Someone With a Pen: Richard Grayson’s Diary

Tuesday, December 1, 1998

3:30 PM. Last night’s class in Coral Springs went very well and the discussion on the chapter on language was livelier than usual. I let the students out at the usual time and collected their last essay assignments. At the final class next Monday, I’ll lecture briefly and then have them write their final paper.

In an hour, I’ll be leaving for the final class in Boca Raton with the hope that my car continues to function. I’ve been home since noon, and I just finished grading five of the seven term papers I will be going over tomorrow at noon.

This morning I found that my instincts were correct when I divided the class by their regular attendance habits. All of the eight students I’d scheduled for conference today showed up, and only two of the nine scheduled for Thursday bothered to come in.

Getting those nine papers done by Thursday morning will make tomorrow my busiest day yet, but I’m trying to get through the papers more quickly.

Home at 9:30 PM last night, I tried to relax, but my back hurt me worse than ever and I was unable to get comfortable enough to sleep.

At midnight I took a shower, using the pulse of water to massage my back. I finally managed to drift off for about five hours, having a nice dream in which I lived in a large Manhattan apartment complex with some old friends.

This morning’s student conferences didn’t take as long as I’d expected, so I was out of Nova by 9:30 AM. Unable to find a copy of Max Shulman’s The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis at the public library, I went to Barnes & Noble for iced tea and a quicker-than-usual read of the New York Times.

Tom thanked me for sending him The Times of London review; he hadn’t been aware that the Brief Encounters anthology existed, much less that he was in it. So now he’s ordered a copy of the book via Amazon.com and we’ll find out how they printed “Restrooms of Europe” without his permission.

Tom reported that he read a few of my Boca Raton News columns to his students at NOCCA – who, incidentally, couldn’t name any contemporary Jewish author except me. In his email, Tom provided me with some good suggestions on how to teach The Crying of Lot 49.

He said Annette seems to like her new job at Tulane, but it’s not enough to sustain them. On December 14 he and Anna will visit the new NOCCA building in Bywater, which he hears is a disaster: “Then I’ll decide whether to retire on $19,000 a year or work another year and retire at $23,000. Damn money!”

Teresa said she enjoyed the student papers I sent her although Jade couldn’t figure out why Teresa and I were amused by them.

She said that Pam is still hesitant to take the first grade class permanently, but the principal likes her so much that he’s told her to come every day whether or not there’s a class for her to cover.

In New York, the holiday season began two weeks ago, Teresa reports. She has a few holiday parties to cater, but not enough to make her happy.

*

10 PM. I had a horrendous trip up to Boca, so it was a good thing I left early. From Pine Island Road, I could see that the traffic on I-595 was bumper to bumper, so I drove up through the streets to Coral Springs and then, cut off by another accident (it turned out that I-595 had an overturned tractor-trailer), I had to take Wiles Road up to 441, then stay on the Sawgrass Expressway till it ended and I got on I-95.

The drive took 75 minutes, but at least my car rode all right. The class was registering for next term for the first twenty minutes. I briefly gave tips on research papers based on my experience grading the recent ones and then showed the North Florida Journal video on the legalization of marijuana featuring me as a guest.

After our break, I went over the exercises at the back of the logic chapter. Much to my embarrassment, a few students started applauding when I finished class.

I always felt a sense of relief on Tuesday nights, knowing the hardest part of the week was behind me, but of course as I drove home this week, I also felt a sense of closure, and yes, a sense of accomplishment.

Wednesday, December 2, 1998

9 PM. I finished reading most of the papers I’ve got to give back tomorrow. They were uniformly wretched, but the one that bothered me all day was about Disney, from a religious right point of view. The essay called homosexuality “a sin like murder and slavery” and twice referred to Disney as “homo-friendly.”

I hope I acted professionally in my comments when I wrote, “As a gay man, I was offended by this. I’ll assume you don’t know how hurtful and disrespectful this is.” She’s only a kid, after all, who’s been fed this hatred by her parents. But I can’t let her get away with it.

I’ll bend over backwards not to penalize her for her views, but it’s hard for me to deal with. Hopefully, I can avoid getting upset when we have a conference tomorrow.

Richard came into the office after teaching, upset because he lost his temper with a girl in his class. He’s a mixed-up guy, perhaps with a personality disorder. Later I saw two security guards in the hall interviewing a distraught student, and I wondered if she was the one Richard blew up at.

I told him that students aren’t worth getting so upset over – not on an adjunct’s salary. I need to remember my own advice. Unfortunately, Athena Ofori’s paper stayed with me all day.

Ironically, I woke up to the news that the Miami-Dade County Commission, in a 7-6 vote, passed the gay rights ordinance last night. The Times featured the story on the front page with a file photo of Anita Bryant. In 1977, of course, she led the fight to repeal the original Dade County anti-discrimination ordinance, one of the first passed in a major American city.

I guess I should have enough maturity not to let some first-year college student’s ignorance bother me. Perhaps I should have talked to a full-time faculty member or to Ben Mulvey about it, but I’d like to handle this on my own.

The funny thing is this paper was better than most because at least she knew how to use sources correctly. I wish I didn’t have to read any more papers. The tortured prose is bad enough: the sentences that use “by —, it —” constructions in which by and it are unnecessary; the misuse of words like portray (for a variety of meanings) and downfalls (for drawbacks) and studies (which, for some reason, is used instead of states); the sentences with “there are — that —” constructions, which need to eliminate those words before they become clear; and those endless, endless passive verbs.

So why am I getting riled on an adjunct salary?

After grading these about ten papers today, I’m going to take off tomorrow after I finish teaching and leave the remaining research papers for Friday morning. I need to give myself a break.

The final drafts I can grade holistically, like the Coral Springs batch I’ve got to do over the weekend.

Kevin emailed me today, and we both feel bad that we haven’t been in touch. He’s working too hard at Warner Bros. Records, is doing publicity for a “Jewish rap group,” and had a wonderful fling with a guy a few weeks ago. I gave Kevin a brief report about my date with Cami and how he never called afterwards.

Yesterday my parents were probably the only people in the United States watching the C-Span House Judiciary Committee hearings on impeachment. God bless Mom and Dad for being so politically correct, for hating the hypocrisy of Henry Hyde and the sanctimonious Republicans who keep expanding the inquiry.

Evidently, I guess, they feel that they’ll turn up something that will finally convince the stupid American people who don’t believe that Clinton did anything that merits impeachment.

Meanwhile, in a world where 21 years after the OPEC oil boycott, oil prices have collapsed, Mobil and Exxon want to – or need to – merge into ExxonMobil. Gas at the pumps is actually cheaper now than it was in 1973.

Live long enough and you’ll see a great deal that’s interesting.

Saturday, December 5, 1998

9:30 PM. At 5 PM yesterday, George Alexakis, one of the BPM faculty coordinators, called to ask if I’d be interested in teaching Argumentative Writing over four weekends in Panama this winter. They’d pay my way totally, from mileage to parking at Miami Airport to tell overnight stay to plane fare. It sounds as if it could be, as George said, “an amazing opportunity.”

But after researching Panama and the program on the Web and in books, I’ve pretty much decided not to do it. I hesitate to say no because I don’t like turning things down because of fear, but I don’t think fear is all that’s operating here.

While I’m sure that it could be a fascinating experience, I really don’t like traveling back and forth so quickly, and knowing I’d have to teach after a three-hour plane ride and maybe two and a half hours from door to door on Saturday, and then teach another long class on Sunday, getting back at night when I have an 8 AM class (as well as a night class) the next day.

Panama has never been on my list of places I want to visit, and I know that I get disoriented when traveling and would probably be even more so on my first trip to a Third World country.

Today’s mail brought my BPM contracts for my two Organizational Communications classes next term, on Wednesday night in Fort Lauderdale and Thursday night in Boca Raton. Even if these classes don’t run except as tutorials, I’m still teaching three classes for Liberal Arts in January and will be busy enough.

Besides, I treasure my weekends. Next semester I’ll be off on Tuesdays, but I like to read the Sunday New York Times on Saturday – as I’ve been since I got the paper early in the Coral Springs Barnes & Noble at 4 PM today – and I just don’t want to lose any of my leisure time.

I’m flattered to be asked to teach in Panama. Under different circumstances I might have said yes because I don’t like turning down new opportunities.

Last evening I went to my office for a few hours, both to get on the Internet and to begin working on my syllabi for Language 1500 and American Literature of the 1950s and 1960s classes.

My back ached during the night, but I slept better and the pain is less today – although I don’t know how I can avoid having my back go out again other than not exercising vigorously.

This morning I did half an hour of my own exercises, the way I did in California and Wyoming, where I had no access to Body Electric shows.

At 10 AM, I went to the Barnes & Noble in the Pines for a couple of hours to read the paper and grade five Coral Springs papers; I still have about a dozen left, and as usual, I’ve left the worst writers to grade last.

NationsBank sent my Visa check card to replace the old ATM card. I took out the $400 cash I had from last weekend’s cash advances that I’d gotten (to pay for expected car repairs that never materialized) and got a postal money order and used the new cash to make an ATM deposit.

It’s odd that I got my contracts for next term’s BPM classes when I never got them for this semester. I’m wondering if I’ll get paid from Nova on December 15. If I don’t, that’s not a big problem because I should get about $1500 for the day classes and $1250 in from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs on that date.

It now looks as if the House, incredibly, will vote along party lines to impeach Clinton next week following this week’s all-but-certain Judiciary Committee vote.

Even though the country is sick of scandal and 70% of people don’t want to see a trial of Clinton in the Senate, the moderate Republicans in the House are being threatened by the Religious Right and the hardline Clinton haters.

It’s almost guaranteed that the Senate could never muster 67 votes to remove Clinton from office, and I hope public backlash will again result in GOP losses.

And if some evidence does turn up and the Senate does get rid of Clinton, Gore will have a presidential honeymoon just as the 2000 campaign gets underway.

But the process, like the special prosecutor witch hunts (former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy was just acquitted on all counts after a four-year, $17 million investigation), it will lessen respect for the legal and political system.

Wednesday, December 9, 1998

9:30 PM. I’ve got the heating pad on my left side, as it hurts again. I didn’t make any movements that reignited the pain, so I guess this is something I’m going to have to live with for a while. It ain’t exactly a disability, so I can work around it.

Last night I slept nicely. In one dream, Scott Koestner and I were passengers in a car driven by Arlo Guthrie, who went off the road and straight over the lawn of Prospect Park to get to Flatbush and Ocean Avenues. He said he used the shortcut because his father once worked for the Parks Department. When a cop car started trailing us, I told Arlo he should claim that he took the illegal shortcut because he had diarrhea and needed a bathroom.

That’s the kind of narrative I dream up these nights.

At school at 9 AM, I printed out my column about naming public highways, buildings and airports after corporations for the Boca Raton News. I got the idea after reading that the Micron PC bowl will be played at Pro Player Stadium here.

Maybe it’s annoying to have another whimsical piece following my columns about the Millionaires’ March on Washington and the baby politicians, so I’ll hold onto it a little longer and probably send it out just before I leave for Arizona if I don’t get a better idea.

I’m also going to try to write an op-ed piece for the Mesa Tribune, so I’ve been following Phoenix news and got some articles from Lexis/Nexis that have given me a few ideas.

Jaime didn’t respond to my last email, which is just as well.

Teresa said her friend Diane’s beloved Poochie had to be put to sleep. She took it to a vet in Davie over the weekend while she was here, and her own vet back home agreed that the elderly dog is suffering and couldn’t be helped.

How sad. It’s going to be very hard when China has to be put to sleep, and I know Jonathan and my parents will feel the loss deeply – certainly more than they did when Grandma Ethel died.

I wrote to Sat Darshan and read about yesterday’s San Francisco power blackout on the Mercury News website.

Today’s New York Times featured Sean Wilentz’s photo on the front page as well as inside. Although I’m bad at judging my own looks, Sean appears a lot older: he has deep bags under his eyes and a good-sized paunch.

Sean’s hair is thinner but still flops to one side the way it did when he was a boy. Now, though, it’s no longer light blond but dark brown – or so it appears in the papers. I guess we have that in common.

Sean’s testimony to the Judiciary Committee angered the Republicans, and even the Times editorial called his remarks “intemperate.” But I think he was right to say that history will classify the Judiciary Committee Republicans along with other fanatical zealots.

Time will tell.

In my noon class, all but one of my students showed up to write the final exam, and half a dozen of them handed in their papers so I won’t be seeing them again. While they were writing, I holistically graded the essays written by my Coral Springs students on Monday night.

After ninety minutes at home for lunch, I went back to school and finished my ten-page course outline and syllabus for Language 1500 next term and put it in Ben’s mailbox. I still have to finish the syllabus for the American Lit class before Monday.

Because of a foul-up, the final grade rosters won’t get to Liberal Arts until tomorrow, Santa said, so I’ll also wait until then to check with the BPM Program about the Boca and Coral Springs rosters.

This evening I went to Barnes & Noble and discovered that Paul Joseph, the Nova law professor who’s married to Lynn Wolf, and his co-editor Robert Jarvis were speaking and signing copies of their book Prime Time Law, a collection of essays on TV shows featuring attorneys.

It was an interesting talk and Q&A session, and many Nova faculty, as well as others, were there. Paul teaches a course on Law and Popular Culture, and I would have liked to get the book, but I’m too cheap (or too poor) to get it anywhere but the library.

On my way home, I stopped at Albertsons for some frozen vegetables, fruit and Weight Watchers frozen dinners. Today was a long, active day – but I had a lot of energy.