A Writer’s Diary Entries From Mid-September, 2002
Wednesday, September 11, 2002
8 PM. I’ve had to shut off the TV. I now appreciate what a blessing it was to be alone in Eureka Springs a year ago. I feel drained by the 9/11 anniversary.
This morning, after sleeping poorly despite Ambien, I got to school at 8 AM and went over to the library for the 8:30 AM memorial.
A big crowd showed up. I walked in with Paul Joseph and Lynn Wolf and stood near Bill Adams, who told me he’d read two of my books in Europe this summer and liked The Silicon Valley Diet.
John Anderson joined us but then said he had to move closer to the podium because he “forgot my ear trumpet.”
In the crowd were most of the staff from the Law Center and people from the undergraduate school, like Maria Converse. On the second level of the atrium, I spotted Mark Cavanaugh with a nine-member student chorus.
President Ferraro’s speech was short and not too bad, really. He said that of everyone there, probably only he and “Congressman Anderson” remembered Pearl Harbor clearly. More of us can remember JFK’s assassination. And now, all of us there would always recall where we were on 9/11; he was at a dinner party in South Africa.
Officers of the undergraduate student government, the Medical Students Association, and Sasha, representing the law students, made brief statements or read poems.
We were all wearing red, white, and blue ribbons, which had been given out by Muslim girls in headscarves as we entered the library.
There was a minute of silence, with four bell peals every fifteen seconds, and the chorus sang the unfamiliar verses of “America the Beautiful,” with most people in the audience joining in for the more familiar verse of the song. I teared up, and I wasn’t the only one.
Going into Miniaci Auditorium, I took a carnation at the door and placed it at a makeshift shrine on stage with the postage stamp photo of the firefighters raising the American flag amid the rubble.
Later, I did get some work done, interviewing Matt Mahoney, whom Janet wants to join her as an ARP TA, and talking to the other TAs, monitoring them, responding to emails, and chatting with students who came in to see me.
Someone had set up two TVs in the atrium to follow the day’s events in Manhattan, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where Flight 93 crashed.
I spent most of my free moments looking at the special ‘A Nation Challenged’ section of the New York Times. Reading it was draining, as was the radio and TV coverage I subjected myself to from the time I got home. I’ll watch President Bush’s speech at 9 PM.
Yesterday’s election in South Florida turned out to be another fiasco, as the new voting machines didn’t work properly. McBride narrowly leads Janet Reno in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, and by an equally small margin, the gay rights ordinance in Miami-Dade seems to have remained intact. But not all of the votes are in, and the results could be a replay of 2000.
I did find some good news on Nexis/Lexis: the Modesto Bee had an article saying that Justin’s play Heart was one of three winners of the Festival of New Plays and will be performed this weekend by Stage 3 Theater Company in Sonora.
Presumably Justin will be there, as the article said the playwrights would answer questions after the shows.
Elihu wrote from Brooklyn Heights that he can’t stand to watch any of the 9/11 coverage: “It’s bad enough working downtown, and seeing downtown, and being surrounded by downtown. Just move on.”
Elihu said that Roger is being screwed in his work schedule, as he’s now home all day and has to leave for the hospital just as Elihu returns from a day of work. The most concentrated time they now spend together is on Monday night at the Gay Chorus and for their ritual Sunday brunch at the diner on the corner of Clark and Henry Streets. Both of them loved going to a Saturday matinee of Hairspray.
Elihu’s father’s 80th birthday is this weekend; I find it hard to believe that my first supervisor in academia is now that old. I guess Dr. Farber was around the age I am now when he hired me to teach English at LIU in March 1975.
Roger’s 10-year-old grandson was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and needed surgery to remove his pancreas. The kid is a diabetic but is on experimental drugs rather than insulin.
Elihu wrote, “Do you know that an anesthesiologist would rather let a kid die than forgo his fee? So I guess I’ll retire a few years later than I planned. How could I say no to Roger? Needless to say, I don’t expect a thank-you from his son and daughter-in-law for paying for the medical care that saved their kid’s life. Once trailer trash, always trailer trash.”
I also emailed Mark Savage, Sat Darshan and Teresa, and Patrick commiserated with me about middle-aged forgetfulness.
Last evening I spoke to Dad and told him that I made a reservation on a flight to Phoenix in December. Dad said that he was trying to refinance his mortgage, but he keeps getting a busy signal when he tries to call Chase, his lender.
Dad said he’d found a mortgage deal on the Internet; it seems strange to me that Dad even uses the Internet.
He and Mom didn’t vote in the Arizona primary. I do hope that Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, can win the governor’s race there.
The other day I read a new installment of C. Bard Cole’s “Alabama is the New Soho” diaries, about his MFA program in Tuscaloosa.
I admire Bard’s writing, but he seems to be regressing to life as a student at a Southern party school. Vincent told me Bard is 38.
I can understand the temptation to want to stay young. After all, I went to Gainesville as a law student at 40. But by my second year, I was already teaching for Nova and Santa Fe Community College, and of course, I never had anything like the kind of student social life Bard has at UA.
The reason I mention this is that I think a lot of what happened to me two years ago in Arizona came about because I realized I was too old to again be a graduate student.
It’s true that I was also teaching at ASU and Mesa Community College, but I had a similar job to the very young grad students at ASU who were teaching assistants.
I’ve had a hard time accepting middle age – my face in the mirror – but I think I’m getting there.
Once I can adjust to being a man in his fifties, a guy whose contemporaries like Patrick, Mark Savage, and even Elihu, in a way, are grandfathers – well, then I’ll have finally conquered this long bout of anxiety.
Today I read and heard about a foundation in honor of this young guy who died in the World Trade Center, started by his father, who was on the 77th floor but survived. The son had had bad panic attacks for two or three years starting when he was in fourth grade, though he’d recovered a long time ago and became a bond trader at Cantor Fitzgerald. Among other things, the foundation will help kids who suffer from panic attacks.
I keep thinking I want to write. If I do write something about 9/11, it would be oblique. Maybe it would be something about Balbir’s murder in Mesa just because some nut wanted to take out a Muslim and assumed that any foreign-looking guy with a turban must be Muslim.
Thursday, September 12, 2002
9 PM. I feel relaxed tonight, probably because I got through the Career Cafe on note-taking and outlining this evening.
Paul Joseph did a lot of the talking, but I did all right. This was me doing it for the first time, and I will get better. Besides, only four students showed up.
Another reason I’m relaxed is that tomorrow is Friday, and there’s a big weekend coming up.
After seeing that I had three replies to my personal ad, I responded to them all, even a guy in New Orleans who just wanted to say he liked what I wrote. I also answered someone else’s ad.
That guy Peter never called or wrote me back, and I don’t expect any of these guys will – not that I’m so impressed by them.
Before I got three responses, I was thinking of taking the ad off Yahoo so I’m not charged again, but I think that as long as I get responses, I’ll keep the ad active. After that I’ll try another service.
At my age and with my peculiarities, I’m not an easy match. But as I wrote yesterday, I believe that I’m starting to reconcile myself to being in my fifties. It can be a fabulous decade, as Marty Peters said it was at that seafood restaurant in Seattle last June.
I may no longer look as attractive as I once did, but I’ve gained a lot after all these years coping with the usual shit. It would just be easier for me if I were attracted to older guys. I guess at this point I could even get myself an older sugar daddy if I were so inclined.
At the law school, I went to the noon Lunch & Learn, with Jane Cross discussing note-taking and Mike Flynn outlining. The session gave me a few ideas for the evening, and Jane let me borrow her handouts.
Although I had a slice of pizza at the Lunch & Learn, I came home for lunch anyway, stopping at Publix to get some groceries. I weighed 136 on their scale.
Alice wrote that she sold eight book projects in the last two months, making enough money so that she can cut back work to four days a week.
She and Peter are going to Houston to see a musical version of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.
Alice’s brother left Haiti but then went out on another State Department mission, this time to India for three weeks. “I’m not thrilled,” she wrote, “but he never listens to me.”
Yesterday Alice never turned on the TV or read the newspaper, which is probably a smart move, though she did call the one acquaintance whose son died at Cantor Fitzgerald.
Justin watched the memorial on TV until 10 PM and said he’s flying to California for the drama festival on Friday.
At the Henry Street Settlement House, the arts center had a lunch gathering to reflect and commemorate – “and then we made some prints out in the amphitheater for a display project with messages of hope.”
Although Justin wrote that he feels lucky that he lost no one, “I’ve still felt 9/11 every day for the past year on the subway, on the street, even as I tried to gear up for hopefulness. There has been a pall over everything in my life. I want to move forward.”
Mark Savage wrote that after four days of the school year, he still likes his class. But he felt his kids had had enough of 9/11, so he did just one activity, asking them to design what they think should go on the World Trade Center site:
“I thought that looking forward to the future was a good way to go. However, one asshole at the school decided that all the kids should sit through 45 minutes of the names of the dead being recited at assembly.”
At work today, I did the usual stuff and met Paul’s predecessor as dean for student affairs, who left his job in late 2000.
Saturday, September 14, 2001
4:30 PM. I slept well last night, and when I got up at 5:45 AM, I thought, Well, I’ve slept pretty late, but then I fell back asleep for another 45 minutes.
I exercised at 7 AM. Leaving the house about an hour later, I decided to go to Stork’s Bakery in Wilton Manors. It’s owned by the town’s mayor and is a gay hangout, although young mothers with toddlers and old ladies were also there.
It was a nice change of pace, and people were very friendly. Reading the paper, I got the impression that Congress and even the UN are getting behind Bush’s plan for invading Iraq.
Maybe this will be a quick winter war, as in 1991, but we’re rushing headlong into this, and I don’t know what the consequences will be.
If it drags on, I’ll bet that an antiwar, pro-health care Democrat (Howard Dean? John Kerry?) will win the 2004 nomination – and probably lose the election to Bush.
At the Davie library to return a book, I got on a computer and saw messages from Mark Bernstein, whose poison ivy is clearing up, and from Tom, who’s back from Frankfurt.
After going to Wendy’s and then to Walgreens, I came back home and lay down for about 90 minutes. Now that my acid reflux isn’t so bad, I’m able to lie down after lighter meals.
I started to obsess a little about getting the bar exam results. If I fail, I’m not going to make any decisions right away. For one thing, my last appointment with Dr. Koncsol is next Saturday, and I want to talk things over with him.
But right now I’m leaning towards giving notice that I’ll leave my job at the end of the academic year rather than retake the bar exam.
That way, I’ll have been in the position for more than a year and a half, so it won’t look bad on my CV, and I can figure out where I go from here.
Tuesday, September 17, 2001
9 PM. I passed the bar exam – in this universe, at least. So I’m relieved. Am I happy?
Yes, I guess so. It’s wonderful to know that I won’t have to take another bar exam again. and it’s an accomplishment.
If I didn’t take the exam back in 1994 when I graduated from UF Law School partly because of anxiety, then I conquered my fear now – especially at a time when I was feeling generally anxious.
That’s what generalized anxiety disorder is, isn’t it?
Last night I didn’t sleep well, probably because I knew the bar scores would be posted today.
When I arrived at the office, there was a phone message from David, who wanted to know if I’d had advance word of the bar passage rates at each Florida law school. I didn’t, of course.
I did log onto the site several times, but they said the results would be posted between 10 AM and 11 AM.
At 10:05 AM, there was no longer an error notice when I clicked on the link. I checked for my file number, 88040, and there it was: “pass pass pass” and then “no,” meaning not ready to be sworn in.
So I passed both the Florida portion and the MBE. David did, too. By the time he’d called again, I’d gotten the bar passage rates from Gail, and I told David that he was in the minority at St. Thomas, where only 49% passed.
David was going with his wife, kids, and brother-in-law to a judge’s chamber to get sworn in this afternoon. If anyone deserved to pass, it’s David.
Chad didn’t pass, although I have no idea why he felt he had to come to the school to tell people he failed.
Our NSU bar passage rate was 71%, less than Florida Coastal’s 77%, and way below UF, FSU, Miami, and Stetson, which were all in the 85% to 90% range. (Barry scored 40%.)
I wasn’t going to tell anyone at first, but I told Cindy, and then Sasha asked me about the results. By the time I went to see Tracy to ask if Scott passed (he did), Chad had already told her about me.
Sasha and Katie said that Chad isn’t that bright. I think he just didn’t take the exam seriously enough. Although I admired Chad’s cool, anxiety is a better attitude to have in some circumstances – like taking the bar exam.
Of course, I should be getting a letter with my scores so I can find out if I just squeaked through or did very well. Of course, ultimately it doesn’t matter.
I woke up Mom at 7:15 AM Arizona time to tell her the news.
“You’re so smart,” she said. An hour later, Dad called to congratulate me.
I also called Aunt Sydelle and left messages with Teresa and Sat Darshan, who wasn’t working today. Teresa replied with an email: “We all knew you could do it.”
And I wrote to Josh, who just returned from Germany. I also sent him a copy of a letter about the KGB Bar’s name that Denis had in the Washington Times a few days ago.
I hope that passing the bar will boost my self-confidence. Right now I still have plenty to worry about, and if I didn’t, I would find something.
But if I could return to being the person who existed before I moved to Arizona, I’d be thrilled.
Okay, here’s the ironic thing: a new job listing came up on NSU’s webpage. It’s for the Director of Academic Services at the Farquhar Center. The position is essentially running the academic support program for all undergraduates, and it would be a step up for me, or at least a lateral move.
Patrick, though, said it would probably mean even more stress, as it sounds as if I’d be in charge of many more people than I currently am.
Although I’m starting to get comfortable in my position at the law school, I filled out the internal application form and took that and my CV over to Human Resources and handed it in to Diana Ortiz. I’ll just see what happens.
Pat and Thelma were both out today, so they didn’t hear my news about the bar exam.
Mostly I spent the day on the Internet, but I did talk with some of my teaching assistants.
I am a little concerned about Ellyn Bogdanoff. At the end of the day, Hadley Ginsberg, a 1L in Section 1, came to see me on behalf of several classmates to complain that unlike their other TAs, Ellyn seemed to talk about herself rather than reviewing material.
I think that’s probably an ego problem, as she did seem to take the position rather casually.
I know that Bill Adams has hired her as a research assistant, and I should probably check with him before talking to Ellyn, who seems to have a lot of irons in the fire.
As I’m not that good in dealing with personnel matters, I should probably also get Pat’s advice on how to handle Ellyn.
I also had a long talk with Fritz, who feels he can confide in me about his wife, who is bipolar and has gone off her medication (Risperdal and Paxil). I told Fritz about my own experiences taking Paxil for anxiety.
“It’s good I can talk about this with you,” he said. “It’s so stressful for me.”
The air conditioning didn’t seem to be working when I got home at 5 PM, so after dinner, I went to Barnes & Noble, where I finished the newspaper and read the new Batman comic book novel.
By now, the air conditioner seems to be okay. I got home an hour ago after shopping at Albertsons, where I checked my blood pressure (115/59) and my pulse (69).
I canceled the Yahoo personals service so I won’t get billed again next month.
In the mail I got a JCPenney Gold “Preferred Customer” credit card, presumably because I’ve charged so much to the old card, like the Prevacid at Eckerd Drugs.
Bert Stratton sent a list of Yiddishe Cup appearances; they’re all in Ohio or nearby states.
Well, I did it. This was a tough summer, but it all came out okay in the end.
Thursday, September 19, 2002
9:30 PM. When I came home at 5 PM, I found a letter from the Bar Examiners with my scores on the July exam. My overall scaled score was 151.5, an average of 141 on the Florida portion and 162 on the MBE.
There’s no way to judge what percentile I’m in, since they gave the mean only in raw scores, and of course it didn’t matter anyway. I could have scored a lot lower on the Florida portion and still passed overall because my MBE score was pretty high: probably around the 90th percentile, I’d guess.
I’ll xerox the sheet and give it to Pat. Because she couldn’t make lunch tomorrow, Pat took me out for lunch today. I’m glad Linda Lahey joined us because Linda deflected some of that supervisor/supervisee tension.
We went to the Tower Deli, my choice, and had a pleasant lunch. I learned that Randolph Braccialarghe defends students in hearings before the Bar Examiners, and I may have to hire him myself.
Back in the office, I called up the company behind the MPRE, and they’ll send me my ticket for the November exam in October.
That test is 50 questions, and it’s given at the Fort Lauderdale Convention Center. While I will need to study for it, I’m not overly concerned.
This morning, when I went to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, I saw Kathy and Jennifer, who apparently meet there every Thursday at 7:30 AM.
An hour later, I was at my office, but I didn’t do much work today. I’m just trying to stay on top of the ARP teaching assistants’ sessions, but so far, most of them seem to be doing fine.
I got more of the “I’m not surprised” or “I knew you’d pass” reactions from various people, like Kathy, Jane Cross, and Shahabudeen Khan, both in person and by email.
Ronna congratulated me but said she had no doubt I would pass.
The girls love school, and Ronna likes their teachers; today Abigail had an ear infection but still didn’t want to miss kindergarten, so Rana took her to class.
Justin wrote that he was treated very well at the Festival of New Plays in Sonora. He bonded with the two women who were his co-finalists, and he said the theater group and the audiences were so nice and responded thoughtfully to the plays.
Justin feels like he’s the winner even if his play is not selected for a full production. The experience seems to have given him a real boost, and I’m so glad about that.
I also wrote to some people that I haven’t emailed in a while, and Sean responded right away.
He wrote, “Work has been terrible lately. Lots of firings, cutbacks, no business. I don’t want to have to worry about keeping my job. I don’t need the additional stress. Ugh! Other than that, my life is okay, busy as usual.”
Regarding the congressional hearings on Iraq, Sat Darshan wrote, “We are soooooo going to war with Iraq. It’s too horrible to bear.”
I agree, but it seems as if the overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens are behind Bush’s war intentions, and the Democrats in Congress won’t oppose him.
At 7 PM tonight, I went to Barnes & Noble for Chris Jackson’s talk and reading of her new book, Myth and Ritual in Women’s Detective Fiction.
Lynn Wolf and Ed Stieve from the Liberal Arts Department were there. I felt I had to shell out $30 for the book to be signed just to be polite.
But while I’ve never liked detective novels, I found Chris’s talk mildly interesting.
Of course, now that I’ve applied for a position at the undergrad school, I want to ingratiate myself with people there. Chris always was nice to me, and now she has another reason to like me.
Thank God tomorrow is Friday – and a payday.