Home

1975 continued

Teams dressed like superheroes. Woman who gets secret bedroom tapes
on congressmen and senators, 20 mules cleaning your house. Low tar
cigarettes, by the 4th week you're smoking 40 packs a day.

Saw a man wrapped around himself like a Thurber unconscious drawing,
with numbers on his arms like a tape measure; a genius scientist so far
advanced that his left hand is two years ahead of his right.

Jerry's dream: white owl six feet tall beside his bridge (path down
to his house on the river bank.)

John -- sign saying ways to get places, number one is bicycle. Guy
had to act out his life, that's before -- southern house with fireplace.
Movie, throw pies. Pabst blue ribbon bottle -- part of disguise.

Grandma pushes me forward on the scale, makes me heavier. She
weighs all the way back to zero -- says all she did was be nice to kids and
Grandpa did that. I say she has too high an opinion of Grandpa and too low
of herself. Picture of me, line drawing on cover of yellow magazine Kenny
gives me, he says. I try to bite his arm. Go to house, poem by Barbra
Sablove, she says I gave her good criticism when I told her to relax, listen
more and talk less (about her kidneys.) In showers at school -- trying to
put on blue pants with two zippers. Talk little girl into putting on her
"old" clothes so she can play. Give button to two year old who can read.
Jerry talks us into bringing poems to his house -- surprise reading. House
crammed with intelligent, enthusiastic people. Then they all melt away,
were spirits or angels.

Meet many people I used to know in succession. Chinese girl in
student union bathroom. Band playing. Then Sherrell Billings, there are
two of them and they look like identical twins, but one is balder and is a
female impersonator whose bones are mysteriously deteriorating. I tell her
about how nice the apartments are in LA -- same price as Iowa City then
think I'm talking too much. [Mary in apartment 8's granddaughter died last
year of brittle bone disease at age 7.]

Some fair -- farewell.

Stove that keeps snow melted. Darrell and Allan here, Allan wants
to take our car and drive around -- I say he'll get lost. Go to Skelley
Truckstop on Interstate 80 in Iowa City -- Nixon there campaigning for
president, something about whales. [Allan finally learned to drive several
years after moving to the Midwest, grew up in New York City.]

Dumdum dream -- Hartley falls in wet sand. Cleaning up trailer,
bedroom is now a dining room. Old lady lives here. [I wonder if the old
lady in a lot of dream is me - if typing them now at 50 made me visible back
in 1975 somehow -- I was 24 then.]

Go to Paul's -- trying to find something to put in a bottle.
Picture of dachshund and alligator on wall. Tall black guy takes Steve's
hand and they run across the street into a store. When he comes out he's
holding a black guy's hand as if Steve has turned black, but it's a trick
and Steve comes out later. Paul says he's going to get gin.

In place where Pat Dooley is. There are lots of racks of small
plastic shoes of all kinds, he says I can have all the ones which look like
children's shoes. I want some pairs which look like black sandals. He sees
me and I tell him aggressively that I'm taking them. Then I pick up two
shoes that have been made specially for me. One is a very high heel made of
cloth and one is a flat sandal.

In Mom's house reading, then kids begin appearing -- at first with
adults and then adults begin to disappear and I have to quit reading to take
care of the kids. Yell at them, Dumdum kids fighting; then suggest older
kids go down to the creek. Jasmine and Rachel have come to look like twins
-- drink out of two diaper pails. Kids run ahead and swim in creek which is
much larger than when I was a kid. Afraid Hartley has drowned -- is
actually a creek of wet sand - but he is sinking near one edge stuck in the
sand. I pull him out and yell at him for not waiting for me. [Dan and I
took a bunch of 10-12 kids to the abandoned University golfcourse along
highway 6 in Iowa City and there was a little pond the kids ran and jumped
in before I could stop them. The pond was just a mud puddle with deep mud
and lots of tadpoles and frogs they saw right away and started catching.
Dan was no help and I was frantic trying to count the kids to make sure they
were all there.]

Man and I at a honeymoon hotel in the tropics. Very large spider,
snake crawls down my back. I pull it out and it grabs a monkey. Inside the
motel (it costs 20 cents extra a day to ask their machine for the time), I
talk about how I hate kids. There's a little boy who wants to hang onto a
finger to walk -- his mother doesn't take offense at my remark. I am
standing in a park looking into the distance. Chuckie comes along and
touches my leg. I get in a boat with him, he rows on the left side and I
sit in front. The other relatives are also in boats, but they all help with
the rowing. There's an increased tension in the air for them because my
brother has suddenly grown up.

Three nightmares. Gerald has a dream that our agent is the white
dog on the Fool card and one woman is smarter than him and one not. He says
I should write a story about two characters. Four psychotics -- one man and
three girls are planning my murder. Go through small town looking for help,
rednecks suspicious. Two women in coveralls are friendly at least, confirm
my suspicion about man. Pictures of women with short red hair, others. I
and other people plan a story about them. Then, dance comes on with woman
in Mexican cape as leader -- four dancers. Man turns somersaults, then
woman who grabs his ankles, then another man, fourth woman has large breasts
and dances heavily. G and J buy a sailboat. I try it out -- it crashes
broadside into our boat. Take it out of the water -- go in, Dad's house.
Dad tells Shirley, no chewing gum in the house. We make up more rules -- no
shorts on the table, no shirts on the chair.

Drive from southern to northern California. Six towns in a row have
names that are variations. Steve, Pat and I write a movie -- Steve puts in
the music, first draft. Then Pat wants me to read a letter he's written to
a girlfriend. I can't understand why -- it isn't very interesting.

I am wearing a blue dress and with two other people wait on the
porch of the house next door (dark) for the woman to come home. She's very
tall. When she finally does, she says to come back tomorrow. I say, "when
it's warmer?" but she means to be better dressed, hat for me, tie for men
and cut our hair. Daniel Boone type, very large fish, technology oriented
neighbor. Police invade a guy's home with TV cameras filming it. I go to a
museum with Beau Salisbury and a dark, Indian woman. We are all Geminis and
were in Belgium. I carry their kid, a little boy. My task in the museum is
to dust and sometimes I wipe off red and blue parts of the things on
display.

At Dad's house, Sandy mows the lawn, I do something in the house. I
hide my book and blouse in the little room. There are unknown children. A
"couples" party -- get a grip on each other. Drawing the lines. Taking
liberties with the movies. We park car, man puts it on its side. Go to
Student Union -- there is a CIA lecture, costs $5, $2 if you're in the
Writers Guild. Sally is trying to bluff a cop in the middle of the road --
that she's in the writers' guild. Kids at Mom's again. My stuff is in
Shirley's room, I wake up in Mom's bed wearing a sexy purple bathing suit.
I talk about numbers, etc, since I haven't discussed them with kids lately.
Mosquitoes want people that taste good.

In meadow -- boys making fun of me. I ran fast when necessary the
first time. Then follow path through meadow. Trouble walking. Fat girl
races me -- boys comment. Then, girl with pink shorts and top, puts on
zipped white tights, lots of layers of clothes. We are going to float down
a muddy river -- I put in car to see if it will float.

Jody Miller has photos which she framed, thinks Sandy is her friend.
Grandma says she can't have a picture and changes the slip of paper -- God
is in Texas. Goes with her. [Jody was Aunt Joan's oldest daughter and
followed her mother at age 34 with a brain tumor also. She died around
1990.] At house babysitting. I promise to go make lunch between 3 and 4.
Have to wrap packages. Then don't have money.

I go to a place -- large building with lots of other people. I feel
like dancing, go down left wing of building -- then right. Right feels
better. I really get into dancing -- doing ballet type stuff. Little kids
come in and dance too -- then a woman and husband. The woman is in the
Olympics in dance and two other areas. She falls down hard, there's
something wrong with her but she wants to dance (the morning competition is
that night). That room where we are dancing is her school room when a
child. The guy says it is dank and dark. Man comes, grabs me, we go into a
side compartment where the furnace is. It's a coal furnace with only a few
coals. A man comes and puts on more. I add something from a bucket near me
-- then see that it's a rabbit's nest and I have put the babies in the fire.
Black rabbit comes along but it's really a cat. The mother gets one baby
out of the fire, then I find three more and dig them out. Put them (two) in
box that is now in the backseat of the car. Kids sit on nest for the
rabbit. Two that are maybe dead are beside me in the straw. One tries to
crawl out. Dad drives towards Dallas County, but I think it's Madison
County. Roadblock, guys with guns, put yellow plastic things behind our
license plate. Something about blue cars from WW II. Also take two of our
records and give us two of their empty jackets.

1975 continued

Driving car down Grandma's road -- turned into bike with training wheels, to highway 90 -- a gravel road after a rain. Skid tire of passing little girl on bike. She gets mad, I explain that she was going slower than I thought. Road turns into a steep mud path, meet some people coming up. Woman says, "look a snake coming down" -- just then the little girl slides down with her bike. They stop her fall, then I go down -- my hand got wrapped around with cloth -- the snake was in there. I try to let it loose, finally get it loose - there were at least three snakes that were hurt and thrashing around. We come to our house, which is a rug in a clearing. I put the snakes on it -- a beautiful white salamander with its guts coming out. A very short snake, two other hurt snakes. Then they begin to eat each other. Start packing up stuff and try to hide it -- because leaving on trip. At the beginning, I was going to go out and help my mother -- who does all the work.

We're living in a shack by my mother's lane, broken window in door, hunters going towards river, dog jumps in window, grabs my wrist, man comes -- give him a lecture about dogs. Sandy fakes a call to District Attorney -- Jack Dooley -- I ask when they're coming (police). She says something was wrong with the phone, she could only be heard in that room. She said, "come, we're being molested by a big blow or something." I admire her control of language. Move to Grandma's attic, I move out of my room - Mary moves in, only half can be used because of the broken window. It looks like an old unused stable on one side, straw blew in -- other side nice. I have to finish moving out of my room so another girl can move in. I move into a tiny shack in my grandmother's attic. A man lives nearby - in the next tent. I leave to go to a wedding party. Everyone is given a mask, their friends join our booth, woman says, "lets put on our masks - so no one can see our eyes when we talk, it's easier that way. Dancers, a woman and little girl, both with floor length dark hair -- woman sings. A woman telling how she drove all the way to San Francisco last night -- it was snow all the way from Des Moines on. The woman twirls around slowly holding her long pink and white striped skirt out. Then they leave. I'm not decently dressed behind - afraid to pass man's room -- getting things together downstairs by mirror. Go up, man still not up -- might not exist -- light still on, my shack is too small. Everything let down, try on clothes -- green wool top with false front legs, then other pants --girl says she wore them, people said they were weird. Wrap around green wool thing with white feather on front - I wear it over my other clothes. Ready to go back down. In a fancy store, dummies of different sized women -- some like paintings of Reubens. Putting away groceries -- dozens and dozens of eggs.

In jail with a group of people. Whenever the guards get up-tight - if we don't move fast enough - they shoot, one time I'm shot in the stomach. It doesn't hurt but I don't know how to get it out. Little kid asks me a question and I say, "no, it didn't go on through" and feel my back to see if it did. I go in the restroom and lock the door, then someone knocks and I let her in. All the men said she was mean, she explained that it was because she wouldn't do whatever they said. She says she has a plan. Then a man opens white wine around the fire and says it's just like the bad stuff but it tastes better. I reach for a small glass and get a big one. We are soldiers sitting around a fire. I go down the hill to where the beautiful blue ocean is. It is frozen and white along the edge. I cross, there is a log at one point - come to the hog shed where an old bum is spending the night -- he's very afraid and I say to reassure him, "I don't want to be you." I am in a huge white hotel with blue carpets -- it's dark. Something happened that put a switchblade in my hand. I feel safe. I go down the halls, which branch off very often. I keep going to the right. I know I'm dreaming but I'm really there because I can feel the carpet under my hands and knees. I don't want to stab anyone.

I go into a wealthyish person's house -- look at pictures on the walls -- start in kitchen, pictures of women sitting in chairs. Follow pictures down stairs, around basement -- rowdy boys knock off a white egg shaped sculpture of Virgin and a group of women. I pick it up, figure out how to put it back -- which end is up. Tarot card of three women dancing (3 of cups) --come to room of a girl. It has a loft, quilts. The girl is sick in bed (melancholy) -- one of the boys goes to kiss her, one climbs into the loft which has piles of flexible pictures. Paintings on back of old posters for concerts. A woman comes in who says she used to be broken up in a whole bunch of pieces but now she's together -- also her mind. Go to California -- to Navy building, go to bathroom, famous man wants to go in first. Can see through walls, they are painted on the floor. I am embarrassed and can't go, read magazines. Also another woman, a man gets up and stomps out who'd waited three hours. A woman says I would want to face that way because of the view. I say, "but you can't see through that wall." but then look again and could begin to see through it. My parents living in our trailer, in the spare bedroom. I am planning what we'll do next. I say, "should I leave home?" They say no. A girl knocks on the door and says I am number four on the list and we have to do something. I say okay. Instead of leaving she slips in and sits down.

Man and his Symptoms. I pay a bill over by mistake for some kind of sweet dessert -- $30 too much. Coach at school gym, going on vacation a week before school is out, comes in bottom door (showers) and has a bag of candy. Camp on hillside -- get back in car because of crashing noise -- it is a deer in our headlights, men come in car and are going to shoot us. We run against great odds but aren't hit -- run up hill hiding in ditch of green grass. A movie of a man who robs people in his garage and kills some, throwing them in a ditch. Police come, he cries and puts his arms around policeman and kills him. Girl who cares only about her beauty is going on a trip, comes back saying he's following her. Police track down man, hold him on floor with gun. I pull the trigger, crying, six times but it never shoots. I go out the door and I have a butch -- my head has a big forehead (egghead). Of Ajax -- a room where I feel happy -- there is a circle and a square. The square is our chair with coats in the corner. I go to the airport to find out when the plane leaves for Peru, Hungary -- beautiful descriptions of trench before you get there. Mom has been there, pile of sticks and papaya ice cream. I have to warn her -- too far on foot. Driving in wrong lane to turn, a lot of cars fill up turn lane. Gas station man gets in and cleans glass on the inside then gives me $2.25. I say, shouldn't I give this to you? He says, thank, you, but you don't have to.

I'm on a school bus near the front. There is a mysterious man in front of me -- dark and thin who never says anything. I am working on a problem concerning three pulleys. All of a sudden the rowdy kids behind me say, "why are you looking at that guy all the time, why don't you ask someone?" I do ask a man. Gives me courage and I turn around and shout, "if you're so smart, what's the formula for three pulleys?" Some young girls raise their hands. I say, that's not fair, you're studying it in school (part of the people on the bus are adults like me). They come forward but don't really know the formula. One girl works on it. The formula is X (a+b-1).

A man guides me blindfolded. I follow his voice to his room. He gives me clues along the way -- it is in the I level basement. I feel wood along the edge with my hands and a Bible on the floor in front of me. I take off the blindfold and am in a very narrow low-ceilinged room built out of orange crates with things built in. He is sitting on a bed that fills one end with one girl and there is another girl to the side. They are carrying on a conversation about whether or not his room is terrific. They offer me beer -- which I don't want, but drink anyway. I say it's a pretty good room sometimes, but sometimes it's claustrophobic. I leave and I am in the I basement of a boys' dorm. I go up the stairs to the H level. The stairways are gray concrete, very smooth. The landing is a curved tunnel with walls curving over your head. There is what looks like a circular gymnasium with curved sides and two raised sidewalks through the middle of it. There is a man dressed in black who looks like a conductor at one side with a very bright spotlight on him. He makes me dizzy and I fall down and shout at him, "wouldn't you like to have a picture of this?"

Huge swimming pool at the house of a couple who used to be rich. Man says the water is too cold to swim. I say, "why don't you heat it?" and touch it and it is warm. Some people start swimming, I have to put on my suit. People come, lots of people, like a public swimming pool. By the time I get my suit on, they are coming out. I go in anyway. The water has been let out down to about two feet deep both on the deep and shallow ends. I see the sediment of rust and a huge wrench. I wonder how it will be fixed if it leaks. I think about the couple when they had all that money.

11/26/76 The barn, feeding cows. I walk through bull pen, thin bulls singing with very pure tones. Go inside, put on white dress. See through - I'm in very good shape. Read and write by window. People eating, I already ate. Jeanette, Mary Jane and I a trio. Outside barn, see John's mother. She shows me her books. John's father says it's not important how the father acts -- she thinks it is. Eighty year old woman in cowpen feeding cows. Mom uses vacuum cleaner in barn -- plugs it up -- I throw in sticks. House is a prison, nunnery. I have a plan to sneak out and sleep in car or barn. Barn warmer, hay, hard to sneak out quietly enough -- Mother Superior checks beds. Talking to women about baking cakes. J head broken open, glad, then could go home to Dad. An orange/red MG in hole in ground at crossroads -- sidewalk and road.

We go to visit friends, too many cords plugged in, fire under table. Thought it was a store, they got rich selling clothes. Then I'm at the school. A new girl named Christine has been brought in -- she's three, very heavy, awkward, blond, afraid of the toilet, gets sexual stimulation from being carried. She improves rapidly, soon is putting toys away by herself, dressing, even looks more grown up. A small dark girl, Alexis in dream, is outside, also two other girls. I bring her back. Then it turns out that she has written a letter in disappearing ink and there is a telegram under her bed saying she is willing to sell the information from the secret studies. She and two other girls are then expelled. She starts chasing me. Then we throw food at each other as we go through doors. Dean Jacobson comes in and is the head of the school and everything calms down. Then they are leaving and it's tearful -- more like a graduation. One of the girls is Connie Bandy or Trina. The last one is the small dark one of whom I'm particularly fond. Her letter I partly burned and partly wadded up in a little ball and swallowed. Teaching, yell at kids, see old people --about 50 year olds in the class. One says an old house and a blond woman with old looking skin were calling to him -- woman was nice inside, "but mean outside" I finish. They make collages, half done.

11/29/76 Steve talks in sleep -- "maybe they like it better when it's a fike. (a fike is a fake fight).
Two large white mountains for a collage. Looking at books, a set of several volumns -- life work of two brothers -- photos with holes cut for eyes. Mary Jane comes and I'm telling her about a woman who opened the door to a naked man, then kept staringat him. It was her. She says she was reading Rumi and didn't like it because it was a soft voice -- not telling you, "you better do this because you'll go to hell." I say it's for intelligent people, already know that. Then she says that a friend who gave her money to buy school is coming and she doesn't know what to do about the German names. I'm in bed out in the woods with leaves and a man in the bed. My name is supposed to be Chiter, Gail Fitzgerald hears my voice and says, "hi". I have a check at the bank from the Government that says on it that it is for food, lodging... Walking by a used clothing store, silk shirt -- sells by ounce or inch -- 15 cents. It's about 30 inches. Outer layer is brown and inner orange. Grandma's house, the second floor has all kinds of art. Hear baby crying, Louie and Lucille threatening it -- can't find stairs to third floor -- see elevator. The floor folds in half like a pillow -- lets us off. Woman gives us a ticket then starts bringing in vacuum cleaners. I grab a man's hand and we escape to the fourth floor where there are a series of bedrooms with people asleep in the beds and something significant beside the bed. Carlos Casteneda book beside the first bed, picture of black woman by the second bed, then there's an empty bed and we jump in. I think we should throw a Just Married sign on the floor beside this bed. A dark haired woman joking about cutting off a breast.

1976 continued

a round of love for everyone, a counter attack, a country attack/the disease of women, the diesel of women/fight on the job, flight on the job.

I am looking through a huge scrapbook of clippings and open one up. It is a hollow book and inside are dolls, one tall thin one in black that whirs past my ear and flies. The clippings in the box are about World War II.

11/30/76 Paul living in Mom's pasture -- we go to play with him. I pick on J, say I'm being a brat. We pick up sticks, she throws one. Then we sit on a big one like a horse. A man comes along and helps another man fold back the trunk and it really looks like a horse. Then we go back to the pond. Paul has written something. A woman reads it. He also has races in little carts pulled by dogs down the hill -- which is now paved. Has lots of fake dogs, will soon be on sale. Go back to pond. Cows are now drinking -- but really it is people throwing water on themselves; I'm one of them. The man is a tall, white-shirted horse, he is teasing me. Two black men are standing by a shoe they bought which is four feet tall. Say the wood is inferior -- they decide not to buy another. [Then shoes with soles made of Brazil wood came into style.] Living in a house with a neat garden behind. Walk. When return to house, an Irish woman is there with some "cards" -- really books for me, says to call her, doesn't want to talk in front of a man. Then I see Sheila, playing in creek -- she's very thin, a model. Have hair covering their faces, look at redhead closer - then see that it's Sheila. She gives me a whole bolt of rainbow color chiffon, asks me to take her mother to hospital next Thursday. When I ask at pond when and where, she says 8:30 at Cedar Falls. I'll have to take a vacation day. Leaving school -- buses gone. Get on wrong one going down alley. Shirley is on it and we take her and all get off. A girl has to get off at 336 Brodia or Brode Street. Sheila is back in Iowa City, snow. I want green chiffon, get blue, then green, then all colors. [Snapshot I took of the pigs in the field up the hill from the trailers around 1976, at the Marina, when developed, showed a stick flying through the air at one pig like a leprachaun threw it. The stick was in mid-air.]

12/1/76 At school, Mary Jane butchers chickens. I make cornbread with a topping. I am giving Mary Jane green clothes, music. Trina scrubbing. Talking about sex at work. New white pants with fuck panel. Man upset because he talked about drugs. Sleeping in Grandma's shed -- Japanese baby boy, two adults in bed and me, but they take the whole bed. A man goes on a long journey to where the woman he loves is. Then he comes back and has a heart shaped purple stone which is the same as the "center" of her -- a circle which is blue on the outside and the purple stone on the inside.

12/2/76Person going down dark tunnel stairway (from both points of view). Guard waiting -- not afraid and aware. The person coming down thinks she is sneaking quietly but it is very obvious to the one waiting.

Steve, " look down it's an occasional vitamin getting involved. All of them"

Vanessa's mom just like Vanessa. Karen won't help, says I'm dirty -- but now my feet are clean. I say hers would be dirty too if she walked. Landlady wants rent. I only have $19. $5 is pink and blue. Go to shoestore. Car going by itself, I jump in and push on brakes -- won't stop. Go to right, pale. Man pushing, closer to car beside. I skid, my car slaps the car beside me. Woman tells the man not to worry, they'll yell at me. Then they drive off. I see no damage. Lying on couch with oriental man, kids keep coming by -- tell them to leave. This is at airport (school is), kids talk about where they live, freeway. Smog smells bad on freeway. Book about Beauty and the Beast and green corduroy clothes.

Man and I on a journey. I go on to find the edge of Los Angeles -- find it -- a freeway being built there. In a room with a couple -- see snow melting outside and spring coming. I live next door. Lots of people in living room, Karma changing clothes [white mom, black dad]. Bigfoot comes in, I throw change in his face, leave. Then the house has lots of rooms -- go into basement, go through lots of rooms. One room small and rough, but opens on a swimming pool with dolphins in it. I realize I'm dreaming and decide to swim. Swim on dolphin's back, then decide to find nice clothes. Can't. Family come to bother me. I levitate into the air against a large tree and decide to fly to a nice unpainted two-story old house.

Drive through town -- old brown houses. It's Van Meter. Salvation Army, library, school, fast food place. Going over bridge, old guy yells for us to catch his quarter and throw him change. Horse in room, me on his back -- he bucks, I'm not scared. He asks me not to tell Dad.

Upstairs, see a figure of an ideal family -- three mean looking boys. Then notice wasp that keeps bothering me. I go and tell Mom. School, toys too high for kids to reach. Library. Trying to find book, Christine something, two volumns. See Sandy, she's lost weight, with Dad. Very short. We look at Viewmaster pictures. Drink orange juice and water. J and her mom want me to take them on a two hour trip through the snow so they can see their relatives on Christmas. Dangerous storm. Man and I fuck for two hours -- 11 to 1. I tell them I'll drop them off and they can take the bus back. No. Marlo Thomas told to take the garbage out and go home by boyfriend. Instead she leaves it and goes to sleep in the library (pouts). Her boyfriend is a doctor. I walk along path, there are lots of empty nests of new bird nests in trees. Two hummingbirds hide along one branch. Swimming lessons at school -- parents and kids together. I go on, swim by myself.

All the kids in miniature beds. A man comes several times to look at the beds. He's from New York, I talk to him but he ignores me -- looks 45-50.

. A man and redheaded boy win a flight on a glider. They get 17 miles above the earth and can't get down. When they do -- man reaches up and guides them down. A man from New York works in an old house with something antique -- converting it to attach to a modern furnace. Mom did a lot of cooking -- all good. Kids dump out raspberries on a porch. They are supposed to be worms (or have worms in them) and I help step on them. Tell Sandy to help -- say if she has to climb on the roof to kill some other worm I won't help. When she comes down she's a black woman and I'm stepping on string green beans. Then I'm sitting at a table with three black girls/women. The one on my right brings milk and pie. There are three dead cockroaches on my pie. I wonder when they died -- I she hates me. Her husband talks about the death of his best friend -- car blocked by official cars -- drove him five miles, then no medicine. His friend was white. Then we are to kill a whole stockade of black people. I'm drugged, it's night, I start crying and say I can't do it. I seems I did it with no compunction during the daylight -- this was the worms. Woman talks about how they were nice to her -- fixed her daughter's hem. the daughter plots to help them escape, the locks on both gates are broken. A large room with lots of windows. I have eight green curtains -- there are even more windows than that. The wind is blowing in the half-opened curtains. Very nice. Then guy comes to look at antique bed -- we are fixing up the house. I go to the bathroom a lot in quick succession. Kid gives me half a cookie -- says mom is charging for them -- 25 cents. She says there's three cents tax. I put it back. Dad says her winter squash is good. Nobody wanted my summer squash. [In Iowa there was a vacant one room church that was vacant when I was a little kid -- Mom took us once to climb in the window and look around, it has an old broken down organ then -- when I was in college I climbed through the window again to look around and there was the noise of the furnace door banging repeatedly like there was a ghost in the basement. Someone moved into the church and fixed it up -- it had a huge stained glass window falling apart. One apartment manager told me about a horrible incident in her life when her dad made her go out in the yard and stomp army worms. She had to go to a therapist. Later she was in a bank when a robber came in and he said not to move or he'd kill you and she ran out anyway.]

House fixed up, two woman and a baby come walking through. No hole in stool in bathroom. They leave and I lock the door. Hal Larew comes. The all come in -- also my family with a pot of beans, expensive heavy purses. Ronnie Gold selling them. Once you get that good house, good job, concentration of one's powers. After school one night I ride bike to museum. May is gone on vacation, it says. Very steep hills. Then, getting dark and tires on bike falling apart. Go to gas station to call. They close. Kid says, "come up to Kindergarten." Finally get call through -- they don't pay their bills. Then two men grab me. At school, Alex inside by himself - man typing in office. Fishing in a creek.

12/10/76 (New Moon) I was a lesbian and different people want me to be again. Shelley, a woman, but I end up with a man and fuck him -- orgasm. I sleep on Saturday night and miss all the comedy shows. A funny book -- the language is too hard to read. A lesbian writer, very fat, and she's pushing a merry-go-round that is a turnstyle while reciting something. A man laughs. I do tasks ambidextriously.

Guy comes in with an answer to a question about religion. The pictures to this answer are of a fencing move -- rolling quickly across the floor, but gracefully. I'm the guy, sort of like a Santa Claus -- little kids come up to ask questions. I fall asleep for a few minutes -- head hanging down and the kids cover it up. A guy's girlfriend, Rosie -- who is very interesting to talk to. She went to Okinawa and died there of complications of ... I have played to a lot of fathers. Fencing maneuver -- head and feet touching floor, run with your feet. Phone rings, Bathsheba. Man upset about something, only temporary. Dream that stone for December is red, woman at garage sale said blue, turquoise. Man said that he was a ferocious lion. Basketball team, food for today -- chopped liver,onions. About to be sent somewhere, come to an end. Red water on the floor, bathroom, my feet wet -- this time she lost.

Then we see Terri -- she demanded that her lock be fixed in a girls' dorm and has "eaten gallons of paint." Her mother, Maxine, lists off ways she and her sister, Judy, are inconsiderate -- they bring guests in when the kitchen is a mess, raid the ice box. She says she's moving - but they say their brother isn't established yet, they save money and give it to him, same way the the girls do so for their mother. Lures me to stop and talk -- says she had dream with Indian. As she talks, it becomes obvious that the mother has lost touch with reality become too self-centered. She should get a part-time job. Party planned by mother -- vote popcorn or candy. Walking, nuns take my blood. Call Mary Stewart, she's asleep. Behind our house is corn rustling. There are blue birds with large crests. [Maxine had died about 7 years before the dream.]

12/19/76 Orange cat comes and takes over house. Has nest of birds it is killing and eating. I pick it up by the paws and throw it out. Decide whether to tie it up, or find hole and block it out. Then lots of baby cats come out of the closet. These don't come out and act bothersome -- I say we'll just have to kill them -- too hard to catch. House has no foundation. Plug up one hole -- Trina takes cat out second time -- she is sympathetic. When go out to do it, Dad and Grandma there. Dad tells me I can do it. Box isn't working. Grandma just smashes dirt in the hole. This is by the table. Cleared away for action. Then another hole appears behind the Christmas tree. This is in a sort of basement. It is a window. I go down there. The sea is there and it has risen -- waves are coming in over long grass. Boys dive and pull the grass up with their mouths. I'm wearing a bathing suit and a blue cap. Then put on a pink towel and continue my work. Hair theory is all wet. Man and I go along creek -- into tunnel -- turns into building like Herbert Hoover Library. Me on diet, not even hungry. Person walking with a blond guy strung on belt.

Go to Dad's, Mom there too -- they take all the hoods off their cars. Mom's truck a mess. Bull down by corn crib. Runs up to me, I smile and tap him on the chest with a pencil. Then crawl under wagon. Throw corn to cow who looks like woman with black hair. Then little tiny animal comes out of brooder house. In another dream, I was walking past the brooder house and there was a hole in the roof for a door. [In some ancient societies, including kivas in the American Southwest, the doors were in the roofs of the buildings. Also, the spirit goes out the head - some cultures even broke a hole in the skull to facilitate this.] Burns and Roe. Mary Jane plotting with friends.

12/22/76 In an Indian camp. Man has been cornered there. I am feeding the chickens -- decoy Indians with flashing pan so he can escape. Then I climb up a series of poles into a platform up in the trees. There are girls up there giving encouragement, explaining. Make hot chocolate -- I think it's hot, Karen thinks it's cold. Look at garden, nothing coming up yet.

12/23/76 Someone called Imperator and got message -- I was standing on the toe of the mother of the Great White Brotherhood/ was standing on the toe of an elephant -- said "what a large foot." The elephant endured the pain and wanted her to get off. I move home, my room has one way mirror in door, but no lock. Also look for place to hide books - three ingenious bookshelves. Man has a round sort of crystal. Both of us say that if we'd had more time they would have been put together perfectly. We are going to have a vacation -- man says he's going to write to people. I make a list of things to do -- write, read, movies. Then we're at the beach -- climbing up high wet sand cliff -- waves come in very high. There are athletes training. Someone says that they rest too much, 40 seconds. Coach says he has them use one side a lot, to rest. Dennis is there -- he's exceptional athlete. Has fingers missing. See an "Assyrian" woman; she's dark, very beautiful complexion -- wearing a dress made entirely of fur. The skirt is of small furs strung from her belt -- gray, then black at the ends. Her boyfriend is there, then she picks up her son and talks about her sword. Man interrupts and talks about her skirt but I know her sword was tempered by killing someone -- in blood. It is rather crooked. We go into a huge building, go into an exclusive council meeting -- man passes down orange and yellow telephone things. A woman sits by me and crowds out a man who put his hand on my leg. Debbie comes in and doesn't say hi to me, but says, "hi, Bruce" to the guy next to me. She says, "isn't it weird meeting your brother-in-law here." Then "Bruce" shrinks and tries to hide behind the first man. Two Irish women come in, and an entire bridal party. One is dressed in a large green suit jacket. Hair like Jon's. They go over with the bridal party. It turns into a Rock N Roll band teaching us how to bump and then there are two slim women in leotards swinging pretty high hanging onto two ropes. It is some sort of test or to determine something. Then a fat woman in a frilly dress sits down and tries to swing and can't, says she's been practicing for a year. The whole group turns into lesbians eating candy. I go back over to where the man is. We are in the student union but it is very crowded and has sundaes. The bathroom has been moved to a big room because it's a sunny day. The bathroom has leaves drifting in. [when I started working at Northrop, there was a picnic the first week and a secretary named Debbi that the ohter secretaries told me was pregnant even though the doctor told her she had a bad heart and it would kill her. Then she died, but the baby survived.]

Man has sex with an older woman (40's) named Wanda in front of me. I get very angry and slap him around. Then, working at school, two library books -- one poetry and one commentary. Go home on bus to Coral Marina -- three bears on hill. Bus driver follows me. I drive tractor, hard to start. Then grandma lives in the trailer, neat little house and pile of bananas in shape of tree at her old house. Grandma's -- rocks and Look magazines on floor. Mom is PE teacher. I watch myself do calisthetics in mirror. Tell Sandy not to go to doctor so much -- will make our brother gay. She says I'm going to end up -- he likes me more. She gives me an article about Daddy's girls. Then I run into my lover -- little Japanese guy -- he tells me to meet him at 3:00.

12/26/76 Mom at Chinese church in Van Meter -- they take notes. Two other people and I on horses, other people shoot at us. We hide in a ditch -- shoo horses away, one black, one white, one mixed. I shoot one guy in plaid shirt. Two bullets go right past me.

12/27/76 Some people tend stars made of particles -- they are like a cloud. Saul Kareem. Karma, Genvonna goes into another yard -- sits in swing, watching bird -- says bird gave her a little bit of sleep. Sean walks in street, pretends he doesn't know what sidewalk is or street. Other teachers say don't bother with him. He'll just be a sex maniac computer guy. He falls through ice into water, doesn't get wet. Shelley and her brother come up the stairs after me, say, "hi." Other teachers send kids to store by themselves. I go after them. Karma/Genvonna disappears down a hallway with three apartments.

12/28/76 missing persons, cops won't do anything -- trick or newspapers. Look out the window at Mom's house -- there are beautiful pheasants, quail, etc all around the house making their nests. Go to J's school -- she has a room of her own. Woman who runs it very nosey. I pack up a whole bunch of games to borrow. Think about leaving on bus in middle of night. Scene changes to my sister's room -- one game is Chinese checkers. Traveling with a really little kid, bigger kid, cart. Weird combinations -- like me looking backwards, one kid standing on my shoulders in cart. This works, amazingly -- come to very worn road with water in gutter and wade across. Oriental men get idea to do so also. On other side is a fat insinuating little man. He has beautiful liquid rings. The largest a red bear. Others of tiny animals in liquid. Then two cardinals are fighting and he captures them in liquid. Go on with women and kids. Then one of the cardinals almost escapes and I let it go. Says something about "fly free." Karen comes along and says we can't let them escape. Standing on a dark, narrow street corner. The light is red. It turns green and several people start across. I am carrying a blue rocking chair. A very short black cop keeps capturing people up ahead and bringing them down street. One is a much taller black man in a three piece suit -- very sheepish. I'm with kid I know. Stop for awhile across from brick house. Think about cardinals. Should I let other one go -- if they are mates it would be easier for them to find each other. Then Lynn Redgrave and Maureen Stapleton (redhead) appear above me in the brick house fighting over who has to do the dishes. They ask if I'll help. I say, "yes, I'll HELP." They probably won't. Lynn asks if I want her to sprinkle salt on them. After I wake up I realize both cardinals were male. Desire pulls the cart -- does okay, but scared and uncertain. In one set-up, I look back the way we came, desire stands on my shoulders and a baby pulls the cart. Run into things, fall over.

Should have said, "no." Didn't pick up kid's toys. I no longer work with women and children. They are no longer my responsibility. Ask them why they do things, or to help me. Woman watching kids. Sean sticks scissors in eye. Shanna cuts her hair. However, they do wonderful art work in great quantities. Give some away. I get egg, Christmas tree. A cat begins having her kittens -- gray and black. J reaches down and pulls it out. I tell her not to. Then she starts to reach inside the cat and I push her away. After the kitten, the cat has only afterbirth. Electric typewriter does tricks.

> 1977 continued
>
> Throwing basketball back and forth across the bed with kids. A pile of
> yeast on floor, lots of worms in the green beans. This means it's about
> time to move. ... Coloring pictures with the kids instead of going to Child
> Psychology class. Scott on my lap. Billy beside me -- he colors a map of
> the Western Hemisphere, then covers it up.... On a long trip on a bus. S & G
> there, man clean shaven and thin comes on the bus. He's a famous baseball
> player -- answers questions. Mike Heflin's mother there. Someone asks if a
> cake outranks them. Looks like Hermosa Beach. In an old house, one
> basement apartment eliminated -- made a junk area. I run in there shouting
> for help. They say Karen is still fat. Shelly, Billy, Shirley are my
> brothers and sisters -- we all get letters from Dad and Grandma. [Shirley
> has dyslexia, like one of Dad's brothers; Shelly was a kindergartener --
> told me that she had a dream that I went to her house and told her to jump
> on her bed like a kangaroo -- she was vary quiet but when the other kids
> misbehaved during nap time and shouted constantly and didn't go to sleep,
> she started doing that too. Billy was the youngest of several kids and
> thought he was older than the other kindergarteners, that they were babies.]
>
>
> 6/28/77 1 AM Georgia, pregnant, with two boyfriends comes in to where I
> work. She wants a ride somewhere, I say okay. Another tough black woman,
> maybe Sandy, is waiting at the back door to go on a secret mission -- to
> feed animals. We go across a field -- patches of snow -- so our white
> skirts don't show up too much. We put out different kinds of food for
> different animals.... In a bathroom getting dressed. Man outside playing
> baseball. A guy comes and he complains that Jon wanted to be taken
> somewhere for food also, but was very hostile and said, "read this" -- a
> long letter. ... In a store with Mom, no shoes. Just had a shower. Pick out
> two dresses, pink -- then put them back. Mom gives me her shoes, red tennis
> shoes with the backs smashed down. They just fit, they are good shoes --
> warm, massage feet, make you feel taller. Man directs us to the top of a
> hill where help can be obtained. Sign says walking freeway -- other
> freeways meet.... In trailer, look out window -- the green trailer is for sale
> -- $98. Vernon says it was going to be condemned in a week to a couple of
> months. The floor is sagging and it's really falling apart. ... At Patty's,
> Darrell there. Man comes home and says he's very tired and goes to bed, I
> cry and ask if he doesn't love me anymore. He says his back hurts. ... Two
> unusual insects on the wall at school. One can stretch to remarkable
> lengths to "strike" and protect itself.... Two vehicles of people flying. One
> has a parachute. The guy who is the villain is in this one with the good
> guy's wife. They fall into a large city.... Isis eating in a chair. ... A boy
> runs off -- evolves into younger and younger age -- crawls, turns into a
> baby. ... Fighting yeast -- clear away white masses down to center -- catch a
> being in a little box. ... I go to J's, stop at a roller rink but the thin
> guard tells me to leave. Another guy had been telling me a funny story
> about a guy smoking eggplant seeds. I want to slide down a ramp, do --
> don't go too fast like I feared. Frances works here. I just get my dress
> (I had in high school) off to change into "something older" when knock on
> door -- she tells me to answer. I ask who's there. He says, "Don" but it
> sounds like "Phil" using his Cheech and Chong voice. He reaches in and cuts
> the chain and opens the door. I'm dressed in a blue baby blanket. I say
> protective words and the guy's eyes begin to wander -- then he falls asleep
> on my lap. His thighs were around me at first. I call for J to call the
> police. She calls San Jose (Rosicrucians) and asks prices -- ends up asking
> for a class to be taught. Joe comes along and wakes the guy up. I say the
> words again and ask for wire to tie him up. I tie the guy up in brown paper
> and string -- a very small square package. Try to get dressed. Gold dress
> of J's too short, others too low cut. Decide to put my high school dress
> back on. Discuss killing guy, decide not to. Think of difficulties -- he
> may be set loose by courts. He's a killer. The trial will be very
> difficult. They'll try to let him off because I didn't have my clothes on -
> even though I was inside, can't lie -- consider lying. The package has
> begun to move around -- wet is oozing out. I say we have to hurry. Ask J
> where police station is; she says she has to stop and get her contacts
> re-ground. I thought the guy was her landlord. I go to car -- J grabs hold
> of a passing red truck (wearing red coat) like hopping a train. As soon as
> she' s gone I get the uncontrollable urge to smash the package and do.
> Inside is a very large fly. I smash it too -- its head was the head of a
> rat, brown with teeth. Then I begin talking lovingly to it saying I'm sorry
> I had to do that. I think I should put him together again in another form
> and taking broken tiles that are there -- make the form of a horse. The
> legs are brown flowered -- body cream color. I can't find a head, but a
> background appears of water, rocks. MJ hands me a piece.... Living in a
> vehicle by the ocean -- broken pier. Truck leaves jars of honey which are
> 85% something else.... Man seducing woman by having her be responsible.
> Drawing back. It's a movie. Man calls it pervert sex, they call it sin.
> [Georgia's roommate's name was Sandy. One day she told me that "Papa would
> like you" when I told her I was going to graduate soon and didn't want to
> get a job. I asked her who Papa was and she said he had a lot of money,
> was paying her college (to live in the dorm) and he was a white guy and
> lived in South America.]
>
> 6/29/77 I ride with a lot of people who work for the Post Office. They say
> veterans will be pleading their own disabilities now.... Get out of the car -
> wearing white halter top. Lots of bikes by the car door. Other girls in
> house. Fitzgerald girl. They are getting ready for work. Some wear
> shorts. White track shorts.... At Mom's -- three toilets in living room,
> women working behind them -- like telephone company.... I go apply for a job
> at a gas station. One of the Bassetts there. I make a joke about Cedar
> Rapids (Cedar Rabbit or the smell of the Ralston Purina cereal factory --
> you could smell it 40 miles away in Iowa City when the wind was blowing that
> direction.) He says it's like before. I say yes, but this time I'm
> applying for a job and fill out the form. ... Finding statues of birds on the
> ground -- rocky area.... Go past clothes rack, dance recital going on. ... Man
> takes a cable from a woman's house. ... Mom buys me a square blue car on
> impulse. Eyes turn to red-purple mess. ... I see two kids from high school - they
> both have cancer and are very pale.
>
> 7/7/77 Depressing school. MJs school turns into Dad's house. Fruit in
> back -- peaches, strawberries.... Read aloud at school from male novel --
> stream of consciousness type bores everyone. Then Rosicrucian comes in --
> attitude smiling. Talks about sex ed class -- they use one of the little
> girls to demonstrate -- look up her vagina. There are two rabbits, one gray
> and one white. Boys begin grabbing them. I yell at them -- especially a
> new boy, Jeff. He's dressed in white -- I say everything was nice until he
> came.
>
> 7/10/77 Large room, students sit on two sides -- very far apart. Boy on
> one side says it was better "Back East" -- less violent. I say it's the
> same, only bigger -- that you stay away from drunks, bars. Everyone on the
> other side of the room gets up and moves to our side. There are many women.
> One looks like Nancy, curly hair. They look like very hippie women....
> Transportation -- a broken belt with pictures on it in red mostly. Man says
> he likes it.... A man thinks a man is his guiding spirit, says, "the case I
> have against you Guisaro." Spirit says, "my name is not Guisaro." The
> people are all crowded together. Voice says we have to get used to people
> being born and dying, but don't be afraid to live crowded together. One man
> thinks that he's a Christ figure and will die a unique death at 33 -- when
> it is all born/die really. He is creating a strange island in the group....
> Man and I in a car. Starts out at school -- I'm rearranging baked goods --
> a little kid in the kitchen making TV dinners. MJ has covered entire
> playground with sand/corn meal. I'm supposed to keep kids in bed earlier
> and the man and I go to bed instead. Look down at "lower" playground and it
> goes right to the beach -- start off down there. There are all kinds of
> antiques and even money in a pile. I start picking some up -- then see that
> it is the beginning of a journey and I'll throw it all away -- too heavy,
> even money. I consider throwing away my purse. Then we're driving -- cars
> park on the road. A van is across the road and we drive right through it --
> the man is driving. A man is standing by paintings of shorts - changes
> them. Then he says he has to go to the bathroom and wants someone to stand
> in front of him. Enemies -- a woman tells her husband he's fat and then he
> starts chasing her trying to kill her. It seems that each person has an
> "enemy" to kill or be killed, or whatever.
>
> 7/11/77 In an office, Lucy. I talk about garden and a garden springs up
> around the woman.... I go to a meeting on 3rd Street. Time to go home --
> getting dark out. Cross to shady side of the street -- old drunk grabs my
> arm and starts pulling me -- a kid doesn't help. I say the magic words
> three times looking him in the eye and he lets me go but starts following me
> begging to touch my breasts. I say I'm married, then do karate -- try to
> kick him in the face. A pink couch cushion appears and floats up into the
> air with me sitting on it. It continues to float towards "home." Go
> through woods. I can hear two birds crying for help for their babies. I
> say there's nothing I can do, but then realize there is -- I float up to the
> owl's nest and begin fixing the hole. She said her babies would get cold.
> Nest breaks more -- need moist parts to fix it -- pieces of paper. ... 50's
> graduation reunion. Girls wear bobby sox, boys bring bar stools. Scene
> changes to a rich boy -- poor girl. He mopes around, then plans to rape
> her. Scene changes to little boy with head on little girl's lap, then girl
> falling down the hole in the outhouse. She was going to the bathroom when
> he rushed in. Her reputation is saved. ... Woman with dark hair and I are
> selling or giving away something on the street, she is very smiling,
> extroverted -- gets people to do it. When I go with her, I can do it too --
> then on my own, can't. Woman with little kids. I'm afraid they'll get
> suspicious and frown. She takes her hair down and is very beautiful -
> -shoulder length dark hair, slightly slanted eyes. Tell her she's a good
> salesman -- I'm supposed to be.... Todd (4) wets his pants over and over.
> Jeff holds scissors up to Vincent's heart.... I live up on the hill at the
> neighbor's house. I can see little kids coming to visit me -- Sandy. I try
> to get in the car and take off -- back recklessly through a lot of stuff.
> Then I fly -- she gets very angry -- fly down some stairs -- down draft on
> stairs -- ride bikes up and down road, when going away it feels more
> liberating. Sandy drops hard things on my head during escape -- like
> marbles. [Catholic family lived in that house -- rented it from the only
> black family in Van Meter, who lived there part of the time and part of the
> time in Des Moines. They had a plane and a landing strip and rented the
> house to a Catholic family, guy worked in an emergency room and complained
> one time when his wife had a miscarriage and Mom called him to come home and
> get her, that he'd just finished cleaning the emergency room. She had a
> towel stuffed between her legs waiting for him to get home.] ... I'm the bus
> driver; someone took the bus. ... On a log dam on a river with the crew
> building it. Get off. Then with Sandy I meet two brothers. I'm coughing.
> One is leery of women -- the other bends to see how I am. I give him a
> healing treatment. Plan to seduce him. I plan to tie up the leery one and
> seduce him too. The dam is built -- the foreman says its purpose is to
> disperse the water into small drops, etc and deep curves aren't cut in the
> river bed. ... Guy has been sick -- I took over. He was a drug dealer. See
> him by window -- he looks like Fidel Castro -- I plan to seduce him.... Lose
> my blouse -- wear wool blanket. Go into a dorm, live on third floor -- all
> the men chase me. I get into an elevator with two. They begin kissing my
> knee. He talks to me and I drop my blanket. Skinny little girl has skinny
> boyfriend -- same one as in elevator. Live with three girls. Two of us
> have boyfriends.... In a field -- tractor. A girl is being pulled up by a
> rope -- some treatment. I do it too, go in small circles.... I work at Dumdum
> again. Put Jeff (3) to bed -- he says he's sick to try to get beer. I
> forget how late they're open. It was my weekend to work July 8th and I
> forgot -- ask Trina about it. I walk around room in my navy blue bird
> blouse and a blue long straight skirt -- men keep untying the belt.
>
> 7/17/77 I get angry at a man for watching baseball in a store -- I'm
> waiting. Yell until I'm hoarse, hit him and knock him around. Sitting on a
> seat on a large lawn. Across are a line of restaurants made of glass which
> serve different kinds of foods. Dennis S has been seriously sick for a
> month and has gone out to eat finally at one of them. I am looking at
> things through a yellow monocle which makes things bright. I look away from
> the restaurants and feel better. Kids come down from bleachers -- ask which
> activity they want -- Shawna and I trot past restaurants to supply cabinet.
> When we get there -- it's a gate which is a pole that I have to figure out
> how to fix -- screw it in. Views creek. Start sorting kids clothes --
> Shelly (5) there. Shawna (4) asks me if I'm the one Pearl Bailey or Buck
> was talking about. Says it's not fair that she has to die. I ask if she
> wants old body forever. ... Mom and Ted helping a very old woman to climb a
> mountain. Then I'm in a house -- a girl says that some dangerous animal is
> coming. I look out the windows -- want to climb up on something. She says

She says
> it's on the roof. It's a sloth -- and you have to hang from things like it
> does and then run up to it and bite it on the nose. I look out and it
> reaches under the roof and pulls out a newspaper in which the headline is
> VAN METER MOTHERS DON'T' THINK THEIR CHILDREN'S NAMES ARE WEIRD. It is
> about the Allen family -- I tell a blond boy who isn't interested that all
> their children have weird names -- Rhonda, Linda, Diana. Sloth, can't
> remember the really weird ones. Dad's name is Oral. [Some students in the
> dorm said S Toth was sloth. Or S Tooth.] ... Then walking down the road -- see
> movies of cars. I say that I had to walk much of the way to California
> because I didn't like the guy hitchhiking with us.
>
> 7/18/77 early morning/Monday. Script, more concise action words. ... Go to
> place where they make pipes out of rock. Man drinking heavily. Go there in
> the back of Dad's truck. Arms tired, I ask to get in the cab, take my place
> beside Sandy -- pile of beautiful old women's magazines -- beautiful art
> work. J likes two about poverty. I like one about bats, bees.... Man says he
> dreamed I'm a rabbit and would help him, but he's a tiger and wouldn't help
> me.... I talk to a girl with black hair -- then she avoids me and says to find
> my own people.... Girl falls in the river, gravel pit by the bridge in Van
> Meter -- very cold. Goes back in, shows her legs -- men drinking heavily --
> Evan there.... Girl killed on school yard -- fucked in ear -- black stuff.
> Dennis M says he feels knees on his back in the area. Also his girlfriend
> Polly does between them.... With Mom, man, kids. I'm going to two lectures --
> one on plants and one on power. All go with me except Mom, for religious
> reasons. I say, the force/power is dangerous in the same way electricity is
> dangerous -- no move. We go there, across field -- a row of mansions across
> street, reach dead end of wrought iron fence, crawl under -- I have a
> backpack. Shirley and I each take hand of a little boy to help him along.
> We are on Yeats/Shelley Street -- Overstreet. Just when I think we are on
> the wrong street we find it. There's a lecture but the students are
> concerned with policing attention and saving time. Dad wants to ask a
> question but is cut off. There's a baseball game behind us and then the
> students begin playing baseball.
>
> 7/19/77 Ana (2) has a fever and diarrhea, someone swollen in various
> places.... A horse -- brown, thin. Mom chasing it back into cage -- gets out,
> runs right at me and trips over my left foot. I drag it back in -- it bites
> my right foot. I get in car -- it turns into a Doberman, sticks head in
> crack in window. Shoots S and G. I hold its mouth shut. Then I drive off
> in snow by school bus -- on passenger side, car loaded with all my stuff.
> The windows slide down a crack because of the load. Floored, but not
> going fast, not much traction. I shot it -- lots of people gather around.
> [The left foot is Gemini -- walking. The right foot is Aries -- speaking.]
> [The Datsun's windows slide down a crack when there is anything heavy in the
> wagon.]
> Lightning strikes, man writes -- someone comes knocking on the door to find
> out about it -- $3,000 bike.... Go into woods for picnic with Judy. I find
> fire abandoned, spreading. Put out our fires -- there was a crack in one --
> one a boat. Several abandoned cars. All fires out. Very large boat filled
> with water for swimming.... I want down from a high place. Dad lifts me down
> -- falling stomach feeling. Swings me up in the air. I ask a kid if a man
> would pick me up because of my ass. He says no, guy likes round ones -- I
> strangle him. He changes from very thin to muscular -- I laugh. Say, wait
> until you see what I look like next year. Voices crying "help" from one
> log. ... Try on clothes, all black. Ask man if sophisticated -- he says, no.
> My green skirt fits again -- very short, right under ass. Hair very short,
> red, curly -- Shirley says she'll fill in holes in back.
>
> 7/20/77 I am walking down a road. A man and woman with a baby go off on
> motorcycles to Torrance to complain about something to motor vehicles. Very
> bad time -- gas on Empty, rush hour, place closed, exhaust fumes. I sit on
> a chair for awhile and look at the scenery, listen to Doors. Leave through
> their house -- steel gray, parents talking about learning to communicate
> with them in Philadelphia. Go down a road -- run into the man, look for
> something I hid beside the candy -- think it's a coin but it's a pile of
> photographs. They are at the end of the aisle in plain sight. The aisle is
> full of strange people, all pushing, etc. I wait there, an old woman's
> pictures were in the pile -- very white faces, thin slit eyes. She wants me
> to go with them to a restaurant but I explain I just went there to buy
> something to drink and am waiting for Mom and my brother. The woman
> suggests I go down the steps to a water fountain. The fountain turns into a
> box on the wall. I almost fall backwards into the creek while learning to
> do something in the box.... At Swim and Play -- girl behind counter looks like
> the one at the health food store -- Best Foods in Hermosa Beach. Then rows
> of children in two's appear carrying white knives -- they are rehearsing.
> They become Black and Japanese kids dressed in Scottish clothes and doing a
> Scottish dance.... There are five blank checks in the mail from the electric
> company -- because the other electric company overcharged in two places.
> They can be redeemed for pizzas, photographs, or cash. ... I'm a boat; I dance
> on the water.... Driving through the streets in "Prairie" -- drive right into
> some people's house. They wake up, fire a gun at the wall, throw it aside,
> then I talk soothingly. We go out in the yard -- their friend comes and
> they begin talking about gardening -- offer to give tomato plants. They
> have a retarded daughter. I have a packet from woman's health center with a
> plastic model of the human body. The girl breaks the pieces to fit. The
> lungs and ears are the same size. She throws one arm in the basement -- I
> get it. It is dark brown. Lungs and ears are green; womb very large,
> opaque white.... Rosicrucian meeting -- lots of young people, little kids. We
> are all living on a hill like Palos Verdes. One morning we wake up and
> there's water all around. Go outside -- there are cables on the ground like
> snakes -- they wind around my leg. I wrestle with one -- it gets me almost
> down to the water -- if in water, I'll get electrocuted. Grab it right
> behind head and it becomes docile -- carry it back up hill. No one believes
> we're an island. Japanese guy with two boys. Neighbor woman cuts grass. A
> Republican lives in a tiny attic. Go out in car/boat -- taste the water --
> it's salty. Wonder about where to get food, etc.... Rose plant, covered with
> rows of aphids dancing on the branches. Finding where they came from --
> look at enormous thick roots and there are little brown seeds they hatch
> from. I plan on washing them off the top and going through the roots to
> pick them out. The plant has lots of strong new growth -- don't want to
> pick off all the leaves.... Indian book about plants -- illustrated, silver
> filigree with little jewels -- like the stars in the sky. I'm driving, car
> full of little kids -- can't see very well. Road in Madison County, this is
> a movie.... Dad working with a bunch of little kids and a nude woman -- very
> tanned. ... I find shamrocks growing wild.
>
> At J's -- we're both naked on the bed. I have a knife. A younger guy named
> John comes in with a knife, I wrestle it away from him calling to J for
> help. She doesn't. He says we're both going to have a great time. J wants
> to, I don't. I leave. A pile of clothes in hall, look for mine. Softball
> practice -- fielding. I'm afraid of the ball, don't catch it right --
> decide to quit.
>
> At school, meet man in library -- I'm blind, find bathroom by smell. I try
> to sneak out, but he comes face to face with me -- so must be love, not just
> flirtation. ... Rosicrucian exercises. Do each one 12 times, 12X12, 4X4. They
> are like yoga.... Christmas decorations -- very beautiful. Peppermint canes,
> soda. Only need to SMELL them - not eat them. New sidewalk to new school -
> only about six inches wide. Try to run on it -- have to keep toes pointed
> out. Betty and Joan are ahead of me talking. Go down the hill where men
> and their dogs are sleeping in holes they dig in a hillside. One guy wants
> the other to talk to him -- the other is a lawyer who didn't have to take a
> course on how to be a liberal. Cross a narrow bridge in which nails on
> right side are coming out. ... Ted is fishing on a flat plain -- put fish back
> in bucket, one bit another's fin. They are big -- one has a sail like a
> Marlin except they both have legs like bulls. Circle around each other, and me
> -- I hide behind a tree. Mom takes pictures but they don't turn out. Ted
> is a talk show guy on public service radio. He's good at raising money but
> there has been a backlash against feminism. People all want to be the same
> -- afraid of making a mistake with children. ... I want my camera -- go through
> a huge building, climb a pink ladder, which lets go on the right side.
> There's a window up there -- too small, but through a complex series of
> changes, it is made larger. Ted does tricks like in Carlos Casteneda - Don
> Giurno -- looks like he falls down on a pile of hay. The ladder becomes
> rope. He bought this huge barn, then decided it wouldn't work out. I look
> down high wall. Two men are stranded half way up. One says, I love you,
> like little kid.
>
> 7/27/77 I am eating fried potatoes and whole wheat bread.... I give a dinner
> party for lots of people. The wine and cakes shrink very small when I serve
> them. Man arrives when it's all over and strikes up a conversation with
> Sandy and offers to walk her somewhere. I run after them and when I get
> there he runs into the cornfield. Sandy begins growling like a cat and we
> circle each other warily. Then the man attacks me from behind also growling
> like a cat -- biting me on the back of the calf. I manage to get away and
> run to the barn. I pick up a pitch fork and climb up in the stairwell to
> wait for them. Drop pitch fork and have to climb down to get it. They come
> in through the window behind me. I turn around and menace them with the
> pitch fork. They have larger pitch forks and now there's a third person (my
> brother?) and I stick all three of them in the chest. They fall down. Then
> a little boy with black hair appears -- Louis, and I stick him. He doesn't
> fall down, I think he's good. He comes up to me and says, "that's mine"
> pointing to my necklace, which he says is a triangle. I hold it up to him.
> This dream started as a going away party for Mike, lots of little kids there
> -- we are all doing art, a large pile using color and words. Judy sings
> good-bye song and cries -- not a good way to start dinner, I think.
>
> I agree to an operation which will turn me into a boy. I am almost to be
> taken in when I see that the person who's going to do the operation is a
> very rough blond. I scream, no, and try to jump off the gurney; I get
> anxiety. I decide not to go through with it -- get up and say I've changed
> my mind. [I was being pushed through the operating room doors in 1986 and
> looked up and saw the blond nurse pushing me and remembered this dream. I
> told her the dream -- deja vu -- and she said I could change my mind. I
> told her not to tell the doctor, might make him nervous. I had a pain in my
> ovary and had to go ahead with the operation.]
>
> 7/29/77 Long journey -- starts out in Iowa City with a couple of other
> kids, goes through yards, houses, fields, sea shores, don't have a map, but
> we've been there once before. It's close to Catalina Island. Finally we go
> through a gauntlet of thrift stores, household goods. It turns into a
> tunnel -- and in the distance, there's Disneyland.... In a pimple is
> toothpaste, paper mache pig. A guy at a party who wants to make a movie
> about assemblages. J & G arrive, J has two letters, one to a man named Gary
> Sievers. The letters get wet, I open the one to the man -- out walking in
> town. Don't read it, it's private, but look at a picture of me. Very
> strange angle -- face against tree, makes my face look flat. Then it's a
> picture of me on a horse, and a picture of me as a little kid on a horse
> rides up behind me now and merges with it. I was a serious baby and am
> still serious, fearful now.... Go back, man has their little boy out for a
> walk and he tearfully recommends that the guy marry a woman with a nice
> large house so the kid will have somewhere to play.... The guy giving the
> party has a movie he wants people to see. He throws a glass of water in J's
> face -- she says, Lorca stressed the non-creative side of his life. He
> says, that sounds dangerously close to housekeeping to me. She gets up to
> leave. I am amused by anxious that her feelings are hurt. I make a
> come-back, say, if you want to beat him up, beat him up, I'm not your
> bodyguard. Listen, child, don't get mad at me. She leaves shouting
> insults, the guy shouting insults at her. There's a guy who looks like
> Gregg Allman taking a bath with his shirt on in the other room. I shout
> good-bye. The "art" people disappear and a man and woman come home from
> work in the other room, their teenaged kids are in the middle room, and
> we're in the third room.
>
> 7/31/77 Lucid dream after trying to kick the pony of a man carrying a
> rifle. Walking down the street with brown buildings. Try to fly but don't
> get off the ground -- weak feeling. Call for help next time.
>
> Trina moving. Bruce makes a calendar. There is some tragedy like mix up as
> his brother, sent her a misleading letter and she's marrying someone else.
>
> 8/1/77 Tim hypnotizing people. Tall Japanese monk guy goes out to have
> fun. Farrah Fawcett pregnant.

8/1/77 At Tim's apartment -- he gives us a shot, says to watch for agent --
hypnotizes us.

8/2/77 Crossing street -- lots of cars, including a group of motorcycles
with lights off. Then bombs heard in the distance. I forget the street
right away. On a bus with a man, he is sitting in two seats at once and I
see that he can pass for any race. We had been making donuts. In a woods,
plastic bags left hidden -- use them for tents. Turns into work -- very
easy. Art project from Kindergarten where you crayon a page very heavily
and then paint over it -- I scratch off the paint in two places at once.
"His not crying self talked to his crying self." Reply from Rosicrucians
very fast -- has bacon with fat off and a bunch of roses. I go to a play at
the student union with Mom -- wait outside with a crowd a long time. I'm
dressed in a long cream color dress with gathered (elastic) top with
embroidery and a shawl also embroidered on one shoulder. Other women with
pretty dresses compliment mine.... A very small blond boy rolls on top of
me -- also a large black dog.... With J, some guy says his son makes movies
-- we are at the Great Pyramid, climbing the outside.... Cleaning candy off
the floor, Dad there taking care of the kids. ... Mask, half red, half
white. To go visit museum, take it off to talk, joke. Red top mask, white
bandana or diaper bottom. ...Pushing a little wagon with the very small
blond boy on it around a track with a "chase" -- police, army, etc. He
complains -- goes to sleep on chair. I ask if he came just to make sure I
didn't meet any men. ... People fall off the Great Pyramid -- caught by
rope, restaurant on top.

8/10/77 I ride my bike up a mountain and coast down. Help a boy whose
mother thinks he's bad because he has to sit inside. Kids lined up at
school -- while I dismantle three racks of clothes. The middle one has
straight wool skirts, plaid shorts and jeans, and at the end -- bottles of
foreign alcohol. A man and I are picking out foods for a picnic. ... Going
on a journey by car. Lisa is going also. I pack more things that I forgot.
She doesn't want to go. ... A long valley, have to cross over area with
poison ivy. I want to go there to go to the bathroom. People keep getting
in the way -- two men working on something on a press. Maya writing her
autobiography, she also worked on the book -- which is very thick and
"hard". This book is supposed to be a magazine collaboration -- I would
rather it was a comedy than "hard" -- which I interpret as hard line
feminism. Last room is a doctor's room -- has a long ramp, but I decide
it's too steep. I make out with a man on the floor and then ask him if he's
attracted to another woman who looks like his mother -- then I ask him again
after he falls asleep to see if his subconscious is. He says to check the
doors because we might have dead animals on the lawn. Grandma's house --
has two front doors, one is the split type, but only the top half locks.
Snow has fallen on the sill of the second one and I can't even close it.
Three wolves come, I grab them by the mouths and they get small. I call for
the man but he's asleep. We meet in the kitchen -- kill wolves with knife,
blood spurts from one. Then door closes -- wolves are three middle-aged men
dead on the lawn.

8/12/77 Man and I living on the top of an apartment building -- I get the
lawnmower. Rickety place, nice view, Chinese looking house to left.
Something straight. We call it the Holiday Inn, Hawaiian Arms. I work at
night at school, cook isn't going to be there Friday so I plan squash
quiche. Greg is there and makes it. Watch the movie each afternoon, then I
clean. Job becomes more work, Mom is there too -- they are making rabbits
out of paper, an art project. [Warehouse in Santa Monica converted to artist
housing with a garden on the roof.]

Mom's house, one of the Dooley's is going to rent my room -- asks how long
it takes to move out. I practice going out the window -- then lots of
people upstairs. Roar -- an earthquake. I go out window. We lie down in
open fields -- me in garden. Electric lines everywhere. Dad tries to turn
it off. Arabian pony, Donna appears and tries to kick Dad. She has bigger
spots than before. I hide behind a tree -- large oak. Then she turns into
a girl.... Go around to all bathrooms, Grandma's house -- all have kids in
them (school). Karen was telling me how Benji's Mom says she leads people
on -- the Uliberrys, her husband. Get into bathroom -- Christine is taking
a bath. Start making Marlena clean up. Pick up blue papers all around
walls, toys. One boy very smart and mature, writes letters, does math. ...
Woman I know is moving into house like Grandma's except for the master
bedroom. This is me. [A neighbor bought Grandma's house and moved it after
the Army Corp of Engineers took the land.] Lots of antiques, sideboard.
There is a dresser with see through drawers, or I can see through them. I
go into a cosmetics store and buy lipstick with gold. Middle aged woman
takes dislike of me -- the lipstick is real gold. However, she ends up
following me when I leave. ... J and I go to visit Norman Lear again, she
goes right up to him, takes lots of health food with sunflower seeds. He
blows on it. Things he says -- shorter footnotes, simple plots, simple
characters. ... I take a sweater off a cake and wear it. Three sisters are
in bathing suits, one with a wiffle ball. Joe and I play catch with a big
ball made of energy.

8/17/77 (Wed) Lunch time, J goes out. I give little girl lecture about
picking moss roses. Eat the frosting off a cake. Go to restroom, get a
girl's sweater wet -- she wants mine. Wants me to pay for it - she says it
cost $36 but really it's hooked onto the dress. Then she starts talking
about writing an article. I start to leave -- the "toilet" is just my blue
rocking chair in an isolation booth. Guy throws rocks at me -- a
revolutionary; then I stop him from being stoned by a group of men using
assumption. ... In the kitchen, J and my boyfriend in the other room and
he's writing -- showing off by reading it aloud. J has nylons on over all
her clothes, she rollerskates, G reads Playboys. We live in a very sleazy
neighborhood. We live in the attic of a tall building which gets fancier as
you go up. I get there later -- stop to look at some books about Shei -- a
woman who has gold snake things coming out of her hair -- guy with two kids,
widower or divorced guy.

8/18/77 (Thu) I'm walking around with Chad, left $174 at a religious
get-together (family) outside dairy case. They are drinking Kool-Aide. Run
back, hard, I have to pull myself along with my arms. ... J at our house,
man says he's learned compassion. J says G doesn't like him, he sits on
colors. I'm wearing a pretty dress I sewed at my Aunt's house one summer --
I run, fall down, hurt slightly. We go to a factory making tank tracks,
line up the marks. I can run but my legs get crossed I notice. ... I
collect half of each kid's sandwich -- so they can go on a picnic. I get
left behind -- watch kids ride bikes in Mom's yard -- then work with adding
fractions. Mom and Ted come in -- she didn't shift down on an exit -- she
darted of the "expressway" to a little shop she saw and rolled her truck
over and over. I tell about my close call. She has a poem I like down to a
certain point -- the first line is about the Bible in the morning. The
truck has a hard top so she wasn't hurt when it rolled -- she's talking on
the phone, sounds like a young man. ... I stop to get gas but it's too
early, the station isn't open yet. Go through an expensive one, into a
cheap one. A middle-aged women follows me and challenges what I'm doing,
somehow; then she ends up liking something I suggest. ... Room, red table
in front of a little window -- typewriter on top, art under on second shelf.
[scanner is on a shelf under the computer now, 15 years later] ... Book,
guy who discovered some technique and went from one occult to another
talking to them. ... There is some large secret about myself that I
haven't found out yet. ... Awards, high school -- I get an award for
writing a book which gained in popularity -- Traveling Light. Hard time
walking, wearing high heels. Joan and Betty also got awards. Rain dripping
outside. ... Very romantic man (no sex), he leaves me something to look at
and I take a bath. Mom comes in and gets in the other end of the very long
bathtub. She looks different, smiles in a friendly way -- two mothers. ...
The sovereign state of simplicity. ... Man telling a joke about insurance
agents with double entrendres -- says he doesn't like my soup, goes to buy
hotdogs. A kangaroo outside. My sisters there, lock it out. It peed on
Dad's doorstep and in his powder. ... Take Devin (spastic kid) home with us
from some function at Grandma's. He has a suitcase packed in three layers
-- food in little packages like chewing tobacco, occult magazines (blue),
then adventure stories. I pack them various ways -- neat and in layers but
just thrown in.

8/29/77 Working at Looking Glass -- have to put two shopping carts away.
They are filled with popcorn, which Lynn is using for an art project. I put
them in a closet where piles of corn are covered with a wire and a piece of
metal against mice. This is inadequate. Upstairs from the closet is the
attic where MJ and her lawyer husband make decisions. I want to go up and
see what it looks like. ... Man at the movies, I'm working at the Herbert
Hoover Library, reading "diary" files. The woman ahead of me sits on her
husband's lap and flirts, I have to sit in the seat behind -- blond boy --
speech problems beside me. ... afternoon, not asleep, I'm sick, lying down
-- man goes through a long black tunnel -- comes out on a flat white rock
overlooking the city. Then he fights a monster that comes into the city
through a hole. Different people chop at different parts of the monster.
As they do, reality grows more and more dim. [in Los Angeles, predators,
even wild coyotes, come into right into the parks in the middle of Los
Angeles through drainage pipes, kill the peacocks.]

8/29/77 A rain comes -- we are camping right above floodline. Some men in
the next camping place move up on the plateau -- ate all their dandelions.
I walk up the creek and it has washed deeper and is a beautiful calm pool on
the left, but on the right the water slants up and looks dark, deep and
dangerous. There's a shallow crossing. There is a dairy whose place has
been taken by cops. It is run by old ladies; they charge by the
productivity of the cow -- $3 a quart for one. It is in dented cans with
jars inside. They give me a dozen pieces of a kind of fruit -- one pear,
and are very good at running up the price -- said it made the cash register
taller.

8/30/77 Guy killed by family after paying off his brother's debts. Then he
sees the spirit/ghost of the other dead man -- act out what should have
happened -- whole family lined up -- ducked. Guy should have killed one who
owed him money. ... Go to Grandma's -- pumpkin pies all over the place.
She's a little heavier, pretty happy. Sandy comes in, she's much shorter
than I am, slight in build -- complains about joints all the time. Gram
took her to the doctor in the washing machine. "Eduardo had a dream." ...
Man and I living in a house with two pine trees in front. I plant beans
under them and the beans climb all over the trees. ... Shirley and I each
have part of a crystal ball -- I can see the future in it. I weight 5-10
pounds more than her, then the same. Awake, afternoon of 8/30/77 -- a woman
with a little boy named Toby went to Council Bluffs to have a baby. The
people across the border take this one and she can hug Toby -- make up for
not being there right when he was born.

8/31/77 I'm way out in a field with some other people and decide to run
back. Do fine until I get to where a person is watching (Terri?). Then
feel like boots are too big, running too slow. Then the rest of the dream
-- trying to get food for a man. There is a buffet, but all gone except for
one plateful for an "uncle" -- I steal half of it -- an oriental woman sees
me. Then have to climb several flights of stairs.... Eagles
secretary/secretly--- nest in trees.

[Conclusions at the end of this notebook: scene of a place with freshwater
lake right next to the ocean (very common along the California coast as it
turns out); going to a private bathroom; losing weight (I did the next year,
through starvation only); snow; seeing things I'd like to do but doing
chores like dishes and laundry instead; little blond boy with a funny voice;
green clothes; not asking for things in the dream like Patricia Garfield's
book said to].

9/1/77 (a few days after the full moon). I was supposed to be cooking
dinner but it kept turning into things like eggs, hotdogs. Look out the
window of the house, a pond out there -- large fish in it. Man says they're
Gars -- but they are very large. Plants on porch. I'm in school, a test
today in history, tomorrow physics. Sally and a blond come in for breakfast
but when I don't leave, they do. Go down to office, make fun of gay men to
Sally and the other girl; I feel sick -- trying to get my mind off my
problems and can't believe I'm so mean. The secretary quit. I have five
pictures of little girls at "school." ... Give dresses to two older women
who are neighbors -- elastic top with wood or bamboo skirt to Aunt Jane and
a straight beige knit dress to another woman. Also green velvet dress.
Lots of "backwards" dresses on backwards, mine, Jane's [neither one of us
has any kids, she adopted two girls]. All my old clothes dirty, torn, ugly
-- time to go to work but snow storm out. New clothes upstairs in my room.
... Go to Salvation Army, look for toys. Run down street to a certain
place, man and I dressing in bathroom -- then run farther and farther.
Christmas time and I don't have any presents to give except for a little
wood doll for Chuck. ... I have several horses -- a black one, white one,
pony. A man is trying to shoot the white one especially; lures them in by
pointing to me -- but they run and get away. Sitting in a large circular
corral. ... I go up to a door which has a lock on it with letters instead of
numbers. The young guy at the door tells me the letters quickly -- they are
Hebrew letters and he says them with a Hebrew accent. The first two are R
and M. I never work the lock correctly, but get inside. Woman gives a
lecture about the Cabala -- two people asleep. Very interesting. [Cabala
puts me to sleep -- I think deeply about what I'm reading and make all kinds
of connections and sometimes also doze off just like meditating.] ... At an
apartment building, a man and I live in one. Karen takes
>

. Karen takes down the walls and
vacuums all the rugs. Man says something to me about getting mad. I was
mad and said something about it right away. ... On an elevator, by the edge
-- hold on to pole -- edge keeps getting closer. Maritza says she's sick --
fainting, two other things. Large family at her house. Lynn has new
boyfriend. [Lynn owned a waterbed store with her ex-. Told me once he was
tripping on LSD and got pulled over for "driving funny" and she was not and
said he was not driving funny, so she thought that the police have ESP.]

9/8/77 Ride in a wheelchair -- pushing on the ground with my hands. Goes
very fast, over railroad tracks. Go to Jean's house with Trina, etc. She
wanted a room at Mom's house and was horrified with the outhouse, no bathtub
or shower -- just a pan to wash in, etc. Mom was very charming. I leave
with them. Then I'm back -- driving down road on packed snow, keep
cautioning driver. Then in Van Meter, Mom and I in car -- pick up Sandy at
the stop sign -- other two kids earlier. We have a grocery cart. Sandy
grouchy. I'm staying the night with them, then they are taking me back to
college. Iowa City looks completely different except for one gas station.
... Job in wall paper. ... Lynn's boyfriend -- on picnic -- lots about
clothes.

9/9/77 Balloons connect this world and the other one. I pump them full of
water. ... Darrell giving a classical jazz concert in a tiny circle of
chairs arranged by Allan -- microphone. ... At school, washing dishes --
one of the lights in my face. Afternoon nap -- in a place,deserted
apartments -- finding tiny animals and putting them in jars. There are jars
full of mares with their foals -- about two inches tall. There are workmen
around, I slam the door, afraid of them. I leave to where Uncle Louie and
Aunt Lucille are planning changes in their life -- pick flat Italian beans
under a pine tree -- beans are huge, like cucumbers. Guy with theory --
dots of "chair" separate from dots of "blue" -- wonder what part of brain
sees "blue" so you slap your head and the part of your brain will tingle. I
try it, left part tingles -- image of blue doesn't completely appear. He
works at a store -- leaves to talk to a guy who kisses him -- he says he
looks like an addict. ... Man in bathtub of green water, his mother talks
to him -- he keeps getting a hard on. His mother says to his cock -- "down
girl." Scott Cain (5) smoking cigarettes. ... Woman orders a movie, moves
a lot of stuff and goes to visit a housewife with several large kids --
rebellious. Says she hopes the movie isn't stolen -- can't hide it like
tried to with frog last time. ... Roof starts falling -- MJ school --
pieces fall off edge. ... Attic, woman there face down in bed. I'm
considered unstable. MJ at work -- footprints to left of water fountain --
was cleaning.

9/10/77 afternoon. I go back to Mom's -- have to patrol the yard watching
kids, they are all about ten, wind up the tire swing and spin around. I go
upstairs and pack my stuff that was left behind when I was 18 and moved out.
Dad comes in and asks if I'm getting it -- take stacks of nudist magazines,
pictures of ballerinas dancing, my old jewelry boxes which are hidden in
brown folders, old check stubs, utility bills, whole pile of mail, red and
white pills, magazines, books, notebooks, government pamphlets on gold and
birds, letters, new man and wife dentists. ... Man and I go to large church
in bus. He has black suit, orange shirt and I have a red dress. ... Give
very effective speech about working together. Walk with policewoman down
hall to class, when we get there I have to pay 75 cents and I lost my purse.
Try to back track and keep ending up in bedrooms. Split skirts. Two young
guys chase to help -- finally find open window and step outside. J likes
this (what's going on inside) and I consider going back in. Then think
about how to find the auditorium with a map. Then I'm in an auditorium in a
strange reclining seat. The performers look very large, but far away and
zoom across vast spaces. ... I fall into a small muddy creek -- laugh --
this seems very funny, very unexpected and shocking. ... Man and I living
in trailer. Doors are open all the time, summer. Then it's fall. Hanging
up clothes on clothes line -- lots of them washed. ... I don't know anybody
until I'm ready to (dozed off at this point). ... Waiting for school bus at
different house, lots go by for different towns. ... Moving car, white mark
on tire. ...Go to a sale -- rabbit hutches piled up with hole in middle --
very massive strawberry also growing in it. Snow on rabbits. Mom paints
statue and sells it back. Room that did have unusual things in it -- now
has sleazy girl - feet of girlfriend sticking under door. Start back home
with Mom, kids. They fight, Mom leads us different way. Shirley takes off
in a fancy car. Finally, in a house they stop. I go down some stairs with
warning posters on the wall about steepness. Outside, there is a shopping
cart I have to push up an extremely steep hill. Then Anna (2) comes to
school with diaper and blood. Dixie eats it. Two pictures of them -- one
closer. [Anna was the most popular kid in the school. Shirley bought a
black Trans Am.] ... A man and I traveling -- a group of little kids ahead
of us -- pulling a red wagon up steps. I help them, push. They have
several bikes, fix up a convoy. Want me to take over - I won't. Man says
the tomboy, dressed in my red and white check blouse bothers him. After
some argument man starts to pull a hayrack with a bicycle - I carry a
bundle. He gets ahead and I run. He stops ahead to pick up another hayrack
-- some bales of hay, his parents are there. Talk about cows and hay. Then
we are home and Linda Hieb drops in with all kinds of food in a box --
mostly cake mixes. I say I like a cake with lots of walnuts in it just to
be polite -- really only like frosting -- and she brings lots more. ... The
barn burns down and is rebuilt. Then my parents are gone and we're out in
the car doing lessons and fucking. Stop before orgasm -- I don't think I
can get back because of my lip I say. She gets upset like the man -- I go
in the house and go to the bathroom. She comes in with lessons. There are
candles burning all over the house. I blow them out, turn out lights -- we
both apologize for jumping to conclusions. Go out -- I say we'll have to be
careful of parents. She cleaned the barn -sorry for something. Put it
right by wall and barn is on fire again. We go down and drive cows out.
They go out the same door as me and a little boy -- I pick him up a little
-- hit pigs with his feet -- swing him. Some guy says snidely that we have
lots of watering apparatus. Jean filled up swimming pools for animals.
Sandy, Shirley and Sue Harvey are in car -- Sandy is upset about the man she
went to Chicago to see -- number six bus, but streets curled around and she
couldn't find stop. Shirley drives car and drives over their legs. I take
over. The car has to have little cookie like letters inserted to go -- D R
E. I use E all the time -- are supposed to change quickly to shift -- also
use B. B is jewelry box. There are people on the road -- stopping cars --
they are water boys and girls doing good deeds. Stop and Go, too difficult,
I want Sandy to drive -- her car. I run over a girl's foot -- they ask her
about her boyfriend (I assume killed in the war); she smiles. I drive on.
This is when I look and find B in the jewelry box to go back up the hill.
... I am taking care of someone else's very delicate plant which has to
have special water. The water I give it coarsens it and causes little
crystals to form on the leaves.... Aunt Judy and Uncle Roger's house --
traveling through macho country. ...MJ or Judy building a new house in a
shopping center. Builders put bricks in constantly before our eyes. She
makes the windows very narrow -- an insurance guy next door. Then the house
is finished -- nice carpets, etc. Her husband gets me into a bag sort of
thing with woven strings and sticks his hand up my ass. I plan escape --
put lighted match on the carpet, run to cars which are all white and covered
with snow. One is very fancy -- sports car, but the key fits. Lights are
on, battery dead but I start it by rolling it and letting out clutch. Drive
to a town where there are lots of blond children with curly hair who are a
little ragged and dirty. Then I'm watching children at nap (talk to
Michelle (2) to get her to do things, MJ picks her up). Also watching a
little boy who tries to bite me. A woman and two men come along and sit
down who are very attractive. Then a huge bull with short back legs comes
down the road and over to the fence I climb through and a curved shaped tree
I hide behind and puts his head through. I run to people. Then a woman
picks up the little boy -- has another older one -- says they are children
of the bull and he's looking for them. Can tell them by their legs -- shiny
hair. Then standing at the foot of a ramp with roller skaters. The ramp
gets very narrow and the woman guard will only allow young girls and doctors
to go up. I go with girls on roller skates. Man has a deep blue shirt,
tries to go up as doctor, but goes back. I hurry up ramp, at top is women's
roller skating group -- Bay City Rollers, they're very tough. Continue
through country which is very dry. See Wayne, use him as protector to hide
behind. State is supposed to be Oklahoma. The people are uncivilized. The
land dry. At the end, we are back to the ramp and it's a military
installation. Wayne claims I'm his wife and asks the assembled men which
part of me is the most beautiful. He turns out to really be Joe Thomas. I
quickly turn it into a joke -- which part of him is the most beautiful --
sagging chest muscles, etc. Then escape down chute. He insists on a gift
for me -- blue curtains with trees on them (voice says, really something
red) and I say to throw them down the chute to me. Tell others about the
country, suggest getting gas in the morning and hurrying through the center.
Have no idea where I was. They are down to eating the rice, etc, dishes.
Say we were gone 48 hours, straight traveling.

9/19/77 Playing basketball by myself -- do all sorts of drives, shots --
miss. Ball and I have a certain lack of energy. There are two ways to do
each shot. Go find needle thing to pump up the ball -- Terri is up there.
Pile of clothes. Find skirt and offer it to her -- took one for me last
time. Come back down and basketball practice has started -- all sorts of
lumpy balls, under inflated. ... A kid talks to me about a person named
Hathor who has a girlfriend in a tower -- he can only reach his hand in to
see her. ... Circles of people of different races around a bird cage like
thing. Joye did one with the men carrying materials for grass shacks. ...
Eating too much -- man makes jello which has squares of it sticking on the
handle.

9/21/77 Victor comes over at 4 AM. Then a girl with white face -- make-up.
... A snake that runs through food. ... Man in I in woods -- drawing
pictures of each other. A large bear comes along -- sniffing. Stand still
-- then it begins to talk -- asks where we're from. I talk to it -- man
runs screaming into a cave. I follow and the cave has little people in it.
They are little children and this is a movie. Pat is the camera man and
loads the film wrong. J wants to redo the scream. Then it's all done --
Michelle and I are the last to leave. There are lots of caves -- the ones
with a steak knife outside have bears in them. I jump on a truck (side)
carrying lots of packages. It has mail and I break some eggs. Some comes
back because no stamps. ... The edge of town where the little towns are. ...
I make a long journey home -- it's uphill, down, then up again. I know the
general direction -- cross the freeway. Shannon gives me a ride part way --
then I go up a hill and over piles of lingerie and balls of yarn in my bare
feet. Sandy and Shirley are with me -- a girl is looking for her kitten
which runs away -- but we find some strange things: a frog body with a
girl's head on top, a seed with four arms, a cap that is a metal bell. We
get home and there's nothing to eat, so we stay on our diet. Scott C reads
aloud from a history book. Dad says, "we don't want to hear about real
estate" (history is real estate changing hands). I defend his right to
read. Dad says he doesn't feel well and goes out. Mom is in her pajamas in
the corner (a man was leaving as we came). There are turkeys from 1935 in
the window. I think they're geese. I think Mom is crying -- go over and
stand at her right side. She starts to tell me about her affair, but I
already know -- even when it first started, when he recommended someone to
fix the tricycle. She says you have to stay away from people. I say you
have to deal with it. I go upstairs and my room is neat. She comes after
me and I have to fight for my old room. I'm tired but know I have to keep
going. Outside on a street corner, my brother is a little kid -- is very
unsure of himself, frightened. I walk with him, ask him why. He says
before when he was tough, he drank and swore. Shirley is up in the stands,
angry because someone built in front of them. ... At school, I'm a cook.
Dixie talks about some fight in the swimming pool; MJ complains because
people don't come and tell her things. [one of my roommates at college told
me she held a girl underwater because she kicked her in the face getting
out of the pool and didn't say she was sorry.] ... At J's, Sea Sprite
apartments, in Hermosa Beach right on the ocean -- keep wanting to move back
because it's so close to the water -- can't see land off the balcony. ...
MJ criticizes us -- you don't let the little kids tell you what to do -- you
tell them what to do. ... Several people studying together -- Patty, essay
in English Literature; Pat, essay on Guenon; me a woman M... N... -- who was
contemporary of surrealists, who had numerous daughters, and thought she was
a Shetland pony, or WAS one. ... Pick out a book at Grandma's from box of
bad ones -- about surrealists and someone named Margo. ... Help a girl in
Iowa City, by Kate Daum hall -- set up an electric wire holder with umbrella
-- it had been down since Christmas. ... Find library books in my locker
near the end of the year - science, while getting English book. Have to
catch up -- a whole year's worth, math. ... At a very large penthouse on
the ocean -- house sitting. Tall rich, dark haired man (a construction
contractor's kid from high school) walks along with me and we pass an old
weather beaten house where artist/writer colony live. There's a piano and
sewing machine, two girls live there already, windows and doors close
automatically when people pass by. ... Stage, people skating through a
sculpture -- Tom Sawyer gained some weight back, says, "I bet you think this
is a commercial, but it's a note to the janitor -- two eggs in a box." I
enter the scene and go up a flight of stairs. ... That's enough, Margo --
on pinnacle. ... I have a baby boy, the delivery is painless -- black hair,
doesn't cry. Talks right away. Using full sentences. Nurse it then going
range. There are lots of spiders on the moss, kids from school in house.
Rose and I catch them and take them outside. Z's. Fish in kitchen. Then
at school picking up chairs.

> 1977 continued
>
> 9/28/77 A new apartment. I wash the walls which are tile and easy to
> clean. There are lots of windows -- a big house. The other people there
> are a backpacker single guy with three kids -- Dylan (5), a three year old
> and a baby that smiles all the time with black hair.
>
> 9/29/77 Japanese like movie -- people have aspects of monsters. Two
> little Japanese kids -- very cold -- have to stay away from them right
> now. S house, she complains G won't help her haul manure and he wrecked
> her Vega. Gather my stuff up and pack to leave. Books, jewelry, art,
> clothes. The yard very formally gardened, very neat, perfectly groomed.
> [I stayed in my old room at the farm, Jul-Aug 78, which they had rented
> from Mom -- they'd been trying to have a baby for several years, which I
> wasn't aware of, and I dreamed that they were t