A Writer’s Diary Entries From Late August, 1998

Saturday, August 22, 1998

9 PM. I really am very lucky. I was just sitting in the Plantation Barnes & Noble, reading everything from Business Week’s celebration of the new economy of the 21st century to an XY article by a young gay guy who advocates punching out homophobes. Anyway, I realized that I’m incredibly time-rich.

Whenever I complain about not having money, I have to remember that I’ve always had lots of free time to do whatever I wanted. Besides, I haven’t had a job in over eight months, so how could I expect to have any money?

And if adjuncting at Nova is too much work for too little money – well, it’s not all that much work, and it at least is a high-status part-time job.

(Nova, I discovered in the new U.S. News college rankings, is listed as a national university; it’s dead last in prestige but tops in the amount of debt its students graduate with.)

This morning I was in the computer lab printing out my syllabus, the changes I made to Mom’s flyer about the house, and a query letter to Alyson Publishers, which I later sent out with a package of sample stories and clips. Probably I’m not “gay enough” for Alyson, but they’re one of the few gay presses whose fiction isn’t just pop fiction or erotica.

My next query, I decided after looking at a reference book tonight, will be to FC2. It would be pretty ironic if I got published by the successor cooperative to the Fiction Collective 25 years after I worked there.

I went to the Liberal Arts office, which was open, and I found my Language 2000 class roster.

An unpleasant discovery was that they capped the classes at twenty students, not fifteen, as was true of Language 1500. That means 25% more work than I expected. I was glad to see two of my former students, Lindsey and Danny, are in my Tuesday/Thursday class.

Using the xerox machine, I ran off 45 copies of my seven-page syllabus and course outline. I’m almost starting to feel good about getting back to teaching.

The only e-mail I got was from Patrick, who said that everyone at BCC is upbeat about the college’s future.

Today I exercised to two Body Electric tapes, this morning and again at 4:30 PM, when I returned from shopping at Publix. Mom asked me if it was very crowded, and at first I didn’t know what she meant; she was talking about people trying to get supplies in the event that Hurricane Bonnie gets here in a couple of days.

Monday is the sixth anniversary of Hurricane Andrew’s devastation of Miami, so people here are more than a little nervous, but my hunch is this storm will make landfall further north or go out to sea.

I paid for all the groceries. As at Teresa and Paul’s and other places where I’ve stayed, I’m trying not to be a financial burden, and when I get my next Unemployment check, I’ll give Mom some money.

I haven’t begun looking for an apartment, and right now I feel no urgency about it. I’ve grown accustomed to my family’s peculiarities. It’s sort of like when I first stepped into the lobby of New Haven Manor, that place filled with crazy people in Far Rockaway where I worked in the summer of 1976: I was shocked and appalled at how everyone behaved. But once I began working there every day, the bizarre actions of the mentally ill residents seemed quite ordinary.

At this point there’s no tension between me and Jonathan or me and my parents. I have privacy and comfort and convenience here – really, more than I did in Locust Valley or Jenkintown recently.

Of course, it would be tough to have a sexual relationship now – but I don’t see one developing anytime soon, though I may start going to gay clubs or organizations.

I didn’t go to this afternoon’s protest march at Coral Ridge Ministries, though I probably should have because that church and its political affiliates are a force for evil.

The Times had a big story today on the failure of the Allegheny hospitals that made me wonder what’s happening with Matthew’s job search.

Although Allegheny – which owned Hahnemann and the medical school where Matthew works – used a lot of financial hocus-pocus to make it appear solvent, part of the problem is the current economics of medical care – still a big issue years after Clinton’s health care plan was rejected.

And 40 million of us have no health insurance at all. Well, I live on the edge; what else can I tell you?

Rick Peabody wrote, saying he accepted “Those Old Dark, Sweet Songs” for the Sex and Chocolate anthology – and I’m in good company among the contributors – but he doesn’t have enough stories yet, and even if he gets them, I doubt the anthology will be published.

Since my story has already appeared in a webzine, I really don’t care; an anthology publication would just be lagniappe.

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Tuesday, August 25, 1998

7 PM. I awoke at 3 AM from a dream in which Jon Baumbach was refereeing a wrestling match between me and this guy Harrison – I can’t remember his first name, but he was in my undergraduate fiction writing class and wrote simple-minded stories that illustrated morality (racial discrimination is bad, old people shouldn’t be ignored). I could tell he resented my criticism.

After graduation, I met him once and he was working in public relations and doing quite well, I remember Baumbach turning up his nose when I told him the guy was in PR, as if that wasn’t real writing.

I suppose as a college student and literary snob, I felt superior to Harrison, too. While I haven’t  thought about him in years, I was probably a little attracted to him and didn’t realize it.

After the dream, I couldn’t get back to sleep, so, among other things, I read the spiralbound compendium of memorial writings about Ed Hogan. I guess I should have sent something to Leora Zeitlin, though she reached me only just days before deadline of Ed’s memorial service.

There are nice remembrances from Rick Peabody, Richard Kostelanetz, Hugh Fox, Diane Kruchkow, David Wilk and so many of the people I remember from small press scene of twenty years ago. Ed had so little ego and he was both a gentleman and a perfectionist. I never heard anyone say a bad word about him.

My next book, if there is one – yes, there will be – will be dedicated to Ed’s memory. I think he’d like that tribute, being a bookman and such a great editor and publisher.

Anyway, I finally got back to sleep, but not for long, and I woke up with a clogged right ear which has been plaguing me all day. I hope I don’t get an ear infection.

The problem is with my sinuses, which have been troubling me since I returned to Florida. I didn’t have any sinus trouble in California, Wyoming or Arizona.

I liked my 8:30 AM class at Nova today. Aside from seeing the familiar faces of Danny and Lindsey, whom I genuinely like, this class seems sweeter than the other one even though it has just as many white-guy jock types.

There’s also a gay guy, a transfer student who’s a little older and frumpier, though probably also smarter than the kids, and one woman who I’d guess is in her late twenties.

After class, I went on the Internet in the library. Sean emailed his résumé for me to edit. I printed it out, and it looks quite good. Although even I can tell that the technology LMG Systems uses has always been a decade behind state-of-the-art, I am impressed with Sean’s credentials and experience.

Teresa went to Connecticut with Diane and then to a birthday party at the James Beard House in Manhattan. She mailed out my Unemployment check, so it should get here by Saturday.

I hung around the office till 11:30 AM, talking to this woman adjunct who teaches speech as well as composition.

Cheryl was living in Macon, Georgia, but recently moved to Miramar to help her mother, who’s going blind. She’s teaching seven classes at four colleges: at the North Campuses of Broward Community College, Miami-Dade Community College and FIU as well as at Nova.

I liked talking to Cheryl and gave her some leads on other adjunct work here. But all that driving around! Even after my night classes begin, I’ll have a lot more free time this semester.

After lunch, I read the paper, and at 3 PM I went to Publix and then to Barnes & Noble, where I read all of Pete Hamill’s little book, News Is a Verb, which had trenchant observations about today’s newspaper industry. Reporters probably have salaries resembling those of adjuncts.

I can’t figure out if FC2/Black Ice Books is still active; Writers Market says they’re out of business. After a quick trip to Nova and some Web research, I returned home to listen to All Things Considered through my headphones as I made dinner.

China is so used to my eating beef or chicken dinners that she comes over when I put anything in the microwave and begs for table scraps as I eat – even when I am having vegetarian stuff, like the spinach lasagna I had tonight.

Roger Buckwalter of the Jupiter Courier said he’s going to print my “letter to the editor,” the piece I wrote on the gender-neutral language of Revision 13 to Florida’s constitution.

It should show up on Lexis/Nexis, and I just hope my car will get me through the long ride to Jupiter to get a copy. But at least I’m getting published.

See, like Erica Jong wrote, I do this out of love – and probably stupidity as well.

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Friday, August 28, 1998

9 PM. Today was a long day.

Last evening I looked at my claim card and it appeared to me that something was amiss: there were printed boxes blocking the arrows leading to the area to fill in my claim weeks.

So I decided to go to the Oakland Park Boulevard Unemployment office first thing this morning and get my address changed back here to my parents’ house.

At the Long Island Unemployment office, I told them I was scheduled to go back to work on Monday, August 17 – when I mistakenly thought the term would begin. But now I want to claim last week, of course. As far as this week, I haven’t decided whether I can risk it.

Tonight, at Nova, I got my contracts in my mailbox. The good news is that they raised adjunct salaries by $200 a course. The bad news is that my first paycheck won’t come until October 15. Perhaps if I date my contract next week, I can claim that I was hired a week after the term began.

Anyway, after I waited on line only a few minutes, the Unemployment people told me to call in claim benefits on Tuesday or Wednesday, and I’ll see how I feel then.

At 4:30 PM today, the mail finally came, and I got the big manila envelope with the formal letter from Secretary Mortham (whom I expect will lose Tuesday’s GOP primary) and the agreement, which I read – I am a lawyer, after all – and we’ll send back.

The $5,000 is going to be paid quarterly, which is a real pain, especially if I hope to be gone next summer. Still, I can change my address to a mailbox at Mailboxes Etc. and have my mail forwarded, or I could use Aunt Sydelle’s address.

Hopefully, the state will release the first check for $1,250 within the next two or three weeks. In any case, I’m not going to look for an apartment for at least a month. Being here is convenient, and although my family drives me a little crazy, this will be the last time I live with them for more than a vacation.

I had to be here at 5 PM because people made an appointment to see the house.

Mom denies she did anything out of the ordinary, but she cleaned with more fervor than usual today, working constantly – as if the prospective buyers were going to judge the house on the basis of Mom’s housekeeping and if they saw any actual garbage in one of the garbage pails, there’d be no deal.

My job was not only to make sure these prospective home buyers didn’t chloroform Mom and rob her blind, but to take China from room to room so she didn’t bite the couple, as China is really a mean dog with strangers.

Mom was standing at the front door before 5 PM, but the couple never showed up, and Dad had neglected to get their phone number. That’s so typical.

Last evening I thought I’d get to bed early, but I couldn’t sleep very well. Up at 5 AM, I exercised at 6:30 AM and was out of the house an hour later.

Leaving the Unemployment office, I stopped at Starbucks to drink iced tea and read the paper. The stock market didn’t rally today as I had expected, and perhaps small investors are becoming afraid to do the “bargain hunting” this time.

August is a weird month for the economy. It marked the peak of the markets before the 1929 and 1987 crashes, and in August 1990 the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait signaled the start of the recession.

With Russia currently in turmoil, Clinton’s presidency in jeopardy, the terrorist bombings in Africa, the continuing financial problems in Japan, Southeast Asia and other places, it seems like the mood of the country has changed.

After lecturing for 25 minutes in my Language 1500 class today, I had my students write an opinion about any current issue in an essay as a diagnostic essay.

My snotty little day trader student said he’s upset and angry that the Russian ruble is making him “suffer.” Silly kid, he’s only seen a bull market throughout the late 1990s, so he assumed that was normal.

I assume that Jeff, my cousin and godson, who’s often quoted in periodic wire services market summaries – he’s a trader at Credit Lyonnais – has been around long enough to know better.

You’d think bright young people wouldn’t have the deer-in-the-headlights look – though certainly Jeff is much brighter than my student, who, after all, ended up at Nova.

The other important thing that came in the mail was a handwritten note from Bob Hershon. Hanging Loose Press will be glad to look at my manuscript, he said, but they probably won’t back get back to me for months since they have lots of them to consider and plenty of ongoing projects.

Tonight I printed out “Those Old Sweet, Dark Songs” and a new table of contents to add to the big manuscript that Alice had given me three weeks ago.

I’ll send it to Hanging Loose Press in Brooklyn next week, though it will be a miracle if they publish it. But at least they’re nice enough to consider it.

Gianni called last evening, saying he’s leaving Florida on Monday, so that the last time I can see him is this coming weekend. He said he’d called today to arrange a time, but he never did.

Mark Bernstein read “Dark Songs” and was surprised at the sex and asked me what Gianni thought of the story. Of course, I don’t want him to see it, so I’m glad he’ll be out of the country – not that he couldn’t read it on the web in Madrid. (Pug, after all, is out of Italy.)

While I’d like to see Gianni, I won’t be devastated if I don’t. Perhaps I used him and exploited him and thus I’m not a very nice person.

Well, I already knew that. Most people do, I expect.

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Saturday, August 29, 1998

9 PM. After waking up at 7 AM, I made up a few packets of stuff featuring my fellowship letter from the state and sent them to the daily and weekly papers.

All the Broward and Dade fellowship winners, starting with me, were mentioned in Gail Meadows’s arts column in the Sunday Herald – I got the bulldog edition this afternoon – and probably that mention is all the publicity I’m going to get out of the fellowship. But for a publicity hound like me, it never hurts to keep trying.

I left a message with Gianni that I was going out at 9:30 AM and coming back in two hours, and he returned my call at noon. He had to pick up a rail ticket at FedEx in the Gables between 3 PM and 5 PM, so we met at 1 PM at the Fort Lauderdale Borders.

Gianni is flying to Newark at 7 AM on Monday. After spending the day in Manhattan, he’ll fly from Newark to Lisbon at 8 PM. Arriving in Lisbon on Tuesday morning, he’ll stay there the next couple of days and take a train to Madrid on Wednesday night.

He decided to leave now because everything is done and he’s anxious to get there already.

Gianni got the name of a travel agent from Alejandro, and the guy seemed intent on letting Gianni know, none too subtly, that he had also slept with Alejandro – but that was apparently before Alejandro met Gianni.

Already Gianni had changed his plane reservations a dozen times, and after he got to talking to me about the Concorde, he decided to call and see what it would cost. I told him that Air France and British Airway had Concorde flights, but that it would be way too expensive.

He still insisted on phoning as we sat outside in the strong heat at Borders Cafe. I was amused and ready to see the look of astonishment on Giannis’s face when they told him that if he wanted to fly on the Concorde Monday – or any other time – the fare would be $9,000.

What a flake Gianni is. He told me about seeing 54 last night and that he’s so into the 1970s disco era that he’s reading a biography of Halston.

How did Gianni and I ever hook up? It astounds me, but it’s also both comical and sweet. We’ve never run out of things to talk about, and Gianni isn’t dumb, exactly; his interests are just very different from mine, though of course I can talk about most subjects.

After a couple of hours, he had to go, and I gave him a hug, apologizing for being so sweaty and wishing him good things in Spain. I doubt I’ll ever see Gianni again, and I’m glad he didn’t find out about the chocolate/sex story because it was foolish of me to put so much of him into it.

When I got home, Marc called. It’s been very hot (110°) and this morning his car overheated on the way to the flea market in Prescott – just before getting to “no man’s land” – but he was able to stop and fill it up with water and turn back to Phoenix.

AirTouch’s business is going great, but Marc said it’s a dysfunctional company with unhappy employees who all want to leave.