Tuesday, September 1, 1981
5 PM. I slept well last night and had a good class today. My contact lenses have been burning my eyes, so after lunch at Danny’s, I stayed in all afternoon, with my exercises, my books and my soap operas.
Stories, a new magazine “dedicated to the work of today’s masters,” rejected my stories with a stupid letter saying that to them, a journalistic style is “no 
In Coda, there was a listing for a job teaching creative writing at Middlebury College, but again, I’m not going to bother applying for a job for which Robert Pack won’t consider someone like me.
Today the AWP Newsletter came, and in it Russell Banks had a surprisingly frank piece.
Listen to this: “We know little and care less about the work of the next generation, mainly because it cannot help us, it can only hurt and displace us . . . I see older writers losing touch, so that Don Hall, Jack Hawkes, or John Gardner can tell me nothing that I can trust about the work of my 
Banks goes on to say that Sukenick’s American Book Review has just substituted new back-scratchers for those of the New York Review of Books and the Times Book Review, that there is a new Old Guard of magazines (American Poetry Review, Antaeus, Ploughshares, Fiction), and that the system runs on cronyism.
Unfortunately – or fortunately – the system is collapsing because there are no jobs for the new MFA’s. If I couldn’t get a job in creative writing, who could? Not anyone except Jayne Anne Phillips and a few other famous young writers.
I have little to be bitter about for myself, really, because I’ve done fabulously well. But the system does stink. Of course, as Banks points out, it’s the writers who are a part of it who are the ones who suffer.
The new St. Lawrence Award for Short Fiction went to a book published by Joe David Bellamy’s pal Robley Wilson’s North American Review Press. In the long run it won’t matter, as these people will fade into obscurity.
Of course I’d be hypocritical if I didn’t say I love getting money and respect and all that crap that comes with reviews and grants and residencies at MacDowell and VCCA – but that isn’t what it’s all about.
The most important things: be original, be honest, and be interesting.
Gary sounded awful when he called this afternoon. He told me he’s been suffering from a bad cold since last week, when he was in bed for three days, and that certain people at work are pressuring him about his projects. He feels trapped in his job.
I still feel that, despite my job at BCC, I have my freedom.
Wednesday, September 2, 1981
Josh said he got a letter from George about Disjointed Fictions coming out. In the letter, George began: “Richard Grayson suggested we contact you . . .” That embarrasses me a bit because it seems crass; an impersonal flyer would have made me feel less cheap. I hope no one gets offended – although I haven’t really done anything wrong.
I watched a TV documentary about Pip’s, the Sheepshead Bay nightclub where many comedians got their start: seeing that made me feel so nostalgic for Brooklyn.
Last night I had the worst insomnia: it was 4 AM and I was still wide awake. Nothing was bothering me, but my mind raced.
I actually was feeling quite good as I lay in bed. I decided that I would not want to trade places with anyone I know. Josh, Gary and others have too many hassles at work and aren’t as free as I am; Avis has given control over her own mind to Yogi Bhajan; Teresa is too frantic and crisis-prone; Scott Sommer is too unhappy; my students are unsure of themselves; writers in their fifties, though successful, can’t feel the things I feel.
I probably would not mind living the life of Alice or Mikey or June, though their lives are not as intellectual as I’d like.
At 7 AM, I felt like shit but I managed to have a decent 8 AM class. There’s one boy, Kyle Pearson, straight as an arrow, who loves to come up and talk to me afterwards, mostly about football, a subject I know nothing about.
I worked on my rosters and spoke with another English teacher, Patrick, who also subscribes to Coda and is a decent poet himself. He went to the Poetry in a Pub readings, but Kirt turned him off; I think a lot of people are wary of Kirt and just don’t like the guy. No doubt he’ll end up Poet Laureate of Florida, for he seems in the Ed Skellings tradition. However, I don’t think Kirt would make it anywhere else: certainly not up North or on the West Coast.
“I told your brother to go out and get drunk,” Phyllis said. “If I knew him better, I’d have told him to go out and get laid.”
Jonny is definitely more intellectual than I am and probably not as outgoing. He needs the kind of girl I found in Shelli: at his age, even a crazy sexual relationship is better than none. I also think he should continue therapy and see more of the world than South Florida. If he lived in Manhattan, he wouldn’t feel so out of place.
Back home, I sat out by the pool for a precious hour, then came home and read my mail. Crad finally wrote: he’s starting to turn a profit on his book and is generally happy. Crad definitely plans on a Florida vacation this winter, and I’m looking forward to his visit.
Brad responded to my letter. He’s still not working, though his résumé is out places. Brad’s letter contained a lot of gay references that made me realize that he’s the only person with whom I really feel comfortable about my sexuality. I hope he isn’t drinking again.
Thursday, September 3, 1981
Two things that Kevin said bothered me. First, the Drake book has sold only 45 copies. Kevin attributed this to bad reviews in Publishers Weekly and Kirkus, and no review in Library Journal.
Second, Kevin asked me, in addition to the $500 I’ll be giving him for 100 copies of the book, to lend him $1,000 for printing costs. I don’t know if I want to do that. I’m just beginning to get on my feet financially, and frankly, I don’t think my book will sell many more copies than Drake’s did.
Kevin may be right when he talks of the future, of White Ewe Press having a backlist, and of the prestige of getting reviewed, but none of that matters to me.
No, I’m not going to give Kevin any loan. If he doesn’t want to do the book, fine: our contract doesn’t say anything about my subsidizing publication of the book. I don’t need or want a vanity publisher.
Hell, I don’t need a book. There’s nothing this book can give me that Hitler didn’t – except another book.
I did sleep soundly and woke up feeling good. My one class went well, and 
Yesterday Dr. Smith of Nova offered me a class on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, but I value my free time more than the $750 salary and the name “Nova University” on my résumé, so I turned him down.
This afternoon Lisa gave me a haircut, though she said I didn’t need one. Her trip to Taiwan was “good and bad”: all of her old friends have left her hometown. She suggested that I get a permanent one day, to see how I’d look with curly hair. I’d like to see that happen.
Richmond College’s transcript arrived at the personnel office of BCC, and I’m hoping that my additional graduate credits will boost my salary because they’re supposed to pay more for a master’s plus 30 credits than for just a master’s degree.
Mikey phoned and said that while his mother doesn’t have to be hospitalized, she is very weak. He may have to begin to support her, a prospect which naturally discourages him.
Mikey isn’t making much money at Legal Aid now, and he feels this extra expense is only the beginning. His mother will be getting disability and Social Security and that won’t be enough. They may even have to live together again.
My little literary problems seem insignificant by comparison, but still they bother me. If I want Lincoln’s Doctor’s Dog published badly enough, I’ll lend Kevin the money. If not, I won’t – and he can bring out the book at a later date or not at all.
I wish I didn’t have to rely on library sales, although I knew that we would when I signed the contract in December. Somehow Kevin will come up with the money to publish the book even without my loan, I suspect.
Saturday, September 5, 1981
11 PM. I don’t believe in horoscopes, but mine have been pretty accurate lately. For the first couple of weeks in August, they said I was in a high cycle as regards career, publishing and money. This week the horoscopes told me to be wary of investing in a friend’s project (the White Ewe Press book?). And today’s horoscope said I should enjoy the day’s “inactivity.”
Today’s only mail was the AWP Job List, which had a couple of jobs I once might have applied for but will not now. Who wants to teach comp in Joplin, Missouri?
I decided to head into Miami this morning, so I drove down University Drive to where it becomes NW 27th Avenue in Dade. By Liberty City, the Metro is under construction. I headed east on Calle Ocho, which always reminds me of being in Puerto Rico when I was a kid.
I went to Coconut Grove and walked around, browsing in bookstores and window-shopping in boutiques before having lunch at the Lum’s there.
Last January, I couldn’t foresee that I would end up here with a grant and a full-time college teaching job. I am definitely more relaxed here than I was in New York, and I feel comfortable with the slower pace.
This has been the hottest summer ever here, and while I complain about it, it’s been quite bearable: no worse than last summer in New York. (However, another hurricane – Floyd – may be coming our way following Dennis.)
We chatted, as usual, in her kitchen. For some reason she confides in me and tells me things she says she would never tell Dad or Sydelle.
Her main concern in life is Grandpa Nat. Thrice she wept as she told me how he never gave up when she was so ill with cancer, how he came to the hospital before and after work, and spent all his money on her care.
Grandma Sylvia feels that Grandpa Nat needs her, and that may be what’s kept her alive this long.
When I got home, the phone rang, and it was Grandma Ethel, who told me that she and Jean Morse took Grandpa Herb to the doctor for a toe infection – which seems the least of his problems. He still is in a great deal of pain and won’t eat, and Grandma Ethel says her angina is very bad and neither of them sleep well.
Mom told me she dreamed I won an NEA fellowship.
Monday, September 7, 1981
3 PM. For me, Labor Day has always been a watershed, the real beginning of the new year. But this year is different.
I’m in Florida, and there won’t be any real fall here; the weather just goes on, 90° every day.
Three years ago, I was living at home, preparing to teach at Kingsborough; Dad was undergoing surgery; Louis Strick had given my manuscript to Wesley.
Two years ago, I was thinking about finding my own place as our old house was sold and my parents were moving away; Avis was back from Europe and seeing Josh; I was teaching at Kingsborough and the School of Visual Arts.
Last year I was in Rockaway, and Labor Day was a pleasant interlude in a generally unhappy period; Avis, married and just becoming involved in Sikhism, came to the beach for a visit, as did Scott. It was the last day of the summer season in Rockaway.
All New York has so many memories for me, it’s hard to be away.
Last night I saw a Disney show about a TV executive who wants to create a series called Abraham Lincoln’s Doctor’s Dog. That spurred me to finish my proofreading, all except “The Smile in the Closet,” which is so personal a story I am embarrassed to look at it. But I must.
Other stories in the book are very personal, too: “How Not to Write a Novel,” “Diarrhea of a Writer,” “Douglas, Apropros of Nothing.” Well, I suppose that makes them good.
Here’s something Proust wrote Marie Straus: “People of the world are so imbued with their own stupidity that they can never believe that one of their own has talent. They appreciate only people of letters who are not of their world.”
That’s probably why I’m ignored by the local book reviewers and why I’d be better understood in a foreign country.
But Truffaut made me see that bad reviews can be helpful – Flaubert said that all reviews are bad reviews – and that excessively good notices can stifle an artist.
Truffaut’s favorite director is Jean Renoir. I’ve been coming across that quote from Rules of the Game: “The terrible thing is that everyone has his reasons.”
I’ll never forget the first time that I saw such films as Rules of the Game, Grand Illusion, Cocteau’s Orpheus, Bergman’s The Seventh Seal and Truffaut’s own Jules and Jim on Channel 13 about ten years ago; it opened up a whole new world to me.
If I could ever do that with my writing – open up a whole new world to someone – I’d feel like a perfect success, no matter what bad reviews I’d gotten, no matter how unknown and ignored I was, how matter how few copies my books sold.
In the long run I will win as long as I don’t lose sight of what it is I’m truly trying to achieve.
Tuesday, September 8, 1981
Of course the main intent of the bill was gay-baiting.
The Education Commissioner and Florida State University are going to court to have the law declared unconstitutional. It’s an obvious violation of First Amendment rights. Sen. Jack Gordon said that the law is making Florida a laughingstock just when it’s trying to upgrade the quality of university education.
Well, I wrote Bush a letter in which I told him I am a Broward Community College teacher and I condone homosexuality. “Since you seem to be eager to persecute someone,” I wrote, “you can start with one of your own constituents.”
As it is, I hate being in the closet. I wonder just how many people would shun me if they knew I was gay. My family? My neighbors? My fellow faculty members?
Jim McKillop told me that a decade ago the most popular English instructor at BCC was fired “for being a homosexual.”
“For being gay?” I said. “That’s not a crime.”
I’m not scared of witch hunts. If there were ever a scandal, the publicity would only end up helping my writing career. I’m no longer afraid of living honestly, and though I think Bush could make my life miserable for me, it would be worth it.
Hell, I’d fight back; I could even run against him in the GOP primary and try to take away his job. First of all, I’d be a perfect test case because I’ve never actually had homosexual relations. Thus, as Bush states, it’s not a matter of conduct but a matter of thought and belief.
Could the state take away my grant? Probably everything could or would be trumped up. But in the long run, I would win – because I’m right.
Of course, I might find out that people whom I thought were my friends were not, but it would still be worth it.
Anyway, I taught a lesson on verbs today – and I told my students that I condoned conjugating them. A photographer for the student newspaper, The Phoenix, came to take my picture for an article they’re doing on my grant.