A Writer’s Diary Entries From Late June, 2002
Saturday, June 22, 2002
7 PM. I’ve scheduled a wake-up call for 3:30 AM, and I plan to check out and leave for the airport an hour later.
Even though my flight is supposed to leave Seattle at 6:26 AM, I won’t be at Fort Lauderdale airport until around 4:30 PM or so – and of course there’s a three-hour time difference.
I’m going to take an Ambien soon, although I really shouldn’t take the sleeping pill three nights in a row. Still, I’d like to sleep just a little.
My anxiety returned today, and through this morning’s session of the conference, I had those sinking feelings in the pit of my stomach, the same feelings I had when I used to wake up in the middle of the night in Mesa back in September 2000, when I didn’t understand what they were.
In a few months it will be two years that I’ve been struggling with this generalized anxiety, and it seems as if it’s never going to go away.
Where’s the confidence I felt yesterday at the University of Washington and the calm I felt during dinner at the Oceanaire?
Of course, I’m nervous about tomorrow’s flight, but then there’s what I face going home: dealing with a week’s worth of mail, shopping for groceries, unpacking, and doing laundry.
And I have to begin the heavy-duty bar study on Monday; I never opened the Conviser Mini-Review while I’ve been here.
Now there are only five weeks left, and I’m really going to have to seriously buckle down or I will fail the bar exam. That means not reading the newspaper or answering email or doing much else besides the necessary job-related stuff.
I’ve lost a whole week of study time.
I’ll always be grateful for the chance to come to Seattle and to have experienced the LSAC Academic Assistance Training Workshop, but it came at a bad time – though of course it could have come even later in the summer, which would have been a lot worse.
Once I’m through with the bar exam, I’ll have to deal with fall orientation and then with training the teaching assistants and doing all kinds of administrative stuff, and after that, I’ll need to start having weekly workshops for the one else.
As Leslie Garfield of Pace said as she led the final, 90-minute session of the conference, titled “Where Do We Go From Here?”: “You eat an elephant one bite at a time.”
Shouldn’t I be feeling more comfortable by now with my job? It’s only my anxiety that’s made me feel so tentative and insecure.
I don’t remember having all these doubts about my capabilities when I started working at the Center for Governmental Responsibility or when I taught legal studies to undergraduates at Nova.
My “failure” in Arizona has really haunted me.
Last night Marty asked me if I don’t find the fifties the most fabulous decade of my life, and of course I had to say it hasn’t been fabulous for me. Will it ever get any easier? Will the anxiety ever go away?
I thought about these things in mid-afternoon as I walked down Pine Street, reveling in the smell of caramel corn from the street vendor and the music of people playing in the street and the pianist at Nordstrom.
I walked past Pike Place Market to the railing overlooking the highway (the Alaskan Way Viaduct) and Elliott Bay and the snow-capped mountains, faint as they are in the distance.
Everyone around me seemed to be in families or groups or as a part of a couple of every conceivable racial, ethnic and sexual preference mix.
Before the morning session began, I checked my email at the UW Law computers, and I found a long note from Elihu, who’s had a very rough time.
Not only has Roger been disabled since January with anemia (caused by drugs), but he needs surgery for a growth on his neck.
Their finances are in deep trouble because Roger has not been working.
They spent $50,000 supporting Roger’s son and his family, and their only reward is that they were rated in the middle of the night by the FBI, who ransacked their apartment looking for kiddie porn.
Apparently a friend of Roger’s son used their credit card to go online at certain disgusting websites. Although the FBI found nothing in their apartment except a quarter of a pound of marijuana, it cost Roger and Elihu thousands of dollars to clear their names.
Elihu has still got the same depressing shitty job, and he needs to work overtime to make more money. Still, Roger and Elihu have each other, and Elihu manages to volunteer for the Gay Men’s Chorus and be the new president of the St. George co-op board, replacing a corrupt administrator.
The only other non-junk email I got was from Aldo Alvarez, who directed me to the summer issue of Blithe House Quarterly, which features my story. (I looked at it only briefly.)
I guess I’m still a writer in some way.
In this morning’s opening session, Laurie Zimet, her colleague Jen, and another woman discussed seven principles of effective legal teaching, showed part of their video of interviews with students discussing those principles, and had us break up into groups, each discussing a particular principle and then posting what we discussed. I again played the role of reporter for my group.
Leslie Garfield’s session, intended to leave us energized, instead may have contributed to the feeling that law school academic support is a field that needs to redefine its vision ten to fifteen years after it came into existence.
What role will I play in this? I got a copy from Charlotte Taylor of the book she wrote with Ruth Stropus, Bridging the Gap Between College and Law School: Strategies for Success. I hope to use it as a way to structure my lessons for the 1Ls this fall.
I don’t doubt that I am and will be doing a job that can make a difference in the lives of law students, but I wonder if I have the energy, the drive, and the strength to do my job successfully.
When he heard me talk the other night, Dad said in disgust, “You’ll always think someone else can do a better job than you.”
It’s true. I have felt that way about almost everything I’ve done, from fiction writing to teaching to my current position. If only I could inject myself with confidence and calmness.
Throughout the day, I chatted with people from the conference and said goodbye and turned down an offer to join some women (Charlotte, Yolanda Ingram from Memphis, Carol Steiker from Brandeis, and others) for dinner at the Kingfish Cafe, which is owned by cousins of Langston Hughes.
Instead, I walked around a lot, drank caffeine-free iced tea at Barnes & Noble and Starbucks, and I packed for the trip home.
Tomorrow will be a long day, and I’ll obviously be jet-lagged for a while after the flight.
Sunday, June 23, 2002
9 PM Eastern Daylight Time. I’m back in Davie after a long day. Last night I fell asleep early and managed to get in six hours before I woke up just before 3 AM.
I checked out of the Elliott Grand Hyatt – the most beautiful and luxurious hotel I’ve ever stayed in – at 4:30 AM and got my cab to the airport.
It turned out to be a long wait at Sea-Tac, as I was there quite early. We took off on time and got to St. Louis around 12:45 PM Central Time.
I got off the plane at Lambert Field for just enough time to grab a turkey sandwich I had to scrape off the mayonnaise from.
That was the first and only time I ever set foot in Missouri.
St. Louis joins several cities I’ve been to because of their airline hubs, but I’ve never gotten out of the airport: Dallas, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, and Pittsburgh.
I knew we’d be facing thunderstorms in Florida, and they were pretty bad, enough for me to need 25 mg of Klonopin, though I never quite reached the level of a panic attack.
I listened to all six hours of the PMBR Property tapes, and I think I’ve got it down pretty well.
But I feel that I’ve lost a lot of time not studying; I didn’t do anything for nearly a week, and I’ve got only five weeks left with an overwhelming amount of material to cram in my brain.
After taking a Yellow Cab home, I became thoroughly soaked while moving from the taxi upstairs to my apartment.
For dinner, I had some frozen vegetables and a Garden Burger; I’ve been eating so badly, but I weighed 141 at Publix this evening.
It took a long time to put everything away, and I have a lot of dirty laundry to do.
But I am glad the rain stopped so I could get my mail, check my email at the office computer, and get some groceries.
I also paid some bills, but I see I’m coming to the end of my credit chassis.
The only way I can pay my bills, now that I have to pay rent, utilities, and my student loans, is to keep taking out cash advances – so I think I will need to go bankrupt by the end of the year.
Well, I’ll worry about that in time. For the next month, I just need to concentrate on the bar exam.
As Dad said about my trip to Seattle when he called, “You talked about it, and now it’s over. See, everything ends.”
I did think, as the plane tossed and turned in the thunderstorm, that if we crashed, I would have wasted a lot of time studying for a bar exam I’d never have the opportunity to take.
The mail was the usual stuff, but I got a card from NSU Healthcare: “Dear Patient,” and they checked the box that said “Your lab results are normal” rather than the one asking me to “Schedule an appointment to discuss your lab results.”
My leg ached throughout the day.
I’m going to see if I can fall asleep now.
Monday, June 24, 2002
9 PM. It’s been difficult to catch up.
I lost two hours today when Mark Padin came by to chat about the LSAC training workshop and all the people in academic support programs.
I like talking to Mark, but after a while I couldn’t figure out how to get rid of him.
He should have been working on his article because he needs to publish as a faculty member.
Mark did tell me that he didn’t apply for my job because the salary was too low. He even took a pay cut from St. Thomas Law School when he left academic support and became a Nova LSV professor.
Last night I had trouble getting to sleep, though that is natural because of jet lag. I bought two cups of Lipton tea at work and drank the iced tea during BarBri because I needed to be alert and not yet flagged.
Today I didn’t exercise or read the New York Times or check email, but I managed to do what I could. I decided to take out $1,300 in cash advances during my lunch hour and deposit the money into checking.
I know that will only make things worse and raise my minimum payments, but I can’t go bankrupt until the fall. I worry what the repercussions will be at work, but I’ll face that later.
For now, I have to concern myself with the bar exam, then fall orientation, and after that, setting up ARP for the fall. If things don’t work out, I guess I will leave my job, and I won’t renew my lease when it ends in November. I don’t know where I’ll go or what I’ll do, and that’s scary, but right now I can’t let myself become anxious about that.
If I had spent the last six months in Arizona, I would have declared bankruptcy by now; of course, I don’t know what kind of job I would have gotten or if I’d been able to move out of my parents’ house.
I would have missed out on six months’ experience as an academic support director at a law school.
While I might have been spared a lot of anxiety and expense, I have to remember that these experiences here in Davie and at my job have contributed to my personal growth.
Not that I would have stood still in Arizona; I probably would have taken some action to get myself out of my precarious situation, and I would have had more free time and less responsibility.
Anyway, I don’t know how I got started writing about that.
Today’s BarBri lecture was on Constitutional Law, with Erwin Chemerinsky, and of course, con law is like mother’s milk to me.
I did 66 of the 100 Con Law MBE questions in the second PMBR workbook. Erica and others tell me I should do the PMBR questions before I do the BarBri ones.
I took home the tapes of the Property lectures I missed last week, but it’s six hours, and I had time only to listen to two hours because I want to follow along with the handout and fill in the blanks.
Pat Jason wasn’t in today, so that made things easier.
I did my laundry later tonight because when I first got home all the machines were busy.
I didn’t get around to reading the outline on Florida Trusts, which had been a goal I had set for myself for today.
I still am not sure how to make the best use of my time, and I’ve got only five weeks to go.
Wednesday, June 26, 2002
9 PM. I am less depressed this evening even though I broke off part of a filling this afternoon and seem to be in a little pain. I’ll see if it gets worse before I call the dentist.
Last evening I decided to call that mental health hotline, although the woman there was no help. She thinks $48,000 is a wonderful salary and that I should be happy and just consolidate my debts.
Dr. Koncsol called later, and as I expected, he said that six months is too short a time to be certain I dislike my job. As he did the first day we met, Dr. K said I need to give it at least a year. “Besides, you know you can’t breach a one-year contract.” That’s true.
He felt I was overreacting to the incident with Hillary Creary (who didn’t acknowledge my email). I also should definitely not tell Pat about my doubts about how I’m doing my job, but I could ask her for feedback on my performance.
I’d been studying when Dr. K called, and I continued doing so until 10 PM, although my heart wasn’t in it. Since coming back from Seattle, I’ve been unable to get to sleep, and I haven’t wanted to take an Ambien or more than the minimum amount of Klonopin. I ended up sleeping from 1 AM until 5 AM.
Still, I didn’t need any caffeine today. Right now I’m going to stop studying, which is what I’ve been doing for the last three hours.
I read the Florida Con Law outline from the Mini-Review, did 50 Florida Con Law multiple-choice questions, and read about a dozen Florida essays with their model answers, though I don’t know how anyone can expect to duplicate them.
There are only so many facts I can memorize. In today’s BarBri video lecture on Florida Wills, it started to all become gibberish after the first three hours; the stuff about the state administration, like mortgages and property, is beyond me.
Tomorrow I have to go to either the afternoon or evening session, as I have the 10 AM meeting Pat called to discuss fall orientation.
I did 35 more questions on the simulated MBE, so I’ve got 75 left. I realize that I should be taking the test under bar exam conditions, but I’ll do that next weekend with PMBR.
At 51, I don’t have the endurance and strength of a 26-year-old. On the other hand, I can look at this time in my life with more perspective. If I fail the bar exam, it won’t be the end of the world – not that it is anyone’s end of the world.
I wrote Sat Darshan today, and she was sympathetic, although she says she’s sure I’ll pass the bar exam: “You’re brilliant.”
These days I don’t feel very brilliant. Actually, I haven’t felt smart since I took the job at Nova. It felt weird to tell Sat Darshan about my dinner with her sister, Ted and Josh; she asked if Ellen mentioned her, which she didn’t.
I also took time out to read some New York Times articles, like Maureen Dowd’s column on how all the nightmares baby boomers had in the 1960s – the world being ruled by rich and greedy corporations run amok, the government suspending civil liberties in the name of national security, the fouling of the environment by industry, politicians owned by fat cats – are all coming true in the 2000s.
I only wish a time like the 1960s – or the 1930s – would occur again, and it would be an exciting time to be on the Left. Of course, I had thought the 1990s would be a new period of liberal activism, and we just got more of the greedy 1980s, only worse.
At least the “Greed is good” crowd actually seemed to believe that they were helping the economy. Now we’ve just got corporate crooks at Enron, WorldCom, and Arthur Andersen.
But the stock market won’t recover anytime soon; everyone is still far too comfortable.
Well, I must be feeling better if I can talk about politics in business instead of my own problems.
Yeah, there’s a world beyond my job and the bar exam and the credit card problems and my anxiety. I’d like to stick around to see if things will change any.
Tom Conway came to see me; he got his GPA up to 1.78 from a 1.56, so he’s still in the game. I advised Tom to take just 12 credits in the fall: Con Law II, Evidence, Corporations, and LSV III.
The part of my job I like best is counseling students; that’s the one thing I would miss if I quit.
Dr. K said the worst thing about my job is that it is undefined, but he also said that is the best thing about it.
Getting home at 5:15 PM, I exercised to a Body Electric show that I taped in 1986.
I really miss those days when I lived half the year here in South Florida and half the year in Manhattan with Teresa.
Thursday, June 27, 2002
10 PM. I may not have studied enough today, but I’m feeling more relaxed.
Hey, if I fail the bar exam, it will not be fun, but as Mom said when I spoke to her last night at this time, life will go on.
I don’t know what accounts for today’s lack of anxiety, but even a toothache caused by the loss of a filling couldn’t get me down.
Maybe I’ll feel differently tomorrow, but today was a real pleasure. I do have an appointment tomorrow with the University Dental Center.
I actually pay for dental insurance even though they don’t take it, but I know they can get me right in, whereas my preferred provider wouldn’t take me right away.
I expect I need another root canal and crown. That will be a drain on my valuable time, but if I’ve got to do it, better now than a month from now on the eve of the bar exam.
(My bed is moving because the couple in their bed behind the wall are having very acrobatic sex.)
Half the people attending the BarBri lectures seem to have colds; I can hear them sniffling, sneezing, and coughing throughout the lecture.
I went to the last hour of today’s lecture on Florida Trusts in the morning and the first two and a half hours in the afternoon.
Our lecturer, David Weiss, said that Barbara Singer said that Trusts won’t be on the exam this year.
The essays will be, according to her predictions: a Torts/Contracts mix (like a landlord-tenant dispute), Florida Constitutional Law, and Family Law, with a Professional Responsibility twist on one of them.
Supposedly Barbara Singer gets the essay topics right every time.
The only real studying I did today was to do the last 75 MBE simulated exam questions.
At 10 AM I had to go to the orientation meeting, chaired by Pat, who remarked that she couldn’t get used to seeing me with short hair. (Neither can I.)
Orientation is now going to begin on Wednesday, August 14. That day will include Steve Friedland’s Introduction to Law School activities and the dinner at the Signature Grand.
On Thursday, we’ll do the usual morning program at Miniaci Auditorium. At one point I’ll get up as a part of that and speak to the students.
Afterwards, we’ll have lunch and a student organization fair in the atrium.
Friday will be a “Give Back to the Community Day”: a beach cleanup at John Lloyd Park.
As facilities director, Richard was involved in today’s meeting because of the building logistics.
Earlier, I’d redrafted for the Law Student Advisor Handbook an updated entry on the Academic Resource Program.
I still don’t have a date for my introductory workshop for TAs, and I don’t know when the ARP groups will meet – or where and when I’ll be doing my weekly workshops for the first-semester students.
Though I still haven’t made up a list of what I plan to cover, I’m pretty sure it will include case briefing, note-taking, time management, and stress management: topics that Jane Fishman covered last fall.
Today the U.S. Supreme Court ended its term by approving school vouchers for parochial schools, random drug testing of high school students, and other important cases.
I was thinking that if they combined the two school-related opinions, we could have government funding so that yeshivas could test to see if students have eaten pork, Mormon schools could test students for ingesting caffeine, and Muslim academies could give breathalyzer tests.
Back at 7 PM, I drafted a cute letter I plan to email about that to the New York Times.
I also took parts of my old Tampa Tribune op-ed piece on drug testing of high school students and edited the text, sending it as a letter to the editor of the Sun-Sentinel.
The newspapers may not print either letter, but it was satisfying to compose and complete two little pieces of writing.
From Los Angeles, Kevin wrote that he’s finally got a computer at home. He’s also trying to give up smoking. I’m glad that Kevin seems to be doing well.
I also heard from Sat Darshan again.
During one break at the BarBri lecture in this building, I left my keys stuck in my door. Luckily, Jonathan found them and placed them on Jessica’s desk.
Probably the bar exam still has me a little verklempt.
Thanks to Ambien, I slept from 11:30 PM until 5 AM, almost six hours. Tonight I probably won’t sleep as much because I’m not tired.
It’s like my whole body is off. I keep forgetting to take Prevacid before I eat in the morning, but I think my acid reflux is going away.
Today I didn’t once feel that pit-of-the-stomach anxiety, though I’m certain it will return tomorrow or the next day.
When I spoke to Mom, she told me that China’s eye pressure was down a lot and she seems to be adjusting to being blind.
Mom said that Marc’s company isn’t doing very well; they’ve closed the store on Sundays. I figure that Cricket will go under eventually.
It’s been 113° in Phoenix lately, so I definitely don’t miss being there at this time of year. A year ago, I was leaving Ragdale to stay in Locust Valley with Teresa, Paul, Jade and Pam.
At 4:45 PM, I drove from the office to Whole Foods and then picked up my suit and sport jacket at the cleaners.
Back at home, I had some fat-free frankfurters and listened to the news on NPR.
Today was a good day.