A Writer’s Diary Entries From Late November, 2001
Tuesday, November 20, 2001
6 PM in Apache Junction, though it feels like 8 PM to me. Last night I slept only from 9 PM to 1:30 AM. After lying in bed awake for ninety minutes, I went downstairs and showered and dressed.
I had oatmeal and made a sandwich and sweet potatoes for the trip – necessary in these post-9/11 days of air travel, where a beverage and bag of snacks is all passengers get, even on four-hour flights.
Last evening Teresa and Paul had chicken for dinner, and then, when they stopped their usual bickering, we watched Jeopardy and a couple of other shows.
Paul went up really early with his glass of wine – yesterday, Celeste was telling me and Teresa that Paul is denial over his drinking – but I soon followed in the march to the bedroom, and by Ally McBeal, I was in dreamland.
Teresa had called her sister and Pam to tell them that I got the job in Florida. It still hasn’t quite sunk in for me, but I’m jet-lagged and congested from my cold and just plain exhausted.
The driver from Mid-Island Taxi was at Teresa’s house by 4:10 AM, and I got to LaGuardia before 5 AM.
After checking my bags curbside, I waited on a long line to go through security, and we started boarding the plane to Dallas-Fort Worth early.
I watched the movie, The Legend of Bagger Vance, just to keep myself occupied during the 3½-hour flight; this was the only flight I’ve had in a month that wasn’t full, and I had all three seats to myself.
We got into DFW on time at 9:10 AM and I had time only to get some frozen yogurt before the flight to Phoenix began boarding.
The guy sitting next to me, a huge man in a cowboy hat, seemed terribly ill with a stomach virus or something. His wife, reading a book by the right-wing homophobe James Dobson, seemed very concerned, but at least he didn’t throw up.
We got into Phoenix twenty minutes early, but Dad and Jonathan were already waiting at the baggage department.
It struck me as we took the Gecko bus to the East Economy Lot that I would be feeling quite depressed if I hadn’t been hired at NSU Law and had to face the winter living with my family.
I mean, I love them, but a 50-year-old man wasn’t meant to live with his parents and brothers.
Marc got rear-ended yesterday, and he has aches and pains all over. I sort of threw out my upper back twisting weirdly to examine my disgusting ear hair in the plane’s laboratory, but I’ll be okay.
When I got home – I prevented everyone from kissing me because of my cold – I went through a pile of mail, mostly credit card bills which I paid in New York, as I’m always a month ahead.
But God, I don’t think I can avoid bankruptcy even with a $48K salary, although I can postpone it. I’m also going to have to lay out a lot of money for a car, apartment, bed, etc.
I can’t really think about all the plans I have to make until tomorrow. I did go to the bank, where I deposited two unemployment checks, and the post office, where I mailed out the two copies of I Survived Caracas Traffic for iUniverse’s Authors Guild Backinprint.com trade paperback.
Then I turned in Dr. B’s July prescription for Triavil 2/10 at Walgreens, bought the New York Times at Fry’s, and read most of the paper over Diet Pepsi at Taco Bell.
I’ve got to email my friends and I need to see about plane fares for me and Dad so we can go to Fort Lauderdale.
Dad and I had a good talk as I ate my dinner, and afterwards I called Aunt Sydelle, who said she is thrilled and proud that I got the job. It will be nice to have at least some family nearby in Florida.
Vincent sent the music mixtape with a sheet about each of the performers. He’s such a sweetheart.
My mind is very fuzzy, the way it was two weeks ago, my first full day in New York.
I do wish I had gotten to see Mikey, Elihu, Scott, Justin and other friends while I was there.
Mom has already made my “bed” on the family room floor.
Thursday, November 22, 2001
Thanksgiving 2001. I had two vegetarian dinners today: just now I ate Mom’s traditional Grayson family lasagna, and this afternoon I went to the gurudwara in Phoenix to eat outside with Sat Darshan, Kiran, Gurudaya (Gurujot is flying in from Oregon tomorrow) and the Sikh community – mostly the American Sikhs, the women who wear white turbans.
Last night I watched my guilty pleasure, WB’s Dawson Creek, and then I fell asleep at 9 PM on my pallet.
Up at 2:50 AM, I realized that despite all the stress yesterday, I’d taken only two Triavil, so I must be a lot better. It was no sweat stopping Klonopin.
Certainly. I’ve vastly improved over a year ago.
Last Thanksgiving I wasn’t all that much a mess, but I felt anxious; I didn’t get worse until after that time.
And although the next month or two will be very stressful, I have a good-paying job now – even if I will still have to declare bankruptcy in 2002 and I don’t know how I’ll ever pay off my student loans.
My mind raced with some of those anxious thoughts last night, but I also thought about nice things, like Vincent – okay, he’s not a “thing” – as I listened to the mixtape he made for me.
I’ve played it several times, and I like most of the songs, though my favorite is Skeeter Davis’s “What Does It Take (To Keep a Man Like You Satisfied).”
Vincent’s last letter to me was probably the most beautiful letter I’ve ever gotten. I’ve saved all our email correspondence in a “VRT” folder on Yahoo Mail.
Maybe my feelings for Vincent are misplaced, but they’ve gotten me through the last couple of months. I’m sure that like everyone else, Vincent can be a pain in the ass sometimes.
After taking half an Ambien, I fell into a demi-sleep for a while, and this morning I lay around for hours, even after I had breakfast, exercised, showered and dressed.
It’s cooling off here, and it should be much cooler real soon. But I won’t be here to undergo another winter of chapped lips and hands; I’ll be in the semi- tropics, not the desert.
My tooth aches periodically, but it’s a dull pain, nothing excruciating.
I called Alice again and left a message.
The only way I could check email was over the phone, and I saw that Patrick said he’s glad I’ll be back in Florida and said my being hired “shows that Nova can do some things right.”
The other 14 messages were all spam, which Yahoo has lately been letting through more often as their stock value has plummeted.
Driving into Phoenix, I arrived at the gurdwara around 1:30 PM, when Sat Darshan said the dinner would start. I found her and Kiran at a table of necklaces someone was selling.
Kiran was glad to see me, and I quizzed her on the colors of the various beaded jewelry. Gurudaya hugged me hello and then went to sit at the next table with her younger friends.
With Ravinder in New York so much, Kiran has probably seen me more than any other adult male. She seems to like me as much as Chelsea and Abigail do.
(Oh, I did get a message from Ronna, who didn’t have conjunctivitis after all, just some other kind of virus.)
Most of the American Sikhs are really gentle and smart people. Before eating, we held hands, forming a huge circle, and the woman in charge told us to close our eyes and thank – “especially in light of September 11” – what we were grateful for.
I did just that, and I heard Kiran say, “I’m thankful for you, Mommy.”
Then we sang “God Bless America” and said three Long Sat Nams after that. We then lined up for stuffing, sweet potatoes, green beans, regular potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, etc.
I took very small portions back to the table with Sat Darshan, Kiran and a seat couple (the man is also Sat Darshan Casa and Wells Fargo mixed up their checking accounts) and a British friend.
It felt nice to be part of a community. After dessert, Kiran was tired enough so that Sat Darshan wanted to take her home.
She put on whispers, a live action movie of elephants (Kiran has a thing for elephants) soon after which Kiran, milk bottle in her mouth, promptly fell asleep next to me on the couch.
I chatted with Sat Darshan about her work at the Hospice of the valley and about my trip (she seemed stunned but slightly pleased to hear that Teresa was overweight) and about nothing.
Leaving at 3:30 PM, I drove back to Apache Junction. “Kiddo, I’ll miss you,” Sat Darshan said, “but we’ll keep in close touch by email.”
While I was reading the New York Times in the backyard, Mom pointed out a pigeon who didn’t fly away like all the others.
“Last week she stood here while another pigeon was dying,” Mom said. “It took two days for that pigeon to die, and it was horrible, and we finally took it away, but that other pigeon has been here ever since.”
“They say pigeons mate for life,” I mused.
“The other pigeon was much bigger, so that must have been the male,” Mom said, and added that this bird couldn’t walk very well.
Jonathan came in from biking to the Peralta Trail, ten miles away, after the rest of us had finished our lasagna and salad.
At dinner, Marc wasn’t very talkative, as usual – but he will take my bed to replace his concave mattress – and he did say his store will be open, ridiculously, till 10 PM, until Christmas.
I don’t know why – or maybe I do – but I finally feel life is back on course again.
Tuesday, November 27, 2001
7 PM. I’m starting to quiet my brain after being anxious much of the day.
Last night I slept from about 10 PM till 4 AM, six hours after taking Ambien.
My tooth has been aching all day, but again, it feels as if it may be the result of grinding. Perhaps the toothache is just radiating, but it feels like it hurts on the bottom gum as well as on the top, where the tooth is.
I spoke to Pat Jason, who talked to Joe Harbaugh. He wants me to come to the hooding ceremony for the December grads on Sunday, December 16, so he can introduce me, and I can talk about the programs we’ll have to help them pass the February bar exam.
I agreed to do this, and I can start the next day although very few people will be around that week or the three weeks after that.
Joe also wanted to know if I would go to AALS in New Orleans on January 3-6; I left that open, but I’m a bit apprehensive about it.
Also, Jane Cross wants to talk to me, and I will call her tomorrow.
This set me in a bit of panic. But luckily, last night Susan emailed me with a hearty congratulations. She said I could call Bree and see if she had an appointment this week. Again, luckily, I was able to get to see Susan at 4:30 PM today.
At 11 AM, I went over to have the tailor mark up my new dress pants. Then Dad and I went to the JCPenney home store in the mall and I picked out a mattress and boxspring that they can deliver to the new apartment from their Pennsylvania warehouse – although I don’t have a date for delivery yet.
This move is costing me a fortune, but I obviously need a bed. My parents also want to get me a futon, but Penney’s didn’t have any.
I see that I get my obsessiveness from Mom, who keeps coming up with stuff, some of it minutia, that I have to get for the move back to Florida.
This afternoon I felt a lot of anxiety, but as I said to Susan, there’s a difference between this kind of anticipatory nervousness – something I’ve always had, that preceded my interview and my trips to Arkansas, Florida and New York – and the kind of generalized obsessing I’ve done, usually in the early morning.
Today I had that kind of flatulence that I only get with anxiety, something I’ve not had in a long time. I took a Triavil at midday, and Susan told me I’m using them and Klonopin the way they should be used: more at stressful times and less or none otherwise.
It was good to see Susan after so many months. She said I’ve always been very resourceful, and she could hear me talking about ideas I have for the ARP program. She told me an example of that resourcefulness was deciding to go back to New York for the “anniversary” of my feeling so bad last November.
When I become this anxious, people like my parents and Teresa say I need to stop thinking so much. It’s like that little chatterbox that takes hold of us.
I’ve got to remember how competent I am and that everyone feels fair – I mean fear – when facing a new job they haven’t done before.
At one time in my life I was afraid to teach a class or to give readings of my work, and by now I feel comfortable in a classroom or reading before an audience.
I told Susan that i feel a little overwhelmed, but I’m glad to be going back to Davie and Broward and NSU, all places that feel like home – maybe even more than New York does because it’s warmer.
Here it was 42° this morning, and it’s supposed to get below freezing tonight, whereas in Miami, the temperature range is like from 70° to 80°: perfect.
I do feel weird about wearing “adult” dress clothes, but I remember having to wear suits and ties at CGR. It’s just hazy in my memory.
Susan reminded me how much I miss being part of a community, and now I’ll be a part of the NSU Law School community.
She also told me it’s been an honor to have me in her life – which was nice to hear, and I told her that meeting her was one of the best things that happened to me in Arizona.
She charged me only $10 and I hugged her before I left. “So my story has a happy ending,” I said.
Driving home, I fought the Superstition Freeway traffic. Well actually, I did not fight it, I flowed with it.
For dinner I had a veggie burger and then watched the indie film Living in Oblivion that Jonathan head rented.
Wednesday, November 28, 2001
6:30 PM. Last night I lay down at 7:30 PM, and the next thing I knew, I was asking Dad if I’d been asleep. He said I’d been snoring for half an hour.
I woke up before 4 AM, having slept over eight hours. I had my usual early morning anxiety, but it passed.
My tooth stopped aching so badly. It’s been quite cold here today.
In mid-morning, I called Jane Cross and we spoke for about fifteen minutes.
She doesn’t think I should be rushing into a program for the February bar exam, but she told me what she knows about bar exams in a very compressed form. I’ll have to talk to lots of people about it.
As the head of the ARP Committee, Jane will guide me through the first day, but she said not to come in till 10 AM or 11 AM, when she gets there. Billie Jo will have to find me office space in the library.
After talking to Jane, I felt more reassured, as if I’m not expected to know everything immediately.
Obviously I knew from the interview that I’m going to be caught in the cross-currents about what different people at NSU law think I should be doing.
This afternoon, Dad, Jonathan and I discovered my bed was filled with droppings from crickets, iguanas or maybe mice. So instead of bringing the bed home to replace Marc’s, we took it and other stuff to the Salvation Army.
More money down the drain – but at least I learned never to store a bed in a mini-warehouse.
Everything is out of the storage space now except the table, which I’ll bring to Sat Darshan’s on Saturday for Gurudaya to use in her new place.
I guess I should be doing more to get ready, but I still have ten days before I leave, and I did spend a lot of time on Lexis reading articles on the Florida bar exam and bar exam passage rates in general.
But I spent more time on email. I wrote Vincent, and was surprised to see three messages from him come back soon after I wrote him. Vincent’s got a bad cold and said he’d been thinking of me just as my email reached him.
He needed an unbiased opinion of his problem with some San Francisco friends who accused him of being envious of their beloved JT Leroy.
So I read this letter Vincent sent Dan, a photographer who shoots pictures of hustlers, sleeps with them, and helps them out.
Dan greatly admires JT Leroy and didn’t like Vincent accusing him of being a fraud. Vincent said he felt resentful after writing the letter to Dan – yet I noticed he signed it “Love.”
In my lame reply, I said, “I guess I’ll have to treat you like shit if you’re going to sign letters to me ‘Love.’”
Vincent told me that he got into a heavy correspondence with another JT Leroy fan, this guy Dan knew who was incarcerated. He met him last week, as the guy is now out of jail – a place Vincent avoided, he says, only due to luck.
Vincent ended his letter saying he wanted a reaction to the situation from “someone I’m not at odds with – yet.”
Sean thanked me for the update on my new job. He and Doug spent last weekend in Paris and are going on a four-day gay cruise during which they’re shooting a porn movie.
“Maybe this is my chance to be a star,” Sean wrote, “if they’re looking for someone old and fat.”
(In his letter to his friend, Vincent also described himself as “old,” saying, “I’m old and boring and don’t go to clubs anymore.”)
Elihu congratulated me on the new job, told me he’s sorry we couldn’t get together while I was in New York, and said that he and Roger are off to upstate with the Gay Men’s Chorus.
Justin sent me the first long, newsy letter I’ve gotten from him in a year. Work at the Henry Street Settlement house is going well, he said, though I can tell he’s exhausting himself by giving and doing so much.
He’s had new work and old work produced at a few theater companies. Meanwhile, Larry’s been in several group shows, and they’ve redone the apartment on President Street.
In an email, Fred said May 10, 2002, is the date I’ll be reading at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center in Fort Lauderdale.
Yesterday I told Susan I’m beginning a new life, “but there’s continuity.”
Like Vincent, who says he doesn’t “like life all that much,” friends are vitally important in my life, and I’ll still have all my friends.
I think what Teresa told me the other night is right: I need to enjoy this time in my life as much as I can.