Someone With a Pen: Richard Grayson’s Diary

Monday, April 2, 2001

6:30 PM. The week started off well. I slept okay, as I should on Ambien, and this was the first morning I was able to go to work at 7 AM wearing just a short-sleeved shirt (the yellow checked one I got at Ward’s going-out-of-business sale).

In some ways, having conferences with students is more draining than just teaching in front of the class, but I like dealing with college kids on a one-to-one basis.

Still, I was busy from 7:40 AM till 10:40 AM, with only a short break when the usual anxious feelings didn’t show.

I used the computer to show kids how to get into the ASU libraries’ databases if they didn’t already know how to do that, and I copied and emailed to them selected articles on their topics.

I am a good Boolean searcher, and doing research was the aspect of law school and my job as a CGR staff attorney that I really enjoyed.

I still haven’t heard from Professor Giner about dropping his Pre-Columbian Theater in the Americas class, but I’ve been regularly posting to the class bulletin board some provocative stuff about how we shouldn’t fetishize the victimization of Native Americans.

I didn’t have time to think about my symptoms, and while I felt shaky after I got through at ASU today, it might have been low blood sugar, so I stopped at the Wendy’s near campus for a baked potato, which I slathered with ketchup, and at home, I had my lunch early while listening to All My Children on ABC.

At Osco I picked up a renewal of my 1 mg. Klonopin, and at Bashas’ I bought milk and a few other items.

I did low-impact aerobics at 1 PM and then put on my boxing gloves and beat up the wall. After that, I needed another shower, of course. Then I mistakenly applied Sun In hair lightener to my body instead of sunless tanning lotion, so I had to take a third shower.

Actually, my brain fog seems to be lifting. Perhaps the Triavil is starting to work after three weeks. I’ve basically been taking Triavil 2/10 three times a day, and the dry mouth problem is mostly history. My symptoms have either lessened or gone away.

Mark Bernstein says that I will probably feel good in New York because I’ll be leaving all the bad memories of Arizona behind. Perhaps.

I did go on Nassau Community College’s website and saved and printed out all the English Department stuff. In addition to Susan Gubernat from Zephyr Press, I see that Barbara Horn is on the faculty; the department is huge and I haven’t looked through all the names.

Well, in two weeks the interview will be over. I don’t expect to get the job, but I suppose I want it more now than I did two weeks ago when they first called from NCC.

In many ways it would be ideal for me to go back home to New York City and Long Island at 50. Of course, I could do that anyway, but wouId I be able to afford it?

When I saw a thin envelope from MacDowell in my mailbox this afternoon, I knew that it – like college rejections – contained bad news, but actually I’m on the waiting list and “Your chances are good that we will be able to offer you a residency although we cannot guarantee that a spot will become available.”

Cheryl Young, the executive director, handwrote: “Hope this works out in your favor. It was a very competitive pool.”

I was at MacDowell in 1980 and 1987 and would love go back after fourteen years. But I guess that, like NCC or anything I apply for, it’s a matter of fate – and I have to be fatalistic.

Still, I haven’t been this close to getting back into MacDowell for years and I almost didn’t try. I mean, I couldn’t even get into Blue Mountain Lake, my “safety” colony.

I looked at the research paper topics and in-class writing of my students at Mesa Community College and I graded one paper of a student who’s coming tomorrow; I saved the other three papers to be graded since those students won’t be coming in until Thursday.

I emailed replies to Josh, who says he badly needs a girlfriend but hardly ever goes out; to Mark Bernstein, who says he has physical symptoms (“bone and muscle aches”) from mourning his mother; and to Miriam, dishing about Red Hen Press, who are late with her new book.

Sitting outside, I read today’s Times and almost finished yesterday’s Arts and Leisure section.

Tomorrow at 12:40 PM, I’ve got a dental appointment for a cleaning.

Most days I used to fall asleep around this time because I felt so exhausted, but tonight I’m just going to take Ambien and Triavil right about now, at 7 PM. I hope Boston Public isn’t a rerun, but if it is, I’ll just read.

My throat is sore. However, it’s probably not the start of a cold but just the same allergies that everyone else in the Valley has.

As it’s starting to cool off, I’m going to shut off the air conditioner now. Tomorrow our temperatures should become more seasonable, with highs in the 70°s.

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Tuesday, April 3, 2001

6:30 PM. Last night’s Boston Public was a rerun, so I read the next chapter of Credit Card Nation, on Citicorp – but I fell asleep before 8 PM. Tonight’s the last of my five straight nights on Ambien, and I’ll take it at 7 PM.

I don’t recall having any anxiety symptoms today, but I am sure they’re not completely gone. However, I feel much better despite some stress during the day.

At 4:30 AM, I figured I’d slept enough so I wasn’t concerned when I awoke – but I fell back asleep twice, and I found it hard to get up hours later.

I even forgot my pens when I went to MCC to have conferences about the term paper topics.

I’m sure all of my students’ research papers, with a few exceptions, will be a bloody mess, but I don’t care because mentally I’m out of both ASU and MCC.

Perhaps I’m not out of Arizona, but I’ll be in New York in ten days, and now it seems I’ll be in Chicago, at Ragdale, from June 14 to June 27.

I got a call from Ragdale saying they managed to fit me in. It was a good thing because today, I got a mail rejection from Yaddo, and unlike in the past, I’m not even on their waiting list.

I suppose I could apply for Yaddo’s long season from late October to April, when it’s easier to get in, but of course I’d rather have a job then. Besides, upstate New York is cold and bleak at that time of year. Still, the deadline isn’t until August 15, so I have time to think about it.

I applied for membership in the Writers Union and paid my union dues online so I can have a source of health insurance. Their United Health Care/Aetna HMO is expensive, but I need some kind of medical coverage.

I had just gotten the rejection from Yaddo when I went to the dentist’s office for what I thought was a cleaning – only the receptionist told me it would cost $370.

“I won’t pay that,” I told her. “I don’t need that.”

“It’s not a question of what you want,” she replied, and I said, “Yes, it is a question of what I want” and stormed out of there.

After mailing a credit card bill payment, I went to the Dobson Ranch library, where I returned books on anxiety.

Although I’d planned to read the Times in the park, I knew I’d just brood about Yaddo not wanting me and my being unable to afford a dental procedure I might need.

So I checked movie times, and in five minutes I was at the Harkins Fiesta 5 theater on South Longmore near the Fiesta Mall, paying $4 for admission and $3 for a small caffeine-free Diet Pepsi.

Soon I was watching Spy Kids, number one at the box office last weekend.

It was a kids’ movie, but it was diverting. The most interesting thing about it was how the family’s Latino culture and background were presented as the norm.

Robert Rodriguez, the director, had some lively effects, though I guess I would have preferred to see it with kids like Wyatt and Lindsay rather than by myself. I even posted to my American Multicultural Film class bulletin board about it.

The posts in both my classes’ bulletin boards are pathetic except for one or two other people in the Pre-Columbian Theater in the Americas course.

I still haven’t heard from Professor Giner about my not doing the paper or my withdrawal request or my midterm grade. Right now I don’t give a fuck.

They’re preregistering for the fall at ASU, but I’m not going to go back. I have to see if I can take a formal leave of absence or just stop going. Who cares?

I’m sure that sometime in the future I’ll take more classes for the sheer pleasure of it, or maybe I’ll take some computer classes to learn some new skills.

Back at home, I went to Quail Creek’s rental office and signed a paper saying I’ll be out May 31 and I’ll forfeit my deposit and pay $460 for June, when I won’t be here.

Of course, if I declare bankruptcy, it will be hard for me to rent an apartment even though I did it in Gainesville.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll find a good-paying job by fall even though I currently can see myself soon having trouble making even minimum payments on my credit cards. But for a while I’ll still be able to take out cash advances on my considerable unused lines of credit.

Back in the summer of 1990, when I tore up my cards and ended the credit chassis, I could have kept it going longer. Remember, just before I filed for bankruptcy, I got an invitation for a Platinum American Express card that would have given me a $20,000 addition to my credit lines.

I do pay my bills scrupulously. I’m not going to worry about money now. I can always worry later. First I need to get through this illness, this academic year, the trip to New York, and getting out of this apartment.

I also would like to get a job. I don’t think I’ll get either the position at NCC or the one at ASU Law School.

But eventually, in this rapidly declining economy with more layoffs announced every day, I’ll find a way to live, even if it’s only on my parents’ living room floor. I’m starting to get a little bit of my old confidence back. My anxiety levels are lower.

Well, I think I’ll save grading those three horrid MCC papers until tomorrow – I’ve already read them, and one of them is actually not that bad – and try to relax.

It’s Ambien time.

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Friday, April 6, 2001

3 PM. I’m in Marc’s room in Apache Junction. It’s a chilly (65°), rainy, nasty day.

Last night I didn’t sleep too well. I watched Survivor and Will and Grace, and then at 10:30 PM I took an Ambien, but I slept only sporadically.

Right now I have that flatulence symptom of anxiety, which I thought had gone away. I forgot to take a Triavil with my Klonopin this morning, although I took one later.

Today at ASU was stressful. I had conferences from 7:30 AM straight through till 11 AM, and I felt cranky and exhausted after dealing with so many students, discussing their topics, and trying to teach most of them how to access and use the databases – mostly Lexis/Nexis Academic Universe – on the computer, and emailing articles to them.

Actually, of course, I was doing some of my students’ work for them, but I love researching. However, what I don’t like is looking at a computer for a long time; it gives me a headache.

Judy Stinson of ASU Law School told me she had planned to let me know they had an opening for a legal research and writing teacher when she got my application for the position. Judy said she’d be in touch soon.

After hearing Lynn Wolf’s letter read on NPR’s All Things Considered, I wrote Lynn and said hi. She replied, and it’s probably my imagination, but maybe she was a bit condescending.

Apparently Lynn is on the search committee for the position that WT vacated. Although I don’t think I’d be a good fit for that job, Ben told me to apply, so I did.

I also exchanged notes with Susan Ludvigson, about antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds, her “Dream Diet” poem, my “Silicon Valley Diet” story, and my credit card debt.

(Mom is currently talking to the rabbit and dog as if they were babies. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t have human friends.)

Reading two chapters of Credit Card Nation about others who’ve experienced “the credit card shuffle” probably increased my anxiety about my financial future, which looks somewhere between bleak and impossible.

I guess that’s why I’m rooting for a new Great Depression or at least a severe recession that would change everything. Today’s unemployment rate edged up slightly, but 4.3% is very low historically.

I didn’t hear market news today, but yesterday the Dow had the largest point gain ever, and NASDAQ rose 9%. Of course, all the other NASDAQ big gains came since the high tech market crashed a year ago.

I’m a little shaky now, and I guess I’m both tired and anxious. Probably stopping off at the Apache Junction Burger King to read the paper and drink Diet Coke (for which they didn’t charge me) was not going to help my flatulence problem – nor my anxiety, since it has caffeine.

A week from now I’ll be on the America West flight to JFK, and I guess I’m going to be nervous from here on in.

Maybe I should take another Triavil or even Ativan, but I think I’ll just lie down the way I did for about 45 minutes in my apartment after lunch.

Our normal high is 81° for today, and it’s so much cooler than that. I’m also not used to the gloominess.

I was feeling so depressed enough that I wasn’t sure I should come here today and listen to Mom speak baby-talk to her pets.

In the mail here, I got my FAU and FIU transcripts – I couldn’t find the ones I thought I had – and stuff from the Human Rights Council in Gainesville, which makes me nostalgic for all the friends I had in the gay rights movement there.

Sometimes I wish I’d never left Gainesville, but then, when I’m feeling down, I wish that I’d never left South Florida or even Brooklyn.

Yesterday I did aerobics, so I didn’t exercise today, though I probably need to. Maybe if it clears up, I’ll take a walk later in the day.

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Sunday, April 8, 2001

6 PM. Tonight I think I’m going to take an Ambien because I’d like to begin the week with good sleep – or at least not with sleeplessness – and I’ve had an unusual day.

This morning at 7 AM, I checked my voicemail, and Mark Savage had called. Unexpectedly, he was in Sun City West with his parents and could see me today or tomorrow.

So I gathered up my stuff, including my suit (which still fits; I tried it on last evening), and left Apache Junction for Mesa, where I exercised, showered and called the Savages’ house at 9 AM.

Mrs. Savage had a TIA (mini-stroke) and although she’s fine, she wasn’t up to going to their usual family Passover seder in Los Angeles at the home of Lenny and his husband.

So Lenny took all of his cooking – as well as Avi, the one month old baby he and his husband adopted from a young woman in the hospital (the birth mother is black and the birth father Latino) – and brought them to Arizona for Passover.

Janet, Mark’s girlfriend, wanted to go to the Heard Museum, so we decided to meet there at noon.

But all the streets downtown seemed to be blocked off due to a bike race and an Arizona Republic street fair on Central, so I ended up parking on Osborn and walking over a mile to the museum.

Still, I beat everyone else there by about 15 minutes. It was good to see Mark and his brother, whom I last saw on New Year’s Eve 1970 when he was about 13 or 14.

They were wearing t-shirts and shorts (and Lenny a yarmulke, so I gather he’s religious, at least to a point) while I was wearing blue jeans and a sweatshirt.

I suppose it’s weird that I have never been to the Heard Museum, but unlike my brothers or Mark’s family, I’ve never really seen Phoenix, much less the rest of Arizona, while they’ve all been to the Sonoran Museum in Tucson, for instance.

We spent about four hours at the museum, including lunch at the café, where Janet paid for me; she and I both had pizza and Tropicana orange juice.

We lingered a long time at the museum bookstore and gift shop, where there were beautiful Southwestern items to buy, all of them too expensive for me.

(I did get some Native American coasters for Teresa and Paul as a house gift.)

It may be my illness or my personality, but I have a hard time relating to Southwestern and Native American arts and crafts. Apparently, Mark’s parents collect it and have lots of kachina dolls.

I’ve heard Jonathan say that he could spend all day looking at the Heard Museum’s kachina doll collection, so I guess I must be missing some gene for appreciating that stuff.

Maybe I just need more time here to appreciate the culture of the Sonoran Desert and of the West in general.

I did like a lot of the contemporary stuff done by Native American artists, and I also enjoyed Barry Goldwater’s photograph collection and some of the art in the Sandra Day O’Connor Gallery.

What I liked most, of course, was talking to Mark and meeting Janet, who is pretty, funny and bright. I’m sure she and Mark are a couple forever.

I also enjoyed talking to Lenny, whom I liked enormously. He survived cancer, I recall, and his first long-term partner, from Miami Springs, died of AIDS.

Now he’s got the full time responsibility of a son, an infant. He says he’s sleep-deprived, but I can see how happy he is to be a father – as I assume his husband is.

Their other brother, Steven, is moving to Seattle to become CEO of some food company, and sold his house in Oak Brook in the western Chicago suburbs, which was lovely – but the new owner of the property will tear it down to build a typical vulgar mini-mansion.

Lenny and his little family live in El Segundo, south of the airport and by the beach. They used to live in Sherman Oaks, and they say their own condo has so appreciated in value that they couldn’t afford it now.

All in all, it was a great afternoon that kept me from worrying about my trip to New York.

This evening I called Mom, and she said Jonathan remarked, “I think Richard is getting back to his old self again.”

That made me feel good, though I’m not sure Jonathan meant it as a compliment.

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Tuesday, April 10, 2001

7 PM. I fell asleep not long after this time yesterday, and I had that refreshing sleep that almost makes the previous night’s insomnia worthwhile: great dreams and solid rest and strong erections when I’d periodically awaken. I never stayed awake long, and I didn’t finally get up till 5 AM, when I felt refreshed.

I have the feeling I won’t sleep much at all tonight, and that’s usually a sign that my mind is telling me, “Have insomnia!” I’ll try an Ambien if I’m not asleep by 11 PM.

Last night I needed the heat on, as I will tonight; I didn’t expect to have to put on my “winter” jacket again, but it was 48° when I left the house this morning and it never reached 60° today.

Most of the rain had fallen by daybreak, but it was a cloudy, chilly, blustery day.

My MCC class went all right – as well as a boring lecture on using sources and MLA format can. After letting the class go, I went to Kmart, Osco and Bashas’, buying milk, ginger capsules and Bonine for the plane ride, as well as some supplements.

Professor Giner finally emailed me over a week after I last wrote him and said that he liked one of my topics for the research paper: the use of the pipe in Native American rituals.

I’m ashamed to admit that I actually bought a paper that’s tangentially related – it hasn’t arrived yet – and I found some websites that I put into a preliminary Word document.

I’ll have to miss Sunday’s deadline, but I know my posts to the discussion board and my midterm are half my grade, and those are A+, so if I write a sloppy paper and get a D, I can still pass the course.

Last night on a very good website, TAPIR (like the animal: The Anxiety and Panic Internet Resource), I read a great quote: “Instead of saying ‘What if?’, say “Who cares?’” So what if I get a C or even a D in the class? I know I’ve gotten at least six credits of A grades this year despite my mental illness.

I came home and did yoga, then went to Borders for a pot of chamomile tea. I tried to flirt with Michael (his name tag), this barista who reminds me so much of Gianni. He’s tall, black, with a killer smile, and sweetly fem.

God, I’d love to have the nerve to ask him out. In my dreams!

But it’s good that I’m feeling sexual again – although I have felt this way, on and off, at least since I’ve been off Paxil.

After reading today’s paper at Borders, I went to the Wendy’s on Southern and Country Club for a baked potato.

Then I got my hair trimmed at Great Clips and stopped at the library, where I found Professor Giner’s message that stirred me into action – albeit one as unethical as you can imagine from someone in my position, who’s currently teaching the research paper.

I also posted about Quetzalcoatl to the discussion board, relying on old reviews of Neil Baldwin’s book on the Plumed Serpent from obscure newspapers I found on Lexis/Nexis.

Marc came by as I was finishing lunch. He’d just come from having a root canal at a new dentist, Dr. Chiang, whom he likes, and was at the insurance company up the street to see about his new higher rate due to the DUI.

He says that the new manager of his store can’t do anything and keeps asking him for advice on how to do the simplest tasks.

Marc felt the second interview with Cricket went well and he’ll get the job as store manager with the new company. He may want to move out, as his store may be a long drive from Apache Junction, like in the West Valley.

It’s funny: As I start to feel better, it almost seems like I could adjust to living in Phoenix, at least for a little while — maybe just until I got myself together.

I could stay with my parents, declare bankruptcy, and find an alternative to adjunct work that’s less demoralizing and that pays well enough so that I could live on my own again.

Mark Bernstein said it would be a shame for me to leave academia, but Mark’s a tenured professor, and my life in the universities and community colleges has been a completely different experience.

I know I still have a long way to go to recover emotionally, physically, financially and spiritually. But I feel like I’ll be okay.

Pam said it’s no trouble for her to pick me up at JFK at 8 PM or whenever on Friday. Her friend is treating her to a spa weekend, so I can help Jade deal with the dogs at home.

I don’t think I want to go anywhere on Saturday since I’ll be jet-lagged and probably exhausted, as I don’t envision myself sleeping much on Friday night.

Given our current temperatures here in Phoenix, the chilly New York weather shouldn’t be a big shock to my system.