A Writer’s Diary Entries From Early August, 1988
Tuesday, August 2, 1988
3 PM. I slept for only four hours: not much, but the sleep was deeper than expected.
This morning I got fed up with being in the apartment. I was upset to see ants in the kitchen for the second day in a row, and the air conditioner seemed to be making a funny noise.
Although it wasn’t all that hot when I left the apartment at 11 AM, the air was so stagnant: the ozone pollution has never been worse.
I met Sat Darshan downstairs by her building and we went to an Empire
At every step of the adoption process, she and Krishna have been having problems with the U.S. bureaucracy; everything went fine in India, which is famous for its corrupt, slow-as-molasses bureaucracy, but here things kept getting screwed up.
Last week Sat Darshan was on the phone with INS all week and her lawyer’s been in Surrogate’s Court. Thanks to a friend who works in Senator Moynihan’s office, the problems with INS seem to be over, but they still need some paper
Sister Rita at the Madras orphanage plans to come to the U.S. to visit her family in Chicago, so she can bring the girls with her once their papers are approved.
I told Sat Darshan about Josh’s paranoia, and while she was shocked, she said that he was always kind of obsessive and he probably doesn’t have anything else going for him in his life.
When we parted, Sat Darshan suggested I go with her to Philadelphia to see the McAllisters one weekend. That sounded like a good idea.
I got to Rockaway in only an hour by taking the E train by the Citicorp Center
Grandma Ethel was just going downstairs when I arrived, so I’ve been here alone for a while. I took a nap for an hour and I feel better now.
I realize that I have to re-think my life: “for there is no place that does not see you / You must change your life” is that Rilke line that’s haunting me once again.
But I also know that I need to change my personal life: my appearance (I’m way too fat), my social life (I need to meet new people), my sex life (I need to look seriously for a partner) and other aspects of my existence.
Mostly, I need to stop settling for comfort and start taking risks.
My main problem is that I’ve taken the easy way out every time I’ve had the chance. I’ve got to shake up my life.
Thursday, August 4, 1988
9 PM. I’ll be leaving Rockaway tomorrow morning. The heat wave hasn’t let up yet, and the air is still unhealthily full of smog and ozone, but I need to get back to my life in Manhattan.
Yesterday Grandma and I walked over to visit Aunt Tillie; Uncle Morris was sleeping, as he hasn’t been feeling well. We sat on Tillie’s terrace for half an hour before we came back here for dinner.
Feeling I needed to be alone for a while, I took a long walk on the boardwalk and then sat out for half an hour on a bench overlooking the beach.
Back at the apartment, I continued to read T.D. Allman’s book on Miami as Grandma watched TV. I got to sleep at 3 AM and woke up at 8 AM so I could exercise to Body Electric, but Grandma hardly slept at all and felt ill most of the day.
She’s got that bitter taste in her mouth, throat and tongue and a burning
I think Grandma has only a couple of years to leave – boy, there’s a Freudian slip; of course I meant live.
She looked so tired today, and when I returned from Beach 116th Street with the papers, Grandma told me she got dressed to go shopping but felt so dizzy and weak that she had to get back into her housedress.
Although I’m not working, I feel that staying with Grandma and helping her (and I also went to help Jean Morse defrost her refrigerator this afternoon) is doing something valuable.
While it’s acknowledged that there’s a terrible child care problem in the U.S., there’s also an elder care problem.
If I don’t get the grant, I can go to Ragdale in October or I can return to Florida to see if I can work for FIU’s Teacher Education Center again. Despite my fantasies, I don’t expect to get a Florida Arts Council fellowship for 1988-89.
At least I didn’t have to hear more of Josh’s obsessive talk about the people harassing him because he’s so paranoid that he thinks his phone is being tapped.
I’ll do all I can for Josh, but if he doesn’t seek psychiatric help, I can’t really do him any good – and I’m hurting my own mental health. At times I feel I’m obsessing about Josh’s situation to my own friends the way he obsesses to me.
Friday, August 5, 1988
But of course, I have my own life to lead.
I slept well and had a terrific dream in which I was in a school, playing a Wheel of Fortune-type game with my classmates. I won for our team by solving the puzzle: “I’m glad I’m not ill.” My fellow students cheered me, and I felt very
At 9:30 AM, I forced myself to work out, albeit sluggishly, to Body Electric on Channel 31, and within an hour, after showering and dressing, I got on the Triboro bus.
The trip back here wasn’t bad, and I got home by noon.
The first thing I did upon entering the apartment was turn on the air
I also ordered an absentee ballot from Florida for the September primary and asked for a student loan application for the fall from Manny Hanny.
After going out for a burger deluxe and iced tea at the American Diner, I did some grocery shopping.
They also penalized her by making her ineligible for benefits until next January, but she couldn’t have collected now anyway.
I’ve got that tickle in my chest again, probably a result of Manhattan’s ozone-filled smog, but I’ll try not to go out again.
I feel I’m in good shape to work in education in the 1990s. Things are different now than they were in 1980, when I felt I was so overeducated that I was practically unemployable.
Saturday, August 6, 1988
Midnight. Ronna knew I wanted to see 16-month-old Jeremy, and when she told me she’d be babysitting him tonight while her father and stepmother were at the opera, she brought him over here at 6:30 PM on her way back from a walk.
Ronna came up with the stroller and the cutest little guy: he’s got that Caplan broad face along with blue hair and blond eyes. Jeremy hardly talks, but he seems a good-natured, placid child.
He crawls more than he walks, and he got along well with the two cats, Fred and Ginger, that Ronna was watching for Sue and Robert, who are away for the weekend in Virginia.
Ronna is terrific with the kid, and it hurts me to know that she doesn’t have children of her own.
Yes, I think about being a father, especially at times like tonight, but I know it can’t and shouldn’t happen – because I’m gay, in debt beyond belief, selfish, restless, etc. (Pick your adjective.) I wouldn’t want to saddle any kid with the
So I can appreciate and love and play with other people’s children – and I always have the luxury of saying goodbye to them.
Last night Ronna came over here at 7 PM and we had a fantastic time together, doing nothing more than watching TV, eating the Chinese food I ordered, talking and making love.
On the street, I look at guys’ bodies, not women’s, but there’s something about Ronna – can it just be nostalgia? – that gets me so excited when I’m with her.
I love the softness of her breasts, the feel of her vagina . . . and I sound stupid.
I was happy Ronna could stay over. We went to bed at about 10 PM and made love and played for hours.
I slept well, by my own standards, with lots of pleasant dreams. We woke up around 9 AM and started kissing and embracing again.
We also talked during Ronna’s time here. Because she needs to learn more about desktop publishing for her job, I told her we could look together at that video I
Next weekend Lori is moving out, and Sue’s coming to help, and Phil and his kids are coming over from Pittsburgh with his mother, who’s visiting from England.
Ronna had a lot of work to do tonight, so I didn’t stay after she put the baby in his little traveling bed or whatever they call it.
Between the time Ronna left here at 11 AM and returned this evening, I didn’t do 
Because my lower back hurt, I didn’t exercise. I did review all five half-hours of Educational Computing shows that I taped this week, and I watched The Computer Chronicles and The Computer Show.
I wrote out all my credit card payments for the month of August, and I went out only to get the paper and some H & H bagels and tuna salad for dinner.
To me, it’s a challenge not to spend money, and I’ve spent only $71 since Monday.
Monday, August 8, 1988
6 PM on 8/8/88. It hit 90° but was less humid today.
Although he hated the quiet of Park Slope when he first moved there, Pete adjusted and found he enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere.
His move symbolized a change in his life – because the East Village was where he came of age as a writer and performance artist and where he was part of that
Now the downtown “scene” is all but gone.
Last night police again clashed with young residents protesting the night closing of Tompkins Square Park.
The new yuppie residents of the East Village and the younger punks and club kids don’t get along.
The ceiling in Pete’s East 10th Street apartment fell onto his bathroom floor, his 
He told me about this Rutgers professor – Stein, I think his name is – who’s doing a book on contemporary American writers and who sent Pete a chapter of his book that’s all about Spalding Gray, Eric Bogosian and Peter Cherches. Pretty exciting to be in that company.
Crad wrote: “Your friend Josh is heading for big trouble. So he gets pissed off because of a suggestion that he has a vitamin deficiency? Well, fuck him – at least I don’t see people with crutches lurking outside my building! Really, I’m surprised his friends have any patience for this sort of lunacy. I predict he won’t go the rest of 1988 without landing in the hospital or jail.”
I hope Crad is wrong but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Because of the intense heat, Crad has had a lot of trouble sleeping, and he’s limited his hours on the street. Even so, he managed to sell $800 worth of books during July.
Dad just called from the Bugle Boy offices at the Empire State Building and said he still has about fifteen minutes of work.
He spent the morning getting acquainted with the new line, and he had a meeting with the buyer from Burdines in the afternoon and made a big sale.
After he goes to his hotel to change and pick up my mail, he’ll meet me at 86th and Broadway at 7:30 PM and we can go out for dinner.
Wednesday, August 10, 1988
10:30 PM. I just got in.
Dad had an appointment with Maas Brothers today and of course got another big order. Tomorrow he’s got three appointments, and then he leaves for Florida tomorrow night.
He told me that Mom misses me; I haven’t seen her in over three months, and now I won’t see Dad again for at least a couple of months.
Before I left, Dad gave me not only five dollars for cab fare but also a hundred-dollar bill. After a ritual protest, I said thanks and “I love you, Dad.”
This morning I worked out and read the paper, not getting out of the apartment till 2 PM.
Teresa called to ask if the Berkshires rent check or the check for catering the last Fire Island party had come in the mail, and I had to tell her no.
Next week she plans to go to Massachusetts to register her new car there.
Justin called this afternoon, just before his first rehearsal for What Would Esther Williams Do in a Situation Like This?.
After reading 30 pages of Bret Eason Ellis’s The Rules of Attraction, I feel like an old fogy. His college students, like his Less Than Zero characters, are totally cool: they do drugs, sleep around, spend their parents’ money and act snotty.
Part of it is the tenor of the times – but I still have a hard time caring for Ellis’s characters. I do appreciate the easy bisexuality, however, though I wonder if the promiscuity is appropriate in the age of AIDS.