Mrs. Dalloway's Coffee Break

I wake up with a start in a foreign bed in what is obviously a hotel room. A nondescript, fuzzy peach colored room with twilit shadows creeping on textured wall papers from between the Venetian blinds. Evening. An alarm of some sort has gone off, and I realize I need to leave my room. With haste, I do so, getting a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I pass towards the door. I am wearing a white tank top and what appears to be a man’s light blue cotton boxer shorts. The sudden change in temperature as I get up from the warmth of the covers makes my breasts very visible under the top, but I feel like I should be moving, and there is nothing I can do about it now anyway. I go into the hall, also fuzzy peach, and walk, barefoot, on the shaggy carpet. I am by nature a friend of cleanliness, and I feel slightly disgusted by the feel of the fabric against the soles of my feet. There is a corner, and I stay there, leaning on the wall. A door, perhaps the main entrance to the floor, is behi...

Interiors. Out of everything wonderful life had to offer, interiors. But not just; The Hanging Rock and the pathways that are starting to loosen their grip on me. The sorcery is fading. I get out of bed and immediately almost faint. Sudden change in blood pressure, vertigo, lack of human touch, brain tumor, who knows. Cooing doves in the morning, and the sound is conspiratorial and homey. This view. The newspaper articles are about war, or cutting funding, or killings, or maga propaganda, and as if these were not enough, the science section tells me how studies have shown that women whose bodies go into early menopause tend to lose their synaptic activity in the brain sooner and more often than those whose period continue into their fifties, resulting in catastrophic cognitive problems, with Alzheimer’s looming at the darkest end of the spectrum. Also, that persistent nightmares reduce lifespan, and those who tend to have bad dreams often are bound to die sooner with 70% accura...

  This is not a blogpost of me coming out of the closet. In fact, I have been so far out of the closet for as long as I can remember I’m almost completely outside the house already, but I can also say that no, I am not really a lesbian.  Or am I? I know young women and gender-fluid persons and non-binary people today like to think outside the containment of a sexual orientation – or gender nomination - box, and this is all good – this is just me talking, and this is me being, specifically, a woman about it. Despite a life-long habit of crossdressing ever since early puberty, and adopting behavior patterns traditionally reserved for the man, I have never wanted to be treated or referred to as a man, nor have I ever entertained a single moment’s desire to transition into one.  Be that as it may, I feel often that what I consider discussions worth having are not the same discussions that are actually being had, and one such notion is that of the ever-evolving spectrum of sex...

I recently wrote in passing about a romantic comedy from the very final days of the previous millennium, which reunited director Garry Marshall with his very successful old leads Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. Even more recently, I was watching the original flagship movie, Pretty Woman, and a lot of things sprang to mind. Like Focusing mainly on Vivian’s point of view, the story of Pretty Woman morphs early on into a stylized, granted, PG, version of An American Pillow Book for the lady into the intricacies of the art of subtle, understated seduction of a man. Like Instead of bringing the hammer down about such notions as the story’s implicit go-ahead for buying people and treating others like merchandise, and the shallow presentation of values and what is considered the good life, I think interpreting Pretty Woman as a story of the transformative power of the human touch and finding sexual freedom at any age, and through it, individual freedom, a clearer sense of identity, and contin...

  What are you doing?! Just get in there, now! You know, the brakes are there for a reason. Watch out! You are the most selfish, most self-centered person I have ever had the misfortune to meet! You’re holding onto the wheel all wrong! You need to back up more you’ll get a fine. Get the fuck out of here! I hate you you fucking bitch! You try living with a tumor that’s going to kill you. Oh, that’s right it’s my tumor it’s my fucking tumor! Get out! You are nothing but shit, you never take responsibility for anything, you never have, you just live in your Never-Never Land thinking everyone will live happily ever after! Why do you always need to destroy everything! You’ve ruined everything! Shut up, you’re disgusting! You never think of anyone but yourself! It's fucking over between us! Well it’s your fault I’m yelling every bad thing I have learned I have learned from you you goddamn bitch! It’s all because of you! Well, fuck you back! Oh that’s right, blame me, it isn’t like I’m dy...