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b | Barb Sanders | I am living in the old M City House. The recreation room has been remodeled to my bedroom. I am moving things in and organizing the drawers. I look out the open door and see a giant man with no head walking with ponderous steps backwards. I am a bit afraid of him and remind myself to not get in his way. A man now comes to the door and I see that behind him is a huge buffalo. I try to shut and lock the door against him but he forces his way in anyway. I am also a bit afraid of him. He asks if I have any spark plugs. I say, "No I don't, but I'll ask my father. He's outside. You ask him." He goes out. Now, I see my bookcase outside the window with tall large books in it. Dwight then comes in and says he has a room off of my room. I see a door and go look in. My bookcase is in his room. His room is very small. He says it's OK to keep the bookcase in the little corner of his room. The giant man walks by again, only this time he has his head and is attempting to walk forward. Now, a man and a woman are talking. This is supposed to be a meeting I am involved in with another person, but they take over and I'm so tired, I let them. Finally I say, "Look, let's stop this meeting because you two aren't including us and I'm too tired now to change it." I say, "Let's set a time to meet next." The man says, "No, we can do that later." I say "No, it's easier for me to do it now because we're all here together; otherwise, I'd have to call and recall everybody." Now we have to find a calendar. No matter where we look, we can't find one. I open drawers and take out old wallets from long ago, noticing I'd left in small change. I am messing up the organization I'd so recently spent time fixing. There are lots of wallets and no calendar. I am very tired and sleepy and give up. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am on an island and the enemy (Japan) is looking it over to see if anyone is there. I am concerned and tell Ernie and the boys to stay in the shadows and avoid the light. That way, they'll not know we're here and maybe the war won't start. We get in the light anyway, and now we're informed the war will start at noon on Monday. I am trying to get to a safe place. Others are as well. An Asian woman is rushing up the mountainside. Now I'm in a group of people. In fact, I'm at the head of a marching group and I realize I'm in the army. A nasty DI sergeant is harassing me. "Keep up! Do it right!" I'm falling a bit behind. I want to be in the lead, but I don't want all this army stuff. "Turn right," he screams. We pause. A presidential flag ceremony is going on. "Should we go over and honor that?" "No," he yells. "It's a decoy. We're needed at the front." Now an announcer man with a microphone is going to the edge of the front. He's saying he'll probably be the first one shot in the war. Musicians are racing toward the front for the beginning of the war ceremony. Now there are crowds. The disabled group can't be found. I see the one on the other side getting organized. "Oh, oh. Where's Ellie and Charla?" I go looking. The DI finds me and says horrible things. I'm pissed and pull back my fist. I'm about to hit him in the face. He's grinning, "Yeah. Make my day. Hit me, you putz. Were you just going to hit me? That's assault of an officer...etc." I back down because he can make serious trouble for me. I see Mirabelle. She returned early from New Zealand because of the war. We hug. She cries. She's afraid; so am I. I'm frantic to find Ellie and Charla. Then I find them, laying down and waiting. I go to them. I see my black, furry pouch. Thank God. It had been stolen and here it was. I grab up my things and then realize the good credit cards and the driver's license, the money and car keys are gone. We're on the brink of war and I have NO ID, no identity. I scramble around and find Bonnie at a counter. I'm asking how I get my ID copied. I can't be without my ID at this crucial moment. She tells me some things to do. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in a wheelchair and now have a small Volkswagen bug. I have had the front driver's seat removed and am trying to position my power wheelchair there. Now I want to remodel the chair. Why can't it be compact? New technology in batteries can make that part small and lightweight. It can be like a regular chair with small wheels and a tiny foot pedal thing. I go to a place and try to get them to build it for me. There are problems, but slowly the chair is built. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in a house in the mountains. I am a comedy writer and I'm helping a man friend of mine be a comedy writer. We are free associating and brainstorming. Now, someone looks out the window and sees a stick of lightning and I wonder if the storm is coming close. It is. I see a thick funnel cloud develop on the ground. The top poofs out powerfully and it's a twister. The man is intrigued. He wants to know more. "OK," says another man, "but look out." The storm maker, a pixie-like man, comes out of the storm. It had traveled over to our hay mow. He offers the comedy writing man, now the father, a ride. He takes it. This is magic time. Off they go on the thunderous, rolling cloud, a muddy brown color. Now I am alone in the house, with a couple of grown sisters and a brother. They are off doing something. I see outside the storm has brought birds and animals made out of ice. An ice turkey buzzard comes into the house. He's mean and tries to peck things. I light a match and try to melt him. It's a very puny effort, but it does force him outside. I see a sweet ice puppy and try to melt it. It likes it. I feel bad about doing it. I go in and then see the tiny baby kitten. One has gone outside. I don't want to go out, but I do to rescue the kitten. It is fat and cute. I get it and run back in the house. The sisters and brother are back and I yell, "Quick, shut the door!" I yell that over and over as they are slow and unconcerned. My father is on the phone asking how we are and I'm telling him what's happening. Then we're all back in the house. One sister is an architect, another is some other important professional, and the brother is too. They are working on the problem. The architect asks for a computer file on LaCisine or something, a famous architect. This research might give her enough historical background to solve this problem. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in a room, perhaps "my" room. It is my birthday. Two people sit on the couch. A Reynold-like man is seated on the floor across from me. I am in an easy chair. A woman is at my right. Derek/man is seated in the easy chair with me at my left. I can't really see him. I just sense his closeness. I am shy and afraid to look at him because I love him and he doesn't love me. Reynold puts on one of my hats with silk red flowers on it. He's laughing and looking silly. I smile, the hat starts to break up and a string of those red flowers goes from the hat toward me. It seems symbolic. There is an amazing abundance of those flowers. I am surprised. I only remembered two of them. Derek/man says to me -- I see him how seated a short ways from me on my left -- he says, "Just now, when I said this, what did you feel?" I look at him and smile gently and answer truthfully from the heart what I felt. Then I distract myself and pick up a small computer toy game. I idly start to fiddle with it, actually thinking of playing it while I sit here at my birthday party. Then Derek starts softly singing a sweet love song in an Elvis Presley type voice. It is something about I love you, but you don't know it. I feel such love for you, etc. I sigh and am touched and keep my face shyly averted from him because it is too heartbreaking to hear him say those words, knowing they aren't for me. A mentally retarded woman is standing to my right and she is saying something and I turn toward her slightly and listen, not wanting her to interrupt and letting her interrupt. She says she's leaving. I say goodbye. I notice a thick layer of dust on the computer games on the table to my right. He slowly moves around until he is more facing me and so close. I look up and he is in a kissing position. His eyes are filled with love and his voice soft and sexy. He kisses me tenderly and lovingly. I melt into it shyly. I am so happy. He does mean those words for me. Then he whispers, "But look at the dates! The 9th, the 22nd and now the 26th!!" (cousin Lenny's birthday, his birthday and our day of falling in love together). He says, "I've known you for a while, but I just fell in love with you two minutes ago." I reach over and kiss him again, being careful to make it a short kiss so he won't think I'm trying to be demanding or sexual. He asks me how I feel right this minute. I say, huskily, "Good. A minute ago, I felt bad and sad. And in a few minutes I will again. But right this moment, I feel good." I am flooded with a rising tide of loving feelings. I am suffused with love and sweetness and tenderness. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am on a committee. A radical malcontent is on the committee and some conservative women. I am helping facilitate, trying to hear and working with and honor both sides. I am getting annoyed at the radical. He's kind of into his anger and not really ready to work through stuff. I am in love with this man. I go visit his place. I'm talking to him about the committee. I am laying on his bed, on top of the blue and white coverlet. Some young woman is there, maybe his daughter. It is innocent and loving. He and I are interested in relationship but are shy and concerned. We are flirting and courting and getting serious. Now it's time for another meeting. the big meeting. I go there; the man is coming a bit later. I get some info out of a drawer, some pictures of athletes as possible evidence. I get to the room; I'm a bit late. They say, "Oh, here, in here." I go in and the table is round and most everyone is already seated. I go around to the other side of the table and find a place to slide in. I'm wearing a dress and sit on the floor. I know that's A MISTAKE. It'll be uncomfortable soon. My man friend comes in and is nervous. He doesn't like committees and meetings, but he's willing to help out. I am seated between a suave, good-looking, vain man and his mother. They are gossiping about women and who he's dated. He sees a name (c:\sherial) on a car and takes it down. He'll call her,;maybe he already had a night with her, he can't remember. Now it's time for my man friend to start the meeting. He's going to sing and dance. He's wearing a woman's tap dance outfit and silly lipstick and wig. He taps and sings beautifully. He's built like Archie. I am smiling at him and winking encouragement. I think he's terrific. The good-looking man gets jealous and tries to grab me and kiss me. I slap him across the face just as my guy is tap dancing around to our side of the table. I know the suave man did that to get my guy jealous so he'd lose his step and ruin the presentation. My guy grabs me and dances with me like its part of the routine. He says, "What's going on?" I say, "Nothing, nothing. Don't worry about it. He just made a pass." He gets jealous and I insist he dance on. He finishes the dance. The suave guy says to me, "What do you see in him?" I say, "He's so talented and interesting and hey, he's got great boobies" (meaning the fake ones he's wearing). "Besides," I say, "you are boring. All you talked about for a half hour was gossip. He's got depth." | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I go over to a man's house. I am very interested in this man. He comes over to me and says, "Hey, nice to see you, but I'm taking off with the guys. We're going hunting. If you're still here when I get back, we'll get together, OK?" I have this internal feeling that yeah, I intend to be here. I'm going to stick it out as long as it takes. I also realize he's teasing me a bit, knowing I want to be with him and just selfishly taking off. He's rubbing my face in it a bit. I hang out. Later he returns and I am sitting on a couch and he sits next to me. I am aware that he is crazy, and I know I'm being accepted into the "inner sanctum" of his intimates. The phone rings. I answer it and it's for me. Some woman asks for Jiving Joe, and asks me how "the Ladies" went. She meant my Play, "Ladies mayhemming society" and how the rehearsals went, or the performance, I'm not sure which. She's an intimate friend of the man's and is semi-teasing me as well. Now I am leaving, maybe I'm a half-grown boy. The man is crazy and potentially dangerous. He sends a horse after me, to hurt me. I run and hide in a small room and the lock on the door is broken. I try and try to get it to lock. It won't. It's too late to go out and find another place to hide. So I see a smaller room, a closet and get into it. It has a working lock. I notice behind me a smaller enclosure, maybe a utility box that I could squeeze into if I have to. I choose not to for the moment. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I see a young teen boy (maybe 17 years old) on a raft in the ocean. He and his animal friends are on a mission, like Johnny Appleseed. There is a dog, a beaver, and other animals, including 87 baby tarantulas. When he began this journey, there had been only one adult. Even though he is a virgin and doesn't know how to make love himself, his job is to find the ducks and help them have sex so they will have baby ducks. I see many little baby ducks swimming around. He helps the female ducks sit on the male duck in the right position so the deed gets done. I know this because a male narrator voice is telling these facts as I see the picture. Now the scene changes and I am talking to a woman. She confesses she had another baby boy after Melvin. Although the woman would be Valerie, logically, it is Ginny. I now get to meet the long lost boy, who is an innocent young teen (as above). He has bright red hair. His name is Douglas. I say, "It's so nice to meet Melvin's half brother." He looks surprised and says, "Half"? I look over at Ginny. "Haven't you told him?" "Sorry." So they talk. I say to him, "I am called Auntie. I am like your Auntie." He formally says, "Hello, Auntie." I invite him to hug me. He does, but it's a bit stiff. Then he melts into a more natural hug. [BL] | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | There is a doctor, then John Laroquette, like Barry S, a doctor-type, and me, a nurse, and we are supposed to work together. The doctor leaves and John is coaxing me to stay and work with him. He loves me and wants me. I am attracted, but he is presuming too much. He has his arm around my waist saying, "And after we have a nice romantic dinner, we can relax and make love all night." I get haughty and say, "Oh, you think so, huh?" Now Fluffy is in my lap and I'm so glad to see her. I pet her and we are happy. Now I see Bitsy Cat is here too. I am surprised, but then I notice she has huge chunks of naked skin where clumps of fur is missing and blood spots. She's injured. I must help her and ask John to help me. He gets a can of antiseptic spray stuff and I try to hold her and spray and now John and I are doing it together and somehow we are laying down together while we are trying to fix the wound on Bitsy Cat. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in my wheelchair and so is Derek. We are seated outside a house, where inside are some of my relatives. Derek is holding a baby girl and I am holding a baby boy. We are not speaking because I am hurt and angry at him. My baby boy squirms and fusses and I move him around until I have him seated on my lap facing me and I cuddle him. He settles down contentedly. It's soft and loving. Then my mother comes out and says, "It's time for the presentation." I am annoyed because I want to stay with this warm, loving feeling with the baby. I then hand the baby to a woman and wheel inside. I see a huge room, where many people are seated around in a circle, on ritzy couches and fancy chairs. I look for a good place to put myself so I can see everyone and they can see me. Derek is now on one of the couches. I avoid him, taking great pains to snub him and not give him eye contact. I chose the head of the room, by the huge fireplace. There is also a skeet shoot apparatus up on the wall to my left. Derek encourages the rich man who lives in this mansion to shoot the birdie. He tries a couple of times, but it is all weak and ineffective. A silly coo-coo type mechanical bird flaps his wings, and a sort of pop gun goes off. Now I begin my lecture. I want to keep it informal and answer questions. The topic is dreams. I say, "I know lots of things about dreams and my bias is Jungian, but I don't want to inundate you with all this. Just ask me what you want to know and I'll try to answer it." I am watching the words I use so I don't trigger Derek's automatic responses around 'know-it-all left brain language." Some ask some questions and it goes on. Now it's over and a man, like Richie, Kyle's brother, also a rich man from this mansion, is seated on my right. He is telling me how much he has wanted to meet me because he'd seen pictures of me and I'm fabulous and he loves me and would like to have s-e-x with me. And he goes on like a star-struck fan. I say to him, angry and bitter, "I am 51 years old. You are young. This is stupid and won't work." He ignores me and prattles on and on, very gushy and intense. I want to leave now. Derek is nearby watching. Now I'm on a couch and a bookshelf contraption slides in front of "Walter" and myself to give us some privacy. I want to leave. He grabs me and tries to kiss me. I fight and scream, "Leave me alone, no no!" I break from his grasp, and I see Derek is frantically getting into his chair to come beat up Walter and protect me. I am sobbing violently and deeply. I drive away in my chair to the van and Derek follows. I am screaming, crying and he won't leave me alone. He hangs onto my handles and hitches a ride with me; he is concerned and loving. I am deeply hurt and sad. This Walter, who I don't like and don't want, wants me. Derek, who I love and want, won't have me. It has been this way all my life. It's not fair. I sob and sob, a deep grieving. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I see a printed piece of paper where my secretary had typed up instructions for how to format the printer. It is dry, boring and wordy. I correct a sentence. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I make a joke to a woman that I really did a good job with turning on the radio program, when it is a totally automatic job at the radio station. I am in a huge warehouse kind of building. I walk away from her to go to my "room." I turn back around and notice that the van, which I thought I had parked near a wall, had been moved over to another position, AND the vandals had taken off a wheel, stripped off hub cabs and mirrors and so on, which are laying on the "ground"/floor. A spray of water is spurting up from a rupture in the "ground/floor" like a pipe had been broken in the violent dismemberment of my van. I wonder if I should leave there. Maybe I'm in danger. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am being pursued by two men who wish to marry me. I am taking my time, choosing which one is the right one for me. One man is dark-haired and nice, but not exciting and gorgeous. I am attracted, but not all that interested. I am thinking of rejecting him. I see a house near the ocean where the side yard literally is the ocean. The children of the family are swimming in it and playing on the rocks in the water. It seems so convenient and wonderful. I feel a bit envious. A young 12- or 13-year-old girl is in the water and someone asks her if they can look at her nose, because she'd had plastic surgery done on it. She is annoyed at their curiosity. Now I see the man I had rejected in the front seat of a car. The passenger side is open and I go to speak to him, to be comforting, as he is hurting from the rejections. A young girl, maybe the same one, comes up and wants to hug him and I hold her off, thinking it would be too teasing, as he can't have what he wants. Now his mother drives up and gets out, walking over to us. I say to him, hanging on to him so he won't run, "Here's your mother." I want him to face her. He feels very rejected and hurt by his mother. She is pretty, with bleached blonde hair and young-looking, but she is older, with wrinkles when you look closer. She's very egotistical and self-centered. She has a dress in her hand, one I used to wear, and is offering to sell it to me. I lay it out across him and me to look at it. He is sort of half laying, half sitting on the seat, diagonal, so his feet are toward the open door. I am seated on the edge of the front seat, facing the back seat, sort of. She points out the beaded strands and the young girl is looking closely at the weave so she can make one like it. I decide to defend the man and I grab her, the mother, and the dress and I am marching her back to her car. I start beating her up with the beaded dress, now big wooden beads, and it hurts her. It's like I'm flogging her. I am angry and selfrighteous. She abandoned the man as a boy and she has no business or right hurting him now. I drag her to her pickup truck and make her drive away. Now the scene shifts and I am married to the man. I had seen the errors of my ways and am being caring and committed to him. We run an inn or a restaurant and I have an apron on, I have dark hair and I am saying, "I need to take my husband his dessert now." I am very loving to him and so happy I had seen my mistake and changed. I had almost made a bad decision when I first chose not to marry him. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in a hospital bed. I am asleep and Dwight comes to my bedside. He is very drunk. I pretend to stay asleep as he tries to talk to me. His drinking buddies try to get him to leave me alone. Finally, he goes to another area. Now I'm playing a violin. I'm playing Christmas carols, "Away in the Manger," and "Oh, Holy Night." At first, it is a bit difficult because of my fingers, then as I continue and practice, I get better and better, not even trying to find the right note, just flinging my fingers and they hit the exact right spot and the most beautiful music comes out. It's sweet violin music. Now a group of interns and the doctor come and surround me on the bed. They are poking and talking and I demand that they stop. I say, "Stop this. Tell me what is going on." They ignore me and I get more insistent and loud. Finally, I get the attention of the doctor, a haughty man, who condescends to listen to me for a moment. I explain how demeaning it is to be ignored. It is my body and I have a right to know what is going on. Now that I got their attention, I let them do the tests, which ends up like a kind of surgery. They make a mistake and I am permanently brain damaged. I am innocent and pliable. Someone decides to marry me because I have great wealth and they want it for themselves. An older man and his son are arguing who will be my groom. I am on the arm of the father. I wear a beautiful, white bridal dress. I vacantly smile and I'm serene. Even though I have some consciousness, maybe my dream self feels worried I'll be hurt and taken advantage of. We are in a vehicle, where I and the two men are in the backseat. The father is on my left and the son is across facing me. I look out the window and see buildings and then see the hospital I had been in and get upset and don't want to see it. I get agitated. Now we are at the place the wedding will take place in. It's a big room. The dancing starts as I sit alone for a moment on a bench. I see three women decide to dance together to start the dancing. They do back flips and strange moves like that. They wear long dresses that are pretty, vibrant and sexy. A man asks his wife to dance and she says, "Not now, here let ____ substitute." It is a boy. The man and the boy dance. I decide I have to go to the bathroom. I get up and wander away. The dream conscious one knows I'll escape this way by getting lost and they can't find me, but the bride doesn't know anything. I go around the back around a building like a grown-over path through an old orchard of trees. I find the shit house, which is filthy and full of shit. I am disgusted by the idea of my white pristine dress being besmirched by all this shit. I go further and see a gate. It's an old wooden one. I open it and go inside. It is a dog kennel. There are lots of large, black dogs, maybe Labradors are being bred there, or housed there. I stand looking. Some men are at the far end. One man -- ugly, large, and mean -- has a double gauge shotgun. He begins to threaten me by pointing it at me and then begins to fire. Bullets hit the wall behind me very close. I am in danger and yet I am still very serene. I wait patiently with just a bit of alarm. Some men try to tell him not to shoot me. He fires the gun at them too, narrowly missing them. Now a beautiful hunk, the hero, in a tan leather jacket, good-looking and capable, comes around the corner. The dream consciousness knows he's the one that will rescue me and I will end up marrying him. He stops the mean guy from shooting at me and the dream fades out, with the dream consciousness knowing it will be a happy ending. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in a car with Bonnie. We are taking the back road. It is a side road which is parallel to the big freeways. It is scenic, there's hardly any traffic and so it's easier to drive on and I get places faster and more refreshed. We come up to a stop sign where the freeway intersects. Now the car is a small airplane. Jock and another man are in it with me and I say, "Shall I fly the plane?" The man, who is at the driver's wheel, starts giving excuses like it will cost 1.15.7 per gallon for the gas and we'd have to go clear over to the gas station, and so on. I say to Jock, "So, are you afraid of flying?" He says, "No, but I know he is." I realize I'm a bit afraid of doing it myself. If I got up there, how would I find this little patch of home to land in again? What if we fell? Now I go into the house and realize it's different. I liked the other house, the one I had before this, better. There are many rooms and so on, but the other house was more spacious and simple, Danish-like in style. There's baby girl and an older girl. They want their bottle. The men want to feed the babies. Where are the bottles? Howard's in there somewhere. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Two nuclear subs are fighting and are going to blow. I start running away so I can escape radiation fallout. I run toward the coast range, up and up and up. Then I'm running up a narrow stairs to an attic. Something scary is after me. I lock the two doors on the stairwell and hide under debris in the attic near a window where I can look out and see the danger. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | The girls are going to be visiting and I am talking on the phone with Howard's third wife. As we are talking, we are constantly interrupted with noisy situations. At first I am out in the fields, green bean fields, and the crews and trucks are too noisy, so I retreat back into the house, which is spacious and huge. There are several hundred Boy Scouts there, and their parents are coming to pick them up in long train cars, like a zoo train. I retreat further and go down to a laundry room, where a mother of a girl who had been visiting comes to get her girl. We go into the next room, where miles of clothes hang on racks in this opulent closet. Even the visiting girl has a rack of her own. The mother is showing me her cute outfits. I admire them. I move down to another level and I am outdoors in a park-like setting with trees. I look up into the sky and there are flying giant pop bottles and other huge debris flying. I realize I'm so far below the earth level that it appears to be flying above me. I also realize that gravity is working and some of these things are falling down. I look for a safe place to sit. I decide to sit under a fir tree so the branches will protect me. I'm still talking to Howard's third wife. Now I go down another level and find a huge shower room and around the corner a luscious bathtub, rich and expansive. I decide I can get into this tub because there is a ramp-like thing which goes up to it so I can use my knees and get up and down. Dovre is there. I ask Howard's wife if Howard is drinking more, as she is telling me hew has disappeared and is more miserable. Yes, he has a drinking problem. I offer to let them stay in my huge house when they come with the girls for a day or so. I say, "Do you want me to get you a motel room? or will you schedule it? or you can even stay here, if you want." I feel generous. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I enter a room, like a store, and Derek/Darryl is there in his wheelchair. I am shy and don't give him much eye contact and connection, even though I love him. Someone is narrating something about how the one who loves and stays learns more and is richer than the one who leaves. It's sort of my thoughts I am directing toward him. I want him to stay and love and learn. He finishes his shopping and rolls out the door. I say wistfully, "Goodbye Derek." He tosses a curt, distant goodbye over his shoulder as he leaves. Now I go into another room, with maybe clothes, maybe Katrina is in there. Now I am in a shopping mall area and see a sweet 6-month-old baby girl in an open store area. I am very happy to see her. She is so cute, innocent, fresh and happy and sweet. I hold her in my lap and am talking to her. I realize she's being sexually abused and I am telling her with empathy that she will have years of hard work ahead of her to learn forgiveness. Her parents are in the store and neglectful. They aren't paying any attention to her. I want to interfere, but know I can't. The girl baby will have to be unprotected and go through this awful pain and she will eventually prevail. There is a dog somewhere around. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Different people are asked to write down whether they thought I and this man were to become lovers or best friends or what. These people are couples. I am reading their responses. They've written them at various stations or places in a room. One couple describes how we learn from each other and grow and do things better because we're together. They think we should get on with it and be lovers or a couple. Another has some reservation and says best friends. But the overwhelming majority thinks we'll be a couple. There's lots of curiosity and build-up excitement about revealing the answers. Now one man has applied for a job. We are interviewing him. He's quite qualified and charming, but I don't completely trust him and I'm double checking his materials. I find a black circle. I ask him to verify that he didn't already give copies of these to the woman president of the college in his admission materials. He's suspicious now. I'm on to him. I continue looking for evidence. Someone yells, "Quick, come look here." I go up on the high open roof where there's a stone wall around the edge (like in a castle). I look over the edge to discover he'd placed a ladder there for his escape after he'd killed. I see he's found me and I struggle and push the escape ladder away from the wall as I also struggle against his attack on me. He's got a blue-colored syringe thing with poison in it and he's trying to stab it in my neck. I fight hard, and as I finally succeed in shoving the ladder far enough for it to fall away, he lunges to rescue it, miscalculates and tumbles over the edge, screaming as he falls to his death. I had nearly been killed and I wake up still feeling the fear and racing heartbeat. I feel like I'm going to have a panic attack. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am on a boat. The planet has been changed somehow. Dangerous aliens have come and transformed things. Ellie is sort of the captain. She informs me she is going to go out there and have unlimited sexual encounters and won't particularly care if she protects herself. I take something she'd been hoarding that would enable her to do that and hide it in my leggings. Ellie is pissed at me. She announces we are about to crash full speed into land. I don't even brace myself. I look out the window and see us coming to land. We crash and are now walking. We find a small hill which has triangles and markings and buttons on it and we realize this is the command com the aliens used. Now a woman approaches. She is one of the aliens. Apparently they used to be mechanical, and due to the crash and emergency conditions here, they had to transform into organic material. They are very unused to being in a body. She points to a small rainbow-colored sort of pony-like creature. I ask, "What the heck is that?" "A horse," she says. I laugh, realizing they had taken their concepts of what animals and people are from a child's book of illustrations, an artist's rendition of reality, and copied that. She shows me other animals. We're sort of in this together. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am driving myself to a lecture I will be giving at a rich upperclass church. I am self-sufficient and well-dressed. I get there and get out of the van to see that there is a flight of stairs up to the church. I sit in my wheelchair, waiting for them to come out and get me in. They have to pick me up, four men, and carry me up the stairs to the stage. I know they are embarrassed and am glad they have this visual lesson. I sit proud and tall. I look down at the audience and begin by talking about how huge and spacious the room is and how it dwarfs the audience with its presence. I then tell them how distant they are from the stage and how unusually high the stage is from them. I use this as part of my lecture on how they choose to keep themselves separate and distant. I am honest, forthright and kind. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am privy to being around the President of the United States. He has selected a new cabinet, new things are going to happen, or there is a potential for it to happen. I am introduced to them. They are powerful and I'm not sure if they'll be good powerful or bad powerful. The First Lady comes in and greets a man, one of the new cabinet members, in a old friends kind of way. She waves at his wife, also her good friend. The President introduces her jokingly as the Last Lady. I sit on the floor, cross legged and informal, watching all this and aware that although I am not really a part of it, because I am being permitted to hang around, eventually I'll make my place among them. A woman comes up. I see she has placed a wrinkled brown paper bag on the table near my place setting. I open it and take out a pretty brown and olive green wool suit. I know she is taking me under her wing and is trying to spruce me up, I say, "Thanks," and then say, "but be warned, sometimes I deliberately wear polyester!" To make a statement, I'll dress "inappropriately." | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am sobbing with grief. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I go to a bedroom that is being cleaned up for someone, perhaps Darcy. I have to pee and sit on a box or chair with stuff on it and pee. Then I quickly try to mop it up with some paper and stuff the paper in a box. My mother comes in and I am very worried she will find out I did this. I take the box out to the garbage so she won't find it. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am on a "raft," which is really a wooden box floating on a river. This is some college retreat conference and also a tourist shaman experience. I notice the sides of the box undo at the nails and one side falls off. I broke the raft. I take it to the old woman native. She looks at me and suggests I do the shaman course. I don't really want to, but it could be fun. I go, not fully into it with my heart, mostly curious. Mabel is there somewhere. We are floating down a river past buildings where military personnel are living, working and studying. I see one room with women military personnel in a classroom. I see strong, good-looking men walking around. Now I'm in the river and my teacher's helper is supposed to dive and show me how to retrieve the knives he has dropped deliberately. One knife is huge, a butcher knife. Another one is small, a paring knife. I watch and then I go under water and retrieve a knife. The old woman is impressed with me. I am going to be a shaman. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | A male dog is a friend of a female cat. She wants to go up the mountain to where the orange cats live. They are called "opal" cats. The dog wraps his tail around her hind legs to prevent her from going. She is annoyed. I ask her how she feels. She shrugs. He's a good friend and doesn't want her to get hurt, but she knows she'd be fine. It would be a fine adventure and challenging. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am talking to my male friend. I am sarcastically joking about how someone uses the children too much. They are sent in to do all the work, "Even the surgery," I say. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | My male friend and I are standing by each other, very quiet and friendly. I ask him to check my scalp for dandruff. He affectionately searches my scalp and says, "No, no dandruff. Just marks where you've been scratching." I take his arm and affectionately walk along side him, holding his arm. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | A champion cowboy has a sweet special champion lamb, with roses on. I like the lamb very much, but it is owned by a trust fund and it will take hard work and perseverance to be able to work through all the red tape and paperwork necessary to make her mine. I'm willing to do it. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I now live in M City and trying to make it there in a new environment. I see two women; one makes some special blocks for the other. The other woman's name is Bette Davis. The woman follows her, trying to give her the blocks, saying, "I adore you." Bette Davis isn't accepting this. I wonder if this is lesbian and it doesn't feel like it. Now I am visiting Aunt Naomi who lives in a camper trailer behind my parents' house. Ellie comes in to talk to Aunt Naomi. I recognize she's here to do some dramatic storytelling and really doesn't want me around to spoil her fun. But I stay and listen in as Ellie whispers to her that she's a bit worried because she's been getting into weird practices again. I say, "Oh, you mean wanting to be Catholic." I am guessing, trying to appear as if I know what's up. I had noticed she's been wearing a big cross necklace. Now it is a metal Bible on a chain around her neck. I say, "Or maybe even wanting to be a nun." "No Mom," Ellie says, "I play at hanging myself." It's a ritual sort of fantasy thing. I am shocked and concerned. I say, "Honey, this is sick. Something is wrong with you that needs looking to." She listens, but goes on wanting to talk with Naomi. I pull Naomi aside and say, "Go ahead and listen to her; she needs support right now. I'll take care of doing something later." I then tell Naomi I've been living in M City, to be near the grandkids, but it's not working out. It occurs to me that I could move back to E City and I see my A. Street house and the white apartment as possible places where I could return. Then I say, "I could even move to Dover." Naomi thinks about this and says, "Probably not Dover, too much traffic." I am excited by the idea of moving and reconnecting with new people, new ideas, etc. I go outside to leave and find Aunt Rosalie, Darcy and Deirdre stopping by to visit Aunt Naomi. I ask them where they are headed. They won't tell me. It's like a secret. I am annoyed. They are here to wash their clothes and rest up and then they're on their way. I keep asking them where they're going and how come they won't tell me. Darcy sighs and says "Venita (or Venusian) near E City." It's an indirect hint, but it's the most she's going to say and she's annoyed I keep pressing her. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Aunt Elaine is mourning the death of Terence. I had driven far to visit her at N City. I am amazed how quick the drive is from Grandma Agnes's house to her house. I go in and she is telling her story of Terence. I see his face. I see hers. She is deeply crying and mourning. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am a waitress at a cafe. My woman boss is very meek. I tell her to remember she is the boss and I teach her to be assertive. A young couple is at one back table. They are in love. Now the playwright group gathers. Eric has some stuff to share. I see the name "B" on one. He announces he has won a short story contest in an important newspaper. I say, "I am envious," but I also am aware the story is about me, so I'm also happy or curious. He starts to read the story, then pauses and says, "I have finally learned what it takes to write, after all these years. You just write...from the heart." I smile because I knew that and he is absolutely right. I'm thinking this story about me, then, must be emotional and from the heart. This pleases me. Now he reads it. It says "WELCOME, B." in headlines. Then it says, "I find you in many places, in between the thin mucus layers of my ____" (a body part, maybe the nose). "You are in 482 points in my" (another body part), "and in 7008 places in my (stomach lining?)" Then he goes on to describe trees and the (state) scenery and so on. I feel a bit disappointed and comment, "I don't like the ending." It doesn't feel like the story had continuity. How can this story have been good enough to win the contest? | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in a room with Eric and some others, one of them a man in a wheelchair (not Derek, but I like him sort of like Derek). I want to tell them of this amazing coincidence of me having a dream about Nate writing this story about me and then here we are together to talk stories. We are walking down some flights of stairs to find a quiet place to talk. I open a door and see a Hult Center type auditorium with some show going on, on the stage. I close the door. We go down another flight of stairs to find a dingy metal green basement and we go back up that one flight of stairs. We go through the Hult Center door and walk quietly through the hall at the back of the audience to a cafe. We sit. The tables are small, square ones, room for two at each table. Now some other people are with us and I want there to be room for the man with the wheelchair to sit at my table across from me so he can enjoy the dream I'm going to tell. Now my father is seated at the end on the left and my mother at my left. A young couple in love is between my parents. My Aunt Rosalie is on my right. My father comes in smiling with a tray of special desserts he bought for the young couple to honor this moment (of wedding or being in love). It interrupts my starting to tell the dream. We admire and look at what's on the tray -- red and white striped ice cream swirled in a dish, a bottle of what looks like champagne, but my mother looks at the label and we agree it's almost champagne, the cheaper version. My father is smiling, very pleased with himself. I am a bit annoyed, but still trying to get the attention so I can tell this interesting dream coincidence thing. Now I see my father has on some kind of mask which hides his gentle, kind face. I try to speak and he sounds like he wants to hear, but then he interrupts with a story of his own or something and I go quiet. Now Aunt Rosalie is having an argument with Sparky off in another room and I feel angry and put upon. My day is getting spoiled. I feel guilty because my relatives have somehow taken over this day and Sparky is going to be mad at me because we've moved in and not paid our share for the rooms. I didn't mean for this to happen. It's beginning to look hopeless that I'll be able to impress this man in the wheelchair like I'd like to with my fine story. I am frustrated and sad. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | George and I are in his house. I am visiting. He wants to sketch me. I sit, half lie, on the couch in a restful pose. He sketches. He likes me very much. Now I am walking through the room drinking some milk out of a gallon glass jug. I am going to the refrigerator to put the milk back in. I feel a bit guilty about drinking right out of the jug. Now I walk back through the living room and watch his parents, or somebody's parents, arguing. The teen daughter is mad at them. The mother has her back to us and is telling the stepfather to leave. This makes the teen daughter happy. I walk past and am touring the house. I see a large room with lots of spacious windows. The river, brown and muddy is swirling in and rising. I am a bit concerned, but not too much. Perhaps it won't rise so high as to enter the rest of the house. I see an elephant swimming in the river, in the room, and two alligator/part human creatures wrestling each other. I walk on and see an adjourning room, George's brother's room. It too is semi-flooded. Now George is showing me his room. He opens the door and I see a narrow, long, empty closet. I try to see a bedroom. I pull back a cloth, perhaps tie-died, to peek behind it and only see the wall with old wallpaper on it. But now it opens up and is his bedroom. There are plants, a living tree, and huge sky windows in the ceiling. I look up and see huge piles of junk, mostly empty cardboard boxes, empty wine bottles and so on, hanging upside down. I say to George, "Hey, is that really up there above my head, or is this just a perspective, point of view thing" He says, "It's just the perspective." I am relieved. I now walk through back door, a lovely glass door, and see the outside. I see a pond, which is a continuation of the river, less muddy. There's a marker rope and then the pond widens out into a lake where recreation things are happening -- little paddle boats, swimmers, etc. I start to walk over there, but George comes out, perhaps in a wheelchair, and says to me,"Wait. Stay with me. I love you." | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | A large house. I notice I'd been only living in a few of the rooms and have many empty rooms I can expand into. I could have an art room, a writing room, a music room. I am having a good time finding furniture to move into these empty rooms. I choose to take the breakfast things out to a table on an outdoor landing. It will be pleasant and unusual. Ginny is there. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Nightmare. I have red, white and blue poker chips and these black men are trying to take them from me. I run away and dive in the river. I swim just to the left of the other woman captive, only I am just under the surface of the water. I know it is a good, safe spot for me. They are looking for me. They will rape and hurt me if they find me, and take away my poker chips. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | My cousin Terence is flirting with me. He'd wrestle gently and I'd accidentally fall back on the floor and he'd "fall" on top of me and we'd sneak kisses and so on. It was very pleasant and I knew vaguely it wasn't right, but it was so delicious, I didn't work hard to avoid it. He was an adventurer, a wanderer, and was home for a short while. I was working on a play. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am married to Howard and have a baby. I am deeply angry at him. I won't let him speak to me. He tries to apologize and make up, but I won't let him. Even though I am bitterly angry, I continue to do my work. I sweep, mop, hang up clothes, and take care of the baby. I am a good wife, but angry. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I read a book that took me along time to get into, but after I kept at it a while, became interesting. It is a series of vignettes about towns, the last one being Mapleton. Now I decide to move to Mapleton. I am biking down the old highway and see a lovely stretch of grass and decide to bike across the "moors" for fun. It's very pretty and pastoral. Now I am in town and finish my errand and am biking back to my new home. My front wheel keeps getting caught in the old grooves of the asphalt and it pulls me a bit, so I struggle to keep on the road. I manage. I cross a bridge. I see I have a long way to go, maybe eight miles. I hope I get home before dark. I'll be tired, but oh well, it's a pretty ride and an adventure. I am munching on carrot sticks. As I approach a railroad crossing, the red lights come on. I know I'm supposed to stop, but I don't. I slow down and look and then scoot across anyway. At the last track to cross I look up and realize the train is almost upon me. I get across and then see the crossing guard bar. I think, "How silly of me to have forgotten they'd be down, how will I get by?" Then I see a way to sneak around the end. I am hearing the nuns chant as they go to seek answers or information from a young mystic girl. She was called a "pronuncio." She keeps repeating over and over, "You can not be plotted. You cannot be dated." [BL] | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I have a big, rotting black space on my back teeth. Food is lodged there and a cavity is there. I keep picking at it and bits come out. Finally two teeth have fallen out and chips have been removed. I have a hard time getting my jaw to open enough to inspect it and work on it, but this time as I look, I see the teeth are hard and white and fixed. My work had a positive result. I comment to someone that since I'd chosen to sit in the high chair with the toddler baby girl, I'd been able to take better care of my teeth and they got better. The little girl is lively and cute. The high chair is an old-fashioned, little thin metal one. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am trying to clean up the messy floor. There is lots of dust and dirt and lint and so on. I start with a broom and realize all that sawdust will be hard to do with a broom, so I get a vacuum cleaner as well. I'm working hard to clean it all up. [BL] | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am at a cabin at the ocean on the front porch. I see a mother cat and her baby kittens, white and black, sort of spotted, striped. I sit and hold one kitten and cuddle it. It is very sweet and cute. Derek wheels out. He's a bit pudgy in the middle, sort of a comfortable teddy bear kind of guy, and I put my head in his lap and we are very happy, sitting together playing with the kitten. It is soft and comfortable. Then it is time to go, to move on, and we go inside to clean up before we leave. The floor is a mess: dust balls, dirt, lots of stuff. I am sweeping with a broom. Derek is trying to clean the floor also. The landlord comes in and is annoyed and gruff, saying we haven't cleaned it all up yet. I am angry at him and we have words. The dream sort of fades out at this point. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am somewhere, inside. Derek had been there and had just left. I see Lisa (playwright) and she is dancing playfully with a very close girlfriend. They kiss. I wonder for a moment if they are lesbian. A man nearby doesn't approve. I need to find a bathroom. I'm at a University, maybe a building like Autzen Stadium. I go down lots of halls looking for an accessible bathroom. Then I see a book stall where they sell writing things. I see the pens and am now looking for the right pen. I see the cheaper ones and hope to find a good-feeling pen there, but am drawn to the really pretty ones that are more expensive, fountain pens with clicker tops and feathers attached to the cap. They are special pens to be used at special occasions where there are guest books to be signed. But I will use this pen for my writing. I test it out and like the way the wet ink looks on the paper, only it spots a few blue ink marks on my hand. I kind of like that, a mark of a writer. Then the ink thins out and it's scratchy on the paper. Maybe this is the demo pen and I could find one that writes more consistently better. I find a colorful one with iridescent colors, but it has a kind of rough, scratchy feeling when I try it. No good for me. Needs to be a smooth ride. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | A couple started their relationship very loving and richly caring. Then it became fighting and distant. I come into the house and see fettucine on the floor, not cleaned up. I go in and am wishful of the beginning time again when things were loving. Now I am in the streets, trying to find City Hall, the City Planning Department. I guess I need a permit or something. Another woman, perhaps a sister, and I are lost. I see a building and go over to it and realize this is it. I go in. There are marble floors, fancy signs, etc. I see the directory. I can't make out what floor the department is on. I go to the elevator and get in, determined to go to each floor, although I think it is maybe 4th floor or 9th floor. A young man comes into the elevator backwards with an old ritualistic step, like a hop (Raymond like feet). I get out and have found the office. My sister Lydia is there and a man. I am looking around the nearly empty room thinking this would be a great room to do my writing in. I go to a window with an attic-like enclosure structure around the window, which makes an alcove, and think, "This would be where I'd love to put my writing desk." I go there and notice that when I sit there, I can see a lovely view of an old Victorian house out the other window. Now the man is in love with Lydia and we are wearing old-fashioned long silk dresses (1800's). She has black hair tied up in ringlets and mine is blonde. The man wants us to go to his house. We do. He is very rich and the house is a Victorian mansion. He introduces Lydia to his mother; they try on a bridal gown for her. I try to take a picture of her and look through the lenses of her glasses to take the picture. One lens is scorched and scratched from her having looked through it. I look at her through it and say, "Too bad the colors won't turn out well. I guess I'll take the picture just to have a memory snapshot. It won't be a good picture." I snap the picture and finish the roll of (reel?) film. I start to open the back of the camera too quickly. I hope I didn't ruin the picture. Now Lydia and the man's mother go out of the room to make arrangements for the wedding. The man comes over to me; he also secretly loves me. I am aware of his feelings and try to deflect or ignore them. I look out the window as he tries to press his face near mine and tries to turn my face so he can kiss me. Finally I say, without giving him much eye contact, "You love my sister, sir. This cannot be." He is sad. He now wants to give me a tour of the house. He goes down to the end of a hall and opens a door. I look in. It's a bedroom, fairly modern and ordinary looking. There are two beds, one with a yellow bedspread, one with a blue-green one. I say, shocked, "Why have you shown me a private room?" I realize it is his bedroom. I turn and start to walk away, down the hall. He goes into the room and comes back out hurriedly with a small box that has a bird egg collection. It was his when he was a boy. I am touched. Then Lydia and his mom returns and he hurriedly covers the bird's egg collection with a piece of cloth so they won't see. Somehow this is too intimate for our relationship. Lydia is carrying a huge tray with goblets and things on it. It is too heavy for her and I see from her eyes she is on the verge of being hysterical. He takes the tray from her to help and I say to him, "Take care of her," and I leave the house. I am vaguely aware they are going to send out their car to take me home, but I don't know for sure, so I hesitate and look around. I see a big square limo (more shaped like a hearse, only more box-like). It is picking up or leaving off a young woman in a wheelchair; must be the neighbors. I start to walk. I stop and hesitate again looking back. I see a regular, but fancy car. Maybe that's it. A woman comes around the porch of the neighbor's house and I offer to buy a candy in her tray for a ruble. I see a second boxy limo and walk back. Another woman comes over and says in an angry haughty voice that she is appalled I would offer a ruble to the neighbor woman, thinking she was the maid. Something about not being in my own class and putting on airs. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am going to N City. I am driving a car and am alone. First I am lost. I can't remember which way to turn, left or right. I decide left, then there are many lanes of fast traffic and as I speed up to merge, I don't do well. A white car is forced to speed up and leap over me. A second car grazes my fender. I am concerned because I could be in real danger here, I almost had two car wrecks. I come to another turn, then a bridge construction where a man holds up a stop sign. I put on my brakes (I had spelled it breaks!), but am not slowing down fast enough. My Grandma Agnes is a passenger and someone else is in the back seat. They are trying to brake also. We are concerned. I pull to the right so I don't crash into the other cars and end up stopped way over the stop line. I am embarrassed at my driving skills. I continue on, a bit lost again. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Ellie is going away for a few days and I decide to go to N City for the day and then put myself in a foster care home for a few days until Ellie returns. I am curious what it would be like and it would be nice to be taken care of. Ellie warns me to take the back streets out of town because the main street is clogged with traffic because of a football game or something. I try to, but get all twisted around and find dead ends and odd corners and end up going out of town the wrong way, up over the mountains toward M City (I think I'm in M City). I try to find a place to turn around, but that will put me in the traffic jam. Then I realize the game is started because the traffic has freed up some. I stop by the foster home to check in. The helpers are very busy with the other patients. Two colorful cowboy hats (huge) with little short puppet like legs keep darting in and the helpers keep chasing them away playfully. They are dancers. Two of the helpers are choreographers of dance. I see a table with color pens and markers on it. I realize I'd forgotten to pick up Charla to take to N City with me. I decide to call her and then go back and get her. I try to get Ellie's number out of my electronic address book. I type in "B" and it keeps being mistyped with extra letters. I repeatedly try to do it and am unsuccessful. I finally realize I'm in the wrong search mode. I also realize this isn't the right place for me. They do too much help; they are used to patients with severe difficulties and I'm really quite self-sufficient. I am a bit embarrassed. As I am leaving, one woman has penciled in art work on her white smock or blouse. I comment on them. She has started to color them in. I comment on the brilliant purple and orange colors. I like them. If I stayed, I'd probably want to use those coloring pens and draw something. As the woman goes out ahead of me, she's saying she won't be here Monday night, and I know that I won't be coming back here. I'm going home after my N City visit. I feel good about this decision. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am seated in an easy chair and a small, deformed baby girl is trying to move around near me. I reach out to touch her lovingly and encouragingly. She doesn't want to be touched. Her eyes are puffy, wrinkled small like a burn victim, and lots of burn scars on her tender, hurting body. She pulls back and I say gently to her "It's all right. I won't touch you if you don't want." I smile. She keeps close and wiggles around so that she is actually permitting us to be nearly touching, shyly letting me be close. I keep talking lovingly and then she reaches out and pulls herself on to me. I must touch her to keep her from falling and only do it gently and with intent to support her own movements, never as a holding or a restriction. I am very happy she lets me do this. Then she sees another baby, a newborn, laying on the chair near me. It too looks oddly deformed, sharp, pointed head, elfin ears. She wants to touch the baby. I help her move over there, at one point needing to pick her up and adjust her position so she can get where she obviously wants to go. I apologize to her encouragingly so she knows I'm only doing what she will permit. Then she opens her mouth and tries to swallow the baby's head, out of curiosity, only now it's not a baby but some tiny toy yellow plastic shoes like for a doll. I am a bit concerned she'll swallow them and get hur, but she's all right. Then Ginny is seated to my right and she says, "I can't ever hear your American Woman play without only hearing you. I laugh and say, "I understand. Mirabelle can't either. Both of you know me so well you can't hear the universality of it." She agrees. I laugh suddenly as I am now aware that there are a number of cute fuzzy cats with beautiful eyes all looking right at me as I am speaking. I say to Ginny, "Oh, this is so great. Look, there are..." and I count up to thirteen, then add fourteen so it won't be an unlucky number. I repeat, "There are fourteen cats staring at me right now." I laugh richly at the beauty and fun of it. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I go over to Derek's house, worried, because he had called and asked me to come over and I knew he was in trouble. I get to the door and it has been kicked around so that it is in three thin sheets. I get in and see papers and stuff strewn all around. He'd been throwing and breaking things. I say, "Hello." He calls out, "Here." He's in the bedroom. I go down the hall and go into the bedroom. Instead of a regular bed, he is wrapped up in a wet suit material like sack. He's plugged into a sort of bathtub bed. His face is entirely covered with a blue plated mask. I can see an eye peek out and a bit of his tousled hair. He is writhing in pain and sadness. I sit down on the foam, wet sack, and try to stroke him to help calm him. I haven't a clue what part I'm touching, maybe below the break where he can't feel it, or up on his chest. I soothe him and tousle his hair a bit as he wiggles and squirms around, groaning. He lightly kisses me back, near my breasts, and is trying to acknowledge my presence. It is hard for him. I am wearing a pair of shorts, dark blue, and a summer blouse. Sometimes I am naked. It is semi-sexy and very intimate, but the purpose is to assist him through this bad time. He tries to put more warm water into the sack he's in and I feel the coolness leave the sack and it is warm. Then he unplugs his catheter bag down by his feet, which is plugged into the tub drain. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am a woman and am at The White Sands Blasting Grounds. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in a room where lots of activities are going on, like ladies playing cards at a table, and two women seated, reading, etc. I am there to have a session with my psychiatrist. I call him Dwight. He says to me, "I don't feel comfortable with you calling me by my first name so informally. I prefer you call me Dr._____ because you are a very repressed woman and it would embarrass me to be out socially or in public and have people think we are friends." He then hesitates about wanting to do the session in this room because of all the other people. I want that session, so I efficiently go over and pick up the table the ladies are at and walk it out the door, forcing the ladies to follow so they can finish their card game. I then go to the two women in easy chairs and say to them, "Please try to read more quietly." I feel pretty good about taking care of the situation. I remember the doctor had a tuft of gray hair on one side of his face, maybe his left as he faces me. Others had that same kind of tuft of hair. It's like a bushy sideburn, only growing out of his cheek. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | A native American man is telling a story in some auditorium. I listen. He comes up to me later and wants to meet me and get my opinion. He likes me intensely. I have two daughters who are sleeping on a pile of coats. This is a pow-wow kind of thing. He kisses me passionately. He wants me. I am very attracted and turned on, but I hesitate and say, "I have to take the girls home." He says, "We can find a place for them to sleep here." He says, "We don't have to make love now, or anything, but please just stay." He says it with such strong need and desire and love for me. I kiss him passionately. I will stay. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | It is dream night. Some new people have come. Derek tells his dream. I'd heard this one before and remind him of a detail he'd left out. Then I begin to tell my dream. Just then, lots of people, all dressed up for a fancy party, come in and now the woman who is new to the dream group is decorating my fancy, ritzy apartment for a party. It's her friend's birthday. I am shocked and upset. She simply takes over and very quickly the place is crawling with strangers and the music is blaring and the decorations are all over. Derek says to me, "I don't know about you, but if it were me, I'd be extremely pissed." I pace back and forth, back and forth, angry, and yet, look at all the trouble they went to. It's so big it would be impossible to get them out and they'd be angry at me. I pace some more. Derek hands me a bottle of drink and I take swigs off it as I pace. I ask what it is because I can't taste it. He says, "It's apple juice." Now I am walking through the rooms, watching, my eyes blazing in anger. I go to my bedroom. Derek sees in my face that I'm about to go ballistic and he loves it. He's grinning from ear to ear and following me around. I go into my bedroom and check to see if any of my jewelry had been taken. Then I find a couple making love in my bed and I start screaming, "Everybody out. The party's over!" I grab women by the hair and drag them to the door. I start ripping down decorations and wires to music speakers. I grab a microphone from the party MC and tell everyone to get out. "This is my apartment and no one asked me permission to have this party and it's over." I am getting them all out as they bitch and complain and get sullen. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I wake up in a double bed, at Nate's house. He is standing at the side of the bed saying, "Wake up, Barb, look at what I got you." I open my eyes sleepily and look to see the bed is covered with lots of coins, mostly quarters. It is Nate's little joke gift for me. I am very aware of his mother at the end of the bed suspiciously watching my reactions. I remain calm and noncommittal. Somehow, I am their guest for the weekend. My father is around somewhere. I get up, trying to be casual. Nate is now standing at the other end of the room, leaning against the wall talking to his girlfriend. I feel like a fifth wheel. I am uncomfortable. Later, we have a quick moment of aloneness to talk as I try to find my two purses in the airplane to carry with me so no one will steal my money. We can't touch or kiss as his mother is lurking around watching. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am sitting on a rocking bench in a coffee house, cafe. Listening to a group of singers. The woman singer screws up and has to start the song over a number of times. it's OK. Nobody seems to mind. I sit there alone. A man, lean, skinny, a bit of a day growth of beard comes over and sits next to me. We'd met once before, he reminds me. We talk a bit and slowly he comes closer and I open to him and now I'm almost sitting in his lap, my arm around his neck and the feeling is tentative. I wonder if he's just making the moves, but I like him. We are rocking the bench. He says, "Look." I say, "At what?" He says, "Look," and looks over to the left side of the bench where a small disk drive from my computer is sitting. When we rock, it makes the disk drive lights come on and off (yellow and green). I chuckle. He then asks me if I want to go to Coffee Joe's or some other coffee bar. I am interested, but I say, "I don't like coffee, sorry." He says something like, "Well, I've been thinking of giving it up." We smile. He nibbles gently on my arm. We rock some more. Then he says, "Do you like your____?" I say "What? I couldn't get the word you said." He repeats the question at least three times because I'm not understanding the last word. He repeats it again. "Vidas," I say, "what's that?" He says, "Your tapes." I decide that means my writing. I shrug and think for a moment. I say, "Yeah, most of it, I do. Some of it is shitty, especially the earlier stuff. But I'm going to be rewriting it, making it better." I say to him gently, "And you? I'll bet you're the creative type." He closes his eyes and I see a look of pain and longing. I understand this. He is creative, but can't get to it, or doesn't do it, or doesn't believe in himself. I touch his face affectionately. Now we are interrupted by two young people, his friends. The scraggly teen boy makes sign language gestures. They are telling him it's time to go. The boy then says, "You always get the girls." The man smiles a bit sadly. It's true, he always gets the girls, but so what? He then kisses me and I return the kiss, but it is not all that pleasant. I am disappointed a bit, a kiss open-mouthed without much good response. Oh well. He's leaving now. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | A heavyset man with a black beard, a "bear" of a man, is traveling by horse across a southwestern desert. His horse is carrying secret listening devices from the CIA to spy on him. He doesn't know they are there. Now I am a young woman in a long dress (1800's) on a horse and he is taking me across the desert. He had gotten off his horse and peed. I could see the shadow of his back and hear the water hit the ground. Then he sits to have a bowel movement. Then he realizes the CIA devices are on the horse and removes them. Now I am sick with fever or heat stroke. The man is now sort of Jeremiah Johnson (Robert Redford/Derek) and he takes off my many layers of socks, five or six he counts, and shakes his head because that is too stupid in this environment. He strips off my clothes and lays me on a blanket, naked, and covers me with another blanket. But now he is sexually aroused because I am pretty and naked. He takes all his clothes off and stands near me. I can't see his penis, but it's there. Then he lays down on me. I am on my tummy and our skins touch and it is soft and gentle, but I am very afraid. I beg him to please leave me alone. He is hot with desire and yet knows this is wrong to take advantage of me, so he just lays there wanting me and feeling our skins touch, but not doing much else. I don't know if he's going to be honorable and I beg and cry in fear. I feel the tip of his hard penis on my leg and then he stands up and leaves me alone. I fall into a fevered sleep. He takes care of me. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in a huge ranch house. I live there. I am walking back through the rooms. Perhaps I heard some noise that makes me think someone is prowling around. As I pass through a series of large rooms, I notice a man in an alcove where a telephone booth is. He's not supposed to be there. I go to him and demand he leave. He's some reporter from National Public Radio (NPR) wanting to interview some things that are going on around my ranch house. I am not interested in these events, nor am I happy he's around. I tell him to leave and try to lock the window screen. I realize there are a lot of windows that are part way open and so on. It would be impossible to get him out if he kept trying to get in. He goes out to his crew. I go back to the main living room where my "dad" sits in a chair and I see a lunch pail or file box by him and realize this sneaky man has gotten permission from my father to not only do his news stories but to be in the house. I am very upset. I've decided I really don't like this good-looking man. He is in the other room, at the doorway, listening to me, smiling, because he likes me. He likes my feistiness too. So I now know he's going to be around and there's nothing I can do about it. I grudgingly go sit on the couch next to him, which is the first sign that I am realizing I do like him and am attracted to him. He is Republican and I am Democrat, but I have the feeling he is starting to make a decision to change as he is getting fed up with the Republicans. He has a packet of material, a press release kind of thing, political. He's signing his signature. A man (maybe the "dad") watches how he signs his name and does some in imitation to help him out. I go look at the signature, which is a wild scribbling in black ink, then a series of pastel colored hash marks in a sort of vague flower shape. I notice that each time he does his signature, it is uniquely different. I start to do some of the packets for him, imitating his signature. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in the M City house. I am talking to Ellie and I suddenly remember that I have a pretty white cat with cocoa brown ears in a cage upstairs and I haven't remembered her for weeks. Perhaps she has died for lack of food and water. I feel horrible. I say to Ellie that usually my helpers fed her, but lately I haven't needed so much help and I just forgot about feeding the cat. I feel like a murderer. I go quickly upstairs and I'm suddenly surprised to remember that my parents had remodeled this upstairs bedroom area before they moved out and left the house to me. I go into the big bedroom and I'm surprised to see how changed it is and realize I've lived in the house for months and haven't even gone up here to look. Somehow, perhaps Ellie went up and got the cat or whatever, but now she is out of her cage and seems to be fine. Maybe her legs are a bit shaky from lack of exercise and the confinement of the cage. I am grateful she is alive. My other cats, a black fuzzy one and another white one, only with light brown paws and lower legs, are all playing together. I am happy they get along so well. Now, I look around the room. It's quite large, painted off-white and there's a fireplace on one wall. I try to remember what it looked like when I was a child and I lived there, thinking my bed used to be in that corner. I turn to the right and see the bed, a double bed, and two fireplaces and a gas stove-like thing in between. There are fires burning in them and I am again surprised and upset with myself. This has been untended for months. It could have burned the house down. I wonder how it kept going so well so long and decide they are gas fireplaces. I see a control box and try to read the instructions so I can turn off the fires. I wonder if I should let them continue to burn, because it must help heat up the house. I notice the ceiling, which is not finished. There are holes between the boards. This part of the remodel apparently never got finished. I see objects on the ceiling above the bed, and lay down to see what my parents wanted to see when they were lying down. An old musket rifle, another rifle, and a strange fox hunt horn like thing are on the ceiling. "That's weird," I think. Then my father comes into the room and asks if I want the air adjusted. I say, "Sure." He gets a stick (pole) and reaches up to a high shelf to manipulate something. I watch so I'll know how to do it. Then I see a mirror and see my mother reflected. She is painting a picture. I turn to see where she should have been from the reflected image, which would be the wall where the fireplaces are, only she's not there. I step closer to the mirror. This is really weird. She's in there, or maybe it's a window to another room, only now it's not my mother but some man painting. I turn back to look at the room and see several more people are there. I see my mother and suddenly with horror I realize it's not her, nor is that man my father. Aliens are there in human form. They start to surround me. I see a younger man coming closer. A woman is in front of me and they say, "Your face is changed too." I now have a hand mirror and see with horror it is not my face. The lips are pointed, like Patricia's. I'd rather have my own face back. I liked it better. I strike the approaching woman with the hand mirror across her face and this hurts her. She stumbles back. The man approaches and I hit him. I realize I can hurt them and in the confusion I run for the stairs. I managed to get to the living room, with the man right behind me. He nearly has me and I keep hitting him with the mirror, using the handle to poke him in the groin as well. I dash outside to the street, cross the street, still hitting at the man and screaming, "Help, help." Finally a bunch of cars and pickup trucks stop and people are getting out to help me. The man runs away. I realize I can't tell them the truth about what happened. They'll think I'm crazy and put me away. I also realize it's going to take some getting used to being this other person, with this other face. I wake up, hearing that cry for help, "Help, help," still echoing in my mind. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am now in a huge, enclosed place, like a mall, only the aliens are all over the place, killing and torturing people. One family of aliens in human form live in a house in this mall-like place. I and my husband, Michael Keaton, are their slaves. We watch their children for them. We are trying to think of ways to escape. I realize suddenly that maybe the reason they hurt us so easily without any care or concern is that they cannot feel pain and therefore do not know what they are doing to us, that they are causing us such suffering. We know that somehow we have to get them to feel the pain. I strike at the woman and Michael tries to hurt the man. Finally the woman feels some pain and starts to understand. She is upset now that they are hurting us and assures me I was a good caretaker for their children. Michael and I run. We see that there is sleet or hail falling outside and we know we must get these aliens out there to feel that, maybe slip and fall or feel it hitting them. We run through the mall halls and they all give chase. We duck into a series of rooms, and Michael comes out of one room with the alien woman saying in a dazed and stupidly happy way, "God, the sex was great." I realize he'd actually stopped in the middle of all this crisis and had sex with the alien. He says to her, "Now how about I rub your _____, a bony part of the back, which is how they have sex." I am not happy about all this, but it is more important to get these aliens outside, so I get Michael's attention and he comes out of his euphoria. We run more, get split up I signal to him, "I'm going down this hall," and he is blocked from me by aliens and he hand signals he understands and will meet me later. I run down a huge flight of stairs. I don't want to fall because then I'd feel the pain, not them. I get to the outside door only to see that there are gang thugs out there and the cops are not going to be helpful. I chance it and run through the alley, only to find myself in another enclosed mall space. I keep trying to get out to the open air. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Jean-Luc Picard and an "Emperor Boss" are there. Jean-Luc is aware that he is in the present, but there are chunks of his past he is not aware of. He must simultaneously regain the memories of the past and continue to function in the present. The Emperor Boss is a pain in the butt. Then Scotty says to Jean-Luc, "I am a senior trusted officer, why do you have to oversee me too?" It hurts his feelings. Jean-Luc tries to explain that it is good policy to always be examining things and noticing even old trusted ones. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in Derek's house and it is dream group time. I see a woman standing with her back to me and I say, "Hi, Lisa." She turns and it isn't Lisa. I feel embarrassed, especially since that might make Derek know I was thinking about him and Lisa. Derek decides to go to the grocery store. Then an overweight man sits on the couch and I sit next to him and then Eric comes and sits on my right. It's very cozy. I am explaining to them what we did at the last meeting that they had missed. I am telling them and then I ask for my notes. Derek is back and he hands me my note pad. I open it and laugh realizing that I thought I'd written words but I had only drawn pictures to remind me. That's not going to help the people who weren't there. Then I pick up another note pad and see writing. I try to read it, but I see I've only written a few words or phrases to remind me. One says, "Three strikes and you're out," then a space and then two other words, "jerk" and another word. I say to the overweight man, "I can't remember what this was about." Derek comes up to me with a silly grin on his face and I say, "What's with the Kirk Douglas grin?" I then look over next to him on his right and see the real Kirk Douglas. Derek had met him in the grocery store and brought him home to meet us. Kirk is interested in me and is flirting. Derek is a little jealous of that and of how I let those two men sit so close to me on the couch. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am on a big motorcycle (probably a Harley Davidson). I am going down a highway and coming to a bridge. A man on a motorcycle is in the left lane and I feel like racing him so I speed up. He's pretty fast. Then I notice a racing course across the river and I turn right, off the highway and down to the wooden bridge with a break in the middle, for the motorcycle to jump. I rev up and go like hell, leaping over the expanse of water and then landing in the mud and sand trap set there to make the course really difficult. I squirrel around in the mud and sand cleverly, "riding" the ruts left there by other bikers. I am very successful and the head biker is watching with appreciation and interest. He wants to know who I am, so he starts to follow me. I ride away fast to try and lose him. I end up at the University, where I teach, get off the bike, and changed clothes real fast and go up to my classroom and teach. When I return to the bike, he and his biker cronies are there waiting for me to return so they can meet me and know who I am. I hide and listen in to their conversation. I am attracted to the head biker and finally reveal myself to him. We make love. It feels great. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am talking with Howard about arrangements for the Christmas party. It's a big annual event and I already bought my pretty blue formal gown. Howard says he doesn't know if he wants to go. He'll be busy teaching and can't get there until 10:00 at night. Half the party will be over by then. I sigh. I say, "Oh well, I'm still going." I then am talking to Lucy on the phone. She is sighing and saying she doesn't know if she wants to go to all the work and trouble of going to the party. I am pouring kayo syrup over Rice Krispies and eating it all with a spoon. It is thick and too much syrup, but very, very sweet. I say, "Yeah, I know. I'm not sure why I'm going either. Howard won't be there until late, so I'll be alone. I don't like the people there. They are so correct and so judgmental all the time. I kind of like to do things differently, my own way just to annoy them, but it is tiring hearing their point of view all the time. MAYBE I'll FLIRT WITH THIS CUTE MAN I know. After all I've already got the dress." Then Lucy says, "Maybe I'll stay home and write a book with all my accomplishments and projects all in the book, so at least they'll all be together in one place. It's like Justin doesn't appreciate or even know what all I've done." I say, "Yeah, good idea. My father did that this year. He just wrote up a sort of autobiography of this year's doings and gave it to all of us family. It's kind of neat he's doing that. Guess he's getting old now and does what he wants to do no matter what other people think of it." | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am traveling across the semi-desert badlands. I come upon a fighting circle of Indians. I am surrounded. It isn't my fight, but I am curious about the black feathers tied to the reins of a black horse. I recognize them and wonder if they belong to an Indian I know. I decide to steal the pony and leave the dangerous fighting area. An Indian, my friend, is mad at me for abandoning them there. I ride away and look out over the vista, miles and miles of, and I look forward to a long hard ride to another mesa where a town is. It's exploring time, vacation. I ride hard and long. As I approach the town, I get a phone call from Archie. He is upset with me and wants to talk, but he won't come to the point. I get off the horse and walk with him into the Parks and Rec building where we've danced contact improv before. He is near tears, very intensely upset and emotional. I am calm and caring and also wanting him to say what he really thinks. I am also a bit smiling because I think he won't admit that he, as the director, is upset because we are branching out on our own. He says, "I've heard that some dancers are "_____" and uses a word, a special dance term, that means "moving the move" in contact improv language. I smile and say, "And what's so wrong?" He won't really say. I never help him out by saying, "Yes, we've decided to try some dancing on our own, but that doesn't mean we are betraying you." It feels like he feels betrayed and abandoned. He walks a circle around me and around me as he talks. The carpet is uneven and makes it hard for me to keep my balance. Some people come in and interrupt, so I say, "Let's go into the next room." We do; it has a gym floor. I am relieved and say so. I can keep on my feet more steadily that way. Now we're semi-reclining on a couch. I have my hand sympathetically on his arm. He talks around the issue, but I wait for him to say, "I feel hurt and betrayed and I love you and you went off without me and I'm the director and you shouldn't do that to me." He then says he's been thinking of cutting Emery and Bonnie off soon anyway. I know that's just a defensive move and try to gently argue with him that that's not fair. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am reading a report that Millie made for me as her job as my publicist. It is too wordy and doesn't focus on what I want it to. She comes up all happy to see how I liked her report. I sit down and start explaining. I say, "It's great, really, but look, these first two sentences about men's voices and women working for democracy and motherhood, that's the first thing the people will read and this isn't what I'm trying to say. I want them to know about my creativity and my works." She explains why she thought that was a good idea and why she started the report that way. Then I point to the picture of Ellie and Charla and a bunch of other people and say, "You spend pages talking about them and my relationship with them, but that's not the point. My creative projects are the point. People don't know this is my daughter and my granddaughter." Millie feels a bit defensive and I'm trying not to hurt her feelings. Now I watch a woman, like Sally Fields, all cute and perky, who is going into a big office place to retrieve a doll for her daughter. The man boss is asking her questions about her creative talents. She shrugs and says she's too busy with making this doll for her daughter. The man looks at the Raggedy Ann doll and sees it is well made and says, "How did you make that?" She says, as she struggles to put the good one up on the window with sticky stuff on the forehead, "I just saw the pattern and then made it." The man is impressed with her skill, but the woman isn't even focusing and doesn't realize she has any talent. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Fred Astaire is married to another woman. But it isn't working out. I like him and am trying to encourage him to break from old patterns. He is shy and used to routine. There are a bunch of teens he is trying to teach. They are surly and unruly. I am going to go to the opera with Fred, and as we walk down a hall, I hug him, leaning him up against the wall and cuddling. He feels a bit strange and doesn't respond, although he likes it. He is after all still married to the other wife even though he doesn't love her any more. Now we're in the auditorium. He's being loving and trying to encourage the teens. Women are talking about me behind my back. I interrupt them and try to involve them in some sort of gesture game. They start to like me a bit more. Off in the distance, the actors are singing away. Now it's a sort of prison and the guards are after the teens and Fred. I call him Freddie. I sneak into a room where I see Freddie's things arranged like at an altar, only it's at a small sink, few metal round things and some seashells. I decide to put a few of these things down the garbage disposal, realizing he'll probably be upset with me, but somehow this will be more safe for him if I get rid of these things. Only I realize that metal things in a garbage disposal are noisy and will not stop being ground up so it will call attention to the room. I feel a bit stupid. I should have realized that before I plopped them in. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I have a lot of boxes and bags, of groceries and things. I see Curtis Salgodo and he's telling someone that his brothers have decided not to play with him any more as backup band. He'll have to go on alone or with a new backup band. I go up to him and say that I know he can do it, because many years ago, when I began my Masters program, I first saw him with the Night Cats (which should be Nighthawks). He begins to chat with me. I am very pleased, as I am a big fan and in awe of him. He is being nice and interested in me. He asks what my disability is. I say Rheumatoid Arthritis and talk about how I was walking then and danced all night with a brace and a cane. I realize I am building the story a bit, to get him to be in awe of me, or maybe feel a bit sorry for me and hang around a bit more. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am driving a car up a windy mountain road and park it next to my father's car as he was coming down the road. We are way off in the hills where scruffy hillbilly people live. I see an old rundown house and remark, "I've seen this kind of house before, as in my childhood, maybe living in them." I go in and a man and a woman, the sister to the woman who lives in the house, is being critical and judgmental. She doesn't like the way her sister does things and is telling her. The sister is angry and not responsive. I act as a negotiator and say to the sister "Look, you hit first. So of course, she has to hit back." The sister doesn't understand that her negative critical remarks are as harsh as attacking physically. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am either on a campus, or in an apartment building, in a long hall and Lucy is arrogantly snotty and angry. She yells swear words at the office people. I walk her outside and down a long, rickety ramp. I hear a commotion and look back. The narrator is telling about how it's a very hot day and the animals, especially the big ones, are very irritable. An elephant goes crazy with the heat, which is bad news for the little trainer man. I muse that maybe I should, in my retirement, take on the part-time job of coordinating the disability resources because the different resources offices are in different places and are not run smoothly. I'm mildly interested. Now I hold a big, cream-colored, furry cat and let go of it and expect it to land on its feet and walk away, but the cat is lazy or something and lands painfully on its belly. I drop it again and it does the same thing. I grimace with sympathetic pain and consider the cat rather slow-brained. I go outside and see Howard getting into a box, which is a sort of car. I wait for his wife to get in next. I don't want to get in too early and be alone with him. I put the cat in and wait impatiently for the wife, who comes out arrogant and snotty. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am visiting a house owned by a nice-looking man. His current girlfriend is moving out and he is now interested in me. I take a tour of the house, which has magnificent views all around of mountains and so on. The house is set up to give you a roller coaster ride effect as you walk around. I enjoy the thrill of walking across a wooden bridge between two rooms as it tosses and jiggles like in an earthquake. Now I am washing dishes in the kitchen sink and he's drying them. He is playfully flirting and there is pleasant sexual tension between us. Rena sits next to us and I ask, "What does she do?" He says, "She sits there and looks pretty." I think that is a bit condescending and feel bad for Rena. But I ignore it and continue talking with him. Now he's a very rich man and I am taking him a note I wrote with a joke on it. I am leaving him, sort of to prove I'm not after his wealth and I am my own woman, independent and so on. He reads my card, which says something about "May the Buddha follow you," or something like that. He looks at it and I giggle at him saying, "You don't get it, do you? You don't know what the Buddha is." I take the card to a man in the next room to share this great joke with him. I think his name is Howard. I say, laughing, "And he doesn't even know what the Buddha is!" | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am prospecting for gold in a desert-like area. Lots of men are there. One man, like Christopher Reeves, is in love with me. I love him too. He wants us to get married. I love him, but am not willing to marry. I want my independence. We strike it rich. I say to him, "I have something I have to talk to you about." He says, frustrated, "I can't talk about it any more. I say, "It's not about that! This is something else you probably won't like to hear." I smile at him gently like it's a joke, only it's not. Now he is seated in an easy chair and I am kneeling in front of him, my head on his chest, my arms around his chest between his legs, hugging him. He is aroused and says sexily and lovingly, "You're on my heaven. Let's get married." I say, sleepily or slowly, "How about you stay here and work the claim for a year while I go away, and travel, and then I'll return and you travel for a year and I'll work the claim." He is deeply hurt and sad because that would mean we are apart. I feel a bit guilty about asking this. The scene shifts and I have chosen to run away. I go out into the desert and want to die. I lay down with dead beetles and a video camera and am going to wait until I dehydrate, but somehow I survive for years. Now a woman comes and says to me, "I know you want to die, I'm sorry to bother you, but...." and I say, "No, I've decided not to die. Help me." She helps me back home to the claim. I am exhausted, dehydrated and older. I come into the house, which used to be a cabin he and I shared. Now there are children and babies of his, sleeping in beds, and lots of furniture. I am sad, but I am happy for him. He comes to me hesitantly. He still loves me deeply. I know I hurt him badly. I say, "I do love you. I'm sorry I hurt you. Is it too late?" He hugs me and I know we will be together. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I live in an apartment which I apparently share with roomies. I am unhappy. Something has happened or I am wondering deeply what I should be doing with my life. I choose not to go to work or school or wherever I usually go on weekdays. I decide I need to drive to Dover, which means go visit Ginny. Bonnie comes in. I think maybe I'll go across the street and visit Derek, later. Bonnie and I go look for the kitchen. There are two complete kitchens next to each other. The back one is mine. I say to her, "See, even if the roomies want to be cooking at the same time as us, we have our own kitchen." Bonnie likes that. I tell her I'm going to Dover. She leaves. For some reason I am hesitating and not leaving. I don't really want to go to Dover or to visit Derek and I do want to all at the same time. Now the house is crowded with roomies in the living room and I wonder where I can go to be alone. I find a back bedroom and go in. At first it is small and has a couch or two, not very pleasant. I then see there is more to it and follow it back to a comfortable sitting room with burgundy flounce curtains and a stereo speaker system that makes the music sound grand. I sit; it is nice. Then I decide to go see Derek. Maybe it will help. But I also don't want to go. Mateo goes with me. We drive to his corner and We get out and I realize there is a window display I'd never seen before, bottles with colored water in them. I see now I'm not at Derek's house; I'm a block too soon, on 14th and Ferry, not 15th and Ferry Street. I feel a bit silly to have made this mistake. We go back to get in the truck (pickup or VW bus) to drive to his house. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I goof off and waste time on my way to a family reunion. As I get close, I see Charla sort of floating or climbing a fence. I want her to be with me, but she is busy playing and ignores me. I see a cousin who is leaving the reunion. I am surprised it is breaking up so soon. I'll have missed nearly all of it. I go in and see aunts, uncles, and cousins who are tired, annoyed and bored. They are getting ready to leave soon. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Derek is laying on the ground, on his belly, up on his arms and I am laying on my back. We are just talking. Then he leans over me and kisses me. I am startled and pleased, but don't know quite what to do or think, because it was so clear this wasn't going to be a part of our relationship. I can't quite believe it all. I wait, hugging him slightly to see if this continues or if it was just a "stray" kiss. He continues, obviously now indicating we will be lovers. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I receive my lover who had strong spiritual connections with me and had helped me open up so much. It is powerfully sexual and sensual. I suck on his penis, which pleasures him, which pleasures me. I decide not to let him come in my mouth. His penis is long and slim. He enters me and it is intensely pleasurable and soft and exciting. It's great sex. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | My mother is indifferent and insists I leave the house, even though I am in emotional shock from some event. I see a couple standing in a cold lake up to their chest. They are uncomfortable. I see another couple, fully dressed standing in a very hot lake. They are enjoying the hot tub-like feeling but XXX a picture book which requires the page to be placed in a machine so it projects the story like a movie. The lace curtains and the black velvet drapes keep getting in the way. The wind is blowing them toward the area I'm working. A man tries to help me. He's sort of a Michael Bolton fellow, but very shy. I tuck several of the lace curtains outside the open window and the strong wind sucks them out and I see them land on the lawn. We are on the second story floor. I see the wind blow one across the lawn. I call out, "Oh, the curtains." The man goes down to retrieve them for me. As we are going down, he is very shy and nervous because as a shy man he's afraid to approach women, to date, so he's going to practice approaching the little girl. I say to him, "You have your best friend with you (some other man) and I am a very good friend. You'll be all right." I feel a bit jealous because I am the mother of the girl and I want the man to like me. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am nervous and sitting on a toilet, having belly cramps. Rochelle is around asking me questions about why I act the way I do. I explain, something about getting nervous and needing to go to the bathroom. I see my mother and say something like, "It's not like you ever taught us how to be emotionally intimate." Then I am spreading thick gobs of butter on already buttered toast. [BL] | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I had been reading or watching a long story about this pioneer man and how he was so upset about the bad treatment of Indians. He wants to go out and fist fight every one who is calling him squaw man. But a woman says, "Don't waste your energy. Ignore them." Now I am a woman and I walk up to a seated Indian man, who is wearing an 1890's kind of black jacket, like Wyatt Earp would have worn, white man's clothes. He's the foreman. He calls out the black woman I will have as a slave. He hands me the white, little plastic bag which has her documents in it. It's her "freedom" bag. I take it and hand it to her. I say, "Elizabeth. I give you your freedom." She doesn't understand. She thinks I'm firing her and she'll be alone and poor. I say to her, "You are your own woman now and I'd like to hire you. I will pay $6 a week." The Indian man shows me a picture. It has a bright spotlight in the center and a sidelight where he's standing. He says, "I'm in the side light because I'm an Indian. I've always wanted to be in the center spotlight." I say to him, "I understand. Believe it or not, I am in the sidelight too, because I'm a woman with a disability. We get the same kind of discrimination." [BL] | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Sparky is mad at me and says, "I'm just a two-bit friend because I have no talent. I write her a note. I want to be nice, but I also want to let her know what I think of her. I say, "I like your work as an actress, but...." | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | There are three groups. They are powerful. One is called Joseph (Or Joseph or Jo-Seth). There's something about having to change, move from one group to another. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I get a phone call from a man trying to sell me a modem for my computer. The connection is very bad. I can barely hear him. The phone I hold has a round ring of lights that light up when it rings. A woman's voice says: "Your phone is ringing. Please press 4." I may not have pressed the right button or something but the guy's voice keeps cutting out. He's a rude and insistent man. I say to him firmly, "I'm not interested" as well as a confused message that I can't hear him well or the connection is bad. He says, "Shit," and tries to keep me on the line. I hang up on him, saying to my woman roommate, "Boy, he sure isn't good at this." She says, "Come out here and look at the flowers growing on the porch." I am annoyed. I'm very tired and sleepy and it's hard to walk, but she wants us to share some time together and the flowers are a way to do that. I allow her to push or lead me out, even though I don't really want to. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | A man with an odd face, like it has cake makeup or something on it, is intensely and single-mindedly attracted to me. I try to get away from him politely. He follows. He is a son of a king or a millionaire, but he acts goofy like an idiot. I am embarrassed by him and I'm also feeling sort of warm and attracted because of his vulnerability. He is so out there with his love for me. He pursues; I dodge; he persists. Later, there's a statement or question, "How is it like to be a gangster?" "They both have leading hose and bands." He also has a father who is just like him who is attracted to an older woman, perhaps my mother. He intensely woos her. He also tells his son that it may be too late. He (the son) may have failed his mission, which was to convince a general to give him armies and so on so they could defend their kingdom. I want to help him as he's almost got the general convinced. We could still do it. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am working for MIUSA. We are at a camp someplace. A woman with CP wants to show me something. We walk up a long rickety flight of stairs at the back of a building, go in, and walk down another flight, go across the building and out the door. She trips several times, nearly falling. She is very happy because she's been given permission to adopt a young disabled girl. She's taking me to see her. I haven't a clue why we had to go through that empty barn first. Now I'm leaving. The camp trip is over and I get a gift box sent in the mail. I open it. It's from the crew at the Forest Department. I had stayed at their office building and they so enjoyed my charming personality they wanted to give me a gift. I am very touched. It's a large logging truck, but no logs, just little cubicles to put cute little miniature knickknacks in. It is filled with little things. Behind it is a knickknack holder in the shape of a doll house and had oodles of miniature furniture and things in it. I'm very pleased. Now someone comes in with bad news to tell me. Charla comes in and sits on my lap. She is very sad. I ask her what happened. She says, "Henry the 16th has died." I at first don't remember who that is. Then I remember it is my daughter Ellie's good friend that Charla loved so much she named her kitten after her. I rock Charla, being soothing and also thinking, "Well, I thought the bad news was going to be bigger than that, maybe a national tragedy." I am a bit let down. Some other counselor comes up to say goodbye and we talk about the young woman with CP. I say, "It's so amazing. Here she can barely walk across the room without hurting herself and yet she has just the right loving skills to help her adopted child. It's a beautiful contradiction. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | Derek and I are returned from someplace. He has taken me home and he comes over to hug me and slowly the hug evolves into us making love, only it never is acknowledged we are making love. He lies on me with his back to me and sneaks his penis into me backwards. It is not hard, but the catheter tube helps it feel hard and it is a good sexual feeling. I lightly touch him on his bare shoulders and sometimes sneak a kiss on his neck or shoulder. Charla is nearby. I don't want her to see us and know we are making love. It is not appropriate and OK for her to know this/see this. Then he begins to move back and forth quickly and he has had an orgasm. That is very unusual for him, as he is a para. He sighs, relieved. I tenderly lie with him. I'm not sure if I had an orgasm or not. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | The virgin experience is exquisite. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I have moved to another house and visit my old house, which now is lived in by Harriet. I see the Saturday newspaper on the porch and I say to her, "I'll take the paper." I pick it up and start to leave. I then realize that it is her paper. She pays for it. So I go back and give it to her, apologizing. I just wasn't thinking. Now I am going to my new place and I go through the college. I ask directions and the young woman says, "You go to the back of the building, take the elevator up to the 4th floor, and then return to the 3rd floor." It seemed an odd, out of the way to go and I only have three minutes to do it in. I start to run, but it is very difficult for me. I end up laying on the sidewalk, pulling myself along. I struggle. I know I won't make it. I'm not sure which path through the fair will get me there the quickest. Some paths meander or dead end. I find a sign and hear circus music and follow that. I get to the elevator area, but now there is a man I am in relationship with and he is playful and loving and wants to have fun and make love, and I laugh and say I have to do these things. I think I am picking up clothes and cleaning things. A little girl like Charla is around somewhere. It will be fun to get the work done and relax into the lovingness of my partner. I look forward to it. He is very desirous of me letting go of the work now and just having fun with him. There are tough guys like bikers somewhere in the background. They like me too. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | A man is talking to me. We are in a space where there is a double bed and an empty bookshelf, with old newspapers covering it up. I decide to go to bed and I crawl up the shelves and claw my way through the old newspapers to get to the shelf. I have a hard time, but finally get curled up on a shelf. It is uncomfortable. I cover myself with the newspapers, which look like the magazine pages for my collage art. The man is in the bed and he wants to get up and get something and apologizes to me for not being covered. I see his penis as he bends down to get something. He wants to know why I don't come to bed where it's more comfortable. I explain that Howard had been there so long that I'd gotten used to sleeping up on the shelf. It was better that way than be with Howard. I realize that I'd rather be in the bed even though this strange man is there and start to get off the shelf to go to bed. We'll just have to work out our relationship with each other after I get there. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am seated on a stone staircase in a huge palace. It is near the bottom stair. Derek and another woman are tickling and giggling over in a corner. I am smiling and feeling good about being who I am and not jealous or bothered by their play. Now I get up and walk back unexpectedly into my bedroom. I find Derek and the woman there making love in the bed, only I don't really see the woman, just Derek, fully clothed lying sideways on my single bed. I am furious and tell him off and spin on my heel to leave. He says, "No, please. Stay and talk with me." I laugh angrily and walk out. I want to walk off my anger by going as fast as I can up the staircase until I have gone as far and as high as I can go in this stone palace. I walk and walk until there is a huge stone wall or boulder stopping me. I peek in a crevasse or crack and can't see anything. Then there is an earthquake and everything around me falls until I am alone on a high, thin sliver of rock left from the palace. Then the scene shifts and the earthquake didn't happen and I am on the stairs and decide to retrace my steps down. A guard finds me and he's going to show me the way out, only now he takes me to the sultan's private quarters. I am impressed. I see women and one has a baby and she lets me hold it. While I am holding it, it relaxes and takes a nap. The sultan is near and I'm not sure if it's him or not, but bow and say, "Your highness," just in case. He and his wife are introduced to me. He kisses my hand and I see his fat, double-chinned face and his fat lips. He kisses me several times. He seems to like me. I go back to where the women are and return the sleeping baby and follow the guard out, only to find myself suddenly led into the harem and I realize I've been tricked. He intends to keep me forever. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am in the back seat of a car. My brother Jake is with me. My father is driving. I am looking out the right side window (like a child might) and I see a dropoff. It's pretty, with snow, but a steep dropoff. I look to my father. I see we're on a gravel/dirt road. I tell him he's driving too close to the edge. It's dangerous. He laughs and deliberately jerks the wheel so we are even closer. I am annoyed. We drive through town. It does not look familiar, but yet it is my town. We are going to a nursing home to visit "Aunt Marya." When we get there, I realize we're at an ice rink. I say, "Hey, I thought we were going to a nursing home to see Aunt Marya." She walks by, a very old woman, and I feel embarrassed she heard me because she obviously doesn't need a nursing home. I've insulted her. Someone says, "Let's play ice hockey." "Right!" I say. "So is the ice rink wheelchair accessible?" I was sarcastic. Now I see Aunt Millie and Lydia. I am very excited and happy to see Aunt Millie. We all now have on ice skates. Aunt Millie is on my left and Lydia on my right, supporting me as I fumble and slip. We get on the ice, but the ice is really crowded with people and cafe tables and chairs. There are rectangular cuts of ice where the ice is chips and there is water under it. I must avoid all these obstacles. In addition, at the far right end is a heated swimming pool, and it's hard to avoid sliding right into it. But I manage and now I'm skating alone and Millie and Lydia are seated watching me as I come around. They smile and applaud. I feel quite accomplished now and gather up speed. More rectangular cuts are made and the ice is incredibly chopped up, and yet I continue to skate well. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am swimming across a milky glacier-like lake. My hands and arms are straight and powerful. I am impressed with how easily I am doing this without getting tired or scared. I notice my legs are not moving, so I try and use them too. It is a bit awkward. I get out on the other side. Ernie and Ginny are coming over. I notice I'd better be on my toes and do things right if Ernie is around. I mail a letter. Later, he has a letter to be mailed, but it doesn't have a stamp on it. I help Ginny get a stamp on it. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I want to change my clothes, so I go down a series of flights of stairs to a room where I had stored some clothes. I walk in to see a couple on the floor almost starting to make love. They stop abruptly at my entrance. I smile and say, "Just a moment. Sorry. I need to get some clothes." They smile and say, "No problem," but of course I know they can't wait for me to leave so they can get on with it. I open drawer after drawer and can only find summery clothes from Mexico, gauzy material, bright colors, a bit revealing and sexy. I am aware I am too fat to wear them. I check the next chest of drawers and find them full of papers and Kodak film boxes, nothing to wear. Oh well. Now it is time to leave, and at the last minute I decide to clean up some mess I've left -- paper scraps, some tiny knitted or crocheted stocking hats, tiny yarn doll bodies and so on. Now I leave the room, thinking I should probably take the one chest of drawers that is mine and its contents back up to where I was. I feel tired and decide not to. I don't need that stuff anyway. The couple is very glad I'm leaving, but pretending to be polite. I say as I walk out the door, "I'm not stupid, you know." They grin. (I think there were mentally retarded people upstairs I was working with.) | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I have a personal assistant named Mary who is mentally retarded, short and chubby. She keeps talking all the time and doing things wrong, like holding the shampoo bottle upside down and not noticing the shampoo is running out all over her clothes. I ask her to help me take a bath. I am in the tub in my clothes, she has gotten my wallet wet and is trying to fix it and she is nonstop talking. I finally say to her, "Damn it, Mary, you're fired. I know you mean well and you're a hard worker, but you keep making mistakes." She gets in the tub with me and is trying hard to convince me not to fire her. I insist she get out. Finally I call Nancy in, who is visiting. She and Charlene are out in the living room talking. I explain to Nancy why I'm firing Mary and ask her to get her out of my tub. Nancy says, "OK," gets her out and then says, "I'm not the one to be telling this to." I agree, saying, "Sorry, I guess I was just ventilating." I wonder if this was such great timing, firing her when I was in the tub, a vulnerable spot for me. I also feel a bit concerned because now I have to find someone else. Maybe Charlene will work for me again. I think, "After all, she's been volunteering here for a while, so maybe she's got time again and wouldn't mind making $6 an hour." She is telling Nancy she just got one of her plays produced. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am being forced to marry a man by some irresistible force, possibly alien or spiritual. I try to escape. I do not want to be married. I don't even know the man. I get in an elevator and it starts to go sideways across University campus to the site of the wedding. I try to stay in the elevator but I am forced out, by some force I cannot see. There is no escape. I am now in a wedding dress, the wedding party is there and it is happening even as I fight it. I feel powerless. I don't want traditional marriage. It sets women back generations. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am at some shop and notice a house next door. Many Asian and colored people are going in, many of them very distinctively dressed in costumes that are highly colorful, quilted or poofy and ornate. It's a church of some kind. I go over and lean on the fence in front of the house to watch. Now members of the church are tossing some of the people out over the balcony, some of them dropping or falling three stories. I am concerned that they will be hurt with broken bones, but they are not. These members are being ritually thrown out or rejected. Now Dora joins me. I want to take pictures, but I am out of film. I take an iron and smooth out a rectangle of sawdust, the medium used to take pictures with, even though I know it won't do any good. Now Dwight comes up and says, "Come on, we're all going now to pick out a present I'll buy for each of you." I say, "Great, but not right now, because I want to see this." He leaves. I continue watching. A few minutes later, Dora and I go to find Dwight. Maybe it's too late to get our gift. Dora shows me an ornate decorated cake she made for the contest. It has sort of a blue ribbon design on it. I say, "It's very pretty." I don't find Dwight. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am seated next to a Doctor that looks like the preacher that married Melvin. I say to him, "You know, just recently I was experimenting with Euphoria and someone gave me a pill called 'Think.' What is your opinion on this?" Supposedly it was supposed to enhance the euphoria. I wasn't sure. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am talking to a man about how crazy making it is to work in crowded conditions. I tell him about registration at the community college and how each year it got more crowded. I see Tyler telling Charlene one of his stories and smile because I know she has heard it many times. I wonder if she will just stoically listen or what. She finally interrupts him and says she has heard it before. She leaves and he smiles sheepishly. Now the man comes into my bedroom. I think I am rooming in his house. His son is upstairs. He is a quad and the man is crying as he tells me that today the assistant can't come today and he will have to be left alone. I offer to call in sick at work and stay to help him, but it would mean moving him downstairs and I couldn't transfer him. The man is grateful. [BL] | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am the head resident of a sorority and we are having a party. I am dressed up in a lovely long skirt and blouse. I walk up the flowing stairs and around watching. Now the men are arriving. Someone says, "Oh, oh. It isn't good to just open the dance to any man off the street." I see quite a crowd of them streaming in. They are rowdy and I am more busy being vigilant. I go to my quarters and get the key to the front door from my purse and hide my purse and then put the key in my pocket. Now Anddrea comes in and a shy young man named Ted. Andrea begins to work with him as a counselor. There is an audience of students watching. He is shy and we both encourage him to tell his dream. Andrea lays down next to him talking in soothing accents. He begins to tell the dream and then interrupts himself and says, "Oh, I get it. The answer is money. I need to make lots of money with my writing." Some man smiles and gently shakes his head no. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am going back to school to take a class. I can't seem to find the class I want to take. I wander around the buildings. Now I am in a class, a sort of business class. Another student, a woman, and I are a team. She is to place a box on the floor in the exact position as in the book. I notice that no matter where we place it, it's not quite right on the bottom side. I try adjusting my position to see if it makes a difference. Someone says I have excellent spatial perception. I am surprised because I don't, usually. I decide this is a boring class and wander around noticing other classes. I pass the animal biology classes and don't like them. I find myself in the film media classes, big classes lots of students, cute instructors. I am interested. I decide I'll get into one of those. Now I want to go home, but I can't find an exit door that works. Two men students follow me upstairs and try to open conversation. I ask them how to get out. They take me back downstairs, which is hard in my manual wheelchair. They are impressed with me and say they have a room I could rent in their boarding house. I say, "I've already got one, thanks." I finally get out and head home. A piano tuner is tuning the old square like piano I had found in the basement for me and it has been moved up to the living room. The landlady gives me and my male friend a lecture about being always late for meals and we will get cold meals if we keep this up. I look outside and see my small brother, maybe 5 years old, wandering away toward the big lake. I am concerned and run after him to retrieve him. I see him get into a rowboat with several other boys and head out for deep water. I tell my younger sister she must go back and tell my father and get help. She cries that she is afraid she will lose her way and not know the turns. I grab her by the shoulders and say with confidence, "You are a smart girl. You will know the right way." She goes. I run across the rice paddy-like area, then over the beach sand and then into the water. Just then I see the small plastic rowboat and yank my brother out of it after some confusion about which one was my brother. I give him what for, lecturing him at how surprised I was that he would not heed our dead mother's words about always being honest. Other people come to retrieve their little boys and I learn they had been going around begging for money and collecting some. I am handed some plastic spoons as his share of the take. I want to return it to the rightful owners, but have no way to do so so. I walk my brother back toward home, continuing to say I am so surprised at him. He cries and I hug him saying, "But now you learned a lesson and won't do it again. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am walking what I thought was a short distance, but it keeps going on and on. I decide to take my van and drive and drive, never finding my destination. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | I am holding a huge tiger by the tail. In order to save myself from it, I am smashing (I typed "myself" instead of tiger) the tiger against a wall or a tree. Over and over I smash it, until its head is inviscerated, an empty shell. I am exhausted. | female | 1960-1997 |
b | Barb Sanders | A woman is dating the principal of a school. He is coordinating or producing some kind of talent show. She is sort of cool or taking him for granted. Another woman comes in, short, tightly curled black hair, very sexy in a silky, black, short dress. He is very attracted to her and the first woman gets a bit jealous. The sexy woman looks down and notices her breasts are exposed. She pulls the black jacket, a man's jacket, up around her to cover herself. She still looks sexy. She's interested in the man, and wanders around his school room looking at things on the desk and walls, so she can get a feeling for who he is. There are lots of pictures he drew that make her think he's an architect because all the forms are separated out like on a schematic. Later, I see some of the talent acts doing their thing, but the school desk is in the way of the camera and he has to decide to do it again or not. He wants it to be a good job, so he begins again. Now I am a woman and I notice he has given to the first woman some gifts in a plastic bag. One of the gifts is a small diary with the name Barb Sanders written on the cover. I wonder if he gave her my book which I gave him. That doesn't feel good. I leaf through it, feeling guilty I'm spying. Then I see many black velvet wrist watches all over my left arm. I suddenly realize that back in 1986 when I traveled to Russia with MIUSA that everyone wanted to not wear their watches because in the late afternoon it was hot and humid, so I agreed to hold them for them, and I accidentally didn't get them returned. I feel bad, but it's too late now. The first woman tries on a couple of them she likes. | female | 1960-1997 |