Michael
01-28-91
Arnold Schwarzenegger comes to my door and says "I hear you are doing a book about me." He then tells me that Maria Shriver thought that she could find out about him by peeling away his layers like an onion. But he says that the only way anyone will find out about him is by breaking him into little pieces.

Louise
02-01-91
Arnold and I were talking about women bodybuilders and he wanted to show me what it would look like for me. We were standing in front of a big mirror and Arnold had on his competition trunks. He stood facing the mirror with his hands on his hips and his legs apart. He tilted his head all the way back so that he looked like one of those amusement park displays of bodybuilders that you put your head on and get your picture taken. I put my head where Arnold’s used to be and then I put my arms under his and out front like he was a ventriloquist dummy. We laughed.

Louise
02-01-91
Arnold wants to go to San Francisco so he and Richard and I went to a Chinese man who had a taxi cab and Arnold bought the cab from him and starting driving us to San Francisco with Richard and I in the back seat. Arnold was too big to sit in the front so he moved into the back and was turning the steering wheel by stretching his arms across the back of the front seat. The steering wheel was on the right side of the car and Arnold is right in front of me when he is driving. I yell at him not to do that because he could not reach the brake.

Louise
02-01-91
Arnold makes a muscle and I touch it to see how soft his skin was (not to see how hard the muscle was). His skin was amazingly soft. He gave me a lips barely touching kiss to prove his lips were soft too. We look out the window and hanging from the tree was the black panther from the movie Cat People.

Michael
02-05-91
Arnold was fighting Klan-types and had to dress as a firefighter with a long coat and hat, partly to hide his well-known balding head from several Deliverance types who were after him and me. At one point he becomes Gerard Depardieu but he quickly corrected himself when I observed, "You look so much different in person than you do in my head." This prompted him to take off the firehat to prove that he still had a full head of hair and that my mental image of him was intact.

Michael
02-18-91
Karen and I are driving to “Inter-Zone” apparently where some obscure family members of hers live. She has a terrible headache so I can’t play the radio. Soon a voice comes through the speakers, much to her irritation. It says, “When I wrote Raw Deal, I meant to say, 'Raw Meal' but the censors changed it.” Karen was annoyed because she thought I had secretly put a cassette tape in the player but I reminded her our van has no cassette player. She wouldn’t believe it was Arnold because he had been using this nasal falsetto bit I KNEW it was him.

Louise
02-23-91
Arnold is filming Terminator 2 at UCLA. The setting is some rolling hills on campus—not any spot that really exists. It reminds me of two scenes—the park from the movie Blowup and the hills from Kent State where the protesting students we shot by the National Guard. I am watching the filming and decide to take off my makeup with a cotton ball. As I rub off my makeup, it turns gray on my face and gives me an aged, alien look. I leave it on. The director comes over and asks me to be an alien in the movie in a bar scene reminiscent of the one in Star Wars. The bar is huge and oval-shaped and there is nothing in the middle—you just face other patrons. I look in a mirror and I no longer have my own face because they have put a rubber mask on me. I am told that I have the major alien speaking part in the film. Cut suddenly to me in my poststructuralism seminar and I am telling my graduate students about this dream. We are sitting at a set of children’s desks that are in the same shape as the bar—in an oval with a space in the middle. Suddenly Arnold pops up in one of the seats facing me across the room. His face is a caricature. I say to him, “I am the major alien in YOUR movie.” We talk a little and then the movie ends.

Michael
03-03-91
We are at the Arnold Schwarzenegger Classic bodybuilding competition in Columbus, Ohio. Louise is using a payphone while I photograph Lou Ferrigno eating fruit salad. As I change the roll of film, Lou says he has to go—his words are strangely minced. Evidently he is trying to tell me something about Arnold. As I realize this and start to question him, Louise returns and says, “You won’t believe this!” She has just gotten off the phone with “Eleanor Weider,” the wife of the bodybuilding entrepreneur, and she has agreed to be interviewed for our book. As “bait,” she told Louise that, “Arnold IS married, yes, although the preacher never would have done it had he KNOWN!” Louise thinks this means that the preacher would never have allowed a Kennedy-clan member to marry a staunch Republican. But Ferrigno, having heard this conversation, laughs (his laugh sounds like it is in slow motion) and says, “That preacher broke his vows when he married those two.” Louise asks, “What do you mean?” Ferrigno answers, “Maria is no woman! Look at her cheeks!” Later, Louise and I are talking with various bodybuilders and they are giggling over the fact that Maria is a transsexual. Louise and I panic, fearing that WE have leaked this, and that now Arnold’s men will come after us.

Michael
03-03-91
Arnold invites Louise to watch his workout. She brings my video camera. His workout consists of filling out two intricate columns of numbers in a ledger book on a wide table. When he is finished he says, “Ta Da! Debt is now profit!”

Michael
03-07-91
I had a semi-feverish dream/montage with Arnold on Sunday night and again on Monday night. Both dreams were rapid fired images of speeches, poses and long waitings around for Arnold to show up, and in one dream he did not. In the other he did, but just to announce his upcoming film for which he planned to "once again, be the largest man on earth."

Michael
03-08-91
I am taking Arnold's photograph (he was talking with "Larry Weider," Joe's "liaison"), using a wide angle lens in order to somehow widen him which he evidently detected. Arnold asked NOT ME but a pal leaning nearby, "Why am I being photographed by such a ridiculous camera?" The friend comes over to confiscate my camera and I had to cut his hand with my knife to keep him from taking what was actually Louise's camera—white body, white lens and all. For the rest of the dream I was running from what I knew would be Arnie-goons.

Michael
03-09-91
Louise is reading me a passage from her flag book which has just come out from "Corkendale University Press" and the following bit suddenly hits us like Arnie's hamstring: [this is Louise's text, now] 'The American Flag's most recent modification has been an added white stripe to accomodate Schwarzenegger's recommendation for "purity" in our nation.' On the phone, Louise and I shriek with a combination of delight and fear. In the background I hear Richard say something like "He's like a CANCER to be BURIED!" I am unable to tell if Richard is now "with" us or making fun. But I hear Louise say to him, with some heat, "He'll bury US!"

Louise
03-20-91
I dreamed that Arnold was on TV, on the morning news. I was laying in bed, too tired to turn on the VCR to record him. It was a report about how popular he was. It showed him driving a very small red sports car and he and a caravan of his friends go through a toll booth.

Louise
03-20-91
For some reason Arnold Schwarzenegger is in my house. He is sitting at the kitchen table. We are talking about something. I say to him flirtatiously, "You know we are writing a book about you but that we haven't been able to admit it face to face." I tell him I am interested in the President's Council on Physical Fitness. I show him something on a small piece of paper which he gets up from the table to look at over my shoulder. I know he is looking down my cleavage and I am pleased.

Louise
03-29-91
I went to Arnold’s house because I kept a horse in the same stables that he keeps his horse in. I saw him get on his horse and ride away so I decided to follow him. I wasn’t trying to meet him as much as follow him. He rode the horse right into his house. I followed him through this enormous house on my horse also. I opened one door and it was an enormous attic and either I or someone else said, “This is just like a great old-fashioned attic.” But everything in it was too big. We rode past a wing where there was the sound of children playing. I or someone else opened this door and it was the blue wing where the children lived. The door opened onto a huge, classically decorated room which had a very long hallway. No one seemed to notice I was riding a horse inside. Every once in a while I would catch a glimpse of Arnold still riding his horse, going down another corridor. There was dark expensive wood everywhere. I eventually returned to the kitchen where all the staff was talking and working. I thought that if I stayed here with the servants he would not get mad. Someone said, “Here’s your horse,” but it was not my horse but Arnold’s so I knew he was nearby. I got a phone call from a friend. we had a long-winded conversation about turning one of my academic papers into a movie script. I realize that I am late to give a final exam at 2:30. He goes on and on talking. I cut him off, laughing loudly so Arnold can hear me, and then I say loudly, “Ha, ha, of course you can write the screenplay for it.” I hang up and walk out the big front doors. I am worried I will be fired for missing my exam.

Louise
04-24-91
I was a sound effects person on a commercial that was being filmed. It involved some young woman who was a soap opera star. She was trying to do her lines and then she calls in a young man who was trying to do his lines. They both were terrible. Suddenly Arnold pops out of thin air and starts giving everyone a lecture. I think the lecture is on making commercials but I can’t understand what he is saying. I am standing behind a home video camera and I decide to turn it on to record his voice so I will have more information for our book. I click on the camera and Arnold, with his super hearing, hears me click it and whips his head in my direction. Now we are in the back seat of a car—me, Arnold and the woman from the commercial. He starts talking about my recording him and I am feeling guilty. But he is stroking my hand while talking, actually touching it very lightly at only three points. I am seduced by his soothing talk and stroking. He throws the other woman out of the car. Then he orders three things for me to eat. this is some kind of test of the kind of person I am—to see if I am earthy or sophisticated. It is also an attempt to improve me. I try to hide who I am. Some other woman gets in the car. I am on Arnold’s lap. She sits on my lap. He orders her to get the food. She is thrown out of the car after she gets the pizza order. Jane Fonda and I are in a store several months later. I have been living with Arnold. We are shopping for a dress for an occasion with Arnold. I am wearing a red and white polka dot outfit, Jane has on a tan linen suit and jacket. She has dirty shoes on. I say to her, “I have to tell him. I still want to write this book but I haven’t been taking good notes.” I tell Jane that she has a beautiful outfit but that she needs new shoes. The clerk comes up and say, “You are right.” and hands her another pair of dirty shoes. I say, “No, she needs new shoes.” We go off in a car, talking about the book and Arnold, that I have to tell him we are writing the book. We meet Arnold, he is in the car, stroking my hand. Arnold is now in an audience. I am at the back of the crowd. He whips his head around and looks at me meanly.

Louise
05-02-91
I was in a bookstore and the copies of Arnold’s biographies that I ordered had come in. But some woman picked them up off the desk and walked out with them. I chased her and chased her and asked her friends where she was. She was in a church playing a guitar, looking at Arnold’s book. Then she was at a wild disco that had an electronic message board that displayed the number of foreigners in the United States. I ask her if I could buy one of the books because I had ordered them and was writing a book on Arnold and this was the only thing about him that I hadn’t ever read. I knew I was lying but I wanted the book. She agreed to sell one to me.

Louise
05-13-91
I was at a high school. Arnold is going to appear at the school. When it is announced that he has arrived, I run to get my video camera. As I try to get through the crowd to get to my camera, I run right into Arnold who is making his way through the crowd. He turns around. I shyly raise my hand in a little wave and I say, “Hi!” He looks frightened. He says, “What do you want? I will do anything you want.” “What?” I say. I didn’t hear him. He repeats it. “How about if you sit down and talk to me for a while,” I say. “Okay,” he says, “just call Helen Rabesey.” “Who?” I ask because I cannot hear it him above the crowd noise. He repeats, “Helen Rabesey. The number is 444-4321. I still couldn’t hear well and couldn’t remember the number. I stopped at the bar to write it down but my pen didn’t work. But then Arnold couldn’t remember the number and I was getting desperate.

Louise
06-15-91
Arnold and I are talking. He is sitting on a plain wooden chair next to a bed upon which I am sitting. He is telling me how to make money. He shows me a newspaper and tells me to invest in any one of the four men mentioned in a big article on the front page. No matter what they are doing, he says, invest in them. He gives me the newspaper. As he is saying this, I am slow sinking down on the bed, laying on my side so I am facing him. We are flirting. I ask him if I can go the Wiesenthal Center with him to get his award—not with him on stage, just to be there to watch him. He says no because I will report it weirdly. I leave and go back to a hotel room where a fat woman wrapped in a bath towel answers the door. This apparently is part of Arnold’s large suite. I complain to her about Arnold’s comments and tell her I am going anyway. I walk into the bathroom to shower but there is an adolescent boy wrapped in a towel already in there. I have a towel wrapped around my waist and do not want the boy to see my breasts. I turn and leave. I go over to the trash can where I have thrown the newspaper with the names of the men to invest in. I decide to make money investing in them no matter what they do.

Louise
06-16-91
Arnold and I are at home early in the evening of the awards dinner at the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Arnold is playing with my little brother and sister who appear to be about five years old but in reality are in their 30s. My sister is in a wheelchair but oddly every once in a while she gets up and walks around. My brother was a thalidomide baby but at one point he sprouts new arms. Arnold is looking very thin, then he suddenly changes into different people—the old, consumptive man (Michael Jeeter) in the Broadway show Grand Hotel, then the cadet in Red Dawn, a movie about a boys' military school. But the cadet was bald except for a weird tuft of hair on his head. Then Arnold was hiding in the top of a closet and suddenly drops out. He was wearing several layers of nice suits and coats. He is not wearing the tuxedo he needs for dinner. I am hoping he asks me to the dinner. I realize I will have to go rent a gown.

Michael
07-11-91
I am on the phone with Richard trying to reason with him. He has told me that he needs Louise to be doing other things with your time, and that he would really prefer that she stop the Arnold projects and would really REALLY appreciate it if I would stop "egging her on." I explain to him that Louise and I are working on the very thing that in many ways we have both "trained" for all thru grad. school and our professional lives. But I am getting nowhere with Dr. Leventhal. Suddenly—though in the dream, not surprising to me for some reason—Arnold is standing next to me, gesturing that he would like to speak to Richard. I tell Richard to "hold on a second, Arnold wants to tell talk to you." Arnold takes the phone and I notice for the first time that he has one very large, right hand and an almost pathologically small left hand with which he is now holding the phone. He starts to speak to Richard in German and then says, "Ach! You don't understand the mother tongue!" He then cups his huge right hand over the speaker and confides in me that "this vill be a piece of cake." He then continues in English and explains to Richard that "this boook is about me...don't you understand?" Richard evidently has a lot to say at that point as Arnold can't get a word in for a while. He again whispers to me, "don't worry, we got him." After a few more minutes, Arnold says, "that's what I thought you'd say." He hands me the phone and walks out the front door, waving vaguely over his shoulder. I ask Richard, "Well? What was that about?" Richard says , "Just do it. OK? Louise is going to want to make another movie, I just know it!" I hang up gently, suspecting that Richard has had a traumatic experience of some sort.

Louise
07-22-91
I had won a contest to spend the day with Arnold. We were in a shopping mall riding up an escalator and everyone was staring at us, but more at me than at Arnold. Arnold is awkward around people so I am trying to make him comfortable. We stop at a machine that sells postage stamps and Arnold gets enthusiastic like a little kid. He wants to buy one of the stamps that has him on it. I fumble for change and when the stamp comes out I slip and fall on the ground. Arnold is delighted with the stamp. I introduce him to Tony Randall with whom I share a bedroom but not a romantic relation. Tony is hanging down from the upper bunk on our bunkbeds. Tony says, "Hi, I'm Tony Randall. I'm in M. Butterfly. The other day when Louise and I went to it…" I get upset because it wasn’t me he had taken. Arnold is trying not to make mistakes as we meet and talk to people. I say to him, "That's my job—to make you comfortable."

Michael
07-22-91
Ricky Riccardi appeared in front of my car, but this time not as "Megadeath" which, evidently is a huge robotic figure that when he feels most psychotic, he becomes. This time he is just Ricky Riccardi and he is telling me that this is a breakthrough. He says, "I'm not the Terminator any more, Mike." Only after he says this do I "remember" that he used to appear as the nine-foot giant figure of Megadeath whose head was two feet wide and wired with poisons. At some pont in the dream, Ricky told me that even though he used to be the (real) terminator, "Arnold Schwarzenegger is still a piece of shit."

Michael
07-24-91
I was at my school and overheard, through a closed door, a remark about Arnold. I rushed in and asked (stupidly enough), "What ABOUT Arnold?" My chairman gave me a withering look and said they had been discussing Mathew Arnold, not "Mr. Univac" I left the room and woke up, in both instances feeling mighty dopey.

Michael
08-07-91
Louise and I were on the phone (I vaguely recall that Louise was explaining why the flag always flew "to the left") and suddenly we realized that the background voices we'd been hearing as buzzes were Arnold and Maria. Louise speculated that maybe it wasn't even Maria, but then we heard, clear and loud, "More babies!!" in Arnold's voice.

Louise
08-08-91
I had an Arnold dream last night which I can't remember but it had something to do with his daughter Katherine.

Louise
08-20-91
Someone in my family was marrying someone in Maria's and her mother was a bitch and was mean to me because I went to the University of Connecticut and not Harvard so I flirt with a Mexican member of her family and that makes everyone mad.

Michael
08-21-91
For a fleeting second, I stood on a river bank and watched Arnold commandeer a train upon the water! Arnold is now seated, postured nearly like Rodin's Thinker. He looks up at me with a weary face—almost sorrowful—and says (not necessarily to me, but to the general air), "You have to love somebody. (pause) I don't know who I love."

Louise
08-31-91
I was at a Kennedy family dance. Arnold was alternately sitting at my left at the head of a long table or at the head of the next table over in the same position. He seemed to mysteriously flash back and forth. We ignored each other all night. All the other Kennedys knew who I was because when they were introducing someone around, they introduced my by first name like they were introduciing everyone else. People there we asking me if Arnold knew who I was. Someone says he knows who I am because he has talked about me.

Louise
09-10-91
I had an Arnold dream in which we again were at some event that kept us seated apart but at which I tried to get to meet him. It involved lots of elevator rides.

Michael
09-27-91
Louise called me to say Joe Weider was a hoax, that she had read that Ben Weider had created "Joe" to respond to unpleasant situations with body builders who had "run amok" and with correspondence that was hopelessly useless to him. So the letter we'd gotten from Joe was actually from any one of a number of unemployed and fattening former body-builders who worked for Ben Weider, sitting at long folding tables, answering phones and french-kissing envelopes from fans who wrote in to the Arnold fan club.

Louise
10-08-91
Arnold and I are teenagers although we look the same as we do now. He is over at my house and I have to hide him from my mother. We slip into bed with a semi-naked Arnold under the blankets. I pretended there was no one else in the room. The problem was that Arnold kept twitching and bouncing so that my mother was suspicious that I was lying.

Louise
10-24-91
I am at some sort of resort. I am in the gym with all these musclemen, including Arnold, who are working out on the equipment. I am making a documentary film. Arnold is at a machine, sitting split-legged. I focus the camera on his crotch and think this will be artistic. Arnold is sweating profusely. He comes up to me from behind and is dripping on me. He says, "I want to fuck." He kisses me and I taste his sweat. I say, "But you are married." We are face to face. He laughs and says, "So what!" I run off to attend a meeting on photography but it is over when I get there.

Michael
11-11-91
I am checking into a hotel and am supposed to meet Louise (according to her note) for a "debriefing" in the "circular lounge" at "10 sharp" for a meeting with "The Weider Brothers" but the clerk insists there is no such lounge. I know I have the right hotel and then I recall that she had said Boston not New York and I am now panicking. I am calculating that I can get to Boston by 9:30PM but I don't know how to reach Louise to tell her that I will be late. Next to me I see Ben Weider and then I realize that it was Louise that had gotten the hotel wrong and now I am panicking because I am guessing that I will have to meet Ben Weider alone. At that moment I hear Louise's laughter, unusually loud and turn to see her walking, arm in arm, with Joe Weider. She is holding a large, new white camera and is joking that such a gift (from Joe) is, "Too much, but I'll take it, ha ha."

Michael
11-13-91
Arnold and a bunch of us are playing water-polo. He has, it is clear, been awarded everything left to award him. He plays vigorously and delightedly. Michael Jordan is also playing and tries to stuff the ball into the goal. Arnold blocks him easily and ferociously stuffs the ball himself. Then, staring somewhat wistfully at the metal uprights of the goal, Arnold glide/floats over and says that there has always been one goal he wanted more than any other. We all understand that he means he has always wanted to possess the strenth and the "wherewithall" to tear off the upright using his bare hands. Reaching out with absurdly pumped and prepared muscles, he grips the post and, in ripping it out, discovers that it is rotten, rusty and no chhallenge at all to remove. His look is sad. Later as he is leaving, everyone reverently says goodbye. He shakes my hand very and expressively and says to me, "You and I will definitely be in touch."

Louise
11-13-91
Arnold and I are going to appear on a talk show together. He does not know that we are writing a book about him. We are on a bus traveling to the studio. He notices me and begins to flirt. I ignore him but when we come to a stop I get up in the aisle and stand next to him. I notice he is carrying a black 35mm camera and the film advance lever on it is sticking out. I very firmly push it back into place and walk away, leaving a love-struck Arnold. After we get off the bus, Arnold is swamped by photographers who order him to pose. Especially loud is the voice of a woman shouting specific instructions. I go over to talk to Michael away from the crowd. Arnold notices us and magically appears on the other side of the crowd frozen in mid-air in a ballet pose. He is literally glowing. I think he looks like he is imitating Patrick Swayze. He holds the pose while I photograph him, then he strikes another pose, again frozen in mid-leap. My film advance lever is jammed but I can finally take the picture, although I do it reluctantly. This happens several times. It is time to get ready for the show but I have no makeup on. I rush through the long corridors of the building out into the parking lot. I can't find my car. I get on a bike but don't get far because it is too late. I go back and start looking for makeup. I close the bathroom door on a puppy-dog Arnold as I look for and then find some makeup. A woman appears with mascara which I put on. The music starts up for the show but it is really my alarm clock waking me up.

Michael
11-14-91
Louise, Karen, Richard and I are walking arm-in-arm down the middle of a city avenue. The order is: Me, Karen, Louise, Richard. Louise and Karen are involved in a heavy discussion of "neuro-signs" and I can tell that Louise is trying to find out whether there is any way we can argue that the shape of Arnold's head can be read semiotically. Richard is sulking along, evidently because he is not being talked to and not particularly interested in the discussion. Suddenly, on a noisy motorcycle, a dark figure zooms past us from the opposite direction. We know it is Arnold. Richard sulks more deeply because this will mean he will now be utterly left out of things.

Louise
12-07-91
Arnold is sitting down talking to me in a shopping mall. Either earlier or later Richard and I go into a men's store and Arnold is the clerk. He has given me something and told me to come in and get a refund. He comes out to greet us and then goes behind the counter. I am impressed he is starting from the bottom to learn a business. There is a brown leather jacket on the counter. I say to Richard that I want it. Arnold hands me two refunds: one for 20 cents although at first I think it is 20 dollars; the next is money for a leather jacket although it is also a receipt to get a leather jacket free. I say to Arnold (extreme close-up), "Why won't you sit down and talk to me?" He laughs, we start doing the interview. I am afraid I will forget all of it to tell Michael. I do forget. He says to me, "You have two children." I point out that I don't have any children but that Michael does. He says, "Your students are your children." I agree with him and realize he has been observing me. He admires me for my great teaching and for the fact that so many students like me. He is envious. I say, "You know I am writing a book about you." He has to run off but advises me that we should make our book down to earth, like a screenplay that the studios would accept. I point out to him that we need an academic book first because we need jobs. He leaves and I wait for him to come back. I am still in the mall, sitting with some woman. I am hoping he will return so I can get his phone number and have a taped interview so Michael can hear it. Then I decide Michael should come to Califoria and we should telephone Arnold together. I promise myself not to phone just to hear his voice. I begin getting afraid he will never get back to give me the number, that he was fooling me. The mall gets flooded. A huge white dildo comes floating by with two patches of white pus which disconnect and float away. Then it is soup I am stirring and I hope the dildo and pus don't spoil it. I take them out and don't plan to tell anyone they were there.

Michael
12-14-91
Louise calls to say Richard is in the hospital and has suggested that I go to Belize in his place. I say, “Why don’t you go?” and Louise starts to cry and say she’s decided to stay with Richard in the hospital and try to get pregnant. I tell her that if I go to Belize, the Arnold research will suffer. Louise snaps, “You idiot, Arnold OWNS Belize!”

Michael
01-21-92
The English department secretary pages me through the p.a. system: “Michael Blitz. Please report to the speech labs.” I excuse myself from my class which seems to be elementary school aged children, and rush to the lab. The computers are going haywire, printing out gibberish and Arnold’s face appears on the projection screen, laughing.

Michael
01-24-92
I was confronting a local thug concerning his annoying all-night yelling outside my door. He told me to mind my own fucking business and as I was drawing a bead on his eye, I heard someone say in a perfect Arnold accent/voice, "Dun't doo dat. It's too eeezy. Hit him where it will do the most dammatch." I wheeled around, convinced that the Arnold was actually behind me and discovered Louise! Louise smiled delightedly and explained that she had been practicing this mimicry for months without telling me so she could surprise me "for your boxing day." Unfortunately, as you were explaining, the thug clocked me on the noggin and I awoke with a suspicious headache.

Louise
02-12-92
I was running away from Richard. At one point he caught me and made me feel bad by telling me he had secretly met his mistress at a sandlot baseball game. I escaped and the Richard seemed to become an Arnold character. Somehow I got an Arnold sized shotgun and started firing at him but by now he (Richard/Arnold) was an invincible cyborg.

Michael
03-15-92
Arnold's father sent me a postcard on which was both a swastika and a Star of David. No other marks appeared so I couldn't be sure what it meant. When I called Louise to yell about it she said, "They cancel each other out. Now we have to see if Maria is the Star of David or the swastika.” In the dream, this seemed like sheer brilliance.

Louise
03-24-92
My sister and I are at a hotel at Disneyland. I am sitting naked at a desk. I am looking at publicity photos of people who are supposedly in different movies but they are all standing in front of the same stadium crowd. Arnold suddenly appears in front of the desk. I say, “Arnold, you are wearing a toga.” And indeed he is wearing a white toga with gold trim. He looks down and is surprised that he is wearing it. I say, “Will you put it in?” He tells me that I will be disappointed because, we both understand, it will not be like the movies, but he said he would try. Although neither of us moves from our positions on opposite sides of the desk, I feel a pressure against my underwear but nothing else. Arnold looks crestfallen. I awake in the dream and try to write down what has happened. I look around the room and realize that something is weird. There were many blue flowers in vases but they had been moved around from their previous positions. I think they are trying to attack me and are talking to each other. I grab a bunch of them from a vase and twist their stems into a knot and put them back in the vase. I look out the window and there is a hose floating in midair. I am scared but decide to try to control it with mind control. I make the hose move over to a parched strip of land and the hose starts watering it. I am pleased. I am still trying to find a blank piece of paper to write down the Arnold dream. I start writing over some notes I have for research on a museum exhibit I am curating about gifts that people give at work. I recognize that this is a paper from another dream. I try to write on a big postcard that has the Flintstones or Yogi Bear on it but since the images bleed through on both sides there is no room to write. I find a card that is imprinted with a record and shows Roy Rogers’s horse Trigger rearing back but there is no place to write.

Michael
03-27-92
I visited LA and found Louise sitting on a couch sorting through thousands of non-descript photographs, sort of touristy shots. She explained, tearfully, that Richard had told her that she could not work on anything related to Arnold until she had cleaned up the pictures. I pointed out that Richard was in Central America and that she was all grown up and everything but she shook her head and said, “Richard always knows when I’m committing Arnold to memory.”

Michael
04-02-92
As I am waking up I hear some whistling in the hallway outside my room and "recognize" the "style" as Arnold's. It turns out that no one was whistling.

Michael
04-18-92
Karen is upset with the van and is yelling at me to “refinance the transmission.” I am silent, bewildered because I am trying to recall if Jewish law permits us to discuss car stuff on the Sabbath. Karen mistakes my silence for ignoring her and snaps, “Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver buy new cars with your tax dollars.”

Michael
04-24-92
Linda Hamilton was to appear at John Jay college. As I meet her at the school "runway" I tell her proudly that, "Louise and I are writing an article entitled, 'Linda Hamilton's Arms.'" She smiles thinly, as though that were hardly surprising news. She had 'shaped' hair—that is, not long and straggly but sort of longish, Patty Dukeish hair. She asks me "Did you get the flags?" I become nervous. She was supposed to have brought her own flags. I assure her that I will take care of it, thinking that she was already a pain in the ass (she was acting as though this gig was much more elaborate than it was going to be, and I wondered if she realized this). I run to the college bookstore and I manage to buy three small versions of what I somehow know she wants: The Flag of the Grateful Dead.

Michael
04-28-92
I am reading a poem to Bebe Neuwirth (plays Lillith on "Cheers") and she is obviously not realizing the love-significance (I am, I realize, desperately in love with her). My next two poems, read aloud, are plainly hostile—one of them requires me to hurl tennis balls at the wall over her head. She stays put for these poems, I note. I am in a hotel with Karen, going to bed, Karen and I are arguing. I get into the bed removing the contents of my pocket—including one of the crumpled poems—possibly the first—I'd read to Bebe Neuwirth. At that moment, Arnold is walking down hallway and passes by our (oddly enough) open doorway. Arnold passes our room, and I say, without thinking, "Arnold Schwarzenegger!" He is evidently intrigued by this call from an open, darkened hotel room, and I also realize that he is responding to the fact that it is a male voice (though I draw no conclusions about this). He takes two steps into the room. I am aware that Karen may feel uncomfortable about this, but I also hope that she will be fascinated. I say, "It's Michael Blitz," as though this information will set the record straight. He strides over to the bedside and shakes my hand firmly and says "Good night!" His tone suggests that he is somewhat honored, somewhat awkward about being called into the room.

Louise
05-01-92
I come home and enter through the basement. All the rooms are shaped of concrete an all the furniture and other accessories are shaped of very rough concrete. I go upstairs and ask my mother what is happening. They (Nazi-like men ) have taken over the basement. I object to this but nothing can be done. They have taken my clothes outside and I go look in the pile for two tank tops and other favorite clothes. Someone has taken them. There is a carnival in town and I go there to find them. Everyone lies to me about where they are, especially a woman behind one of the game booths. I have to catch an airplane but need my clothes first for the escape. There is a handsome muscleman trying to get my attention. He goes over to a baseball pitching game to show me how strong he is. He pitches several fast balls but the last few just fall short. He goes over to lift weights to show me he is attractive. He invites me to come over to do it. He works there, I realize. I sit on a bench to lift and look down at my stomach bulging out. I pull it in until it is tight, muscular and tan. Then I lift the weights he has put on easily. He has moved away so I go over and tell him it was easy.

Louise
05-03-92
Arnold is giving a big lecture in the town in Belize where we are doing archaeology. We all go to the lecture. We have to stand in line to get in and try to convince the people in charge that they have to let us in but they won't. I am asked to help set up the audiovisual equipment for the previous speaker and I volunteer in order to get in although I object because I want to go hear Arnold but I have to do it because it is the only way to get in the building. The slide show the man is running is all messed up and it is not until the end that I get all three projectors focused on a blackboard because there is no screen big enough. I am resentful because I miss Arnold's lecture. I have to carry the equipment downstairs before I can go find Arnold. I try to carry too much of it down the stairs of the modern auditorium we are in. I can't do it so I decide to take the elevator. It immediately come and I get in with all the equipment I am holding. I go down to one level and the door opens and there are dancers folding up chairs so they can perform. As the door is closing I see Patrick Swayze close-up carrying chairs and he smiles as he passes the elevator. I decide to come back and see him if I can't find Arnold. I go down again and the door opens and I see Arnold in the distance. I have to go get rid of the equipment and by the time I come back he is gone. I go to the elevator and when the door opens Arnold is inside. I say that I want something from him so he gives me a light kiss. I tell him I like that but I say that is not what I want, I want to talk to him even though the kiss was nice and I wanted that too. I say that I am writing a book about him. He seems surprised but not displeased. I am a bit surprised he does not already know this but I suspect that he does. My arms are bare and I hope he notices I have muscles. He asks me out to dinner that night. I say okay even though I know Richard is waiting for me. I know Richard will play along and say okay. Arnold and I ride the elevator to another level and get out and try to decide where to eat. He lists all sorts of ethnic restaurants that he knows in town and then spots a man he knows from India sitting on the ground around a fire. He says this man knows or owns the best Indian restaurant but for some reason we decide not to go there. Some woman who knows Arnold (not very attractive, heavy) walks by and says something to him that suggests that they are just acquaintances but that she is a fan. We are actually at the agriculture fair which I realize when we get outside and Richard and Tom and some other male student are waiting for us against a wall under a shelter. I say I have to go tell my friends we are going. I go up to Richard and Tom and say "Richard, Tom, This is Arnold Schwarzenegger." The other student butts in and introduces himself. [I have not till this point introduced myself to Arnold]. The three men are dressed as Arabs and Arnold says later that they must work hard at archaeology. I say archaeology is not that hard work and that they are just goofing with the Arab dress. I then agree that maybe the work is hard. To staffer from the anthropoogy epartment at UCLA, Ann and Madelyn, are helping with agricultural research on the archaeological project. They have a grid they press into the ground that makes little compartments that they have grass or rice growing in. They are consulting with Wendy, an archaeologist, who is in a pit next to them. On the second area they press the grid into, the ground is very watery and then make grass grow and measure and count things. We watch them for a minute. I say I have to go home to change my clothes and Arnold agrees to pick me up at four (the rests of this seems to have been happening in the evening). It is 3:46 so I have to rush to the big house I am sharing with Richard to get changed My mother and her husband walk in and I tell them about my date. I am trying to get ready before Richard comes home. I am now aware that Arnold takes women to dinner when Maria is not in town. I wonder if I will stay the night with him, even if it just means sleeping curled up in the same bed but not having sex . I check out a colorful sweater and a tailored jacket in my closet and try to decide between them. My armpits are sweaty and I realize I have to take a shower before I go out with Arnold. I see him as a tiny figure outside the window, waiting, staring up at my room. Suddenly Richard is home and I am not sure I can get out of the house before he sees me.

Louise
05-06-92
I was outside a Planet Hollywood that just opened in Belize. An Arnold Terminator character was outside it. He was standing against a blank wall, I wanted to talk to him but I was suspicious that it was not Arnold. I went up close as he talked to fans and posed for pictures. It was a larger than life figure and its mouth opened wide to reveal that there was someone inside. I tried to look inside the mouth because once before I had seen this figure and indeed Arnold was inside. It opened it's mouth wide and there was only a blank rubber face inside. Then the figure had only a rubber upper face and the jaw and mouth and nose was human. At first it looked like Arnold but as I watched it became clear that this was a much more handsome younger man without Arnold's heavy accent. As I moved further away could see that he no longer had on any part of the rubber mask, only the Terminator clothes and that it was not Arnold talking to the fans but someone else.

Louise
05-13-92
I have scheduled Arnold to give a talk at an old, quaint rundown hotel in Miami. People are supposed to come looking like themselves but at another age. Many of the men come trying to look younger. One of the women who comes has a moustache but it is real, not fake. As the people wait around for Arnold to arrive, they gather in seats in a tight group around a bunch of men who are playing poker with very small cards. Everyone is in clothes from the 30s and 40s. John Goodman as Babe Ruth is in the center of the card players. The group is definitely segregated by sex, women in the foreground/left, and the men on the other side of the Babe. I am anxious because Arnold is late. I decide to go to another location to see if Arnold is there. I am reluctant to go because I don’t want to miss his arrival. As I walk slowly away Arnold’s limo pulls up. Only about 3 or 4 women see him and come asking for autographs. He runs away to the building for which he has a set of keys. He gets into the building and I follow. He does not say anything to me or look back but I know he knows I am there and he does not object. He walks around the building quickly, checking the security, making sure the glass in the windows is bulletproof. We wonder what will happen when they sell this beach house. I say that I have worked at both of his appearances here and that it is a good place. We are in an old-fashioned lecture hall, lots of wood, almost like the old gym in a small school. Eventually he turns around and I introduce myself but I fumble with my own last name. He somehow acknowledges me and I say, “You recognize me?” but he denies it. I tell him about the book as we duck down a narrow flight of stairs. We stop in the narrow staircase to talk, ducking our heads. He asks me about this vendetta we have. I say it is not a vendetta, we are writing a book that is not a biography. It is a book about his influence on the culture. He laughs and warns me about doing this. Be careful, he says, or you will never be given the correct phone numbers. He demonstrates the frustration of giving someone the wrong phone number by using a cellular phone. All this is still taking place in the tight narrow staircase going down to the basement. He explains something about the phone numbers and says, “POOF!!”, the sound of someone disappearing.

Michael
06-02-92
Helen Elam [a professor at SUNY] stepped out of herself a la Total Recall Arnold scene in the airport. She ended up as a young, slim, pretty, short-haired graduate student [another Helen from our graduate school days]. I told her that this was only partially surprising. She said something like, "I have surprised no one for years." I felt bad for saying that I, too, wasn't surprised, so I feigned a bit more surprise than I felt. She saw through it but evidently found it endearing. She kissed my cheek very affectionately and said, "These lips are my lips and they are the equator."

Michael
06-06-92
Arnold is demonstrating sign language for the deaf to a crowd of admirers in the parking lot of a grocery store across the street from my house.

Michael
06-07-92
I am at a film entitled something like "At the Tower of the Other" and I realize, as I watch, that the central image of a sculpture tower is very familiar. As the film ends, I become aware of two things: 1)the sculpture is the same as something I recall seeing in Louise's courtyard, and, 2) I am on a date with a dark haired woman that I don't know well. When the lights come up (she puts on a wire-mesh jacket; I wear an old-style Davy-Crockett jacket). I ask if she'd mind if we go to my friend, Louise's, house to check out the sculpture in the garden. I say "Louise will understand if I break into her house while she's in Belize. She expects this kind of thing from me." My date—whose face I can't yet see—laughs in a beautifully clear voice and says, "All the things Louise says about you are so deceiving." It now occurs to me that my date knows Louise and that she probably "fixed us up." So we drive off to Louise's house (now located ON the water). I don't have to break in as I find, in the mailbox, an envelope with my name on it and a note with a key inside. The note reads, as I recall, "Michael—here's your key. Richard said you should use it only if you cannot defeat the alarm." My date laughs again, reading over my shoulder—an act which at once annoys me and mystifies me because I don't understand why she is already so familiar with me. I decide to use the key mainly because I figure that to defeat the alarm might mean that my date would learn the procedure. As we come into the hallway, I smell fresh bread cooking and find another note on top of the bread machine that reads, "Michael, leave the crust. Thanks, R.L." I laugh that there are all these notes in anticipation of my visit that not even I had expected to make. My date, upon hearing me laugh, suddenly turns me toward her so that I can see her face and I realize that my date is Rowanne who is much more beautiful than I had recalled—though I recall her being very pretty. She puts her face "up" to kiss/be kissed, but suddently the phone machine comes on and it is Louise's voice singing "Michael Rowanne your boat ashore...." and then the sound of Louise and Richard cracking up. Rowanne is embarrassed but I am laughing so hard that I half awaken with actual laughter. Suddenly later, we are in Louise's courtyard, sitting Indian-style at the foot of the sculpture which turns out to be a sort of molten chrome—a la the T-1000 of T2. Rowanne explains that we can make it change shape—and from this I intuit that she'd like it to become a metallic phallus. She explains that we must meditate on it together, using all of our will. I reply that I can't even meditate alone, but she moves to sit behind me, and holds me around my chest to "show me" how to do this. The sculpture does nothing but blind us in the glare of a bizarrely bright moonlight, but Rowanne is kissing my neck and sort of pleading with me to leave "your wife of so many years." I hear myself say something idiotic like "Karen isn't a wife, she's a partner." Rowanne responds by actually levitating us into the "lover's suite" which she tells me she secretly watched Louise and Richard build under the garage. (We float there, still sitting indian style. We are hovering over the bed, Indian style and then I surrender my resolve and kiss her, fascinated by what I understand to be a weightless kiss. Rowanne responds by dropping us onto the bed where we agree to use only our left hands. Needless to say, the sex is a blur of confusion with the end result a scene in which Rowanne reminds me of my promise to "be with me forever, now." I feel neither panic nor guilt as I remember that Karen and I were already divorced on a technicality that I now understand. But I don't want to tell Rowanne this. Instead, I said, again idiotically, "I won't even be with ME forever!" At this point, I become aware that the statue in Louise's garden has changed shape and I run to look at it, Rowanne running after me&emdash;somehow I notice, on the run, that she looks beautiful but has a strange scar along the side of her torso which I guess is "a prosthetic arrangement." When I get to the garden, the statue is gone, but there is a small pile of books, including Louise's book on "Acrylic Promises" and another note from Louise in a language I did not understand but Rowanne did. She said she would translate only if I promised to be her lover which made me angry and wake up.

Louise
07-30-92
I dreamed last night that Arnold died. Actually, he was murdered. In fact, he was murdered and no one really seemed to care. I was at some kind of event, either a charity event or something like the Olympics. I wasn't supposed to be there. There was a group of women surrounding Arnold. I don't know what happened, but suddenly he was being escorted away by bodyguards, all of whom were taller than him. Some of the bodyguards were women. Then suddenly there was word Arnold was dead and they were looking for a leather belt as the murder weapon. I saw a woman walking away with one, twisting it in her hands. I got the impression that Arnold was squeezed to death. There was no great excitement or mourning about this. I never heard anything anything on the news or in the newspapers. Later at some event, maybe the continuation of the same event, there was an article on Arnold's death in the April, 1988, New York Times. There was also an editorial about him which I read but can't remember what was in it. It mentioned Maria. At this event people were gathering to drive to Pacific Palisades to Arnold's house where they would get instructions on how to get to Saint Monica's Church. I wasn't invited to go but since I knew where both places were I was trying to decide which one to go to.

Louise
08-21-92
Arnold and I get arrested by the Russians. We are taken to Russia and put into some kind of camp that has young people in it. They don’t know who Arnold was there. We are waiting to be released and Arnold gets permission to have Maria come for a visit. Arnold takes Maria into the next room which has a glass wall so that we can all watch. Arnold lays on his back on a Barcalounger and Maria sits on top of him. They kiss passionately but have all their clothes on. Meanwhile I am talking to all the young people as Arnold and Maria smooch in the background. They discover I have a Russia/Polish background when we dance and they see I can do a mean polka. I say to them, “Do you know who that is in there?” One young woman says yes but three others say no. Then Arnold suddenly comes out, takes me by the hand, and leads me off to another room. He sits down on a weightlifting bench and says to me, “Okay, what do I have to pay you to stop writing this book about my sex life?” I put out my hand and smile and say, “I am glad to finally meet you.” He says,“We are not meeting. How much do you want?” We look at each other and start to kiss. He suddenly turns into someone else who looks like an old Tina Turner with small orange lips; maybe he is a drag queen. I think to myself that he is a bad kisser. I walk away and say, “I don’t want to do this book anymore.” Then I think about how much I could ask him for. I go back to the bench to kiss him again. His mouth is open and head tilted back and I look at a pool of accumulating saliva. I wished I hadn’t kissed him and think about AIDS and all the lovers he has had. I decide not to kiss him again.

Michael
08-26-92
I had a dream-snip lasting seconds in which Arnold needed to use my dictionary. I was very busy and tossed it to him. I noted, somewhat distractedly, that his attempt to catch it looked spastic and flustered.

Michael
09-29-92
I got a phone call from an ex-girlfriend who sobs as she tells me, “That cop who raped me was…” but she can’t finish her sentence. I gently try to guess what she is trying to say but keep getting it wrong and she sobs louder with each mistake. Finally she says, “You’re writing a book about him for god’s sake! He raped me!” and sobs more then hangs up.

Michael
11-01-92
I am drinking a cup of coffee and have a number of beer bottles on the table in front of me and I have a terrible hangover. I think I am in a diner until I hear the sound of water running and realize I’m in someone’s kitchen. Joan Lunden of Good Morning America is making more coffee, cheerfully telling me our interview went very well. I groan and she laughs and says, “Mr. Universe doesn’t look much better!” I am suddenly alert and ask her if she means Arnold Schwarzenegger, and she laughs again and says, “Well, since Lee Haney is born again it must be the Terminator.” I notice, then, that Joan is topless and when she turns to me, I see that she has enormous pink breasts which have tattoos on them but the tattoos turn out to be bite marks. She laughs again and says something like, “He uses his teeth” and I realize or suspect she means Arnold. I notice that her right breast’s teeth marks look like a swastika.

Louise
12-03-92
Maria Shriver and I had to take her car to be fixed so we pulled into a sleazy car repair shop and had to wait in a filthy waiting room. I had to grab a rag to clean about one half inch of dirt from a chair. Maria had on a sleeveless green cordouroy jumper that went down to the floor. I looked down her dress and saw that she had legs that were very swollen wrapped in ace bandages. I wondered if she had varicose veins. She had a baby with her who was very young but spoke like an older child intellectual. This baby had black hair and did not look like either her or Arnold.

Louise
12-07-92
A producer has tried to arrange an interview with Arnold. But he hadn’t gotten Arnold to agree yet. Arnold comes into the room. I go to shake hands with him but he won’t do it. “I have met you,” he says. He leaves. I have come to the interview unprepared, with only a pencil and paper, no tape recorder. Arnold comes back into the room. We are standing near each other. We both look grim. He breaks first and gives me a tiny smile. I start to smile then we both laugh and say something about two stubborn people. Then we go walking down a hall to a cage elevator to the producer’s penthouse apartment. Arnold gets under the covers on the bed to slip into some running shorts. I reach under the bed to get my running shoes to be able to leave but grab potato chips instead. I am hurt. I get ready to leave when Arnold comes in and agrees to talk to me. He goes out again and I leave with some students who are talking about improving their credit ratings. I buy a white leather bolo.

Louise
xx-xx-93
I go to the premiere of Arnold's latest movie, Last Action Hero. Nothing is happening. A guy with a moustache is looking for a way to move a large piece of furniture. He wants the piece of wood with wheels that they used to move my piano but you have to have a federal ticket to get in.

Louise
01-18-93
Arnold is across the hall from me in a hotel. I have permission from Maria to photograph him. She leaves and we go over to my room. Somehow we are suddenly in bed and I am on top of him. He gives me a big, sloppy, tongue-in-mouth kiss and then pushes me away. He say, "I am HIV positive." I now have to decide if I want him so much it doesn't matter or if I value my life more and will get up and leave. I try to compromise and ask for a simple kiss but he won't go along. Later I am in my room thinking about this with regret...

Michael
01-20-93
I dreamed that I had bugged Arnold's home and Maria caught me and, quickly calming my fears, she told me "I'm glad someone around here has balls!"

Louise
01-23-93
I am at a conference on fitness and film with my friend Teresa from highschool. We look at the schedule and see that Arnold is giving a short talk. We go to it but it is so short that we try to get a videotape of it when it is replayed on TV. But someone has substituted my TV and VCR—they have put an old 50s TV in its place and there is no way to hook up all the cables. Teresa says she will audiotape it but for some reason can't. Scene shifts and I am in the back seat of a car with my mother. She has a big stomach. She says something about the year 1942. I tell her she has to exercise. I take her to the gym. I try to teach her how to use a treadmill and Arnold is watching us as she keeps doing it wrong. Arnold says let me show you. He starts positioning my body by putting his hands on my hips and guiding me. Then he lifts the side of my running shorts to show my thigh. I say they are too fat and he says his are too. Then he looks at my calves which I flex. After a long time he says that they look good but he really can't tell because he can only judge men's calves and judged Japanese men's calves last night. If they had been real men's calves, he said, there would have been a chance of disease. Then he gave us some things including, I think, some chocolate. He also gave us three empty cardboard Crystal Geyser water cartons (no bottles in them) as souvenirs from the Japanese thing the night before. The cartons have a special logo referring to the event. Then he said he would be willing to do a whole work shop but gave several excuses why he could not including that it was too quiet. I said if I fixed those conditions would he do a workshop next year. He said yes. Then I asked if he would do an interview now. He said yes. We are in a room that has rows of tables and chairs. I say please sit down and he does. He asks, "What organization are you with?" I look at him thinking he is playing with me because he knows I am doing a book about him. I giggle, then sit down and hand him my UCLA card. I say, "I am doing a book about you."

Louise
01-31-93
Arnold has just stayed overnight at my house and everyone just takes it for granted.

Michael
02-06-93
I was dreaming that Louise had found in a novelty shop a 78rpm record of Arnold singing Elvis songs—one side was "Love Me Tender" and the other was "Jailhouse Rock" which, she told me, when you played it backwards, was also the "preamble" to "Mein Kampf."

Michael
02-08-93
I dreamed Louise was on a TV talk show and while on the air, phoned ME to tell me to tune in to the show! I did, and remained on the line with her as she fielded questions about "women in the Millenial Hall." Louise was, graciously, trying to involve me in the discussion but the host (who I think was Arsenio Hall) wanted her to himself. Then, Louise was at the opening of a film (still on tv, that is, she was seen exiting a limo, with Richard, on her way to the opening of a new David Lynch film in which she suspected Arnold had a cameo role.) I watched this, and realized I was still on the phone which I started to hang up but heard a voice on the other end and I said "Hello?" The voice was very angry that I had forgotten to renew "a subscription." I hung up and hoped the voice could not recall my phone number. Louise had, meanwhile, disappeared from the screen but then I saw the man from the phone standing in a booth (still on TV) dialing and then my (dream) phone rang. I did not pick up, but worried. I awoke, still worried.

Louise
02-21-93
A long elaborate dream about researching Arnold.

Louise
03-10-93
I just remember that Amold and I met and were face to face with a quick kiss in there for some reason.

Louise
04-01-93
We have been following Arnold around, spying on him. We are somehow in his family compound or on the set of his film. We keep chasing after him, observing him and his friends and family, overhearing conversations. He seems to be vaguely aware that we are there. Finally he stops us and makes us wait in a room while everyone meets to decide our fate. Then he comes out and goes through a big explanation of the meeting and says that everyone was against us but one person, his sister Laurie. She was a drunkard or a bit wayward, I knew. Anyway, Laurie wanted to talk to us but everyone else advised that Arnold get us out of there. As a sort of compensation he took us on a walking tour. We came to a set of his movie and he offered to let us come to his next movie set and travel with the company. He then quizzed a camera man on a crane about who was to be the star of his next action adventure. The guy said Robby Benson and someone else. The guy looked like Robby Benson. Arnold congratulated him on his correct answer and let the crane lift the guy away. For fun he let me order the next shot. When it came down to making the crane zoom in high above me to a woman's dress hanging there, I gave a very technical command and then was afraid that Arnold would know I had already worked on a film and he would not let us come to a set. Then we move along and come to a tiny Scandinavian woolen shop. Arnold locks me in while he and Michael stand outside the door. I think that Arnold is going to buy me a sweater. My friend Kathy is outside with them and tries to get me to look at a particular sweater but I cannot tell what she is saying. She comes in to look at the sea shell on the shelf which is really balsa wood. Arnold is still observing us. The shell arrangement has a tiny whistling boat on it and I encourage her to steal it. She does and we all run away, including Arnold. Kathy disappears and Arnold reveals that they have been spying on us since we started the research. He shows us surveillance photographs as we are walking various places together. I notice it is always raining in the photos. I note that the photos look like the work of artist Sophie Calle who hired a detective to follow her around and photograph her. One of the photos looks like the Toonces the Cat skit from Saturday Night Live. We finally get back to the room where our suitcases are and see our suitcases and our running shoes on the floor. We know this is where Arnold will finally leave us. Getting there we walked with him and I tried to walk close to him, one time grabbing his sleeve as we had to step up and down over a wooden step in our way that we could just have easily avoided. I asked him if he would be willing to answer written questions from us and he says that some woman's working on a computer program that will do this. But we point out that our questions may be unique, like after we watch one of his film 20 times and want to question him about an inconsistency in one of the scenes. He says that we can direct the question through Laurie. We asked, “Was Laurie awake so we could get her phone number?” No, of course not, it was early in the morning and we got the sense she had partied the night before. We know we will be leaving without the number and without a way to continue talking to Arnold whom we feel is ambiguous about not talking to us.

Louise
04-02-93
Michael and I are in New York City doing our research on Arnold. It is late at night and Michael insists on going into the streets at night. We encounter two men who harass us. They are older, skinny bums, like country hicks. Michael gets into a fight with them and ends up missing when Karen shows up with the kids and the police. But I hear his voice and discover that he has been reduced to something hidden in a dark stew on the ground. I see a small part of the glop moving and retrieve a black piece of paper/slate on which is written a poem which is his essence. I also retrieve something which is part of him. I bring these things to Michael and Karen’s house and try to figure out how to tell Karen what happened. Suddenly there is an electrical storm which we can see when we look out the window. The house starts swirling around and shaking and I am worried that Michael’s pieces will fly out the window. I see Karen in another room taking care of the kids. I am knocked out and when I come to I see that all the data we have been collecting, including the pieces of Michael, have been cleaned and placed in plastic bags and neatly stacked by Karen. She admonishes me and says that the first thing you do with a storm of any kind is lock the door so nothing can fly out. Suddenly Michael is reconstituted from the poem fragment (which has been cleaned of its stew) and the other objects. We all hug.

Michael
04-04-93
I am eating an apricot that I have found on Dan Rather's counter. I am not sure why I am in Dan Rather's house, but I walk around as though I am a welcome guest. There are other guests, all of whom are either sipping wine from huge goblets or are eating sloppy looking sandwiches. I walk to the large glass sliding doors which look out onto the ocean. I am watching a couple romping on the beach, getting more and more passionate. I suddenly have binoculars which have a jar of macadamia nuts hanging from them, so I have to use them carefully. I look out to the beach and see, now, that Arnold Schwarzenegger is making out with the woman who plays Roseanne Barr's sister on the Roseanne TV show. I want to tell the other guests that Arnold is out there, but I notice that one of the guests is Maria Shriver. She notices me and waves, and then looks sad. It dawns on me, for the first time, that I might be someone famous. I look back out to the beach and am startled that Arnold is now AT the glass doors. The woman is gone. Arnold is naked and I notice that his neck seems to have rope-burn marks. He waves to me and I hear him saying, "Hi, Dan!" For a second, I am panicking, thinking that I AM Dan Rather and why didn't I know this all along? Then I realize that Dan Rather is behind me and Arnold was waving to him as though I weren't even there. Suddenly it dawns on me that Arnold and Dan Rather are lovers and that Arnold had been trying to make Dan jealous by making out with Roseanne's TV sister. I wonder if Maria Shriver knows this, but I see that she is already gone. Dan Rather looks effeminate and I notice that his shoes are purple with rather high heels.

Michael
04-23-93
Louise sent me an article from "Genesis Unbound" magazine which featured a story of Arnold's "genetic surgery" (he'd had his chromosomes "adjusted" to allow him to live 200 years.) Her accompanying note claimed that this was his "worst perversion yet." But I noticed that in the photocopy she'd sent, the "formula" used by the surgeons was written out in a footnote which she'd highlighted as though to learn it.

Louise
05-15-93
Arnold and Maria were my neighbors. They lived two doors down in a neat and trim neighborhood like the one I grew up in. One day my father was laying on the living room floor writhing with stomach pains. I tried to decide if I could go over to Arnold's to get help. I saw him and Maria drive up to their house in an old 50s style car. I decided or my father decided that we should not bother them.

Louise
06-05-93
I had gone to see Last Action Hero and didn't like it. Arnold was laying on his side in a bed with his back to people and his fans were laying down next to him (he kept his back to people) and telling him what they thought of the movie. I climbed onto the bed and teasingly told him it just wasn't a good movie. He had the director find me later and insisted on a meeting about why it was a worse movie than Orlando or several of the other "non-movies" that were out. I said, "Does this mean that now you will take my calls?" He tells his assistants to take my calls and they all drive away in a truck. I write the phone number down in my daybook.

Michael
06-08-93
I dreamed Louise had gotten tickets to "L'Opera Arnold"—a broadway musical parody of all of Arnold's films. She told me we would be able to go backstage but would not say how she knew this. I met Louise and Richard and Richard's "apprentice" who was a diminutive, effeminate man/boy approximately 25 yrs old with Rowanne's face. We met at the Majestic Theater and Louise and Richard whisked me in (literally carrying me from my arms) past the marquee which, for some reason, she did not want me to see. Richard's friend was giggling and kept trying to hold my hand which was irritating the piss out of Richard but Louise was amused and I was vaguely troubled by something I sensed was about to happen. We sat with Richard in the aisle, then Louise, then me, then Mr. Rowanne. When the lights went down, Rowanne-boy whispered to me, "I may kiss you." Before I could reply, the stage lights came up and the "barker" shouted, "Ladies and Gentle men, tonight's opening performance of L'Opera Arnold is possible thanks to Louise Krasniewicz and Michael Blitz whose archives were the source of the script!" Louise punched my arm in delight and Richard reached across her to shake my hand but she batted his arm away. Rowanne-boy lunged suddenly and kissed me passionately but Louise began to "nuggy" his head and he stopped. I was still feeling troubled and incredibly detached from all these shenanigans. Suddenly, I felt this hot breath on the back of my neck and turned sideways to hear Arnold, who I realized had been sitting behind me, say to me "Relax, enjoy the show. When it's over, we gonna go outzide und I'm gonna break your jaw." Louise said, "Shhhh!" and he sat back. I was startled and impressed by Louise's aplomb and awoke.

Michael
09-02-93
I dreamed two dreams last night: the first involved the sensation that someone was climbing into/jumping on my bed. I awoke, alarmed, forcing myself to call out "who's here?!" The second was that, again, someone was intruding—maybe in my kitchen—and I called out (this time not awakening) and could swear someone was muttering in a Germanic accent. I then crept to the kitchen and discovered it had been remodeled and was a TV-show set for a game show to be hosted by Arnold. Their was an enormous marquee where my stove had been, and it read, "Dial-a-Screen," and though no one told me this, I KNEW that the premise of the show was that contestants would spin a wheel to determine which of Arnie's films they'd see a brief clip of. The object was to buzz in the moment someone saw Arnold himself. The buzz would freeze the frame and then the buzzer would have to identify the exact syllable that Arnold had been about to utter at that instant.

Michael
09-06-93
I round a corner in a city and discover a long line of people waiting to get into a movie the marquee of which reads "You-Know-Who: Bigger Than Ever" and I reckon it has to be Arnold's newest film. As I get on line, I am anxious that neither Louise nor I were aware that he had a new film after Last Action Hero. The woman ahead of me, who is with a muscle-man date, asks me if I am "a fan". I (cleverly) ask, "A fan of what?" Without missing the beat, she says, "A fan of mine." As I am thinking that this is a mighty suspicious line, and as her boyfriend turns to see who his date is talking to, I notice that Louise is several people ahead in line. I try to see who she is with, but the woman is asking me something. I say, "Sorry, I didn't get that," and her boyfriend snorts and says "Ha! What're you, stupid?" The woman looks vaguely familiar but I can't recall where I have seen her or whether I had liked/disliked her—both seem possible. She turns to admonish Mr. Beefcake and I again lean out of line to see who Louise is with—not sure whether to call to her or to connect with her after the film to compare independent notes. The woman in front of me turns to me again and, as though reading my mind, says, "Your friend Louise is with Powers Booth, not Richard." I start to say that I don't know who Powers Booth is but then recall that he played Jim Jones in a TV movie about the Jonestown suicides. For some reason, I am certain that Louise is in danger now, and start to walk up to her to alert her. Mr. Beefcake steps in my way and says, "Hey! No cutting!" but I brush rather easily past him and tap Louise on the shoulder. She seems very pleased to see me and after a quick hug, she introduces me to "Arnold Booth"—who, for a second, I think must be Arnold Schwarzenegger's brother! Then I realize that he is either related to Powers or IS Powers Booth but is using a different name to fool Louise. Louise also seem to read my mind and say "Michael, Arnold is Powers Booths cousin." "Oh," I say. Louise explains that she has decided to meet as many celebrities and/or celebrity-family members whose first name is Arnold as a peripheral "band" of our research. She says, "I'll be making a new hypercard stack of these guys." Arnold Booth smiles proudly. I ask her if she knew about the movie, and she laughs, saying, "Oh, it's not a Schwarzenegger film. It's the story of Arnold Palmer." I laugh and make a comment about how dull a prospect that is, but Arnold Booth is miffed because his cousin, Powers, is playing the lead. Louise, also seem miffed as she reminds me (as though I'd been told) that she and Richard had co-produced this film. She adds, with an edge, "And by the way, that woman you were flirting with is NOT Rowanne!"

Michael
09-29-93
I dreamed I was waking up in a strange room filled with floral prints and floral sheets and the smell of mint. There was a canopy over the bed and I could see through the lacing to the ceiling which had a Jasper Johns painting of a dart-target and the bull's eye was a glass eye (I don't know how I knew it was a glass eye). I heard someone say, "Good morning," and discovered I was in bed with Rowanne. As I was getting my bearings, I was also thinking that she looked incredibly pretty and rested—I thought that she must be one of the people who actually benefitted from a good night's sleep. She said, "Come on, we have to get up. Louise will be here any minute."I thought this was odd—that Louise would be coming over so early in the morning, and for what purpose? But I realized that the Johns painting was also a clock and I "read" that it was mid-afternoon. Sure enough, the bell rang and Louise let herself in. Rowanne was already up and wearing a bulky floral robe and Louise came striding into the bedroom, saying, "Get up Blitz!" before she could have seen I was there. I knew, then, that she'd been told I was there, and I also somehow figured out that she had the idea that Rowanne might be a reasonable "draw" to lure me out to California to live. Louise dumped a huge bundle of papers on the bed and sat at the end, watching me try to shuffle through documents I couldn't recognize. Finally she said, "Jeeeeez!, Michael, read our reviews!" Evidently, our "film" had opened the night before and Louise and Richard and Rowanne and I had gone to the party where we'd whooped it up good. I was not able to focus on the texts, so Louise picked one up and read, "The team of Krasniewicz and Blitz may be too hard to pronounce, but their film speaks for them." Rowanne picked one up and read "Who WAS that woman Michael Blitz was with tonight?!" and then laughed, saying she had just made that up. Louise caught my eye and rolled hers. I picked up a review which turned out to be a political cartoon depicting Louise with a placard of Arnold and a speech-bubble with just a blob inside it. The caption read something like, "They don't think much of Schwarzenegger's tongue." I thought that this would bring us trouble.

Louise
03-03-94
I was being chased by someone, possibly an old boyfriend. I climbed a wall and got into a display of memorabilia from horror films. There were posters and models of Dracula and Abbott and Costello Meet the Wolfman. There was also a poster of Arnold as Frankenstein!

Michael
04-11-94
Coming home from work, late at night, I find a huge pile of mail for me in the alcove. My mailbox is also stuffed full. I notice that most of the letters are from Europe (Switzerland,from Jondi; Italy, from Masturah which makes my heart jump and provokes an adrenalin tidal wave). There is also a letter from Austria along with a very long, heavy package also from Austria. The rest of the mail consists of magazines and fliers (one of which is for "Dr. Scissor, Your Man in the Surgery!"). I am determined to carry all of this stuff up the stairs in one trip which proves difficult because of the shape and weight of the Austrian package. By the time I'm at the top of the stairs, I am drenched with sweat and am breathing as though I've just sprinted a few miles. I dump all the mail on my bed and get a carving knife from the kitchen. When I return to the bedroom, I notice that the Austrian box has moved from where I had put it. It seemed to be "trying" to move again. I carefully cut the tape on the box and when I opened it, I found a human thigh, very muscular and tan, throbbing and oozing a sort of transluscent blood which was being absorbed by these "space age" packing peanuts that seemed not to become saturated. For some reason, I am less startled or horrified than I am enormously curious about whose thigh this is and who sent it and why. I open the letter that had come from Austria and find two handwritten pages done in something like a child's scrawl. I don't understand a good deal of it—not because it is in German, but because the letters have been conflated a lot of the time—i.e. as though a "g," "r," "t," "x," etc. had all been overlayed for each letter of most of the words. I did see that the signature was, as I'd begun to suspect, Schwarzenegger's but it was not signed ARNOLD Schwarzenegger. Instead, there was a name I could not quite make out but which I somehow realized was a woman's name. The little bit of the letter I could understand had nothing to do with the leg. It seemed more like a boring "this is what I did on my vacation" letter. However, in the middle of the second page was a seal of some kind, or a stamp about the size of a half-dollar which consisted of an incomplete circle within which was a pair of scissors. Across the scissors was the word FURCHT (fear). At that point, I recalled that there had been a letter from Masturah which I now tore open. Somehow I could sense immediately that it was going to be a very loving letter but I woke up before I could actually read it.

Louise
04-17-94
I am in the house that I grew up in. I have a newborn baby girl. She is wrapped tight in swaddling clothes. I lay her on a couch between the crack of pillows so she won’t fall off. She is so clever she uses her head to spin herself around and around. Arnold is there. He picks her up in delight and raises the bundle in the air and laughs. When he puts her down I say something like, “You don’t remember me.” He leans in close to me and whispers, “I remember everything. Every detail. From the very first time I saw you.” I realize he means he knows every thought, every dream, every thing I have ever done about him. I look at him and we kiss, lightly at first and then passionately. He stays with me in the house for two weeks and ignores all his work, including a film listed in a bulletin board that he is directing and co-starring with Sylvester Stallone. Finally he has to leave to straighten everything out. We go out the front door and as he gets in his car, he is recognized by the people in the neighborhood. It is the day after Valentine’s Day.

Michael
05-01-94
Arnold drives a 3-wheel police cushman, flinging parking tickets at the parked cars along my street. I'm watching from a window. I know if he sees me, he'll fling a ticket at me which will require me to get a lawyer. I am very nervous, but I can't stop watching him ride around in this vehicle.

Michael
05-01-94
I dreamed that Arnold signed a deal to "puree the World Trade Center." I was a journalist of some kind and was photographing the press conference at which he was announcing this. Seated at the dais next to him was the Reverend Sun Myung Moon and on the other side was Maria Shriver and several Down's Syndrome kids/people. Suddenly, laughing like a madman, Arnold turned and began spitting at the Down's people, and his spit was "blinding" them. Maria tried to shield them with her pocketbook but Arnold slapped this aside. He then tore off Moon's right ear and used it like a tissue to pull out the eyeball of one of the Down's syndrome kids. He held the eye up, swaddled in the ear, with a demented grin as I took pictures.

Michael
06-13-94
I was skippering a catamaran and was tooling around a turbulent lake. A walkie talkie I did not know I had on board began to squawk. It was the Coast Guard calling "mayday" or rather relaying that info from a small craft in the middle of the lake. I was to sail in decreasing concentric circles around this distressed boat until my wake was able to pull it toward me at which point I'd be able to tie on a tow-line. As I neared the boat, I saw that Maria Shriver and young John Kennedy (who was with a blonde that was not Darryl Hannah) were flailing their arms. I tied up their craft with a incredibly thick bit of wool and began to create the vortex I'd need to tow them to shore. Arnold surfaced suddenly, wearing full scuba gear. He tossed his mask off (he appeared off my port side) and laughed maniacally, bellowing "HA HA HA!! YOU FELL FOR IT, YOU IDIOT!!!"

Louise
07-14-94
I had a whole bunch of people at my house trying to get ready to go to the opening of Arnold's new film. They were all showering and using the multiple bathrooms I had. I was frantically walking around with Robin Williams trying to find him a bathroom to take a shower in. We were all getting nervous that we would miss the premiere.

Louise
07-31-94
Arnold was one of the people who came into a girls’ school I was working at to demonstrate movie stunts and special effects. Arnold comes in at one point and I have some kind of exchange with him. Someone else is demonstrating horse stunts in the auditorium. Vanessa Redgrave shows up because her daughter Natasha Richardson works there and she is appalled that the place is dusty and that the family dog hangs out with me. We all wear Victorian dreses though it is contemporary times. Maria Shriver has given money to the school and used to come to the events but once she married Arnold she couldn’t come anymore. Still, she gave money for people to raise plants and especially likes to eat the fiddlehead ferns that the girls grow.

Louise
08-15-94
Arnold and I are attracted to each other and he is especially docile and loving. I lay on top of him and he unzips his pants. I tell him I am pregnant and this gets him more excited. I look down and he has a big long white penis. We have sex in a variety of positions but he is always gentle. I can make him swoon simply by stroking the small of his back.

Louise
08-15-94
I am working on one of Arnold's films. He notices me and does things to get my attention. It is some kind of western because I am dressed like a cowgirl. At the end of shooting one scene he pops up near my fancy red sports car. He asked, "Do you drive that car a lot?" I said, "Not much." He wanted to drive along side me with his car. He says, "You guys can come and drive with me tomorrow morning?" I tell him I have a doctor's appointment at 10 or 10:30. He said that is good, we will do it after. He told me to, "Bring that guy you are with," but I said, "He won't want to spend the morning with YOU."

Louise
09-13-94
I am at what is supposed to be my old high school. We are actually on the stoop of an old building. Arnold happens to be coming down the street. He stops at the next stoop, greets people, then comes to our stoop where he is swamped by the crowd. He makes his way through the crowd. I run for my video camera but do not have one. Arnold gets to me in the crowd. He recognizes me. "You!" he says, then he whispers, "Meet me at 9am." Michael is next to me, observing this. "Where?" I ask and he says, "In New York," and he gives Michael elaborate directions on what train to take. Michael finally says, "But I have to go to the fair." I am idly stroking his arm and he gets annoyed and pulls it away. The whole plan falls apart. Next I am in the movies and Arnold sits next to me. I sit on him then mount him. He is laying down now, pretending he is not enjoying the sex. I notice he has cuts and lesions on his tongue. I don't care. I finally get off and say I have to go do some fundraising and I leave him dumbstruck.

Louise
10-15-94
At Arnold and Maria's house for some event about kids.

Louise
11-17-94
I am at the movies and Arnold and Maria are sitting towards the front of the theatre. There are subtitles to the films (which I believe is one of Arnold's films) but they are going too fast and I can't read them. Some guy, who I think is O.J. Simpson's friend Al Cowlings, is sitting at the side of the theatre playing the guitar. Arnold gets up, walks over to Al, takes his guitar and walks out with it. Tucked under Arnolds other arm is a violin which I understand belongs to him. I open the door for Arnold. I also notice that even though this is a movie theatre, no one is eating popcorn in here.

Louise
11-19-94
Arnold is staying at my house, sleeping on the couch. It seems that he has been thrown out of his home. He has just had a baby but he ignores the baby, leaving it with me and going out partying with some friends who pick him up in a convertible.

Louise
11-27-94
I am sitting next to Arnold at some kind of function about computer graphics and the movie Junior. Arnold turns to me and says, "So when are you going to get married?" I put my arm around him and say, "We did get married, last December." He looks shocked. I say it was in Las Vegas, the same time he was there judging a beauty contest. He can't remember it. I say, "I should have invited you." I notice he is holding a foldable gun in his lap. His bodyguard is sitting across the table. Some guy next to me keeps trying to break into the conversation. I finally let him. Then I say to Arnold, "The reason we got married is that we are having a baby in March." He folds up his gun partly and tucks it under his arm so it is less visible. Then a student comes up and informs me that we have to get to music class. I don't know if I am a student in the class or the instructor. This is a class in which Arnold was once a speaker—that is how I know him. Arnold wants to come to the class and I know he will be a major interruption but I agree. Arnold really has to go play tennis. I say, "I know someone who wants to play tennis with you—my husband." I know Richard will be pleased with this. We try to get to the class but Arnold has to greet too many people on the way out including Bo Derek who is also a student in the music class. Arnold has to talk to the person in charge of the room we are leaving. The man is having students file up past his desk to pay one dollar to get a chocolate chip cookie. We are going to be late for the music class. I have to decide if it is better to stay with Arnold or get to my music class which I need to graduate because it is the last one.

Michael
12-03-94
My poetry class is meeting in the deep end of an Olympic style swimming pool. We are all treading water with our specially plastic-wrapped books and papers floating in the water around us. Their heads (and mine) gently bob up and down as people take turns reading aloud. Arnold is in the class and as the students take turns reading, he makes a more and more derisive face which I find enormously distracting. At one point, a student is reading and occasionally her mouth dips down below the surface and her words are slightly gurgled. Arnold snorts and lets out a huge belch, mostly below the surface. It results in a large air-bubble that floats into the center of our circle and bursts, stinking of old beer. Arnold laughs and says "Now DAT's poetry!" I awaken into another dream feeling vaguely anxious that I had lost control of the class (and of Arnold).

Michael
12-07-94
I am a driver's education instructor and the car has run out of coolant. The student says he will help with the "torque" but instead runs off, inexplicably howling in pain. I am busy under the hood and see Arnold's reflection, somehow, in the oily metallic surface of the engine block. I wheel around and discover that he is actually shorter than I am and has a long handle-bar moustache. I realize, then, that in all his films and public appearances, this moustache has been bleached and treated with "poly-ozone" so that it is more or less invisible. I am excited to call Louise to see if I have learned some incredibly secret thing or if she knew all along and assumed I did, too. Arnold seems to be reading my mind, and smiles. He says something like, "You didn't really think I'd shave it off for every film, did you?" I laugh as though he has said something funny but I see that he was not joking. When I start to speak, he pounds his fist into his other hand (like Robin used to do when he'd say "Holy Muscle-man, Batman!") and back flips away from me. I feel off-balance as I awaken.

Louise
12-07-94
It is clear to me that Richard doesn't care for me anymore but he won't tell me. When he starts ironing his polo shirts it is obvious he has met someone else. When I ask him he starts talking about a freshman who has attracted him. I hope he is joking but he is not. Richard and one of his other female friends next appear to be my parents but they are my age. Both tell me they have found other people. I am hurt. I have had some interest shown in me by Arnold who shops in a gift shop that is attached to both a community college and an auto repair shop that I visit. I have to get a job and wait in line to be interviewed at the college. I am shopping in the gift shop and start talking to Arnold. Richard or his friends see me and Richard gets jealous. I am glad eventhough I know there is nothing between me and Arnold. Some Australian guy who was a friend of Richard's was teasing me as I got my car from the garage where he worked. I looked down the street and for a minute thought my car was stolen

Louise
01-25-95
I am Jamie Lee Curtis getting ready to be in a film with Arnold. It is required that I have no hair on my body. Several people are helping shave me, putting on chemicals, and using wax to get it all off. Arnold is using big tweezers to pluck some hairs. Someone grabs me and starts to clip the hairs around my anus. Then they shave me there. Suddenly I am done and I show Arnold my long, beautiful hairless legs. Then I am myself and I am back home looking out through the window of our house. We live down the street from Arnold. A limo goes by with many people in it. Are they going to Arnold's or the wedding down the street? I have a formal gown on and I walk down to Arnold's to find out. The church is next to Arnold's house at the end of the cul de sac. My sister points out to me that the church is really just an apartment building with towers on it. I look down a set of steep stairs and see women in colonial American dress—they are part of the wedding catering staff. There are also little boys in costume and when the little girls and women see them, the women and girls all rush down to greet them. I wonder if anyone knows this is Arnold's house nearby. Some of the girls in costume go up to the door and see mailboxes that say Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver. They try to go in but the servants say no. They go to tell the other kids. I walk away smiling. My sister says her friends are going to Canne this year for the film festival because they have a bit part in a movie. I said we could have gone last year but didn't. As we try to go home, we have to go through a building where the doorways are blocked by furniture. I am testy but we move the furniture out of the way and keep going.

Michael
01-27-95
I was delivering eye-glasses to "the needy" along Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn. A rather plump, somewhat effeminate guy appeared along side of me; he was roller-blading, wearing tight lavender (I think) spandex bib-shorts with no shirt. He really was pretty chubby and lisped with what I took to be an Irish accent. He had reddish hair and absolutely huge nipples. My backpack was stuffed full of eye glasses, some of which I knew to be fragile and so I was feeling somewhat burdened by my burden. The skater was slowing down to stay apace with me and this, too, felt burdensome. I knew he would strike up a conversation if I looked remotely interested, so I pretended to be concentrating extremely hard on the clipboard I was carrying. The guy was skating way too close to me now and so I said, "don't make a big mistake. Hit the road." He giggled and from his giggle I realized he had a German accent. As I'm thinking this, he said, "Don't think you know a thing about me." In the same instant that I realized this was Arnold and that he was outrageously NOT what anyone (including Louise and I) had ever believed him to be. He began to change and became William Shatner (in looks) but with a German accent. At that point, I suddenly realized that I, too, was on roller blades and began to lose my balance. I awoke clutching one of my pillows.

Louise
02-02-95
I had a dream that went on for a while before Arnold appears on a television as an announcer for the third segment of a program on computer graphics. The second segment just featured Art Linkletter and said that he didn't do computer graphics and anyway he died last year. Arnold is supposed to represent the future in his segment.

Louise
02-04-95
All these people making a movie are staying at my and Arnold's house (which is really the house I grew up in). I am in the bathroom, just standing there. Someone knocks and wants to come in. I knock a flush knob off the wall, put it back on and then flush the toilet, even though it is empty. Someone has left a gold alarm clock in the shower and it is all wet. I walk out and Arnold is coming out of the bedroom. I put my hands on his trim waist and gently guide him back into the room. Some guy with a moustache rolls over in the bed on the far wall, but I don't care he is there because I am feeling romantic. But Arnold is angry. Showing me some test results he says, "What is this?" It is a test that says that I have two babies, one I am carrying and one that the lab kept and is growing. I explained that it was part of their research deal where they kept one for their "fertility enhancement program." We realize we will have to get the other baby back.

Louise
03-06-95
Arnold was making a new film and I was watching the first scene. Arnold put his bulging biceps into a metal cuff and the camera zooms in on it to identify him. Later we are told that one of Arnold's relatives is giving advice on investing money. Outside there are two lines of people waiting to talk to her. The first line of people sits in chairs at the curb. Arnold is in the third chair. I am in the second line. We sit with out backs to the first line, closer in on the sidewalk. I have a 12:00 appointment but it is clear I will not get to talk to her on time. Someone calls a break for lunch and we all go into a restaurant. Someone wants me to take care of all the kids in strollers but I refuse. Arnold is near a phone and I go over and tell him I am tired of waiting to get my financial advice. He strokes my hair once as my brother walks by and looks. Arnold says, "You are blushing" and I say, "It is the blush of a woman who is nine months plus pregnant." Later we are advised how to answer questions from the press and Arnold's mothers assures us that the correct answer to a particular question is masturbation. I wear a gorgeous red gown to the event which impresses everyone eventhough my bra straps keep showing. I hope Arnold is impressed by the dress. Someone gets a group of women together to deny that Arnold's mother said that masturbation was the correct thing to say. She whispers the real answer in my ear but I can't understand her.

Louise
04-09-95
I am an extra in Arnold's latest movie. During a break in the shooting I go for a walk and notice a big mansion in the distance that they are using for a shot. I realize it is Arnold and Maria's house. Suddenly I look left and Arnold is walking next to me, smiling. He said he wants a woman like me in the movie. We lay down to talk and someone delivers massive amounts of pills which he starts to take. I peek at the label and realize it said AIDS and SIDS in it. Arnold has AIDS but is very casual about it. I think about what the headlines will look like when he dies of AIDS. I decide not to eat the rest of the baked beans that Arnold has left on his plate.

Michael
04-13-95
I dreamed Louise was in town and called me from a pay phone "down the block"and said, "Um, Dr. Blitz, is there a motorccyle in front of your house?" I was puzzled and said, "Louise?" She cracked up and said, "Look out your window," which I did. There was a humungous, bright red Harley sitting on the sidewalk in front of my apartment. Louise was no where in sight. As I was admiring the hog, she stroll up arm in arm with Arnold on one side and Richard on the other. Richard had gotten very fat and seemed somehow shorter than Arnold, nearly Louise's height. I was very happy to see her and hugged her, commenting that, "You feel like you're made of steel." Richard groaned, and Arnold beamed, saying, "You got a good name!" Louise told me the bike was Arnold's but he had given it to her. Since she wouldn't ride one, she asked him if she could give it to me. He had told her he would have to meet me first. Later, we were in my apartment and Louise was repainting cool designs on all my walls. Arnold was gone, but Richard was pacing slowly, groaning. I asked him how he'd been and he got pissed off. Louise stopped painting to referee. Richard said "Your hero did this to me!" I had no idea what he was talking about, which Louise saw, so she said, "Michael, Arnold got Richard pregnant." Then she turned back to painting, and I thought she might be trying not to laugh. I was shocked and didn't understand. I started saying someting like, "but that can't happen in real life..." Richard was, suddenly, cooking a wok full of vegetables and Louise was showing me some slides of her work. Jody and Cal came over to meet Louise and were delighted to find Richard in this condition and were asking him lots of prenatal type questions. He was trying to be civil but I could tell he was nearly exploding with irritation. I offered "drinks and pretzels" all around and Richard began guzzling scotch and chowing down pretzels like he hadn't eaten for years. Louise looked alarmed. Jody and Cal were tending to Lucas who, oddly, had not interested Richard at all (I found it odd that a pregnant man would express no interest in someone else's baby). Louise told me Richard had just been turned down for a Fullbright to Antartica because they didn't allow "men with child" to be exposed to the elements. So she was going to go and had come to NY to ask me if I wanted to go. I said "Yeah!" Somehow I got Richard, Jody and Cal to agree to share the baby-sitting of Daina and Cory while I was away. Richard looked somewhat more interested in my kids...he was looking at pictures of Cory and smiling.

Michael
04-15-95
I dreamed I was watching a bowling tournament—my brother (who actually was, long ago, a semi-professional bowler) and his team were waiting impatiently for their competition. My brother was drinking lots of Budweisers and looking toward me, as though I had something to do with the immediate problem. The opposing team arrived—a bunch of loud-mouthed hooligan types—one was Marc Gastineau, the other two were non-descript musclebound Frenchmen (I remembered, in the dream, "Oh yeah, the French are supposed to be great bowlers") and Arnold Schwarzenegger. My brother didn't look at all surprised—in fact, I don't think he knew who he was bowling against—though he and his team mates all recognized Gastineau who was, as he usually did as an active football player and after, acting like a jerk. Arnold had ridiculously ornate bowling shoes and wore a high-tech half-glove for his bowling hand. His ball had been specially made and was, as the guys were all commenting, an unbelievable 50 pounds (I think the heaviest normal bowling ball is 16 lbs). Jed started and got a strike, as did all the first framers. Arnold (predictably crushed the pins with his shot, and immediately ordered a round of beers for both teams. He yelled to the waitress, "Hey, vooman, bring uss some beeeuhs. And no mawr ahf dis pooosy shit" as he tossed a huge handful of empty Bud-bottles. The dream shifted to where the tournament was, I guess, over. I don't know how it turned out, but Arnold was furious with one of his own teammates who was evidently arguing that bowling wasn't a fitness sport. Arnold kept saying, "Loook at dese biceps, you asshole!" For some reason, Marc Gastineau spotted me in the "audience" and was furious. He hurled his beer bottle at me, which scared me into waking up.

Louise
06-21-95
Arnold is in a computer ad selling humvees. He says, "Hi, I'm Arnold Schwarzenegger." Jamie Lee Curtis is in the back seat of the car. He turns to look at the crash dummy robots behind him including ones that look like Lucy and Ricky Ricardo and their kids. Later I come upon Arnold preparing for a movie. At one point I lay on a bed, someone lays on top of me and Arnold gets on top of them. I complain about being on the bottom of a sandwich.

Michael
07-19-95
Arnold and I are interviewing actors for recasting the Bonanza television show. Arnold is aloof and after each interview, mutters to me (about the actor), "Faggot!" He sits up suddenly when Bruce Lee comes in. Arnold says, "You're dead!" I am shocked. Lee cannot speak but does a flourish of karate moves, and Arnold stands up and shoots him. Lee is dead (again). Arnold says to me, "Fucking faggot!" and tosses his pistol onto Lee's corpse.

Michael
09-02-95
Louise has left me a message, taped to my car window, that Arnold is going to be in Manhattan signing copies of "our book!" I don't know how to get in touch with Louise, and no one seems to know about this event.

Louise
09-03-95
I was outside at night when suddenly a big crowd of multi-ethnic people started running towards me. I knew they were looking for me but I thought if I ran with them they would think I was part of their group. We ran into a big house and I kept running, signaling that I had to go to the bathroom desperately. They let me go. I got into a tacky but elaborate gold and white bathroom, locked the door and opened the window. I looked down and there were people in wedding clothes sitting on an airbag. Then the groom jumped out of a window above me and landed safely. I jumped out onto the wedding party group and then ran away. It turns out that they were chasing me because I had a pile of information on Arnold. I had to go to a meeting where a movie mogul insisted I give him the pile of information I accumulated about the film I was a consultant on. The Arnold info was hidden in the pile. I hoped he didn't notice it. My student Liesl was talking to the mogul and to Steven Spielberg, conducting our meeting while I sat back and watched. She asked if it was okay to tell the people she was the nurse on the project. I finally got the info back and let Arnold know.

Louise
11-10-95
My father was dying, possibly of AIDS and we didn't want anyone to know. I was going to chop up his body and hide the pieces. But when the time came I couldn't chop him up—I started cutting his stomach but no more. So I hid him in the garage under a tarp. Someone came in to borrow a car and the corpse, now dried and stiff, was partly on top of it. But they drove off and didn't notice at home. Maria Shriver is in our house dressed in her Halloween cat outfit. Many of her blond women friends are also there. When I ask why I was shown an article that said that Maria was anticipating her divorce. Our housekeeper had brought my son Drew a transparent dress that cost $5.50. The sticky sales price came off. I was making a yellow, blue and pink quilt and wanted to cut up one of his blankets which had a yellow-blue-pink pattern on it, for one of the squares.

Louise
12-09-95
Arnold and I both lived in condos that bordered an amusement park. All the houses were very close together and had back decks overlooking the park.

Louise
05-18-96
I was in Arnold's new movie but it was not going well.

Louise
06-03-96
I enter a talk show audience and hug a huge blocky Lou Ferrigno, like a refrigerator. Then Arnold arrives, also blocky. We are all younger. Arnold greets me like we know each other. Then we are backstage being interviewed by a sports reporter. She is a novice and nervous. She sucks a whole plastic bottle into her mouth. I make her pull it out. We go view a re-enactment of a campus murder rampage. A man with a gun walks around and shoots people point blank. He goes up to one kid and shoots down his pants. The sports reporter asks us our theory about how this could happen. We say fear freezes people. Then the baby Arnold is holding has diarrhea and I change the diaper. Arnold is impressed.

Louise
07-16-96
I was going to try to get into Arnold's estate/office/movie set. The trick to getting in was to flood certain parts (the towers) that would make the whole thing open up. We(?) gave up or were driven away. Walking nearby we came to a four car garage. We opened it and it had small vintage cars (like the mini ones ridden in parades by the Shriners). I recognized a little red one as Arnold's. This was a good sign we were close. I came upon a soft leather wallet. It had no money in it. I brought the wallet in and realized it belonged to some historic collection. A man came in and said, "I know you found that wallet outside. You should leave it here." I told him I had already decided that. We went to a club where a group of women were singing country music. One picks up a man who works for Arnold. He complains that the other women are singing alone and he could easily fix them up with other guys on his crew. He has sex with one of the women. I see from his point of view how I can have sex with her without a penis. It works as her friend looks on. Later kids in a playground say things taste "yucky." Someone says it depends if someone had sex on it.

Louise
07-16-96
Arnold was making his movie comeback. I was able to see the daily rushes by rolling Drew's carriage into the screening room. The movie involved Arnold as some type of tough warrior but his entrance in the film has him as a man in a white diaper. The movie was opening the next day in New York where I was for only a day. The ads said it was going to be the biggest premiere since Eraser and everyone would try to crash it. There was a promotion—they would let in some men who came as the man in the white diaper. I was going to tell Michael to try it.

Louise
09-24-96
There is a bear trying to break into the house. Then Arnold Schwarzenegger is trying to break in. I regretfully stab him in the stomach with a pie spatula.

Michael
10-27-96
Arnold is fixing my computer by installing a "new rubric" into the monitor. I tell him that he may be thinking, mistakenly, that I have a German computer. He laughs as though he is in the movie, Total Recall, and tells me, "All computers are German!"

Louise
11-25-96
Arnold is going to be taping an interview or demonstration in my apartment in Albany. I struggle to get a videotape into the VCR to record it. Someone suggests that it is possible to videotape Arnold even before he has performed. He is going to do an exercise program for handicapped kids.

Louise
01-12-97
Both Arnold and I are shopping in a hardware store. We are attracted to each other. Suddenly two large boxes containing tripods are delivered for me. I stand on them and rip them apart like a strongwoman. The tripods are in hundreds of pieces. I start to gather the pieces in baskets. Arnold leaves.

Michael
01-30-97
My colleague, Karen Kaplowitz, is angry with me for writing about "that Nazi prick," Arnold Schwarzenegger. I tell her that, "We cannot be censored for writing about Nazis." But what I had wanted to say is that Arnold is not a Nazi. Somehow I couldn't say this.

Louise
04-12-97
Arnold had hired me to construct something for his children. The test of my ability is that we exchange watches and see how they fit

Louise
04-17-97
Arnold is released from the hospital. He, Maria and their daughter are all wearing foam rubber harnesses and vests for support. I look in their bathroom and see that the construction workers had to replace one sction of the shower several times because Arnold was so fussy.

Louise
06-13-97
I was at Arnold's house with a group of people. We wanted to talk to someone who knew how to remove text written in indelible ink on the cabinets in the darkroom. Maria was sitting in a rocking chair reading with reading glasses. Arnold sat next to me and kept pressing his muscled arm against me. I knew he liked me. He finally acknowledge he knew who I was. I was shown something important. At the front door a weird cab pulled up with strange people inside. There was good security at the house and I was told not to worry. The house, I saw when I looked out the window, was located at 40th and State Streets, not where I thought it was.

Louise
11-13-97
Arnold and I were in the backroom of a store. Arnold inexplicably seemed at times to be a deformed one-footed creature.

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