Someone With a Pen: Richard Grayson’s Diary

Sunday, May 3, 1998

7:30 PM. This morning after I had breakfast and while I was doing my half-hour of exercise, I decided to drive to Billings today and stay overnight so I don’t have to rush here tomorrow.

So I’m in room 309 of the Hilltop Motel next to the St. Vincent Hospital-Yellowstone Medical Center not far from Montana State University-Billings. I called Liz at her sister’s in Big Timber and we agreed I’d meet her at Enterprise Rent-A-Car at 9:30 AM.

I didn’t want to hold Liz up, and there’s no way I could have met that her that early if I’d driven up from Wyoming tomorrow. Right now I’m a little dizzy, but I’ll deal with it; perhaps it’s the result of Montana’s “reasonable and prudent” speed limit, which meant I traveled mostly 90 mph most of the way here on I-90.

At 10:30 AM, I left Ucross with my gym bag and backpack. After stopping in Buttrey in Sheridan to get some crudities package to munch on the way along with my sweet potatoes, rice cakes and fat-free cheese slices, I got on I-90.

The 35 miles or so through Wyoming to the border, only one lane was open, so driving was rough and I couldn’t go faster than 60 mph, but once I crossed over into Montana, I drove much faster on unobstructed road.

I had to go to the bathroom, so I stopped off at an exit and found an IGA, which seems to be the supermarket of choice in tiny Western towns. Everyone in the store but me was Native American, and I felt a little weird, but I was on the huge Crow reservation. Just this morning on NPR, I’d heard about the tribal community college in Crow Agency.

At about 1 PM, I stopped off at the Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument, which cost $6 admission. There was a national cemetery and a Visitors Center with artifacts of the Battle of Little Big Horn.

A film about the battle played on the TV there; I watched a little of it and then walked around the site of the “last stand” of General Custer, the last triumph of the Cheyenne, Sioux and Arapaho warriors.

Obviously, the National Park Service has to tell the story differently than it once did, and there’s a new monument to the Indians who died at Little Big Horn.

It was a hot, sunny day, and I’m glad I remembered to bring sunblock. After an hour or so, I got back on I-90 and didn’t stop again till I got to Billings. (The shacks around Crow Agency revealed the desperate poverty on the reservation.)

For about an hour, I drove around Billings rather aimlessly, and at one point I almost got into a traffic accident because I didn’t know where I was going. I stopped at an Albertsons to use the bathroom and then found a Barnes & Noble listed in the phone book, but it was way on the other side of town.

To me, the street pattern of Billings is confusing, but somehow I found the bookstore and had an iced tea while I read the Sunday Billings Gazette. In a guidebook I found a motel that wasn’t cheap but not too expensive either ($48 plus tax), so I made a guaranteed reservation.

Then I read U.S. News as I sipped a refill on my iced tea. I drove a little further up South 24th Street and found a Baskin-Robbins, where I ate a small cup of fat-free, sugar-free frozen yogurt at a table outside. Two women at the next table were conversing in a foreign language that sounded like Hebrew and I thought I heard them say “bar mitzvah.” Perhaps they were Israeli tourists.

Actually, Billings is a hip little town, relatively speaking. The university presence must help diversify it (though I noticed today that they sell kimchi even at Buttrey in Sheridan).

On Montana Avenue, there’s a historic district and the old railroad depot, which has been renovated. Across the street are trendy kind of shops, including a yoga center (which was closed), an Internet cafe (also closed on Sunday), a nice restaurant in the Hotel Rax, and the Rainbow Bar, which I assume is a gay bar.

I might have gone into it, but from the window, the first guy I could see appeared to be a 70-ish farmer in overalls. Still, I feel comfortable here in Billings.

The hotel room is very nice, not like that dive in Santa Clara that I stayed in two months ago. But I am beginning to feel a little homesick for the East Coast. I’ve still got a month before I return, and it will feel odd to be stuck at the Ucross ranch with no way to leave now except if others drive me.

That means I’ll have to get used to the food there. I guess it’s mostly the lack of veggies that bothers me. Still, it’s only a month out of my life.

Here in Montana and Wyoming, I’ve become accustomed to the regional gas stations like Cenex, Conoco and Sinclair, and supermarkets like Buttrey and IGA.

For better or worse, I am an urban-suburban warrior, not a rural type; I don’t like camping out, and I’m oblivious to a lot of nature’s beauty.

Last night I had vivid dreams, but one that bothered me had me teaching a high school class resembling my Nova freshman students from last fall. I asked them to hand in papers about their view of their own futures, and one anonymous note read, “Naturally you view the future as bright because of your sexual orientation.”

While not a hate letter, this did indicate that some boy – I assumed it was a boy – resented me because I was gay and believed that being gay created the same kind of advantage other white males seem to think accrues to being in a minority group.

Before I could figure out how to deal with this in our next class, I awakened. Tonight, if I can’t sleep because of dizziness or insomnia, I’ll read or watch one of the sixty channels on cable TV.

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Monday, May 4, 1998

1:30 PM. I’m back in Ucross. Right now I’m printing out the twelve pages of “The Silicon Valley Diet” to look at the hardcopy and see where I can go with the story.

Last night I had no dizziness problems and fell asleep listening to Court TV at 10:30 PM. I woke up at 1 AM and was unable to get back to sleep till around 4 AM, when I slept for another couple of hours.

At 7 AM, I went down to the hotel lobby to get some orange juice and read the Billings Gazette, then I brought hot water up to my room for oatmeal and grits. After I showered and dressed, I went out for a little while.

I called Florida Unemployment and a check for $288 was issued on Friday, so it’ll be mailed today. Libby should get it in Woodland Hills by this Friday, and I figure I’ll get it in the mail from her by next week.

It was a pleasant Monday morning. I got yogurt at Buttrey and found the Internet café open. The iced tea was only a dollar and the Internet was free, so I checked my email on JewishMail.

There were notices from Christy, who just got back from France (and who tried to call me at Villa Montalvo, only to get Joelle’s voicemail); Sat Darshan, who said Los Angeles is like New York and a nice place to visit but a terrible place to live (I replied that New York is a terrible place to visit but a great place to live); and Alice, who’s finally admitted that she’s begun to think about her next career.

Alice hasn’t sold a book in months and is giving herself till the end of this year to “make good.” My assumption is that she’ll get out of the literary agent business.

I went back to the Hilltop Inn and checked out; the $50 I paid for the accommodations was well worth it. And when I turned in my car at Enterprise, $160 for the week wasn’t a bad bargain, either.

Liz came along at 9:45 AM and we made it back to Sheridan in under two hours. Because I had someone to talk to, I didn’t even notice how much time had passed. Liz is a great person. I gather her auto accident at 18 was what led to her being in a wheelchair.

Her father was an Exxon executive and they lived all over the U.S. as well as in London, Rome and Libya. She was the black sheep of the family, shoplifting, having a boyfriend who OD’d on drugs, and then nearly killing herself at 16.

In Sheridan, I pumped gas for her van and paid for it and I cleaned the bugs off her windshield, and at Kings Saddlery I went in to exchange a poncho she’d bought for another of a different size.

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Tuesday, May 5, 1998

10 AM. I thought I’d try writing my diary entries early in the day, like the “morning pages” suggested in The Artist’s Way.

Yesterday afternoon I started going through my diary entries about Thien and recording them as notes at the end of what I have of this story. Thien’s voice, his ungrammatical English, is what’s coming through, though I’m not sure how to use that – or, indeed, what form I want the story to take.

I exercised half-heartedly, mostly during repeated biceps curls with my ten-pound weights, but by 4 PM I was ready to listen to two hours of All Things Considered on NPR and read the latest issue of Poets & Writers.

Last night, because we had guests – the Buffalo author David Romtvedt and his wife Margo, who runs the town’s pottery store – dinner was at 7 PM, with wine at 6:30 PM.

David and Margo are also in the Fireants, a zydeco band that just played several weeks in Mexico. He teaches at the University of Wyoming, making the long commute to Laramie. Coming up for tenure soon, David is uncertain whether he wants to continue although he’s loath to give up health insurance and security.

Others at the table could certainly relate to that. David and Margo – who apparently met when he was a resident here at Ucross – told interesting stories about Mexico: the political changes, the banditry on the roads, the overwhelming poverty and the huge mass of people crowded into Mexico City.

Except for some failed attempts to attend college, Margo never left her parents’ hometown, where she grew up, and she’s very attracted to the land. Others said they are still searching for a place that they feel comfortable in.

After being in Billings for just one day, I feel I could live there – though it wouldn’t be ideal. But it has a university and an NPR station and a newspaper and all the chain stores I feel comfortable with, as well as a gay bar, an Internet cafe, and at least some sense that there’s people other than white people there.

But Buffalo and Sheridan have none of that, and I can’t see myself living in Wyoming. Well, I guess I could adjust if I had to.

Dinner was delicious: I had the spicy tofu and big hunks of broccoli and cauliflower.

We talked until quite late for us (9:30 PM), and after Sharon and the Romtvedts left, I chatted with Margot Balboni, Liz, Ruane, Agymah and Nancy as we cleaned up for another hour.

Liz noted that she’d raised a few hackles earlier when she trashed the artsy-craftsy visual art scene in Santa Fe and Scottsdale, forgetting perhaps that Margo is a potter. But Margo defended herself by saying she doesn’t consider herself an artist.

Yesterday’s mail contained three big envelopes from Mom and last Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s issues of the New York Times. I was too tired to look at everything last night, but I’m going to go through them now: I see there are some bills and the housing info sent by the University of Maryland.

I slept well, dreaming about kissing a woman in a shopping mall; she was in a wheelchair, so I guess she was Liz.

After having breakfast at 6:30 AM, I came back to my room and fell back asleep for a couple of hours. I felt guilty about it because I knew I should get up and exercise, but I couldn’t rouse myself. Finally I realized that it didn’t matter because I’ve got nowhere to go.

At Villa Montalvo I liked to be out of the house by 9 AM or 10 AM, but I don’t expect to be going anywhere until the residents’ weekly trip on Friday. If last Tuesday was a difficult adjustment, I’m sure it will be hard to get through today, too, my first day without a car.

I’ve been getting my veggies from the supermarket or from Wendy’s salad bar, but now I’ll just have to get used to eating the food here for the next month. I’ll probably leave a few days early. (Rick left a week early last week and nobody said anything.)

Ucross’s residency program is shutting down for the summer a month from today. Anyway, if I’m to get a 21-day advance discount on what’s going to be a horrendously expensive trip back to Fort Lauderdale, I’ll need to make a ticket purchase in the next week or so.

When I have to leave, I’ll go to Billings by bus and maybe rent a car and stay overnight, and then I’ll have an all-day journey to Salt Lake City, Atlanta or Dallas, and finally to Fort Lauderdale.

With my hair cropped so short now, I look older in the mirror. In a month, I’ll be 47 and sometimes I feel that I’m decrepit.

In Los Angeles, Grant kept telling Wyatt that once a man is 40, “it’s all over” – but Grant can be a bit oafish, especially when he’s had too much to drink. And Grant probably doesn’t take care of himself well enough to avoid illness or disability later in life.

Of course, anything can happen, and instead of living into my 90s, health-conscious, cautious me could die before I even turn 50. Either way, it will be an adjustment. (I need a smiley at the end of that statement).

I’m so thirsty all the time in Wyoming because of the dryness of the high desert climate. You don’t perspire here, so you don’t know you’re losing water. Despite all the lotion I’ve been applying to my hands, they’re so dry that I have these painful cracks by my fingers.

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Thursday, May 7, 1998

9 AM. Yesterday was easier to get through than Tuesday. For one thing, my day was broken up when I went into Buffalo with Margot at 11:30 AM.

She wanted to get topographical maps of the area, and we went first to the Wyoming Department of Transportation office, where a clerk directed us to Sports Lure on Main Street, a store that had lots of hunting, fishing and sports equipment but also maps, clothing and other sundries.

Then we went into the Rexall drug store, which looked like one out of the 1950s, complete with soda fountain. The hour or so away made me feel less isolated.

My weight is still the same, the Rexall’s scale told me. I weighed 147 with my clothes on, getting the apt fortune, “You often talk when you should be listening.”

And Gillian gave me fat-free cheese food on my sandwich and I nuked a baked potato I’d taken from the kitchen, so my diet at least resembled more of what I’m used to.

I wrote postcards to four or five friends and a long letter to Libby and Grant and the kids, and I read more of last week’s issues of the Times although I still have to get to the Living Arts sections from Tuesday to Friday.

And I decided to begin the laborious process of printing out my book with my inkjet printer, although I’m convinced the printer will break down in the middle of the manuscript.

It’s a very slow process, not like a laser printer, and I keep having to put in paper and take out the finished pages (since they come out with the last page on top of the one before). I decided to work backwards, so I managed to print out pages 175 to the end by the time I left for dinner.

Nancy and Ruane are leaving tomorrow. Ruane doesn’t have to be in New Jersey till July, so she’s going to drive through New Mexico and other states, and Nancy is flying back to Homer, Alaska. Supposedly a new resident from Hawaii is arriving today, but she’s delayed her arrival three times already.

I guess next Monday three more people will be coming for the final four weeks. Probably I’ll make my flight from Billings to Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday, June 3. I’d rather spend my birthday recuperating at my parents’ house from my long trip than flying all day.

That would mean I’d have to leave here the morning before I go to Billings. In Billings, I’d rent a car for the day and stay overnight, maybe at the Hilltop Inn again.

So four weeks from today, I should be back in Florida. That’s about all I can deal with now, as I’m not ready to think about what I need to do to drive north to Maryland with all my stuff.

The long drive on I-95 has seemed daunting in the past, but it’s mostly through urban areas all the way – even places like Florence, South Carolina, that I’m familiar with. And I can take my time along the route. Driving through the wilderness of Montana and Wyoming has made I-95 seem tame.

Of course my old car isn’t exactly like a rental car, and I expect it will break down along the way – and I’ll handle it. I’m not going to let my chatterbox overwhelm me.

As for writing fiction here, I will finish “The Silicon Valley Diet” when I figure out how the story should go. But I knew when I began the residency here and at Villa Montalvo that I was taking advantage of my past productivity.

If I really wanted to write fiction, I would have done it in Florida during the ten weeks between the end of the fall semester and my leaving for San Jose. I had thought of this as being my “swan song” as a fiction writer. Now, with my admittance to the University of Maryland, I’m going to concentrate on journalism.

Hey, today my Grandma Sylvia story might be in the San Jose Mercury News and people in Silicon Valley could be reading the article. I’d like to be sitting in Peet’s Coffee and Tea in El Paseo de Saratoga right now, reading my own story in the paper.

Yesterday afternoon I took another long, lazy walk along the highway, and from 8 PM to 10 PM, Liz and I went in Buck’s Cabin and watched TV: an interview with Ellen DeGeneres about the cancellation of her show; the popular Comedy Channel cartoon South Park, which I saw for the first time; and an episode of Seinfeld I’d already seen but which was still funny.

Coming back to the Depot, we heard an incredibly scary animal sound, which I’d first thought was the roar of a mountain lion. Earlier, we’d seen Keith herding sheep along the highway.

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Saturday, May 9, 1998

11 AM. This morning seems like the first overcast day I’ve experienced in Wyoming. It’s also quite chilly, although I felt very warm last night thanks to the heater.

I just bicycled over to the mailbox on the side of the road, scaring away some sheep who’d been feeding as I passed. First, one looked up as I approached, then another and another, and soon they were fleeing – but as I made my return, they didn’t budge.

Riding along the flat countryside in my rickety bicycle, I feel like Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz.

Up at 6 AM after a wonderful night’s sleep (though I awoke from a dream in which I was falsely accused of not paying for my food in a restaurant), I stayed in bed an hour listening to Morning Edition on the radio. Then I got dressed in yesterday’s clothes and went to the School House for breakfast. While there, I also put away the large number of dishes and utensils from last night’s dinner.

After another hour spent snuggling in bed, I exercised for thirty minutes and then looked at the mail. I wonder if I have a chance to get a Florida Arts Council fellowship this year. I see that Christy and David Kirby are among the five panelists, and I’m certain they’ll recognize “I Survived Caracas Traffic” as mine. Well, I won’t be hasty about changing my Florida address till August, when the grant recipients are announced.

I also got some housing stuff from the University of Maryland. If I can get a $100 money order, I can put down a deposit to get on the waiting list for graduate apartments. Well, we’ll think about it. (When did I become royalty?)

I called Mom to wish her a happy Mother’s Day one day early.

Liz just yelled up to ask if I wanted to go into Buffalo with her, so I’m leaving.

*

3:30 PM. Where was I? Oh yeah, Mom said she’s sending Marc the quilty stuff that makes it comfortable for me to sleep on the floor when I visit my parents. I’ll be back in Fort Lauderdale one month from today.

Liz and I thought Agymah would want to come to Buffalo with us, so after I put the wheelchair in the back of her vehicle, I went to the Kocur Writer’s Retreat, but he wasn’t there. When I came back here, he was still in his room in his underwear, half-asleep.

Liz took me first to the Johnson County Fairgrounds for a swap meet to benefit an animal shelter. There was all this incredible crap on sale, from used dungarees to appliances from the 1950s to all kinds of stuff on the border between kitsch, camp and crap.

The last thing I wanted to was to buy anything, but Liz, like most artists, loves old junk, and she accumulated a lot of stuff which cost her a total of $1.40. (she gave an extra 90¢ as charity.)

Then she gave me money to pick up her photos at the Rexall store, where they’d sent it out to be developed. She went to the Y to lift weights, and I said I’d meet her in the drugstore in an hour.

The post office was closed, so I couldn’t mail or even weigh my package for Alice. It was only 48° according to the temperature signs, and I walked up and down Main Street, finally settling at this café in back of a store, where I sat at the counter, reading the Casper Star-Tribune and drinking iced tea.

It’s funny, but I don’t find people in Wyoming as friendly as people in the South; here they’re more sarcastic, but unlike upfront New Yorkers or Angelenos, their sarcasm is masked by a façade of politeness.

After Liz picked me up, we saw Sharon and two of the selection panelists we met last night, the Montana writer David Long and the SFMOMA curator who was the juror on multidisciplinary arts. (The third juror, in visual art, was the sculptor Ken Little, a professor at UT-San Antonio.) Last evening at 6 PM, we all met at Buck’s for cocktails.

Usually the Ucross selection committee is anonymous during their three-year service, but when they come twice a year for their meetings, the residents at the time get to meet the people who selected them.

Actually, the odds are not bad. David said they’d had fifty applicants in writing, and he selected about thirteen. He knew who I was, which surprised me, and we had a pleasant conversation throughout the cocktail party and then dinner, when he and Pam sat opposite me and Bonne, the severe-looking woman who works in the office.

David lives in Kalispell, in northwest Montana, and he was a short story writer who became a novelist when he got a two-book contract with Scribner’s. He’s very well-read and puts me to shame.

Obviously I’ve strayed far from the literary life – which is why I’m convinced moving into journalism is where I need to go as a writer.

Another of last night’s guests whom I liked was Neltje (no last name), a longtime Wyoming resident and painter who told me she was bred to give dinner parties in Oyster Bay and Manhattan.

She came out here after her husband (apparently Nelson Doubleday, though she didn’t name him), who published the books of Bennett Cerf, gave a dinner party in honor of the Random House publisher.

Cerf said to her, “Neltje, you don’t seem to like me,” and she replied, “Bennett, I think you’re a horse’s ass.” And at that moment she had the realization that she had to leave her husband and New York.

Yesterday Judith pointed out Neltje’s compound on the way to Sheridan, so Neltje obviously still has oodles of money.

Aside from Sharon and Elizabeth, who acted as hostess, the only others there were Barbara and John Campbell, the typical salt-of-the-earth Wyomingites who run the cattle and sheep ranch here on the foundation’s land.

Raymond Plank didn’t show, although Liz told me Elizabeth talked about him incessantly: “Raymond does this,” “Raymond thinks that.” Apparently he stayed in Houston for the weekend.

In the middle of dinner, John made a heartfelt toast “to the land” – I immediately thought we were in a dinner like those I’ve seen at Southfork on the TV show Dallas – and after dessert (I had half a cup of decaf but declined the carrot cake with whipped cream), he announced that he had to get up early to brand cattle.

The discussions were stimulating but I was tired, and after Agymah and I helped Pam switch the mattress from Nancy’s now-vacant bedroom with the one in Pam’s room (she has a back problem and her mattress wasn’t firm enough), I put the heater on high and got into bed.

This afternoon, before I Liz and I returned here from Buffalo, we drove up 195 past Sharon’s “geodesic” domed home and waited for a cow to move from the dirt road (cattle have the right of way) on our way back.

After I fixed myself something to eat – Liz and I were reading the Buffalo paper over our late lunch – I biked over to the mailbox and took out Wednesday’s New York Times, which arrived before the Monday or Tuesday papers did.