the past wrong-doing. Let’s focus on retaliation. Let’s not forgive. Let’s not behave ourselves at all. Let’s hate other women and consider them our enemies. Let’...

”I had no idea you would pour all your energies into something so – insignificant.” The strange man whisked the papers on the rocks, not looking directly at me. I turned away from him, thinking I needed to get quickly away from him, and I still had all those buckets to empty at the neighbor’s yard, because I had promised I would empty the buckets after the rain. But I needed to walk fast and with great determination, because there was danger there, lurking just outside my side vision. And I had to steer clear of the other house. I had lost the right to be afraid of that house, or, in that house, and I bet the malevolent spirit, who had appeared to me sometimes in that house was now appearing to the new residents. It was dark, and I saw lights on inside, but I could only glance for a moment, not stopping, or else my heart would surely stop beating. Out of jealousy, out of fury, out of unforgivingness. Why had the creature not followed me out? Why couldn’t it be like in The Ent...

You gotta roll with it, commands Oasis, and rolled we have, haven’t we, last year, the year of all years to contain so much utter crap, but, on closer inspection, some pretty great things as well. Reading Hanks’ wife Rita’s short encounter, accompanying her own Best Nine pictures on Instagram, on how gathering the pictures she first had thought it had been the worst year ever, what with her husband’s enormous heart surgery and all, but, really thinking back, it turned out it had been sort of amazing, too. Her man got his heart back on track, and yes, he’s doing fine, returning to work in a couple of months. So, her brief tale got me thinking about my own Best Nine, and what that might entail. Here’s what I got: One. Yep, the blog. During some of the most difficult times of one’s life, writing has been kind of a solace, a moment of serenity for the over-stressed. For reasons I myself do not quite understand - the Internet is a strange and fickle animal - the story to garner th...