Someone With a Pen: Richard Grayson’s Diary

Sunday, February 8, 1998

4 PM. Back in Fort Lauderdale.

I’m certainly glad I went to New Orleans. Now I’m going to spend the next three weeks preparing for my stay at Villa Montalvo and beyond. There’s a lot to do, but it’s certainly manageable. For today, I can relax.

I wasn’t tired last night, but my insomnia didn’t last long, and all the time in New Orleans, I never had one of those nearly-sleepless nights that used to plague me.

I got up at 4:30 AM when the alarm rang (Annette had said it one hour early by mistake), but I relaxed till 5:30 AM, when I washed, shaved and dressed, made myself breakfast, and packed my suitcase.

Tom and Annette woke up at 6:20 AM and waited for the cab with me. I gave them both big hugs. They were so incredibly nice to me although Tom reported to Peter Cooley that I was “the best kind of guest.”

I wish Tom had more success with his writing, though of course it would never be enough for him, being such a consummate literary person. While I could never live in Tom’s world of books, I’m glad that some people really care about literature with their whole being.

I guess I think Tom is so literary that his work doesn’t always strike a chord with those not as well-read – and unfortunately, in today’s publishing world, that includes most editors and agents and many literature professors.

I enjoyed the ride to the airport along St. Charles and Carrollton and over to I-10. Once I got there, I checked in, I read the Times-Picayune (featuring the election results on the front page) for a while and boarded my flight, which took off at 8:15 AM. I was very relaxed.

We were in Orlando in about 90 minutes. They got people out and on quickly, and the short flight from Orlando to Fort Lauderdale was bumpy but uneventful.

At the gate, when I saw Gianni, dressed in black as usual, I kissed him hello despite my badly-chapped lips after I remembered his saying it bothered him that Alejandro didn’t kiss him at the airport. I don’t care about getting dirty looks.

He cut his twisted hair very short, and of course it still looks fine. In the car, Gianni told me that he’s taken the South Beach salon job at Stella. Working just six hours two days a week for now, he can earn more than he did for four times as many hours at The Gap.

Noticing that his gas gauge was low, I wanted him to let me pay for gas, but he refused, and when I uncharacteristically pressed him, “Please please please please please,” he got exasperated and said, “No, Alejandro!” I thought that was cute and told him not to be embarrassed.

After he helped me get my luggage to the apartment, he wouldn’t stay. Gianni said he’d call later but might not see me till tomorrow. I was disappointed, but I had (and still have) plenty to do today.

I ate one of my familiar lunches of fat-free cheese slices on diet bread, loads of cooked frozen vegetables and Guilt Free chocolate ice cream. Then I collected my check from Unemployment and my Nokia check and prepared an ATM deposit; signed and stamped Jonathan’s birthday card; saw that I got an offer to transfer credit card balances using checks on one of my Household Bank cards for a very low interest rate; and I unpacked and put stuff away.

Yesterday I caught up with all the back New York Times issues by skimming, but I still haven’t read today’s Sunday paper.

I went to the post office and NationsBank and then to Mom’s, where all my mail was junk and where Mom gave me all my frozen and refrigerated food to take back home.

After exercising, I retrieved all my Eclipse stories Lexis/Nexis had saved and went on AOL, where there was no new e-mail – although I did chat with Igor for a little while.

My only phone message was from Laura C, whom I’ll call later in the week. I find her a little boring and naïve (she seems astounded I go on “dangerous” New York subways), but maybe I can meet her for lunch at the mall in Coral Springs.

It’s very chilly here, but of course it seems warmer than New Orleans, so I’m fine. I’m getting a little weary now.

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Wednesday, February 11, 1998

8 PM. Last night Gianni didn’t get here till after 9 PM, but he called to say he was running late. While I waited for him, I played the videotape of my 1990 TV appearances: WPLG/10’s newscast describing Radio Free Broward and the CNN segments on the Donald Trump Rescue Fund and Pauper magazine.

Also on the tape was CNN’s year in review for 1990, and it struck me how much the world has changed in little more than seven years. Back then, Bush was preparing us for the Gulf War and the U.S. was in a nasty recession. Germany had just reunited, but the Soviet Union still existed with Gorbachev as its leader; Nelson Mandela had only just been freed, and South Africa was still white-ruled. Now the 1990s are more than 80% over, and we’re looking at the first decade of the new century.

When Gianni arrived, he needed to vent, so I let him talk. He’s had a bad last few days.

The color class that evening had convinced him he can’t work as Paula’s assistant. He doesn’t want to say that she’s dumb, but she doesn’t understand theory, and Gianni feels he can learn nothing from her.

It’s a humbling experience for someone like him, who was on such a high-flying career path, working for the best salons, to be turned down for work as a colorist – or offered jobs, like the one at Stella, that are so far below what he was used to.

“In all honesty,” Gianni said, “I never imagined that I’d be in this position.” He expected his career to proceed onward and upward and was not prepared for these kinds of setbacks.

I’ve certainly experienced career setbacks – after all, last term I just went back to teaching freshman comp for $1,750 a class at Nova – and I explained to Gianni why small-minded people reject him for positions for which he’s overqualified. Everything finds its own level, I said, the way my best stories are rejected by really bad magazines before getting accepted by better ones.

His whole experience in South Florida has shaken him. Now that I know him well, I can see the difference from the supremely confident man I met on our first date.

“For grins and giggles,” Gianni said, he applied for a job in Aspen over the phone, and he could take it – except he doesn’t want to go there, not having any idea what it’s like.

To add to his frustrations, model agencies had rejected him all day, each telling him something else: “You’d be great in TV commercials, but we don’t do commercials” or “You’re too fresh.” It’s like the garbage comments not worth reading on my rejection notices.

At least I was glad to hear that he’s happier with Alejandro – who himself has career frustrations and has begun speculating about moving back to New York. Alone, Gianni can’t handle New York now.

Moving back to Maryland would be “safe” and sort of humiliating. But I suggested that perhaps security is what he needs now, that going to a familiar place where he feels comfortable and has family might be good for him: a sort of strategic retreat like the one that led me to return to South Florida.

Aside from that, I couldn’t do more any more than listen to Gianni until he had talked himself out and lay down, exhausted, on the couch. Then I could lie next to him and rub his back and shoulders through his silk shirt and give him little kisses and feel how nice his very short kinky hair felt to my touch. He looked so handsome last night.

I guess if Gianni weren’t so confused at this point in his life, he’d have no need of me. Well, maybe not.

Eventually things got hotter and hotter and we finally ended up naked. I don’t know how making love was for him, but for me, the experience was incredible.

After we’d both come and cleaned ourselves up with Kleenex, he asked if I’d be mad if he didn’t stay the night because he wanted to go home and take a bubble bath and burn incense.

Although disappointed, I certainly understood. It was after midnight and I didn’t want him to fall asleep on I-95 so I let him go with a kiss. We’ll see each other tomorrow night, probably.

I left the radio on the R&B station he put on the minute he got here in order to listen to a Mary J. Blige song.

I decided I’d better start doing stuff or I’ll never be able to leave for California on time. I threw out a boxful of books I know I’ll never use, and I put another boxful in the car, to see if I can sell them. If I can’t, I’ll ask Mom to keep the better ones.

I feel funny selling hardcovers inscribed by the authors – Judy Cofer, Robin Hemley, Padgett Powell – but if I’m really going to give up most of my possessions, then I might as well not be sentimental. Of course, I will look like a heel in the eyes of anyone who reads the inscriptions in a used bookstore.

After calling FPL and BellSouth to cancel my electric and phone service at the end of the month, I went through my diskettes, throwing out at least forty of them that are so old they don’t work or have obsolete versions of programs like MS-DOS, PC-Write, WordStar and Lotus 1-2-3.

Now I wish I threw out more stuff last year before I left Gainesville.

Speaking of Gainesville, I thanked Bob Karp for sending me the latest HRCNCF news, and in turn I sent him the latest on the Equality Foundation vs. Cincinnati case: the Sixth Circuit rejected an en banc hearing and now it will be up to the Supremes to see if they’ll take the appeal. In another setback, yesterday Maine became the first state to repeal its gay rights law.

Well, after all, we’re living in a time where sexual snitches can bring down a President and women are questioned before a grand jury for three days about their daughter’s sex life.

The more Ken Starr probes Clinton’s sex life, the angrier I get, and a lot of Americans seem to agree with me. Most people, after all, have some sexual secret they wouldn’t like everyone to know.

The Clintons have apparently threatened to take a lot of Republicans down with them if they’re forced out of the White House, and why not? If we’re going to have a sexual witch hunt, let’s give everyone a chance.

I wrote a little Local Opinion column for the Boca Raton News about how we give lip service to loving children but behave like a juvenophobic society. I cited Florida’s high rates of child poverty, infant mortality, violent teen deaths, school dropouts, etc. If they print it, great; If not, I didn’t spend much time on it.

Kevin seemed depressed when he e-mailed me back today: work is horrendous and he’s very tense. I was alarmed because he wrote, “If I don’t get a break soon, something bad is going to happen.”

I’m going to phone him tonight. Kevin said he can’t burden Billy with this at the start of their relationship and also said that I know about as much about him as any psychiatrist does, so maybe I can help him sort things out.

On Long Island, Paul has let Cat and her husband move into the house. Teresa seems to be enjoying having them around, especially because it’s short-term, as their new apartment will be ready for them to move into in March. Teresa finally got a professional stove for her catering.

Teresa and Camille – who’ve both lost weight on their “healthy” diets – are going to London on March 9 to visit her “cousins.” And in mid-April, Teresa and Paul will be visiting T.J. in Aspen. She gave me Deirdre’s e-mail address and phone in San Francisco.

Patrick emailed that he was feeling a bit down and angry at his BCC colleagues because nobody else in the English Department showed up to the Betty Owen Performance Series concert on Friday night. Barbara was at the Suncoast Writers Conference, but the others had no excuse.

This evening I went over to the BCC-South library to borrow videos and to the Aventura Mall to get a Bloomingdale’s credit card application – though I think I got turned down for one last year.

I got a notice about my Marshall Field credit card today. When I called Retailers National Bank, I learned I did get accepted, but my card was sent to the wrong address. So they’re sending me out a new one.

For my Target credit card bill, I paid Retailers National Bank with one of those Household Bank Visa checks with a low 12.9% interest rate and no cash advance fee if it’s over $500. I overpaid it by $380 so I can get a refund check next month – sort of a way I can get a no-fee cash advance.

And I changed my address to my parents’ house for my unemployment claims.

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Friday, February 13, 1998

1130 AM. My appointment at Burdines Optical took well over an hour. Perhaps foolishly, I decided that because I have so many pairs of unused contact lenses, I’d get glasses instead and try to use magnifying glasses with my lenses to read.

What bummed me out was that the optometrist found that not only has my farsightedness gotten worse, but so has my distance vision. She also said I’m likely to get more and more farsighted each year until it plateaus in my mid-fifties.

While my pupils were dilating from eyedrops, I worked with the optician to select a pair of glasses. I’m going to get progressives rather than bifocals with the line, and I worry that I won’t get used to them.

That’s especially worrying because of the cost – nearly $250 – which sickens me, even though I put it on my Burdines card. (The eye exam cost another $35.) I tried to avoid some extras, but I did want nice frames that are similar to the ones I have now but less round.

Well, at least my eyes checked out okay: no glaucoma or other serious problems.

I had trouble driving home wearing the paper sunglasses they gave me to try to cut down my sensitivity to light. In the mirror, my eyes turned into giant black moons surrounded by a narrow green corona.

Half an hour after I got back here, Gianni arrived from Pompano, where he went to give his ex-roommate Rob back his keys. He confessed to being poor company these days because he’s so distracted, and he asked me to examine and palpate a pain he’s been getting on his inner right thigh.

Although Gianni worried that it might be a swollen lymph node, I felt nothing abnormal and said that because it hurts when he goes into certain positions, it’s probably just a muscle strain similar to the one I had two weeks ago.

Because he had a 10 AM interview today at Vidal Sassoon (where he once decided not to work because he was afraid of signing a long term contract), Gianni said he wouldn’t be staying over last night.

I made him an Indian chicken korma frozen dinner and took one for myself, and then he talked about his being upset because he and Kelly had a misunderstanding that was so bad that they aren’t speaking.

Also, on Saturday night he was pulled over by Coral Gables police because of a pretext. The cop said he thought Gianni’s temporary Maryland tag had expired, but as Gianni told the officer, “We both know you pulled me over because I’m a black man in Coral Gables and you don’t think I can afford to live here.”

(Until I told him about it, Gianni had never heard the term DWB for driving while black.)

Anyway, we seemed to spend the evening debating topics Gianni brought up for reasons that remain mysterious to me. We discussed Ken Starr’s witch hunt, the law of sexual harassment, and idiotically, whether Christina Onassis’s 12-year-old daughter Athina Roussel is being exploited by her father, who’s denying the girl her Greek heritage.

Gianni sees the world in sharp contrast: laws are not meant to be interpreted but are crystal-clear, lying is lying and the truth is the truth. He becomes frustrated when I bring in ambiguity and complexity.

He got affectionate only while I was eating blackberries, coming over to massage my shoulders. But when I tried to kiss him, he made fun of me for having a piece of blackberry on my face. When he said he was going, he stood in the doorway, and I said – jokingly, I thought – “Okay, go, goodbye.”

Imitating me, Gianni said, “Okay, go, goodbye. That’s so Brooklyn.”

I came over and kissed him.

Just as he was about to leave, he got a page from Alejandro, who’s coming home tomorrow. Of course, I let Gianni use my phone to call Tampa while I went into the bedroom and closed the door to give them privacy.

While I treasure my relationship with Gianni, one day I think I’ll want a partnership with someone who’ll be more interested in me. We hardly ever talk about my life or feelings. But I guess I took on the role of mentor, so that I’m not in a position to complain.

I always knew Gianni wasn’t a person I’d want to be in a long-term relationship with, so I guess I settled for some intimacy and affection and companionship. Anyway, today I’m feeling that our relationship – the sexual, romantic part of it, at least – is over.

I don’t know what to do with the Valentine I got him and the birthday card that’s too intimate to come from just a friend – and I now feel foolish for having bought them.

And that’s where I am on this Friday the 13th.

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Tuesday, February 17, 1998

7 PM. I met Gianni at Borders at 2:30 PM today and we spent about an hour and a half together. He looked really handsome in blue-tinted oval sunglasses and a white t-shirt. I’d never seen him wearing white before, only black.

He appears unapproachably cool in public. When I met him at that store two and a half months ago, I felt so intimidated by his appearance.

Now, of course, I know his insecurities and problems and fuck-ups, but he hides them better than anyone else I know. Aside from a few tight but wide grins, his public self is not at all like the guy I know in private.

I always feel that it seems as if he couldn’t care less about me. Of course, he wouldn’t e-mail me the things he wrote yesterday if he couldn’t care less, and he also wouldn’t spend so much time driving from Coral Gables if he didn’t want to see me.

He didn’t hear from Vidal Sasson today, but the woman who talked to him on Friday was out.

I really hope Gianni does finally settle down. While it’s hard for me not to want to grab him, I’m sure I’ll get over that eventually, and in the meantime we can see each other in public so I’m not tempted.

It just struck me that in the Borders parking lot, I didn’t kiss him goodbye. It wasn’t consciously thought out; it just didn’t occur to me at the time. That’s a good sign.

We sat at an indoor table while he had a bowl of chicken soup. A guy came over to him to say hi, and when we sat outside on the terrace later, Gianni told me it was a guy who was really hot for him months ago but whom he never slept with because the guy’s “dumbness was a turnoff.”

“Also, he’s had a really sordid life,” Gianni said. It took me a while to get that he was saying the word sordid. “But then, so have I,” Gianni added, and then, smiling: “And I’m sure you have in the past, too.”

I don’t know whether to be flattered by Gianni’s assumption that I used to do stuff that was sordid. I didn’t get the feeling he was teasing me, though.

This Saturday is his 24th birthday, and Alejandro is taking him away for the weekend to a surprise destination. But Gianni doesn’t think it’ll be D.C., where he’d prefer to go; he thinks it will be Key West.

Maybe it’s the Bahamas, I suggested – and Gianni brightened because he’d “love to go to a casino.” At times like that, I realize there’s no way we could have been a couple: our values are so different.

A year ago, Gianni said, he was living alone in Mount Washington, having just broken up with Jack, and he had a great apartment, career and life: “My biggest problem truly was not having enough coffee creamer on hand.”

I know he thinks this has been a topsy-turvy year in which he’s made a lot of mistakes.

He feels old: “I can’t believe I can remember when a song first came out and it was thirteen years ago.” I told him I can understand his attitude because the most traumatic birthday I ever had was my 25th.

Although Gianni may have seen more of the world than I did when I was ten years older than he is now, I also know that despite my own diffidence and hesitation and lack of confidence, I have a measure of security simply because I’ve experienced 46 years of life.

Anyway, I was glad to see him again, and we played as we drove west on Sunrise Boulevard until he let me in his lane so I could get onto I-95. I know I’ll see Gianni at least one more time before I leave Florida, and we’ll talk several times on the phone.

This morning I brought stuff over to Mom’s garage and gave her the letters to send to the FEC and the collection agency. Mom said that Marc wants my bed. Back in 1991, I slept on the bed he’s using now, and it was awful then.

I can go back to sleeping in the little bed in the living room, the way I did when I first moved in this apartment. I’ve decided that whatever furniture my parents don’t have room for, I’ll just leave here in the apartment.

I don’t intend to live in South Florida again. Mom asked me if I’d come back here if I don’t get into any of the J-schools I applied to, but I said no. And if I did, I’d never rent an apartment; instead, I’d try to get a roommate who owned a house or had an apartment in his or her name.

I took some books to a used bookstore on Hollywood Boulevard, but the old lady who ran it said the buyer wouldn’t get to it for a couple of weeks, so I left them there with my phone number.

When I told her I was moving to Northern California, she said, “Better take water wings.” She’d talked to her son in Los Altos Hills last night – that’s near Saratoga – and he said the El Niño storms have devastated the area.