Someone With a Pen: Richard Grayson’s Diary

Monday, June 26, 2000

9 PM. I had forgotten what a luxury it was to sleep in a bed rather than an air mattress on the floor.

It’s especially nice when I get up during the night to pee, as I do at least four or three times, and not have to get all the way up from the floor.

Still, I was awake at 5 AM when the light broke, and at 6:30 AM, I exercised to the Body Electric show that I was taping on KAET/Channel 8.

For the first time since I left Florida, I put on a sport shirt and dress pants, arriving at the Mesa Community College Red Mountain Campus early.

Gwen Argersinger seemed very nice, and she introduced me to some of the other resident faculty she shares an office with, as well as the Dean, all of whom were there for a site visit by the new chancellor of the Maricopa Community College District.

Gwen said I need to see Doyle Burke, the English Department chair at MCC’s main campus on Southern and Dobson, but I’m tentatively going to teach one or two of the half-term weekend courses they’re offering at Red Mountain – if they make.

The college has a varied student body, from retiree snowbirds to GED students to the potential university transferees to vocational students and high school students.

The permanent Red Mountain Campus will be ready in fall 2001, so there’s no doubt the place is going to grow. It’s sort of like the Southwest Center that Broward Community College-South is starting, which will probably be a big campus one day, the way BCC-South itself grew from those shopping center offices in 1981.

After coming home to change and get online to read today’s Supreme Court decision strongly reaffirming Miranda warnings and Clinton and Blair’s announcement that the governmental and commercial entities have completed the initial sequencing of the human genome, I went to Starbucks and read a bit of today’s paper.

Sat Darshan said that although she took Friday off to try to relax, she was still a bit tired. She told me that she gets ideas for novels all the time – like going back and observing her own life in 1973 or 1978 – but says she “can’t write.”

More likely she has no time to write with all her responsibilities. Sat Darshan would probably make better use of a writer’s colony this summer than I will.

After eating a veggie burger late this afternoon, I went to the 5:15 PM show (still considered a matinee, at $4.50 instead of $7.50 a ticket) of Chicken Run at the Harkins 25 Superstition Springs. It was a clever animated comedy, executed admirably, and I didn’t mind all the squealing little kids around me.

After the movie, I went to Target, where I bought some long tan cargo shorts, and then had a baked potato and Diet Coke at Wendy’s. I drove home toward the mountain via Main Street/Apache Trail just as the sun was setting before 8 PM.

The days have started getting shorter. I have yet to pack, but I’ve got all day tomorrow, and I did check to see that my laptop works and I downloaded some files from Marc’s computer and the Web.

Kevin sent me a mass email about the Culver City Public Theatre’s production of The Braggart Soldier at an outdoor space this month and told me about the guy who was his boss at Warner Bros. Records until Friday, a holy terror who has made Kevin cry (in private) several times.

Kevin said he was planning on using part of his paycheck to buy drugs so he can relax. I hope I wasn’t being heavy-handed when I suggested that he sounds like he’s self-medicating and might do better with prescriptions for an antidepressant, tranquilizer or sleeping pill.

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Tuesday, June 27, 2000

7 PM. I have the worst stomachache I’ve had in a long time.

It started after I had my cheese sandwich with kimchi for lunch; I felt nauseated, but right now I’m just getting gripping pains in my stomach. I would guess that it’s tension and anxiety related to tomorrow’s flight. I haven’t told my parents about it.

Up at 5 AM, I called in my unemployment claim; later I found out that a check for $550 was issued today in Tallahassee.

I did some basic packing, although I’ll have to finish tomorrow morning. This afternoon I put my computer in the larger suitcase, which is on the bed with me now because I don’t want it to go into the garage until it cools off a little after dark.

Last night I dreamed about the Apache Junction Independent story, but in the end it was what I expected. Mila discussed The Silicon Valley Diet as a book about computer culture and didn’t mention the gay aspect.

It was a very bland story, and of course, since I didn’t get to put my hand under my chin in the photo, you can see my crepey neck. My eyes look red-rimmed and tired, and I think I look at least 45.

I went to Alma School Road and xeroxed the article at Kinko’s. Across the way at Borders, I read the Times, scanning more than usual. At Bank of America, I got some bank-by-mail deposit envelopes and ordered some checks with the Apache Junction address.

Since then I’ve been home, mostly lying on Marc’s bed or at his desk on the computer. Once my stomach began hurting, I barely ate anything – just spaghetti and a plain bagel for dinner, figuring I needed bland food.

Late this afternoon Sat Darshan got a call from a Parisian man who was the landlord of a friend of hers, a woman who committed suicide by jumping out a window. She left a 13-year-old daughter, who is in French government custodial care.

They asked Sat Darshan if she could find the first person listed as executor, Alan Thurston of 360 Central Park West in 1996, when the will was drafted. If she can’t find him, then Sat Darshan is the executor of the estate.

She knew the woman from the Brooklyn ashram and she lived in the house on State Street, but Sat Darshan hadn’t seen her in years.

After she was unable to find the Thurston guy, I told Sat Darshan she’s got to get the will faxed to her and see its contents and contact the lawyers in Brooklyn who drafted it. The woman wasn’t in contact with her child’s father, and Sat Darshan has no idea who he is.

Justin emailed with information about his play next weekend, and Tom said that Annette took a computer job, but I’m not sure what city it’s in.

After getting the Diet postcard, Tom said the cover is good, if busy. He is selling off all his books on the Web, though no one wanted the Crad Kilodneys.

I don’t know why I’m so nervous about this trip. Okay, I am scared about going to Arkansas, a place I’ve never been before, especially on little plane.

But although tomorrow will be a long, hectic day, I know I’m going to Teresa’s, which is like a second home to me.

I guess because so many strangers are at the house now, I feel kind of funny. Of course, I can always postpone my flight without penalty since it’s paid for with SkyMiles.

Four weeks ago, I didn’t sleep at all before I moved to Arizona. And of course, no one’s forcing me to leave Arizona now; I could stay here all summer, find a place to live and get ready for the fall.

I just have this sense of dread. But this time tomorrow I should be close to home in New York, which is three hours ahead of us.

My flight is at 11:30 AM. How come after all these years, I still have this crippling anxiety?

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Wednesday, June 28, 2000

7:30 PM in Atlanta. I’m having the usual summer air traffic nightmare and I’ll probably be lucky to get to Teresa’s by 1 AM.

It’s like her wedding years ago, though I suppose I’d rather be in this terminal at Hartsfield than in an airplane. As the woman behind me here at the airport said, if the thunderstorms along the East Coast are as severe as they’re telling us, we’re better off on the ground than in the air, where we’d be circling or riding in turbulence.

My flight from Phoenix to Atlanta actually got in early, leaving at 11:30 AM and arriving at 6 PM, twenty minutes before it was supposed to get here.

But I couldn’t find my flight to LaGuardia listed on the board, and it turned out that New York and other Northeast flights were delayed and now they’re all backed up.

I’m sitting with people who had a flight much earlier than mine, and they are not taking off until 9 PM, so my flight’s current departure time of 9:30 PM probably means we won’t take off till 10:30 PM.

I called Teresa and she called the car service with the flight info and they said they’ll watch it, so someone should be there to pick me up at La Guardia. What a pain.

I did sleep better than I expected last night, and I had a decent ride to the airport with Jonathan. I wasn’t at all anxious on the flight and watched the movie Agnes Browne. It was a bit boring, but not too bad.

I’m hungry and tired and starting to get anxious. Teresa said she’ll leave the door open for me.

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Thursday, June 29, 2000

3 PM. This will probably be incoherent, as I am so jet-lagged and sleep-deprived. I’ve been lying in Jade’s room downstairs for an hour and I know my mind is not working properly. I’ve had great trouble focusing, and I’ve cut myself several times.

I feel awful, from my ingrown toenail that won’t stop bothering me to my sore throat and queasy stomach. But most of all I just can’t think properly.

I didn’t arrive here until 2:30 AM, and then I didn’t really sleep at all. Hartsfield Airport was a nightmare, but it’s actually typical of what happens in the summer when there are thunderstorms and air traffic gets backed up.

All the LaGuardia flights ended up leaving around 11 PM, so my guess at 7:30 PM yesterday was pretty accurate. They had us down for 10:30 PM but then switched it to 9:10 PM because they brought in a plane from Dulles.

However, we had to wait for the crew from New York to arrive from their eight-hour flight here, and then we sat on the runway a long time. I was exhausted and shivering in my t-shirt and shorts.

The saving grace was that the only empty seat on the plane was next to me. And the guy from Mid-Island Taxi was waiting for me at the baggage claim area, although he drove so wildly I felt myself getting carsick.

Teresa was up when I got here. I was amazed at the completely renovated kitchen. But I came at a bad time.

After Deirdre’s visit and now with Paul’s cousins here, I should have changed my arrival date. Renee and Tony seem nice, but their kids, Tom, 4, and George, 2, are little boys, and naturally they’ve done stuff like broken the new screen door (though the dogs began the process) and other stuff.

I was hungry and felt dirty by 7 AM, so I made myself some oatmeal (there’s no skim milk) and a banana and showered in Jade’s bathroom on the first floor.

It’s hard for me to go up a flight of stairs every time I need to pee, and although Teresa tried to clean up the basement a bit after Jade left for Italy, it seems like such a mess that I can’t possibly do any harm to it.

Today is a dark, drizzly day – precisely the kind of day I don’t experience anymore since moving out West.

I put on long pants, but I stepped in dog shit – either from Hattie, Ollie or the very frisky Phoebe – and when I went outside to clean it off, Tom helped with the hose but then turned it on me and completely drenched me so I had to change.

Of course I was gracious about it, and the boy’s father, a stern disciplinarian – Tony is in the military – made him apologize immediately.

Teresa took them all into Manhattan today. They’re into shopping, and they wanted to get stuff like jewelry at the Diamond District.

Teresa gave me Jade’s keys, but the most I would trust myself with the car was going to Farmer’s Bazaar and getting the groceries I like, along with some items that Teresa asked me to pick up.

Today’s basically like one of those rare days when I’m totally sick. And I may be sick. As I write this, I keep seeing little green blotches before my eyes, sort of an after-image of the words I’m writing.

I did manage to read the front and op-ed page and the pages of the Times on yesterday’s Supreme Court opinion – though yesterday morning in Phoenix, I went on the computer after hearing about the Boy Scouts of America v. Dale decision, which was 5-4 for the Boy Scouts and against gay scouts, of course.

But other than that, I’m not up to doing anything.

After the experience I had traveling yesterday, I don’t think I want to subject myself to Dairy Hollow. The plane trip to Northwest Arkansas – changing twice, two little planes – already seems a nightmare, and what if I arrive from Atlanta at 1 AM rather than the scheduled 9 PM?

I’ll just eat the $300 Priceline tickets. I can stay here – or with Mark Savage in Brooklyn or maybe with Ronna and Matthew in Philadelphia – for a few more days and then go back to Phoenix and start putting my new life in order.

I want my own place and a routine. I don’t even feel as comfortable here in Locust Valley as I once did. But I know I’m not thinking clearly now, and I have time to decide.

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Friday, June 30, 2000

4:30 PM. I’m feeling better today although I’m still subject to exhaustion and need to lie down at odd moments.

However, I just accomplished a mission for Teresa: picking up dumplings at the Eastwind Trading Oriental Market in Syosset. Just before that, I stopped at the nearby Borders for a quick iced tea.

Yesterday I felt better after a lie-down. When Paul came in with Hattie, he told me that he feels good since he sold the lumber yard, though without the rent money, he actually has less income than before.

So he’s now basically working as much as he ever did – four days a week. But of course, he and Teresa have much more financial security from the investment of their money from the sale.

Late today Teresa and Paul’s cousins and Stephanie – who at 14, looks like a girl of 18 – arrived back from their day trip into the city. They stopped at Teresa’s parents’ house in Williamsburg this morning before taking the subway to Canal Street and Chinatown.

Tony got some knockoff watches, Renee got t-shirts and other stuff, and the boys got more Pokémon gear, like Pikachu and Charizard action figures and a bunch of trading cards.

Teresa’s sister and brother-in-law came over at 7:30 PM for dinner, bringing Heidi and Thomas and Thomas’s friend Anton. So we had another full house of family schmoozing, and of course I enjoyed these events.

Heidi was cranky because she’s on Weight Watchers, and she and her mother like to torture each other affectionately about it.

Heidi seems to have enjoyed her first year at Binghamton, though Teresa, speaking to Tony and Renee after everyone had gone home at 11 PM (Stephanie went to Douglaston to sleep) and Paul had gone to bed (he worked today), said that Heidi, like Jade, has little social life at college and needed to have more friends.

We had dinner outside. I ate mostly broccoli while the others had their roast and potatoes and dessert. Afterwards, I watched TV with Peter, talked with the other adults in the kitchen, played Pokémon with Tom and George, and watched Thomas, Anton and Stephanie try to teach little Tom to play pool down here in the basement.

I got into bed sometime after 11 PM. Although sleep didn’t come easily, when I awoke to go to the bathroom at 2 AM, I already had enough rest to feel somewhat restored.

Sleeping until 7 AM, I made myself get up to exercise with Body Electric on WLIW/Channel 21. (I couldn’t tape it, but I had taped this same show in Arizona on Monday.)

Then I went back into bed and came up for breakfast as Teresa was rushing Paul’s cousins to leave in time to catch the 9:30 PM ferry to Fair Harbor.

Still tired, I continued to lay in bed till 10 AM. It’s hard for me to get used to where everything is or isn’t here, but I’m managing.

After I got dressed, I drove into Glen Cove, where the tall ships are coming back this July 4th weekend, and got a free iced tea at the country’s worst-managed Starbucks, where the klutz serving me managed to pour most of the remaining iced tea on himself.

I glanced at the important parts of the Times but otherwise skimmed and skipped articles or saved them for later.

Teresa had asked me to buy Saltines, and I found them at CVS, where I also got soap, deodorant, toilet paper, etc.

Back home, I got back onto Jade’s bed, feeling exhausted. While I didn’t get back to sleep again, I had sort of mind-hallucinations akin to dreams.

That’s when Teresa phoned to give me a message from Alice, with whom I’d been playing phone tag all day. Alice told Teresa that she’ll be in New Jersey with Andreas most of the weekend.

Teresa told me not to go to Syosset if I wasn’t feeling well, but after lunch I began to revive. Today has been sunny and about 80°, and although it’s damp for me, the day was pleasant.

While the basement isn’t air-conditioned, it’s cooler here, and I needed a blanket the past two nights.

On Yahoo, I had 15 emails in my inbox, but most were junk.