Thursday, May 22, 1980
4 PM. Yesterday’s good mood carried into today. Last night I saw Back Wards to Back Streets and I thought I looked like a fat idiot. I’ve got to lose some weight. Maybe at MacDowell. And maybe I’ll grow a beard there, too.
My parents called after the show; they said that Marc and Rikki came over to watch me
Soon after the program ended, Josh called and said I looked “nervous as hell.” That’s Josh for you. Since it was about the twentieth take on the show, I had nothing to be nervous about, just tired.
I spoke to Mikey and we made plans to meet at the beach this weekend. A guy whose Voice ad I answered called me at 11 PM. His name’s Joseph Silver, he’s a writer for The Soho Weekly News, and he sounds pretty nice. He’s very busy next week, so I said I’d call him when I return from MacDowell.
This morning I took my SVA class out to breakfast at McDonald’s. We had a lot of fun. They were a nice group of kids and I enjoyed the year (nine months, anyway) I spent with them. I got to know some of them – Laurel,
Daryl, Liza, Dean – pretty well, and I will miss them. It 
I walked down Park Avenue South the few blocks to the Taplinger offices to say hello. Mary is very sweet and always has a nice word for me.
She said that they’re awaiting the return of the fall catalog from the printers; then they’ll have a sales conference, the ABA convention in Chicago, and the ALA in New York. After June, things will slack off.
Mary showed me a great cover Jim designed for Elaine Suss’s A Money Marriage, the book Wes was editing last summer. Jim and Beth are now on their honeymoon.
I was rejected for jobs at Queens College, Wesleyan and Brevard Community College.
Thank goodness for MacDowell: I got accepted somewhere. Funny: Joan Schenker at SVA told me that on Tuesday she was also asked to go up to MacDowell, but she couldn’t make it, and apparently I got the spot she was offered first.
Sunday, May 25, 1980
7 PM. Today wasn’t such a bad day, either. I’ve just come back from dinner at the Ram’s Horn; with all the holiday business, the place was a madhouse.
What it is, is a throwback to my very young years. I’m afraid of being harassed or ridiculed – maybe because I’m Jewish and maybe because I’m effeminate, though I can’t tell if I appear to be either of those things. (The other day on the boardwalk, someone waved to me and said, “Hi, Seamus.”)
God knows why it should matter to me what some street punks think. They’re going nowhere, have menial jobs, and live with their parents, while I have been a writer and a college teacher for five years and live on my own.
I’m not exactly the sissy kid or the bookworm – half the time I actually liked to fight – but I often still feel that way. It will be interesting to see how I react to the way I’m treated at MacDowell.
Last night I prepared my manuscript for the CAPS application – yes, I’ll try to get a grant this year – and read the Sunday Times, answering five ads for teaching jobs. I slept fitfully but tried not to stay in bed all morning.
Back home, I transferred my laundry to the dryer and cleared up some loose ends. I’d like to have a clean desk before I go to New Hampshire. I marked the SVA term papers and gave out final grades, although I don’t have to hand them in until Friday.
After lunch, I went out on the beach, but only for an hour because the sun was strong and I don’t want to carry this tanning business to a ridiculous (and dangerous) extreme.
How did Stratemeyer turn out so many series books? I bet I could get a full-blown biography out of this if I wanted to.
Reading about Tom Swift, the Rover Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and other heroes gave me an idea for a parody of those books. It’s only the germ of an idea so far, but I’m sure that eventually it will 
On the boardwalk I saw Steve Katz from the old Brooklyn College days; although he’s changed, I recognized him immediately. He and Paula are visiting his parents.
Steve got his Ph.D. in biostatistics from North Carolina and is now working for the government and living in Silver Spring, Maryland; he starts a teaching job at GWU in the fall.
Steve had heard that I’d “written a book about Brooklyn College,” and I didn’t correct his impression that I was doing well as an author.
Steve and I hadn’t seen each other in seven years; I can’t believe it’s that long.
Monday, May 26, 1980
4 PM on a sunny, cool Memorial Day. All in all, this has been a pleasant weekend; I’m surprised how well it turned out.
Well, I keep looking at myself in the mirror to watch the slow progress of my beard. Surprisingly, I think it looks very good. It’s grown in faster than I thought it would, and it’s a nice mixture of blond and brown.
If I can keep the itching from driving me crazy, I just may have something by the time I go to New Hampshire. It covers my weak chin and makes my face thinn
Mikey came over this morning, bringing an affidavit I have to fill out which attests to his moral character. I’ll get it notarized and send it to the Bar Association.
We walked to 116th Street to get some orange juice and soda, and then I went back with him to his mother’s block. After spending about an hour on the beach, we decided to walk over to Larry’s.
Larry and his father were working on the sun deck he’s building in th
On the way we saw Anna, who was quite friendly; she kissed both of us like we were her long-lost brothers. She hasn’t gotten a positive response from any of the literary agents I recommended, but I told her to keep trying and to call on me for further help.
She introduced Mikey and me to Colin, the guy she’s living with, and his young daughter, who’s spending the week with them. Anna said she’s looking forward to writing this summer and said I should come by whenever I want.
Mikey has a cold but he seemed pretty cheerful. He’s still waiting to hear about the pool job at the Supreme Court before he goes on an extensive job search. I walked home via the streets, but Mikey will be picking me up in another hour.
He and his mother were invited to a holiday barbecue at Larry’s and I was also included. I’m glad to have the chance to be with people. This wasn’t a lonely, isolated weekend after all.
I need a haircut and I have to hand in my SVA grades. I’ve got to teach on Wednesday night and also get my CAPS grant forms ready to be sent out. I have to buy stationery supplies for MacDowell.
And there’ll be the usual shopping, cleaning, and running around. There’ll be no time to lie on the beach, but at this point I don’t think I can get much more tan. I suppose it will work out.
I don’t know when I’ll get time to do The People’s Almanac article, and I must have that completed before I go away. I feel a lot of pressure now, and of course I’m a little apprehensive about MacDowell – though I’m more receptive to change now than I’ve ever been before.
Wednesday, May 28, 1980
10 PM. Last night I went over to Josh’s. He had just come back from his last class at computer school. Simon, Audrey and the other students were going out for a drink to celebrate, but Josh was disgusted and didn’t want to go along.
We played the campaign record someone sent us – it was awful – 
She and Peter had a great holiday weekend in Montreal, all expenses paid, and Alice was looking forward to being sent to Washington next weekend to cover an abortion conference.
She’s staying at the Hyatt, and while she’s in D.C., Alice hopes to see her brother, who’s about to take on a new State Department assignment: heading the Norway/Denmark/Iceland desk.
I am so proud of Alice and Peter that I felt like a stage mother showing off her kids’ accomplishments to Josh. Alice had a brochure from the University of Wisconsin Writers’ Conference, where she’ll be teaching next month; she’ll also be doing a weeklong conference in Minneapolis.
Alice was working on the cancer booklet today, but she took time out to show us some hospitality: we had iced tea and chatted for quite a while. Josh was very impressed with Alice’s apartment and her lifestyle.
Unfortunately, none of this took on Josh. Walking around the Village afterwards – God, this time of year everyone looks so beautiful there – I spoke with Josh about his future. Nothing makes him happy. Women love him, yet after a few weeks he feels nothing but boredom and contempt for them.
Josh feels that computers are the ultimate sellout and that if he gets a job in the field, he’ll be a miserable hypocrite. He said his faith in his writing ability was destroyed by the MFA program.
Compared to Josh, I am a raving optimist looking at life through rose-colored glasses. When I left him, I felt bad for Josh and wish there was something I could do for him besides get his name in the papers.
It was a nice drive home, and I felt very happy to be alive. It was one of those times when my life seemed to be working, to be making sense. (Was Josh’s despair part of what made me happy? No, it was the realization of 
Before going to bed last night, I read Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”: it’s the piece of writing which speaks to me louder than any other.
The Times printed my letter about the resignation of Ronald Reagan’s field direction Anderson Carter: I said with a name like that, he could only prove an embarrassment to the GOP in the fall campaign.
Boy, I’ve been getting tons of publicity lately. I will put the xeroxes I made of this letter in my file with all my other political stuff. Maybe someday I can show off this stuff to someone who wants to hire a satire columnist, an 
This morning Marc woke me up; he and Rikki got in last night. I called Mom to wish her and Dad a happy anniversary and to tell her to buy the Times. She said they miss me. I miss them too, but it’s almost a sweet kind of pain. I’m not desperate to see my parents; I know they’re there.
Avis called this afternoon. She registered for an anatomy course for the first summer session at LIU, her first step toward her vague goal of becoming a nurse/midwife.
Today I went to Kings Plaza to go to the bank, xeroxed the Times letter at the Junction, got my CAPS application out, and sent out some stories to 
At 6 PM I taught at Touro, a pretty good next-to-last class. There were moments back in February when I didn’t think I’d ever get through this term. But I did it, and I’m a stronger person for it.
I realize that I may have to struggle on for years. I think I’m willing to do that, that the end result will be worth it.
After coming back from teaching an hour ago, I called Vito at the hotel newsstand, and as always, the months we weren’t in contact just melted away as if they never existed. Vito has decided to give up his acting career – 
Life is funny. In a week I will be 29 years old and on my way to MacDowell. It’s weird how life ends up neater than any novel. Next Wednesday I end a phase of my life, as the Touro class meets for the last time, and on Thursday I begin a retreat in New Hampshire. I can’t wait.
Or I can wait. See, now I accept life and what it has to offer. I’m feeling good about myself, having recovered a lot of my self-confidence.
My beard is growing in brown and blond and red, and I love it. I keep looking at myself in the mirror, watching new developments on my face and 
I think seeing myself fat-faced on TV a week ago made me want to change my appearance, just as seeing myself in photos of Wendy’s Sweet Sixteen made me decide to get contact lenses.
Having a beard is not as traumatic as I’d imagined; I have no desire to shave and return to the way I used to look. I think growing a beard is a healthy sign for me.
Go to bed, Grayson.
Thursday, May 29, 1980
I went to visit Marc and Rikki, who were busy wallpapering the apartment. They offered me orange juice and cocaine – I sniffed a little and had little reaction, as far as I could tell – and showed me all the objects they’d bought in Florida: anklets, jewelry boxes, pill boxes, expensive knickknacks.
Marc can’t put all his money in the bank because it will look suspicious, so he has to buy all these geegaws. Rikki said that she liked Florida – they both 
Marc was unnerved when I told him a police car was parked across the street watching me go into the house. I hope Rikki is a good influence on Marc, but she seems much too confused to exert much influence over anyone.
Rikki confessed that she’d like to move to a larger apartment, and I told Marc that I’d take his place in Sheepshead Bay if and when they move out.
Marc said he’d drive me to the Port Authority next week.
Saturday, May 31, 1980
5 PM on a cloudy and humid Saturday. Last night I ended up staying home.
I spent much of last evening looking through my twelve-year-old AIA Architectural Guide to New York City. It reminded me of incidents from my childhood.
There are places that I used to go to which no longer exist like Ebbets Field and Freedomland.
The AIA Guide also reminded me of the day in December 1960 when that plane crashed on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope. Mom had fallen down the stairs that day, in her seventh month of pregnancy, so we went to Dr. Levine’s office on Plaza Street and people kept coming in with news of people’s injuries and of the fire that the crash had caused. I remember being devastated when that one little boy my age who survived the crash died in the hospital a day or two later.
I remember “mountain climbing” with Dad in Prospect Park and how, when Mom was in the hospital for her varicose vein operation, we lost the keys and were unable to get into the house.
The New Yo
A woman named Barbara ran a shack-like general store on our corner; it even had a potbellied stove which we’d run in to warm ourselves after playing in the snow.
Planes took off every day at Floyd Bennett Field and we could hear them. There was no Kings Plaza mall, and on narrow Flatbush Avenue from the Airport Lounge to Ben Maksik’s Town and Country restaurant a
Gee, this sounds like one of those “I Remember Old Brooklyn” letters that they used to have in the Daily News. Were the good old days really that good?
I stayed in bed till noon, when Mikey called and asked if I wanted to go for a ride to Inwood with him. I hurriedly showered and dressed.
Mikey’s car, like Grandpa Nat’s once did, has become very rusted because of the salt air by the ocean, so he wanted to see if he could get an estimate on a complete body job.
We drove in the rain, went to the place, and got an estimate; then we had franks at Nathan’s in Woodmere, shopped at TSS there, and talked a blue streak.
George wrote that “like Erma Bombeck says, the grass is always greener.” Of course he wishes he had “a real book” like mine. But George pointed out an important contradiction: I say I don’t want to get locked into the role of writer, yet I complain that I don’t get asked to read my work in New York. He’s right.
George sometimes feels trapped at the Patriot-News, in the boondocks, with his magazine continuing to lose money year after year. He said he 
Count your blasphemies, Grayson.