1970 Revisited

* denotes important day

1. Feb 5: J. [my former humanities teacher] loved "Master Game" and recommends hash for sex. Have to try it.

2. Feb. 12: . . . school called strike. Of course I'm not supporting it because I hate student radicals and group influence and want to rise above transient trends. Flaws: the world is changing and has to be changed. I am simply accepting group values of another group.

3. Feb. 13 Shevelov (Russian music history prof at BU) had a lot to say about the strike. 1) We don't know what oppression is--true, but for our times it still is that and things have to be changed. [Ellen] Bender wrote him an 8-page letter.

4. Feb 23: Supposedly 80% of BU supports the strike. (Hope they don't find out at F & E that I stole this pen). I had to barge through irate pickets with my forceful cry of "mmff" to get in school.

5. Feb 25: Good day because good play, "Approaching Simone" (by Megan Terry!) given with DB [my boyfriend] on flute at SFA Day. Cashed savings bond and had rotten sandwich and sundae at Brigham's.

6. Eva is so bitter in NYC. Hates DGE as an illusion. Being a student or living in Cambridge--is it a copout on old USA or a good example/alternative?

7.March 19: Gail talked to me about women's Lib. and I was never more ready. Then DB and I made up & loved each other & after work--Women's Lib--great people and we all told about ourselves. I feel vastly inferior. Live with Gail?

8. March 24: I feel finally here, not projected somewhere off in the future. Women's Lib. helps a lot--esp. all the 25 year olds who don't know what they're doing either.

9. Love women's lib meetings. I'm finally in Boston! They're actually p.j. parties without pajamas. Good people, most of them crazy officially. I feel left out and unfucked up (literally, too). I couldn't reveal the Man. Stayed over as a special treat and it was. I think sex is dumb. Love counts. But I wish I could mutually turn on DB like he can me.
[Honey, hello, he’s gay] Book: Love with a Harvard Accent

*10. April 5: Why do people expect high school kids to know what they want to do when they're so young and immature? They only consider being a doctor or a musician; they don't know they can be doing something GOOD. I didn't know and now I've wasted a lot of time. I have to change. I can't do into music. I know that David wants to go to Cuba. I don't think I could take it. I have to be a Satie if I stay in music and aren't talented enough. Heard Kunstler on top of it all. Oh, politics, where have you been? I don't know what to do and life is suddenly too hard to take.


11. Apr. 6: I always dug competition because I was always on top. Where does it lead? Nowhere. Woodstock Nation is the only good worth working for---peopleness. Corny? Commie? What to do? Ans: Music education. Radicalize high school kids (by example), teach day care to little kids. Today I switch. I am fully enlightened. I don't want fame & recognition or money. I want to be happy. I hope I get fired for being political.

12. April 15: The Revolution is starting. After all my radical conversion and all, still didn't march today. I am a sheep to DB and my weak self, not the crowd. I do hate crowds though. Harvard Square was under siege when I came up at 8:30 to go to the concert. Heavy fighting. I am confused. But I can't agree with violence at all. I am too idealistic though.

13. April 23 Talking politics at a women's lib meeting with Tess and Diana & ? I'm scared of being committed 'cause it will be a farce when I am found out [as a virgin].



*14. May 5: Strange things are happening. A dichotomy: you can't live your life without becoming involved in politics (Cambodia, 4 kids killed at Kent U., but you can't become a revolutionary cause you will get shot down. Sheesh. That's too defeatist. You can't force people. So BU is closing and there are no more finals. DB went off to join a march and I took Alice home for tea. What a mess this world. I am fooling myself.

15. May 10: DB and I went to big hippie rally at the Nickerson fake astroturf. Buddy Miles was there showing off and marching in da streets. Made me mad when they started singing to the National Guard, then yelling.

16. May 13: Women's Lib is gradually becoming real to me. . . I think most of them are more together by virtue of their years. I want to learn to give the finger to guys who yell at me on my bike.

17: May17 - Dad's last sermon [fired; my grand philosophy, monkpunk appears]


18. June 3: Crazy women's lib. goose chase. Ran to D's with macaroni under my arm and she left a note to go to the boathouse so I got soaked walking home to the BU boathouse full of naked men. How bizarre! Finally they came & got me (guys covered their parts as I asked where the women’s liberation picnic was).


19. June 4: I'm into A.S. Neill like crazy. He can save the world.

20. June 15, Mon. Diana and Sandy came to Zinn's class--a wipe out and I said so. I really didn't care what people thought of me. I knew I was right. Knowing no one was right. Myles, a 25 yr old ex teacher came home with me to talk but left when DB came home. Oops.

21. June 16: Gail is coming back to W Lib meeting to say why she isn't coming. I think you can't tell people how to dress and what to buy, but you have to limit them from hurting others through greed. But I don't know how to get around it without 1984 the wrong way. Not everyone is lucky enough to be creative, A. S. Neill.

*22. June 27: Had to get up and out for women's lib. play in Cambridge. It was funny but some lady really got POd over it. Intellectually I'd say we should tell her to be moral, but I felt it in my insides that I wanted her to be confronted (even if I'm too chicken to do it). I feel bad about it though, sort of sick of women's lib.

*23.June 29: Read Old Mole about Gay Liberation. A lot of B & R folks are in for it. Seems just as driven as hetero dating bars, etc. Gotta get Diana to come to meetings again; she's my saving grace only wish that I could speak my mind, but I don't have one. I see all sides but one.

I like politics and understand violence more all the time.

25. July 3 - fire island: The 3 guys were very uptight about the "fags" and I campaigned for Women' Lib. No oggling and people doing what they want. I can't convince them that homosexuality is OK. I think it is. Esp. DB doesn't but I can see why,

*26. July 6: Betty Friedan says be a person--help shape the future. Jerry Rubin says "don’t go to school, be a Yippie, don't join the system. Neither is right, but my background draws me to Betty. Why am I better than secretaries who care only about dates? I mold the future? Is loving better? We killed the roaches.

*27. July 25: Got a sudden political surge & read a ramparts and got 3 books on Cuba. My thinking has changed vastly on violence but I don't know where it takes me. 1) No good yelling peace and moderation & law and order when one group is in definite control: Peace is OK for them but is only a putting-in-place of the exploited.. 2) the system must be confronted. People are entitled to their opinions but when the issues are clear cut, racist, etc. there is a right and a wrong. Put these together = revolutionaries. But I can't throw rocks.

28. August 23: slept in rain at Tanglewood; Alice's restaurant.

29. October 8: Communiversity [my women's group taught women's course]. About 20 people were there and 5 of us - general rap session cause organization fell through. Hope some come back. I feel good doing this stuff--if it's an illusion of the time, that's cool. I wonder what my next stage will be?

*30. Oct. 9: Big dance at da gym for Women's Center thing--great band & the folk singer but I couldn't get into some of the heavy anti male stuff. [Bev G. and New HavenWLRB?]

31. Oct. 30: Visited Trout Fishing in America.

32. Nov. 5: Talk at Communiversity on Women and Media. Well, tape anyhow.

33. Nov. 6: Saw James Montgomery at BU coffeehouse--thinking of old times, DGE, picnics by the ribbah, how I idolized him. He's gonna be famous.

34. Nov. 19: I gotta take librium to survive these days, sit around and worry about everything. Went to NAEY Conf. of free schools. Kate Millett is great and looks like Amanda (my cat). Sat with DeeDee and Sandy. RIGHT ARM!

35. Nov. 30: Draggy season to go to work (downtown ins. co) thru the downtown mess of hare Krisnas, Salivation Armys, general beggars and Process people.