Hey sweetie. Like most of my dreams, I've forgotten what it was about, let alone why you figured in it. Then again, a lot of my friends have made cameo appearances lately. Strange but very much welcomed.

My dreams have been rather entertaining. They range from the silly (playing 10-20 in my stupid grade school uniform) to the macabre (me sitting next to a near-skeletal patient in what I thought was a community spa in the heart of UP Diliman - don't ask me how it got to that). I'm not quite if it's all the late-night eating that I do. Or the busy days I've been tending to.

About Viriginia Woolf, I'm just amazed, bewildered, relieved and comforted by her ability to reconcile (or just leave all these and let the reader figure it out for him/herself) the drab reality of obligations, propriety, expected behavoir and social niceties with the secret world of wistful hopes, longing, gentle rage, brutality to one's seemingly impossible aspirations. That it is this secret world that is richer and fulfilling than the drudgery of the everyday. Then again, if it not for the drudgery, one would not even be compelled to seek what is eternally overlooked.

With a sly wink, she says it's okay, little one. I, too, know what you're thinking. I do know what it's like holding the urge to let out the loudest yell, the explosive punch. But not today sweetie, not today.

I still dream of that summer house overlooking the hills (no particular country required). I hope you'd get to grace it with your presence. You'll always have a room - a comfortable couch, if that's your fancy. Should you want the room, I'll fill it with cats of all shapes and sizes and as many pirated DVDs from Quiapo (no other place, just Quiapo) as possible.

My summer house will be open to friends who: a) are nursing the end of a long-term relationship (those still living with the fantasy that relationships sustained through their 40s are invicible); b) are itching to finish writing that long-overdue book; c) are in need of an artists' studio free of charge (only payment required are three square meals on the dinner table for the rest of the occupants; d) are hatching the overthrow of a country's government; d) are going through a mid-life crisis (I'm assuming I'll be in my 40s by the time I acquire the house).

Summer house comes with its own landing strip, an outhouse, a skating rink, a dancefloor, a jukebox and 24/7 supply of the most politically-correct coffee there is.

This could be an entire country if I want it to be.