Thursday, June 1, 2000
5:30 AM. I didn’t sleep at all Tuesday night despite availing myself of every anti-insomnia trick in the book.
Worse, at 5:30 AM, a violent thunderstorm began, flooding the streets and soaking me as I struggled to bring my luggage to the car.
The radio said the morning might bring 6 or 7 inches of rain – about what Phoenix gets in a year. My drive to the airport was treacherous, though it began to let up as I arrived at the rental car return.
My Southwest flight took off on time. It was smooth and uneventful, and I had nobody sitting next to me.
The guy sitting next to me, a pleasant hunting and rifle instructor from Houma, Louisiana, bent my ear for most of the trip – but I guess it did help pass the time. The flight arrived 15 minutes early, so that Jonathan and Dad didn’t come down to the baggage claim area until I had my stuff.
I’m going to stop writing now; I expected privacy, but my parents and Jonathan are up and all around the nearby kitchen table. I have to keep telling myself this is temporary.
*
2:30 PM. Obviously, privacy is a big problem at my parents’ house. One reason that adjusting is difficult is that I’ve been master of my own domain for ten straight months.
And as soon as I got into the car at Sky Harbor yesterday, I wondered if I had made a terrible mistake in coming here. But I won’t be living with my parents when I get my own apartment, which I will do in August – or in September at the latest.
I
Despite being a layabout yesterday, I still managed to fall asleep around 9 PM, and even on the air mattress, I was so exhausted that I slept deliciously for eight straight hours.
(Even though I’m currently writing this in Marc’s room with the door locked – he’s off today, but is smart enough to leave for the entire time – Mom just came in. “I have a problem,” she announced. “I can’t tell Marc’s white athletic socks from yours.”)
Anyway, up at 5 AM today, I had breakfast even though there was no milk, skim or not, as I listened to Morning Edition on NPR. Then I tried to write the last entry until everyone else in the house was up and about.
(The rabbit spends the night in the bathroom, so in order for me to remember not to let her out, Mom made a sign, “BUNNY – CLOSE DOOR!” for the bathroom sink, to remind me when I get up during the night to pee.)
Leaving the house at 7:30 AM, I went to Safeway. Unlike at Christmas, Apache Junction is now devoid of snowbirds, so the store and the roads were fairly empty.
Later I mailed the Silicon Valley Diet books to Amazon.com at the Apache Junction post office, where I paid for a post office box to send my XY subscription and other stuff to.
I also got my Arizona driver’s license, a process that took 15 minutes, helped by the friendly American Indian guy with long-haired braids at the front desk, who made me smile in my photo by squeaking a green cactus plush doll as he took the picture.
On the phone, I got in touch with Florida Unemployment. My benefit year runs till the end of June, so they told me to call in on June 13 to claim this week and next.
I made the long drive to the Borders at the Fiesta Mall so I could feel comfortable for at least a couple of hours. After getting a Borders gift card and iced tea, I read part of the New York Times and picked up the local gay newspaper and magazine. It was nearly noon when I got home.
I felt better after eating my usual mix of frozen veggies and the yellow sweet potatoes that I can’t get on the East Coast even though the Safeway sign says they’re from New Jersey.
ASU awarded me $4,250 in a subsidized Stafford Loan and $5,000 in an unsubsidized Stafford for each semester. That’s much more than I expected, so of course I accepted the money.
Once the paperwork I mailed in is approved, I should get whatever money is leftover when my tuition and health insurance are paid, and it will be directly deposited to my checking account.
That should be about $5,000 for the fall, and if I can earn about $6,000 in teaching salary, I should have no problem surviving financially in the first semester.
Of course, I will end up owing more than I’ll ever be able to pay back, but I already do – and hopefully I will die owing the money.
I got email from Steven from Nova (“testing”), Scott Koestner (his extensive co-op application is in, and he’s awaiting approval: “Rejection would be embarrassing”), Teresa (she’s now in Fire Island, where there’s no email; over the weekend, she’ll be granny-sitting for her aunt and uncle while they attend an event of Heidi’s in Binghamton with the rest of the family), and a very cute 22-year-old ASU student and aspiring writer, Matt, whose Planet Out ad I responded to.
At the Apache Junction Public Library, I submitted an application for a library card, but I need to show them a piece of mail that I’ve received at my address. I’ll go back tomorrow with one of the letters I got here at 1093 West 14th Avenue.
Saturday, June 3, 2000
9 PM. I just took a little ride around Apache Junction, just from Ironwood Road up to Apache Trail to Idaho Road, the next “mile” street, and back again.
I feel committed to my move to Arizona. It’s pleasant here and there’s that sense of adventure and newness I had 20 years ago when I first came to Florida.
I like change and I know that if I can succeed here on my own terms, it will give me some renewed self-confidence and I’ll probably learn a lot.
Last evening I went out for a drive through eastern Mesa, winding up at the newest Wendy’s, on Sossaman and Main Street (Apache Trail) for a baked potato and a biggie Diet Coke as I read the weekend section of Friday’s Times.
Everyone here gets up early, so they were all up and about – parents, brothers, bunny and dog – as I exercised an hour later.
At the Starbucks on Power Road and Baseline by 7:30 AM, I read today’s newspaper at an outside table.
Nearby there were lots of Christians earnestly discussing Jesus, but once I realized that their leader was a real clergyman, not just someone proselytizing, I felt more generous towards them. Their conversation actually gave me some ideas for writing.
I definitely want to continue working on my short fiction, and lately germs of stories have been percolating in my brain.
– Libby just phoned. She said she would leave the back door open for me, as she had to do various errands on Monday. There’s a whole bunch of stuff that will be going on when l I’ll be in Woodland Hills; Libby said that Grant’s niece will be staying over for a night or two.
Anyway, after reading the paper this morning, I walked over from Starbucks to the Albertsons in the same center and bought a few groceries and a new steno pad to write down my daily food intake.
Home at 11:30 AM, I got on the computer and had lunch. I emailed Ken Furtado, who reviews books for the gay Echo Magazine, a slick publication.
Ken told me that he’d actually circled the review of my book in Publishers Weekly although he had never heard of the publisher. So he said he’d be thrilled to get a review copy.
Amazon.com published “Fletcher Yee’s” 5-star review of The Silicon Valley Diet, and I uploaded an excerpt from the title story, though I couldn’t get CompuServe or whatever to paste it in the text, so I had to type it.
I could actually spend entire days refining my Amazon.com Web pages, making them as alluring as possible.
In the early afternoon, I spent about an hour working on my credit card accounts. Most didn’t pay any attention to my change of address forms, but I think I took care of all the bills that will come by the 15th of the month.
Sat Darshan and I chatted, but she was having trouble putting Kiran down for her nap, so I said I’d call later and try to stop by in the evening.
Then I found myself taking my own little nap – which is truly amazing, as I never sleep during the day. But it was very refreshing.
Sat Darshan never was able to get Kiran to sleep, so I said I would see her when I got back from Los Angeles.
I accompanied Dad when he went out to pick up dinner for the rest of the family and stayed in the car with the shaking China till he got the pizza.
Marc just came out, upset after talking to Lou, whose alcoholic ex-girlfriend is dying in the hospital.
She’s only 38, the same age as Jonathan and Daniela, who was her friend from North Miami Beach High School, but her organs are shutting down after years of alcohol abuse.
Marc has known her since 1982 and he’s feeling very sad. “I thought she would hit bottom and get help,” he said. “But she just stayed there.”
In March, when he saw her, she asked him to drive her to Walgreens, where she got a big bottle of rum that she downed at home. Marc said it made her “nasty.”
Well, time for bed.
Tuesday, June 6, 2000
9 PM. Since my last visit to Los Angeles, I had forgotten how child-intensive a visit to Grant and Libby’s is. When I first came here in 1991, Lindsay was little and Wyatt was a baby, so they didn’t really take up much time.
Libby’s life revolves around her kids, and I guess that’s good, though I wonder if she isn’t sacrificing whatever her own interests are.
Teresa, another non-parent (though she’s a stepparent to adults) has the same attitude as I do.
Since I don’t have kids, all I can compare it to is my own childhood, when I had so much free time on my own.
While I’ve always thought our mother was overprotective, I used to make up my own games and activities with my friends and by myself.
In contrast, with all my friends’ children, everything is scheduled, from play dates – a concept that did not exist in the 1950s – to formal activities, various “lessons” and “enrichment.”
I’m not used to being with kids, so I guess this is good because I’m definitely getting out of my routine – I still haven’t finished yesterday’s New York Times, much less today’s – and testing my (limited) patience.
Libby keeps telling Wyatt to focus, and I can see that he has a problem when he reads to me in the evening: he’s somewhat dyslexic (reading stopped for spotted) but also careless in substituting him for her, it for this, and juxtaposing other pronouns, articles, conjunctions and prepositions.
Last night I slept pretty well but not enough. Still, I really couldn’t hope for a better rest than I got on a travel day with an airplane flight.
Tomorrow’s actually the day that worries me the most: the third graders’ trip and walking tour of downtown Los Angeles.
If I felt I had no time for myself today, tomorrow I’m going to be on a bus and street with more than thirty 8-year-olds for seven or eight hours straight.
Later, Libby showed me how to access their computer, so I could read email from Teresa, Rick, Scott and a few others.
Amazon.com not only didn’t print my new reviews of Diet, but they pulled the first review; I guess they’re software detects reviews coming from the same place.
I’ll lie low for a month, and then figure out how to plant reviews from various cities. Or maybe I’ll just give up entirely.
I managed to find this week’s TWN. Jesse Monteagudo reviewed a book, but of course it’s not mine.
Unless I get in the Times Book Review or a small notice in slick magazines, I guess it’s game over for reviews and publicity.
(I do remember where to find the local stores, from Wendy’s to Bookstar to the various Starbucks, as my good memory for places hasn’t failed me.)
Back at home, I spoke to Kevin. He’s got rehearsals every night this week except tomorrow, and he’s working at Warner Bros. Records this week, so it will be hard to see each other.
Libby said he could come over here, and although he was agreeable, I’d rather spend time with Kevin alone, as I need some strictly adult company.
Libby knows my publisher is in the Valley, so I told her I’m seeing Kate on Thursday morning – which of course is not true.
It’s as if I feel I have to escape here, but I’m used to spending a lot of time alone. Even at my parents in Arizona, I can do that more easily than I can here in Woodland Hills.
I “escaped” for half an hour at 1:30 PM to get the paper and have a quick iced tea at Starbucks.
Then, soon after Libby and Lindsay returned around 3:45 PM, we all went out to take Lindsay to her gymnastics and then Libby, Wyatt and I bought tickets to the “twilight” showing of Mission Impossible 2 at the AMC Promenade 16, the usual mall megaplex with stadium seating.
I’m amazed at how much junk food Libby lets the kids eat, and she herself had that disgusting butter goop all over her popcorn, something I find nauseating. I stuck with my caffeine-free Diet Coke.
I found the movie as meretricious as most Hollywood summer blockbusters sequels. Beyond the pyrotechnics of John Woo and Tom Cruise, the film’s plot actually made no sense whatsoever, but amid all the explosions and car crashes, who has time 
I also found it ludicrous that Libby would reach over and put her hand over Wyatt’s eyes whenever there was a mildly “sexy” scene on the screen. The violence, of course, was okay for him to watch.
If I can’t sleep tonight, I’ll probably read the paper.
God help me get through tomorrow. I’m so afraid of totally losing my cool with kids and being exposed to every one as a child-hating monster.
Never for one moment of my life have I stopped being glad that I’m childless.
Thursday, June 8, 2000
Yesterday at 7:30 AM, I left the house with Libby and the kids, and after dropping Lindsay off at her school, I went with Libby to Wyatt’s classroom, where I met his teacher, Ms. Mullen, a very sharp woman who seems every bit as excellent as Libby has said.
We brought the boxes of water bottles and lunches to the bus, and loaded the three third grade classes on. There were several other “class parents” like me and Libby, and we each had a group of four or five kids to look after.
I told her about what I heard about various people from Brooklyn College like Mike and Mikey and the Karpoff twins.
She said Mason recently developed an educational program for the prison in the Catskills, and he’s now at a high school. He never married and he spends time with his parents, who though still divorced, seem to be together most of the time.
We got off the 101 at Figueroa, and the bus led us off at Olvera Street, the Spanish market at the heart of the original El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles.
Of course, I’ve seen it on TV and movies, and there was mostly flea market junk that the kids went crazy for.
We went through the Ávila Adobe, the oldest house in L.A., kept as a period house, and we saw an exhibit on the city’s water system.
I would have liked to learn more – and maybe some time I’ll read a book or take a course on Los Angeles history – but right then I needed to be a responsible caretaker and watch my group as well as the other kids.
We gathered back at the bus, counting the eight pairs of partners so our class had its 16 – something we kept doing all day – and then we were driven past Union Station and the Reagan state office building and into Little Tokyo to the odd downtown core.
From there we went across the street to the Grand Central Market, with lots of open stalls of every kind of food and snack and produce. The kids, of course, mostly wanted ice cream and candy; gummy sharks were a big hit.
After that, we went on the Angels Flight funicular railway, a pair of single old cars that go up a steep hill to where there were once rich people’s houses.
It was a short fun ride, and we arrived at the Water Court at California Plaza, where 
Down in the courtyard, we sat at tables eating our lunches brought from the bus. We were joined by two fathers, one black and one white (the kids were all white or Latino except for one black girl) whose offices were in the area.
Danny kept trying to put these plastic handcuffs he bought at Olvera Street on the other kids and on me. Most of the parents ate with the teachers, but I joined my group of kids at a table.
The teacher and a couple of parents appeared to be comforting him, and I guess it wasn’t my place to intervene – though I would have liked to tell him my story and how I got through panic attacks.
The sharply-angled Wells Fargo Building and other towers for Arco, Citicorp and 
At Hope Street, we took the escalators adjoining the Bunker Hill Steps over to, I think, Fifth Street, for our last stop, which was the Central Library, renovated after an arson fire in the late 1980s.
There were some interesting murals and design work, and the children’s library staff gave the kids a quick talk and they scattered to look for books.
Using the computer catalog, I impressed a few 9-year-olds by showing them that my four hardcover books were in their library as well as at a few branches.
Libby had a stomachache from eating too much ice cream and provolone and she needed to rush to pick up Lindsay and take Wyatt to his learning resource teacher. Instead of going back in the house, I got in my car and went to the Borders on Victory and Topanga Canyon Boulevards, where I read the New York Times.
I finished the paper at Baskin-Robbins in the center on Platt Avenue, where I also bought some munchy veggies (sugar snaps, broccoli, carrots) at Pavilions. Then I 
Grant was home when I got back, but he’d picked up a stomach virus in Nevada, and both he and Libby were asleep, so I read my old issues of the Times, finally catching up.
Later, Libby got the kids some stuff to eat at Wendy’s, so I had a baked potato. I called Kevin when he got home from work and we made arrangements for me to come by his place at 8 PM.
*
1:30 PM. So I used Kevin’s driving instructions – which were more freeway then Yahoo’s directions – and it took me half an hour to get to his apartment complex on Lankershim Boulevard off Sherman Way in a run-down industrial Mexican part of North Hollywood.
At my request, Kevin showed me the trailers and one scene from the two low-budget movies he’d made with the same director.
Both of the films seemed like they had a lot of female flesh. In one scene, he portrayed a homeless drifter accused of a murder he didn’t commit, and it looked fine to me – although clearly not in the slick style of Hollywood or with the edginess of independent films.
Kevin wanted to go out, so I drove, following his directions, onto Magnolia, but the Starbucks in a gentrifying, decent part of North Hollywood with a lot of gay people was too crowded, so we went to another Starbucks in Burbank, where I think we went last time (though it’s hard to tell).
We sat outside, he with his latte and cigarettes, me with hot herbal tea, and chatted. He’s very happy about the plays he’s 
At Warner Bros. Records up the road, they keep offering him various permanent jobs that pay less than temp work and which wouldn’t give him the time for rehearsals.
Kevin told me that he still manages to make more than his mother does as a Gainesville police officer, but of course the cost of living here is so much higher.
Kevin gave up on the married guy and is now seeing a doctor who’s a Gay Games athlete, and he said he usually takes his dates to Starbucks. Occasionally he goes to West Hollywood (WeHo), but he doesn’t like most of the clubs there nor the 
Kevin got in touch with his father again, but hasn’t heard from his 16-year-old brother since he mentioned his relationship with the doctor.
Both of Kevin’s remarried parents are into that Pentecostal homophobic bullshit that he considers silly.
He’s considered going back to Goddard for his MFA in a few years after he gets his portfolio together.
Kevin says he admires me for being able to travel and have freedom, and I can tell he has mixed feelings after about four years in what he considers the rat race of L.A.
Still, he hasn’t gone home or elsewhere in defeat the way many of his aspiring actor/director/screenwriter friends already have done.
Feeling too tired to deal with the freeway, I went the long way home, through the streets, mostly with Victory Boulevard, passing through seedy enclaves of Van Nuys. (Grant and Libby’s old Colbath Avenue house is now in Valley Glen, which seceded from Van Nuys to avoid the lower-class Latino taint.)
It’s amazing how much I remember of Los Angeles and especially the Valley.
I did manage to exercise, and after a shower, I left for my supposed appointment with my publisher – that’s where I told Libby I was going. Heading north on Topanga Canyon Boulevard all the way to some east-west freeway, I got off at Northridge and found the Borders where I wrote the previous entry.
Buying the New York Times at the bookstore, I began reading the paper. I see that Judge Jackson has ordered Microsoft to be broken up into two companies.
After a baked potato at Wendy’s, I got some veggies and came back here and had lunch. It’s been very quiet in the house, but I hear someone coming in now.
Friday, June 9, 2000
The days have been so full that I can hardly remember what I’ve done since my last entry. Yesterday afternoon I hung out with Wyatt and Lindsay and also went off on my own, driving around this part of the Valley.
It would take years of living here to know L.A., but at least I can know part of it adequately.
Jenafer emailed that she couldn’t get me a reading in Los Angeles on such short notice, but A Different Light bookstore in West Hollywood will be carrying my book, and maybe I can get a reading in their New York store.
Also, my three reviews were somehow posted on Amazon, so I added another, and Amazon ordered two copies of Disjointed Fictions and three copies of Eating at Arby’s.
Everyone in the house was in bed at 9:30 PM when Grant’s niece Emma called from the Mojave Desert.
I slept so soundly that I didn’t know that she and her friend Mary got here last night on their cross-country trip from Boston to her home in Washington State, where Grant’s brother and his ex-wife – as well as Grant’s mother – live. The two girls slept in the camper.
Up at 6:30 AM, later than the kids, I had breakfast and exercised, going out at 8 AM – but I couldn’t get the paper because nothing opened till 9 AM.
When I came home, Libby and I chatted for an hour and drove to the mall in 
From there we went to Calabasas and walked around by the Leonis Adobe, the home of the tyrannical landowner who controlled much of the San Fernando Valley in the 1800s. Libby gave me a pamphlet on local history, which was fascinating.
We walked through a park and the stores and also went to the new Disneyfied shopping center, The Commons, where I got my paper and iced tea at the Barnes & Noble while Libby shopped.
Back home, Emma and Mary were up, and Grant, recovered from his stomach virus, took us out to lunch at his favorite Italian restaurant, Alessio’s, in the same Platt Avenue shopping center as Pavilions and Wendy’s.
After a pleasant meal, Grant drove with me as I picked up Lindsay at the junior high, taking her home while he, Libby and Lindsay’s learning tutor met with school officials about Lindsay’s individual educational plan.
I was also supposed to pick up Wyatt, but he stayed at school till 3:30 PM, and Kiki, another kid’s mother whom I met at Boy Scouts, took him home.
Lindsay showed me a tape of a gymnastics meet in Santa Barbara where she came in first overall and in first, second or third place in every event. She’s obviously athletically gifted.
Emma and Mary went to Venice for the day. They’ll be leaving early in the morning to see Hollywood before driving to San Francisco.