A Writer’s Diary Entries From Mid-July, 2001
Wednesday, July 11, 2001
8 PM. I’ve got a week left in New York. I’m still having trouble getting to sleep, so again I took an Ambien at 11:30 PM last night. I fell asleep about midnight and woke up around 5:45 AM.
I felt a bit more anxiety today, so I decided to go back to half a milligram of Klonopin a day, split between mornings and evenings. I’ll get off it when I return to Arizona.
A hint of the problems that await me came when Mom called tonight. She said that unemployment had scheduled a phone interview for me next Tuesday. She was totally flustered, but I told her to just say I was out of town on a job interview.
If I don’t get Arizona’s lousy $205 a week, it won’t be the end of the world. Hey, I’ll handle it, just as Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway suggests.
(Not that I’m feeling the fear and doing it anyway about the job interviews and moving, but this is the best I can do right now.)
Also, Mom had told me that Wednesday was “China’s day,” the day they take her to the dog groomer, and now she says she made a mistake, and now it’s Thursday. Okay, I said, I’ll take a cab back to Apache Junction if I have to.
When I told Sat Darshan I was coming back to Phoenix, she said, “After everything that happened?” and “What will you do?”
She also said that I probably couldn’t face moving. Of course, she’s right – though I would move to the right place for the right job, like being a creative writing professor in California or working in a law school or Legal Studies program in a good place. Dream on, kiddo.
I called and left messages with various friends today. On Sunday, if all goes okay, I’ll have breakfast with Josh and lunch with Alice again.
I spoke to Scott, who told me he’s buying a house in Connecticut – I wasn’t sure if it’s a second home or they’re moving from Manhattan – and that he will get back to me after talking to M.J.
I left messages with Mark Savage, Pete Cherches, and Justin.
This morning I exercised to Yoga Zone at 7:30 AM, but I had to wait until Jade left the house at 9:30 AM to take a shower. It was a relatively cool, long-pants day.
After a severe thunderstorm abated, Teresa went to the supermarket while I decided to take my rental car out for a spin. I wasn’t sure where I’d go, but I made up a nice impromptu itinerary.
I took the Cross Island to the Belt and got off at Cross Bay Boulevard and went through Howard Beach, stopping at McDonald’s for orange juice and to use the men’s room, and then Broad Channel. From what I’ve read, the Jamaica Bay marshlands ecosystem is in trouble.
In Rockaway, I went on the boardwalk. It made me remember how wonderful the smell of salt air can be. I sat on a bench, grooving on the scene. (Did I say that?)
So many memories! I looked up at the terrace of Grandma Ethel’s old apartment as I drove through Dayton Towers West (where more black people are living now), and I stopped by my first apartment at 129 Beach 118th Street.
I guess I was pretty unhappy there, almost as miserable as I was living in Mesa. When Teresa said that I had left my “true home” in New York City, she (and I) forgot how depressed I was in 1979 and 1980; that’s why I moved to Florida in January 1981.
Moving on, I passed Beach 67th Street, where Richard Kostelanetz is moving to, and then went by the overgrown bushes that were once where our bungalow paradise stood in the 1950s and 1960s 
between Beach 56th Street and Beach 56th Place.
In Far Rock, I saw a banner for the Beach Bungalow Preservation Committee – if only they had saved all the Rockaway bungalows in 1968 before they were torn down.
Instead of going to the five towns the way I normally would have, I took the Atlantic Beach Bridge into Long Beach, a place I hadn’t been in years, though I had a clear memory of Beech Street and Park Avenue and the LIRR station I sometimes dream about.
Teresa is calling me now.
*
9:30 PM. I just got back from the Birch Hill Road house with Teresa, who wanted me to accompany her to see all the work that has been completed. With the floors done, the house looks a lot better than it did two weeks ago, but there’s still quite a bit of work left. Next week, the carpets and new stove go in.
Where was I? Oh, yeah: After Long Beach, I went to Oceanside. I’d almost like to look up Uncle Marty’s in Island Park; I feel this family feud is foolish, but I don’t know how Marty would feel – and Arlyne might still be mean. They were nice to me when I was young.
Anyway, I stopped at the Kohl’s department store and got a credit card from them; then at Starbucks, I read much of today’s New York Times. This Starbucks had passion iced tea but no Equal.
After an hour, I moved on, taking Long Beach Road all the way past Merrick and Sunrise Boulevards, Baldwin and Hempstead, to where it turned into Clinton Street, which becomes Glen Cove Road.
It was 1:30 PM when I stopped at the Northern Boulevard Wendy’s for a baked potato. Back home, I sat outside reading, which is when I started to notice a slight but definite case of generalized anxiety that eventually passed.
Pam was upset about getting a 44 on her math test and says she’ll drop the course and have her nephew take an online math class for her unless she does better. All she needs is a passing grade in her math and Spanish classes. Today she studied more than usual.
I had dinner outside on the deck with Paul, Teresa, Jade and Pam. Of course I didn’t eat the paella and just had the salad, a little chicken-and-rice, and two SnackWell’s devil’s food cookies.
Just like at Matthew and Ronna’s house in Philadelphia, there are fireflies like crazy here in the backyard at night.
When I’m back in Arizona next week, no matter how bad things get, nobody can take away the wonderful memories of this extended trip: I’ll need to keep many images in my brain.
Saturday, July 14, 2001
8 PM. One thing about the month I’ve been out of Phoenix: I couldn’t have had better weather for this time of year. Today was dry and mostly sunny, and it didn’t even get to 80°.
Last night I slept well, and this morning I got up at 7 AM, had breakfast, lay around for an hour, exercise with weights for 30 minutes, showered, put on a t-shirt and shorts and took my backpack and a bottle of fresh Samantha orange-carrot juice and drove into Mark Savage’s neighborhood via the LIE, BQE, and Prospect Expressway into Ocean Parkway.
It was still very early, so I walked up and down Coney Island Avenue from Avenue H to Foster. 
Although halal butchers and restaurants and other Pakistani stores with signs in the curvy alphabet of Urdu dominate the street, there are still some signs in Russian and even Yiddish.
Even with the walk, I was still a little early because Mark was eating his breakfast of spicy tofu. We chatted in his apartment for an hour or so, and when I mentioned I’d like to see Coney Island, Mark said he would drive us there.
I was surprised at how many renovated homes there were on Ocean Parkway, and even more surprised at seeing new houses, all mini-mansions built in place of teardowns.
We found a parking space near Mark’s father’s building in Trump Village and walked on the boardwalk.
I always went to the beach at Rockaway or Manhattan Beach or even Brighton Beach, but never Coney Island, so I’d forgotten how huge the Coney Island boardwalk is.
It’s still filled with food stands, bumper car places, a big amusement park, the aquarium, temporary tattoo places, cotton candy, balloons, and hit-the-whatever-and-win-a-prize booths.
One thing I really wanted to see was KeySpan Park (KeySpan is the name of the merged company of Brooklyn Union Gas and LILCO), home of the minor league men’s team, the new Brooklyn Cyclones.
The players were practicing on the field, or maybe some other team was; I know that the Cyclones are playing the Staten Island Yankees in Staten Island tonight.
The stadium looked like a nice place, not mammoth like Major League ballparks. At the gift shop (the team has another one in Kings Plaza), I bought a Brooklyn Cyclones t-shirt with their logo of the still-running roller coaster.
Mark and I walked back to the car via Surf Avenue, where the annual Mermaid Parade had taken place recently. I peeled off a warning sticker from a sewer: “Stay Clear! Seward Lizard Fumigation in Progress. Avoid inhalation.”
We listened to a carnival barker’s spiel and introduction of the freaks (Serpentina, the Illustrated Man, the guy with flippers, etc.) before a sideshow event was starting.
There were long lines outside Nathan’s on Stillwell Avenue, but the Faber Fascination game that my parents took us to in the 1950s and 1960s is long gone.
Mark told me that his sons, daughter-in-law, grandsons, and granddaughter are coming to the US from Israel this week. His oldest son and his wife have built their house in the occupied territories north of Jerusalem.
When Mark called Consuelo, who lent them the money to get the house, she was stunned. She specifically told them to buy a house in Israel proper, and if she had known they were going to disobey her, she never would have made the loan.
“They’re part of the problem, not part of the solution,” Mark said. There is a guard with a machine gun who stops everyone from coming into their settlement, and at this point, they can travel to Jerusalem only on armored buses for their own safety.
Mark is going into his sixth year as a sixth-grade teacher. He says it gets easier every year, though he worries about eventually “phoning in” his performances.
We then talked about my own job situation. Mark, who says he found his final profession at 46, urged me to consider becoming a teacher.
Given the terrible teacher shortage, I’m sure that I could be hired. But I’ve always felt that taking a job as a public school teacher would mean giving up on my dreams of being a writer and having some kind of impact on society.
I would have to be in a great position in a good school, the way Mark does. He told me that when he turned 50, he felt depressed, but mostly because he hadn’t been in a relationship for years – and now that he’s got Janet, his life is pretty good.
I suppose that my life will turn around eventually, and who knows, the best may be yet to come. Still, I feel anxious about my future, both financially and professionally, though not being in a relationship has never bothered me.
It was good to be able to discuss my career problems with Mark. Although he was a late bloomer, I told him that I thought having kids so young had made him feel more of an adult than I do.
Mark denied that he felt that way, but he did say that his oldest son recently told him not to worry about growing old “because you’ll always have a home with us.” Of course, that’s something I’ll never have in the way of security.
On my way home, I purposely drove by Brooklyn College and Midwood High School on Bedford 
Avenue and noticed a Touro College center across from Yeshiva of Flatbush High School on Avenue J. I got to see a lot of Brooklyn today,
There was heavy traffic going east on the Belt and Southern State. I got off the Meadowbrook by Roosevelt Field so I could get a baked potato and drink at Wendy’s. When I got to Glen Cove, I stopped at Starbucks, where I read today’s Times.
Pam had her family and friends over for a poolside BBQ, but she also left Hattie in the house, and I stepped on a piece of shit and found more shit everywhere, so I got really annoyed and disgusted.
At this point, I’ll be glad to get back to my parents’ house in Arizona, but I hope that if China becomes incontinent, they’ll euthanize her the way Mark did with one of his two cats. This room really stinks.
Sunday, July 15, 2001
8 PM. I’m feeling a bit dizzy and stomach-achy tonight, but it was a great day.
Last night I slept well again. Getting up at 6:30 AM, I left the house at 8 AM and was at the East Village in an hour.
Driving on the LIE yesterday, I saw that the twin gas tanks at the spot where they’ve always been, just off the highway in Greenpoint. But they were imploded this morning at 7 AM, and by the time I drove by, the landmark was gone, thanks to KeySpan.
After Josh came down from his apartment, we had breakfast outside at Veselka, where a homeless man tried to cadge change by saying to us, “Fellas, there are three ways you can tell you’re getting old. You can’t remember things, and I forget what the other two are.”
Josh is going to Germany for two weeks in late August (he said I could apartment-sit for him), first to Kiel, where he hopes that Gabrielle will let him see the baby, and then to Düsseldorf to see his friend Kristof and “to recover from what I expect to be an emotionally bruising experience.”
The woman at the German consulate is losing patience with Josh’s refusal to sign the document. She feels he’s paranoid about the child welfare board raising his support pavements to an untenable level, but she’s still working with him.
Josh, who had spent the last week in confusing classes for work, said, “I hate computers.” Still, his jobs with the city at the Departments of Transportation and Corrections make him eligible to retire at half-salary at about age 60.
After breakfast, I wanted to drive uptown, and Josh said he was up for a ride.
Once a brace of firetrucks blocking my car’s parking space on Fourth Avenue got out of the way – they were there for a false alarm – I got to see lots of interesting sights, new and old.
Going up Eighth Avenue and Central Park West, I noted the Port Authority and the edge of Times Square’s safe glitz; the new building going up where the Coliseum was; Franklin School, now Dwight School, where I spent tenth grade, on 89th Street; my old block on 85th Street, where Red House is being renovated.
Josh thought Soldiers and Sailors Monument was Grant’s Tomb, so I drove him up to the real thing. Then we went across 125th Street through the new, improved Harlem (supermarkets, The Gap, Disney Store, Starbucks, and Bill Clinton’s future office) and down Second Avenue, where – only a non-driver like Josh could fail to appreciate this – I made every light downtown except for red lights at 72nd and 23rd Streets.
So now I’ve got some Manhattan scenes to store in my hard drive today. When I get upset someday at 4 AM about the car rental expense, I will need to recall all that I couldn’t have done without a car, even in New York City.
I went with Josh to an outside table at the Astor Place Starbucks and then said goodbye at my car. Then I found a new parking space on East 13th Street near the corner of Fifth Avenue.
Alice came down from her apartment, and we walked over to Union Square Park for lunch at her favorite restaurant, the Pavilion outdoor café.
After spending time with the consummate pessimist Josh, I was now with the eternal optimist Alice.
She will always succeed in whatever she does, her shrink told Peter (they are in couples therapy again), because she believes in herself.
On my last visit, when I asked her how the book business was, Alice said, “Great.” The next day, the Times had a big story saying how badly book publishing was doing – but as Alice said, “I’ll always find a way to win; I zig while others zag.”
Alice believes it’s all a matter of choices, and of course, she’s right, but she’s also a deluded optimist like Reagan, and they are the people who seem to succeed in life.
I know I tend to catastrophize, but at my best, I’m still too much of a realist to be as optimistic as Alice.
She related how Peter worried he would be fired after a review in which, subbing for the dance critic at the last minute, he gave a rare, devastatingly bad notice to a performance.
Peter had left the theater at the final bows, before the director had come onstage and announced that the initial delay of the performance “for technical reasons” was caused by a cast member who died backstage after taking a terrible fall.
The tragic story was on page one in the Bergen Record, while the Star-Ledger had only Peter’s pan. He came off looking heartless and got letters calling for his head.
Of course, I couldn’t help laughing at the situation, just as Alice had when Peter first told her the story.
With Peter, Alice did what Susan taught me to do as in rational emotive therapy: she disputed his negative predictions of disaster by laying out facts and likely possibilities.
Alice said she was bemused when Peter accepted the therapist’s view that Alice couldn’t acquiesce to him on some matters “because she was traumatized by having deaf parents.”
“That’s the abuse excuse,” Alice – who never mentions her deaf parents – said. But on the other hand, it got Peter off her back because he accepted that as an answer.
Alice said I should be careful about taking the advice of others, whether it comes from Josh, Teresa, Mark Savage, or herself. She’s so smart and commonsensical.
While Alice was in the restroom, I paid the check for lunch, but she insisted on giving me $20 for her share. We hugged as we parted at her corner, and I drove down Broadway to the Brooklyn Bridge to see more of Manhattan.
I got on the BQE at Tillary Street after taking a quick peek at downtown Brooklyn. After an hour, I stopped for iced tea at the Manhasset Barnes & Noble, where I read much of the Sunday Times – I’d gotten through a lot of it on the web last evening – and I read some more when I had a baked potato at the Glen Cove Wendy’s.
Eating pancakes, pizza, potatoes – and getting no exercise – didn’t make today very healthy. But my dinner was just Fiesta blend veggies and an apple.
I was grateful that Pam kept Hattie out of the den so I didn’t have to step in dogshit this evening.
Today was sunny with a high of 80°, so for me it was perfect weather. These past two days, I’ve felt no anxiety; Maybe the quarter-milligram of Klonopin has helped.
Tuesday, July 17, 2001
7 PM. Yesterday was basically a lost day. I lay in bed (my sofa bed), feeling nauseated and queasy, and eating only sugary and starchy stuff: nothing healthy except a sweet potato.
I don’t know if the cause of the nausea and diarrhea was anxiety, something I ate, or a virus. If it was emotionally caused, then I’ll probably be sick again tonight.
Does part of me want to be sick so that I’ll have to postpone going back to Arizona? Possibly.
Anyway, today I ate everything that would cause stomach distress. I just had a pizza wrap, and before that, milk and veggies. And this afternoon in Wheatley Plaza, I had chocolate mousse frozen yogurt at Baskin-Robbins and orange juice at Starbucks.
Teresa came home from Fire Island with her sister; her brother-in-law, niece, and nephew followed a couple of hours later. P.J. and his girlfriend also joined us for dinner.
While I didn’t eat anything, I stayed out on the patio and socialized with everyone. Heidi and I talked about college. She’s an English major and wants to teach high school, but her passion seems to be everything Japanese.
I found it odd at the end of the evening, when we all said goodbyes, that P.J.’s girlfriend – who’s in her last term at Old Westbury – said to me, “Good luck on your job hunt.”
Everyone seems to think I’m “unemployed.” It’s the summer. Of course, I’ve been unemployed many times before this, and those times have been some of the best ones in my life.
Of course, I wouldn’t be “unemployed” if I’d accepted offers to teach adjunct classes for the fall. But working at ASU and MCC would leave me no better off than I was last year.
I may not be able to collect unemployment benefits from Arizona. Yesterday I changed my telephone interview appointment with Arizona Unemployment to next Tuesday after Dad told me they called the house.
Meanwhile, I filed for Florida benefits today, but no check was issued, and it probably won’t be because I didn’t file a new claim.
I know that financially and psychologically, I’ll be a lot better off getting unemployment benefits than 
adjuncting. I’ve still got the residency at Dairy Hollow for September.
The English Department head at Phoenix College said she might have one daytime adjunct course for me, but I told her I needed to teach at night.
The superintendent of schools of Camp Verde, a town near Prescott, told me to call her if I don’t have a job by July 30. She had wanted me to come up for an interview tomorrow because she’ll be on vacation for the rest of the month.
Of course, I didn’t get to see Justin’s play last night; it was just too much to go to the city at night.
I’m also not going to see Scott on this visit, either, so we talked on the phone for a while last night.
Scott told me that M.J. has been in D.C., where her mother is dying of lung cancer. It’s a sad time for their family. Mrs. Lee was not a smoker, and she’s only in her sixties.
Scott talked a lot about the country home he and M.J. bought in Torrington, Connecticut, and I feigned as much interest as I could.
Last night I fell asleep around 9:30 PM and was up at 6 AM today. After doing Yoga Zone at 7:30 AM, I showered and dressed, and then promptly lay down.
I went to the Glen Cove Starbucks after I finally roused myself, but I brought the iced tea home because they had no Equal there. (Someone must be stealing it! Imagine!) I also went to the post office to mail a package for Teresa.
Calling my parents, I made sure that Dad has my flight number. He’ll pick me up at Sky Harbor on Thursday.
Today’s Times had a profile of the new head of the Wildlife Conservation Society – New York City zoos and aquarium – and it’s Steve Sanderson.
He and Rosalie live at the Wildlife Conservation Society’s apartment on the Upper East Side. According to the article, Rosalie works at New York Law School, where Rick Matasar is Dean. I couldn’t find Rosalie’s email, so I wrote to Steve at WCS.
The Times piece made Steve sound really impressive. He’s accomplished so much at only 52. Sometimes I feel like a child compared to my contemporaries.
I went with Teresa tonight to the Birch Hill Road house to show it to the first prospective tenant who saw the Pennysaver ad and called.
A young black woman who works as a loan processor at Washington Mutual, she came with her father, a carpenter. She’s got two boys in gifted programs in the Locust Valley schools.
To me, she seems like she’d be an ideal tenant, but Teresa is worried that she might be the target of racists in the neighborhood.
The linoleum in the kitchen and dining room was put down today, and it looks great. The carpeting comes in tomorrow.
Wednesday, July 18, 2001
8:30 PM. My bags are packed, and I’ve set Pam’s alarm clock for 4 AM and ordered a taxi from mid-island to pick me up at 8 AM for JFK.
This evening, we all went out for dinner – me, Paul, Teresa, Pam, and Jade – to Walls Wharf, a restaurant with outside tables and its own private beach across Long Island Sound from Greenwich, Connecticut.
As Teresa said, I probably won’t be seeing a body of water like that for quite a while. It was a beautiful evening as the sun went down: about 75° and slightly breezy.
If I were a normal person, I’d have enjoyed myself like the others did with their seafood – gazpacho with crab meat, oysters on the half shell, mushroom-crusted tuna, etc. – and their drinks: Coronas all around, put plus mixed drinks like Teresa’s Cosmopolitan, which Paul explained to me is vodka, triple sec, lime juice, cranberry juice for color, shaken so hard that the glass gets frosty.
But I got some nice penne pasta marinara minus the shrimp.
I noticed that Teresa paid over $220 on her gold Amex card for the meal. Well, tomorrow in Arizona, I go back to being a poor person.
I returned the rental car this afternoon. Surprisingly, the bill came to less than $1,000. I switched the payment to my Flight Fund Visa to get mileage.
Speaking of flights, I checked out some flights from Phoenix to Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport. They’re not as expensive as I thought, and I can get a regional jet, not a prop plane. So maybe I will go to Dairy Hollow for September. That will probably be my last gasp before bankruptcy.
After doing Yoga Zone, I left the house early this morning and went to Garden City to use my Borders frequent drink card to get a free large iced tea. Today they had apple blossom tea, which was delicious (and presumably caffeine-free).
After reading the Times, I went to pick up credit card applications at Fortunoff and Nordstrom before going to the Wendy’s on Old Country Road. At this point, I guess I’m a real Long Islander, the way I’m a New York City kid.
But there are other places I know pretty well and where I feel comfortable: Chicago’s North Shore suburbs; the San Fernando Valley in L.A.; the near Montgomery County suburbs of Philadelphia; and Phoenix’s East Valley.
Hey, how could I forget about South Florida? Well, I’ll get back there one day when I have time and money.
Yesterday I emailed Tom and Mark Bernstein, and I got almost immediate replies from them in Europe.
Mark said he enjoyed the scenic beach house, which Mussolini requisitioned during the war. But all the time he was there, as he heard every crush of the waves, he kept thinking about his mother and how she suffered before death.
The summer term he’s teaching in Florence is very concentrated, but the kids don’t have too many problems.
Mark said I should remember how bad last year in Arizona was and make sure I’m not that unhappy again.
While I don’t expect my life in Phoenix to become wonderful anytime soon, I also know that history doesn’t repeat itself in the same way.
So I don’t really expect to have the same stresses I had last year. There will be new ones, but I don’t think I’ll have the same problem with anxiety.
Although I’m now taking half a milligram of Klonopin a day, I expect I can reduce the dosage again. I’ve got good doctors in Arizona if I need them. And I’ve got a good supply of Triavil 2/10, thanks to Mr. Deutsch.
Teresa was pissed that the carpet guy came so late to the Birch Hill Road house today, but we all stopped by after dinner, and the old man did an amazing job.
With the new paint job, carpets and linoleum, heavy-duty cleaning, and a new stove coming tomorrow, the house looks unbelievable – especially compared to the mess I saw three weeks ago on the evening I first got here.
Teresa is going to get a security deposit and the first month’s rent from Jamie, the young woman who came over last evening. Her sister said that if racists deface the house, it’s Teresa’s property, but Paul 
said, “This is Locust Valley in the 21st century.”
If Jamie can pay the $200 a month rent – I certainly couldn’t pay half that – she’ll be a fine tenant.
I bought thank-you cards for Teresa and Paul, Jade, and Pam.
A year ago, I was very anxious about going back to Arizona from Locust Valley. I remember how Teresa had to calm me down. But now I feel pretty relaxed so far.
I’m sure tomorrow will be a hectic day, and I know it will be difficult to adjust to living in Apache Junction and dealing with the terrible heat of the Sonoran Desert in summer. But I’ll be patient with myself and with my family members.
I have to remember how Mom and Dad and Marc and Jonathan helped me during the hard times I endured over the winter. Weekends in Apache Junction became a haven for me from February to April, when I finally began to get better.
Anyway, I’ve said before how much the last five or six weeks have been a great pleasure, one nobody can take away from me.
Next stop, Phoenix.