Someone With a Pen: Richard Grayson’s Diary

Tuesday, June 1, 1999

10 PM. I’m in my room on the third floor of the Ronna and Matthew’s house in Jenkintown.

They go to sleep really late around here, but Matthew doesn’t come home from the hospital till after 8 PM and I guess this is the only way he can spend time with the kids and Ronna.

If I were an old fart, I’d say that in my day, kids of 2 and 5½ were in bed at 8 PM, but I know things are different today.

I’m exhausted, and of course my routines are totally thrown off. I haven’t recorded anything in my food diary since breakfast and I didn’t do more than glance at today’s Times front page.

I got here at 2 PM and have been playing with the girls most of the time. Chelsea is old enough to run me ragged the way Lindsay and Wyatt do when I go to Los Angeles – but she has a full day of school tomorrow.

Last night I felt better and was in a fine mood by the time Paul and Teresa got home from Mattituck.

This morning Teresa was in a tizzy about her mother-in-law and the visiting relatives from England, so I was happy when the guy from Enterprise came to pick me up at 8:30 AM.

An hour later I said goodbye to Teresa and Jade – it must be a relief to have me out of the house after four weeks – and I was off.

The ride through Nassau, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island was excruciating with traffic at a standstill for much of the way on the LIE, Belt Parkway and even the Staten Island Expressway. It took me nearly 2½ hours to get to the Jersey Turnpike – but the rest of the ride to Pennsylvania was easy.

I may be subject to senior moments the way Ronna said she now is, but I have a great memory for places and directions, and I remembered Old York Road and its stores. Stopping off at the Fresh Fields supermarket, I fixed myself a huge salad bar. (I’d had a cheese sandwich and sweet potato on the drive here.)

Ronna looks fine, and so does Matthew. Chelsea looks the same, and Abigail is bigger and can walk and say Maw, Daw, and lots of other words – and after a while I realized that she can understand a lot more words than is immediately evident.

Both girls are good-natured and even-tempered, though Chelsea can still be a little obstreperous. We played in the backyard on the swings and some girls around 10 or 11 came by to play with Abigail and Chelsea. I enjoyed being with the kids, but they can wipe me out.

Matthew is going to take Chelsea to school because he’s flying to Hartford for a job interview at the UConn hospital. He’ll be there overnight so Ronna will need me to help her with the children.

It was a warm and humid day, but the house feels cool, and even though this room on the top floor is warmer than the rest of the house, I’m fine and I’ve got all the comforts of home.

Ronna told me her mother is in love with this guy, Bill, a 73-year-old widower from Winter Park, a patient at Valerie’s clinic. (Ronna said Valerie “has gone wild” since Alan died.)

Like Beatrice, Bill also had a stroke but is pretty much okay, and he’s moving in with her.

Ronna called Sue at work to wish her a happy birthday today. She said that Ellen recently went to San Francisco and stayed with Sue and reported that Daniel is fine, that Sue loves her job but the commute from Martinez is getting to her (they let her work from home one day a week), and that she is unhappy in her marriage to Robert.

Chelsea and Abigail seem to have a lot of toys that talk: Barney the Dinosaur, a sunflower in a pot that sings, and other dolls that ask questions.

The mail carrier was walking up to the house as I arrived this afternoon. He brought the letter from Mom containing my Red Hen Press contract, but I haven’t had the time to look at it.

For now, I just want to try to get some sleep, so I’ll read it only if I have insomnia.

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Wednesday, June 2, 1999

10 PM. This visit to Jenkintown is good for me because it gets me out of my routines.

Last night I was so tired that I slept soundly without Triavil. It’s warmer here than the rest of the house, but I felt comfortable. There’s a bathroom inside my room, and up here on the third floor, I have more privacy than I do at my parents’ house in Davie, Marc’s apartment in Mesa, or Teresa and Paul’s house in Locust Valley.

Up at 5:30 AM I turned on WHYY radio to listen to NPR, and I finally opened Mom’s mail.

The Red Hen Press contract was in tiny print on letterhead and contained no surprises. The book’s title, number of stories (12), print run (1,000) and even price ($14.95) were all specified.

The financial stuff seemed straightforward though I was a little concerned that it called for “no less than $5,000 in two payments of approximately $2,500.”

But everything in the agreement is so basic that I can see that Red Hen Press and Mark and Kate are honest. Looking at the contract as a lawyer, I can see that they haven’t protected themselves enough. Anyone trying to cheat me would have put in more restrictive clauses rich with ambiguity.

I’m a little concerned about their complete editorial control, subject to notifying me, but I’ll assume that they’ll be reasonable as they were with “Moon Over Moldova” in their Anyone Is Possible anthology.

The $5,000 is money that’s already gone psychologically; all I’m expecting is the publication of another book. If I get reviews or newspaper articles or sales, it will be my doing, and it will be gravy.

I wrote Kate back, telling her to mail me a fully signed copy of the contract to my Locust Valley address and that after getting it, I’d immediately send Red Hen a $2,500 check to get the ball rolling.

At 7 AM, I turned on the TV, thinking Body Electric to come on WYBE/35, but a notice on the screen said the program won’t be on this summer.

So I put in the videotape I brought – which the VCR promptly swallowed and destroyed. That’s the first time that ever happened to me.

I then resorted to a half hour of impromptu exercises with my five-pound weights, something I used to do at Villa Montalvo and Ucross. Then I went down to breakfast after I showered.

Ronna said I had time to go out before we went on our shopping trip to Genuardi’s. Matthew didn’t go to work and was taking Chelsea to school, and Ronna needed to wait to let in Diana, her cleaning woman.

I drove to the Willow Grove post office and mailed my letter to Red Hen Press and my payments of some credit card bills.

Then I went to Barnes & Noble and picked up the Times and glanced at it over a quick iced tea. It was good to be on my own for a little while.

Back at the house, I chatted with Ronna and Matthew about the perilous financial state of teaching hospitals and other stuff. He had a noon flight to Hartford for a two-day interview for a senior position with the teaching hospital in Farmington that’s affiliated with UConn.

Soon after Matthew left for the airport, Ronna and Abigail and I went to Genuardi’s.

I hadn’t remembered what a cautious, nervous driver Ronna is; she really needs to have more confidence – and she knows it – but she’s pretty much been driving for only three years and she usually has only the kids with her.

After getting my own stuff at the supermarket, I waited for Ronna to get her $150 worth of groceries, loaded her trunk, and once we got home, I unloaded the car while she paid Diana and dealt with Abigail, whom she put down for a nap as I had lunch.

When Ronna came downstairs, I said to her, “You work incredibly hard.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“It wasn’t a compliment,” I said, “just an observation.” Kids are so relentless, and it seems to me more exhausting to be a stay-at-home mom than to have any kind of office employment.

But Matthew also is a very active parent when he’s home, bathing and feeding the girls and spending a lot of time with them.

What’s sad is that Ronna and Matthew don’t get to spend time alone together, and that Ronna doesn’t experience being alone.

From my 1991 trip to Los Angles, I remember that when Lindsay and Wyatt were little, Libby would always take an afternoon to do what she wanted to by herself: shop, go to the movie, see a friend, go horseback riding.

I love playing with Abigail, but if I find something that makes her laugh – like this afternoon when I was going “All fall down” as we dropped her doll, a furry duck and Elmo to the floor – I have to do it over and over again.

Two-year-olds can be entertained endlessly by an action that’s so repetitive that it’s mind-numbing for an adult.

And while playing with Chelsea is more interesting, she’s still only 5½ and wants what she wants now and sometimes doesn’t understand why a certain course of action is unfeasible.

Plus, Chelsea can be whiny – though at least her frustration is verbalized. It’s frustrating when I can’t tell what’s bothering Abigail because she can’t express it in words (though she understands ten times more than she can say).

I did have half an hour to lie down, as Ronna also did) before Chelsea’s classmate Lila, her two 18-month-old brothers (Corey and Davey), and Becky, their nanny, came over for a playdate.

The older girls watched videos while Abigail was asleep, and I sat outside with Becky, Ronna and the twins.

Although it was 85° and humid, under the awning I felt quite comfortable as I read the paper. Later I stayed out with Chelsea and played out front by the red maple tree with her and two neighbor girls around 12 years old who sometimes help Ronna with the kids.

Even though Matthew was away, Ronna still didn’t get dinner (Boca Burgers, pasta, broccoli) until 7:30 PM.

Afterwards, I played with Chelsea (she put Reader Rabbit on the computer in this room), watched part of A Bug’s Life (Abigail’s favorite video, though her sister finds the grasshoppers scary), and showed Ronna my Brooklyn and Phoenix and New Orleans photos.

Now I’m really tired.

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Thursday, June 3, 1999

10 PM. Matthew came home from Hartford a little while ago, and the kids were all over him.

I stayed downstairs only to say hi and good night. Matthew said the hospital and the area were a pretty nice, “so we’ll see if that happens.”

I’d been watching TV with Chelsea while Ronna had Abigail downstairs. This evening I helped as Ronna gave the girls a bath – usually Matthew’s job – and read Green Eggs and Ham to Chelsea.

Then I watched a Sesame Street video, Elmopalooza, with Abigail and her Elmo doll and Elmo book; this morning we’d watched an Elmo segment on reading books.

The kids are great, but I’m truly glad I never had my own children, for I don’t have the reserves of patience that a parent needs.

When they get balky, cranky and disobedient, I wouldn’t be able to deal with the kids as well as Matthew and Ronna do – or as well as I do now, with other people’s children.

Perhaps because I’m a writer, I love solitude too much to be a parent. I relished the chance to get out for ninety minutes in late morning, to read and sip iced tea at the bookstore, to go shopping and visit the Jenkintown library and just drive around on my own.

I also wouldn’t be able to deal with the lack of intellectual stimulation that Ronna has, though I wonder if she could deal with the kids more efficiently. While I assume Ronna does a much better job than working parents do, I also think she’s forgotten the pleasures of reading or how she used to love to go to plays.

At 4 PM, we went over to her friend Andrea’s, whom I like a lot. She has a son who’s Abigail’s age and an older boy of 10.

Andrea’s a freelance writer and adjunct college teacher who asked me far more questions about my writing, teaching and publishing than Ronna has. I guess that’s partly because it’s her business, but Andrea also has a clinical psychologist husband who stays home part of the day.

Anyway, today was pleasant. These days I’m glad I have a low stress existence and can manage very nicely without working too hard or giving up the parts of life I treasure. Perhaps if I had more ambition or was really in love with my job or family, I’d be happy to be as busy as most Americans are.

I caught up with some of the Times but still haven’t even read all of Tuesday’s sections yet.

When I called Mom, she said she was going to call me tomorrow to wish me happy birthday; I told her she needn’t bother and thanked her for the good wishes. The girls wanted to talk to my mother, so I put them on the phone.

I told Ronna that instead of joining them at a neighbor’s barbecue and picnic on Sunday, I’d go sightseeing instead.

Tomorrow we have that reception being given for Matthew and other doctors at some medical thing that starts on Saturday.

Well, I think I’m going to call myself lucky and call it a night.

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Friday, June 4, 1999

3 PM. I just got back to the house. Ronna and Abigail must have gone to pick up Chelsea at school, so I thought I’d take advantage of the time alone to write.

In a couple of hours, Matthew is coming home to pick us up for the museum reception for the doctors at this weekend’s infectious disease conference in town.

I sort of dread it, but they’re honoring Matthew, and it’s important to him. The doctors will all be wearing suits and ties, but Matthew said I can get along with a (wrinkled) white shirt, dark tie and khakis.

Last night I slept well, and this morning I awoke to the news that the Yugoslavs have agreed to a peace deal over Kosovo – a surprise to me, who hasn’t been such a news junkie this week.

Apart from Hillary Clinton’s New York Senate candidacy, the appointment of Herman Badillo as CUNY chairman (he seems to fit into the GOP plan to privatize CUNY) and vague economic news (unemployment hit a 4.2% low), I’ve been speed-reading the Times and not listening much to NPR.

After I exercised, I had breakfast with Ronna and the girls, who wished me happy birthday. Then I went out for a while.

Armed with my credit cards, I sat in the ATM lane of the nearby Abington Bank and got cash advance after cash advance – $1,300 in all – which I converted to money orders at the Willow Grove post office and deposited by certified mail into my NationsBank checking account.

Cash advance fees, ATM fees and the incredibly high interest rates make this a stupid way to get money, but with this extra $1,300, I’ll have a cushion so I can send out the $2,500 check to Red Hen Press.

Hopefully, my check for $1,250 from the Florida Cultural Affairs Division will come within the next two weeks so that this will be the end of my borrowing.

From the post office, I went to Kinko’s, where I got online for half an hour at 20¢ a minute. I emailed Kate Gale saying that the signed contract was on its way.

There were email birthday greetings from Justin and Alice (whose CompuServe 2000 is up and running), notes from Rick Peabody and a couple of others, and some junk.

I got a haircut at the Supercuts in Jenkintown. When I told the stylist that I was 48 today, instead of telling me I look young for my age as I’d hoped she would, she just said, “That’s not old.”

At 10 AM, I went to Barnes & Noble for an hour to read today’s Times, which I finished just now at Starbucks, where an attractive woman at the next table smiled at me when our eyes met.

From the bookstore I went to the Willow Grove Mall, where I got Abigail a Muppet doll from Sesame Street and Chelsea a Barbie backpack with mirror, comb and girlie stuff. I also had a baked potato in the food court.

Stupidly, getting out of the mall parking lot, I got into the wrong lane and was actually facing the wrong way in traffic until I made a U-turn. Oddly, the old lady behind me, having observed my illegal and dangerous move, followed my lead and did precisely what I did.

Ronna had gotten Abigail to her nap and was eating sushi from Genuardi’s when I returned. I heated up some frozen veggies and had my cheese and bread and onion lunch. Now I tell people I follow “the Silicon Valley Diet.”

At one point as we sat at the table, Ronna said, “I meant to tell you: You look fabulous.” That was nice to hear.

It’s hard to adjust to being on the edge of 50, especially when I’m attracted to younger guys.

Last week, on our way home from her cousins’, Teresa criticized me for dating guys in their twenties and warned me that I could end up like her friend Paul, “alone in his big house in San Francisco.” I remained silent, but thinking about it, I’d love to end up alone in a big house in San Francisco.

I hear the door opening. So they’re all back, so I’ll be busy entertaining der kinder for a while.

While I may be too old to deal with young children on a daily basis, part of the reason I get along so well with them is that at 48 – I’ve got to start thinking I’m 49 – I’m as immature as any five-year-old.

So far I’ve treasured this birthday, and part of the reason why is that I don’t need big stuff to make me happy.

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Saturday, June 5, 1999

10 PM. Yesterday turned out to be a wonderful birthday.

On the ride down Broad Street into Philadelphia, Chelsea – joined somewhat by Abigail – sang “Happy Birthday” to me.

We were going to the Academy of Natural Sciences on the Franklin Parkway, where a lot of Philadelphia’s other museums are. On the second floor were some hors d’oeuvres, a bar, and the families of about fifty doctors, the participants in the weekend conference on infectious diseases.

In the car, I’d rubbed my right eye and dislodged my contact lens, which I’m no longer used to wearing, so as soon as I could, I excused myself and went to the men’s room, where it took a while to find the lens and put it in properly again.

This is a pretty bizarre way to spend my 48th birthday, I thought, and I laughed at the silliness of the situation.

A staff member was giving a tour of the museum, but few people seemed interested at first, although when they brought out an opossum, snake and large tortoise, people – the kids, especially – enjoyed it.

Feeling out of place amid physicians in suits and jackets (I had on a white dress shirt and tie), I was grateful for the tour, finding it intellectually stimulating to hear about how the dioramas of stuffed animals were created.

I was fascinated by a 1769 map of Florida, which was fairly accurate. At that time, St. Augustine was still the only major city.

The big shot doctors wanted to go down to see the new Dinosaur Hall – dinosaurs get the best PR in the business – but we had to wait until another party cleared out.

Finally, we did see the dinosaur bones and related exhibits. At one point, Matthew, Chelsea and I went into a room where we found ourselves standing amid a video of dinosaurs roaming all around us.

That was fun, and I thought the butterfly environment was interesting, but Planet Golf – a miniature golf course with posters giving lessons on the environment – seemed rather cheesy even though children loved it.

I asked one tour guide about the conflict between being a serious science institution and Disneyesque entertainment and she agreed with this old curmudgeon about knowledge coming first but said they needed to entertain, too, to stay alive and try to teach something.

It was after 9 PM when we left. The kids were hungry and cranky, and Chelsea whined as we drove home through the rather scary curves and winding roads of Fairmont Park. Finally she just fell asleep, so I assume she was just overtired. Back in my room, I caught up with the week’s newspapers and went to sleep.

Today I awakened at 6:30 AM, exercised at 7 AM, and went downstairs for breakfast before 8 AM. For the next couple of hours I stayed with Chelsea and Abigail while Ronna bathed.

Finally I went out for three hours, reading today’s Times at Barnes & Noble and shopping at the Genuardi’s in Roslyn, northeast of here.

In the afternoon, I played with Chelsea for hours. She’s a wonderful kid, but I find that eventually I become worn out after playing Simon Says with her and Abigail, dancing with them to the music from Guys and Dolls, and helping Chelsea climb the red maple in front of the house or pushing her on the swing – and she eventually starts whining and demanding whatever strikes her fancy.

All kids are like that. I can be very patient with Chelsea because she’s not my child, and my time here is limited.

Beatrice called this afternoon, and I spoke to her briefly; it was good to hear her voice. She will be coming back here in July, probably with her boyfriend Bill.

It was again pleasant to hang out in the backyard in the afternoon. I had chicken fajitas before Matthew returned home with Chinese seafood, and I went out for a couple of hours this evening to read at the Barnes & Noble next to the mall in Willow Grove.

Ronna said she understands that I need to get away. She thanked me for relieving her of a lot of the kid duty and said that I give her an adult to talk with.

I got an email from Carolyn saying that her boyfriend turned out to be a “the sociopath from hell . . . I did a lot of damage to his apartment to show him how I felt about his behavior.”

But now she’s got a new boyfriend – who’s also a bit weird, she said. Carolyn seems to exhibit the classic life experiences of an alcoholic.

I feel sorry for her, but I’m not the person to confront her about her drinking. I’m really glad I didn’t get more involved with Carolyn.

My instincts about people often end up keeping me from bad relationships – and when they don’t, thankfully I can always rely on other people to reject me.

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Sunday, June 6, 1999

8 PM. This is my last night in Pennsylvania, and today was the most relaxing day yet. I played with Chelsea only for about 90 minutes – mostly we built “castles” with dominos – and otherwise had time to myself.

When I came down to breakfast at 8:30 AM, the family were all at the kitchen table with bagels, coffee and cantaloupe.

Later, Matthew took Abigail upstairs while Ronna went to a meeting of the Jenkintown Newcomers Club honoring her and others for the work they did on the cookbook, so I could sit in the kitchen by myself and read the Sunday New York Times.

In the afternoon, Ronna and Matthew took the kids to a friend’s barbecue and picnic. When I said I was going to go sightseeing, but Matthew had warned me that the bike race in Center City – we saw the bleachers set up on the Parkway on Friday night – would make traffic there horrible.

So I drove north to the Turnpike and went west, going through the Main Line suburbs, though I did ride I-76 down to Philadelphia proper next to the Schuylkill before turning around at the first sign of a traffic jam.

I went through Valley Forge but didn’t want to stop at the historic site; the upscale mall in King of Prussia is unfortunately more my style.

There I could get TCBY frozen yogurt and take part in a market research study – I still fit into the 18-49 category, but just barely – that involved using these virtual reality glasses to watch a trailer for the movie An Ideal Husband and answer worthless questions about the actors, characters, dialogue, perceived plot, music, etc.

I also stopped at Kinko’s to check email. I thanked Marc for his birthday wishes and said I’ll probably see him in Florida in mid-July and assured him that he could have the bedroom while I’d stay in Dad’s office.

Actually, maybe I should wait until after Marc is in Florida so that he could have my car. But I don’t feel I can keep imposing on Teresa and Paul in Locust Valley, and I’m not sure I want to deal with the heat in the un-air-conditioned Brooklyn brownstone.

My main concern now is that I’m not getting any work done – primarily the first draft of “Tom’s” essay on my work for the Dictionary of Literary Biography. Maybe if I can get to work on it within the next week and see progress, I will feel better.

I also need to do more to prepare for my fall classes, though the 200 pages or so that I’ve read in the textbook for the Political and Civil Liberties course isn’t chopped liver.

Rick Peabody emailed me after talking to Tom, who said the NOCCA position is permanent. Rick said he and Margaret wanted to get married in September, but I suspect he’s not a good fit for the job in New Orleans anyway.

Rick mentioned the hullabaloo over the state taking over NOCCA because of the expense of the new building – but on Nexis, I saw that the bill for a state takeover was withdrawn by the senator who introduced it.

The last email was from Kate, telling me she’d send info about the book when she got the signed contract back, and she asked me for some cover ideas.

To her probable chagrin, I suggested a picture of a cute guy at a notebook computer with a Starbucks cup of coffee – but I suspect Kate we’ll get something gauzy, like the artwork on the other two Red Hen Press story collections I’ve seen.

I think I’m a lot more media-savvy than Kate or Mark; the fact that I even used the word “marketing” will probably make Kate, a poet, cringe.

Before heading back here, I sat in the Willow Grove Barnes & Noble and read an issue of New Media Studies on the future of journalism and went to Wendy’s for a baked potato and Diet Coke.

Ronna was alone in the kitchen when I returned at 6:30 PM, and we were able to chat for an hour, which was fun.

I’ll go downstairs soon and hang out with the family now that everyone is up from their naps.