Someone With a Pen: Richard Grayson’s Diary

Monday, September 3, 2001

9 PM. After writing yesterday’s diary entry, I decided to look at my diary from six months ago, from March, to see how I was doing, and I guess to see how far I had come.

Aside from the near-illegibility of the diary entries, it shocked me how bad off I was then: hardly sleeping, trembling and sweating all the time, feeling ill in my back and my stomach, constantly tortured by anxiety, and unsure after several months that I would ever improve – I barely managed to function.

Luckily I had Susan and her husband as my doctors, and I had my family – as well as something inside me that kept life going. Even into April, I was barely making it. In retrospect, it seems that getting back onto Triavil helped.

I thought about that today when I read a New York Times magazine article on Jonathan Franzen, who spent seven years writing his big new novel, which has apparently matched his ambitions for fiction writing and made him rich.

I thought of Franzen as successful after his first book The Twenty-Seventh City was published, but the magazine article called him “obscure.”

Franzen suffered so much for his latest novel, something I would never do, not even for the million-dollar payoff that he’s received.

At one point, Franzen was so depressed that he made an appointment with a doctor who would prescribe him an antidepressant. But Franzen didn’t keep the appointment after he decided the drug might affect his writing: “I feel my sensitivity is my business.”

I can’t understand that. Nothing is worth going through the depression and anxiety I went through last fall and winter or in 1968-1969.

Perhaps Franzen is a much stronger person than I am. He’s certainly more dedicated to literature.

At this point I understand that my success level as a writer is probably commensurate with what I’ve put out. I’d certainly rather be happy then famous. Today I barely wrote.

The Times Sunday Magazine’s cover story, titled “‘This Is As Happy As I Get,’” profiled Nathan Lane, who’s phenomenally successful, but who, like Franzen, works obsessively hard and seems unhappy and somewhat lonely.

More than unhappiness and loneliness, what I fear is that obsessiveness that drives great artists – probably because I’m already too compulsive and obsessive.

That’s why I got frightened the night I stayed awake feeling manic about my writing – and all I was doing then was planning a collection of short stories, most of which I wrote years ago.

Probably I’m just lazy. I’ve been a short story writer rather than a novelist because I don’t believe I’m good enough to make the investment in obsessiveness pay off, and I’m not going to gamble with my health and whatever sanity I’ve got left.

It’s been a pleasant Labor Day in the Ozarks, although I was a tad anxious this morning – but that soon passed.

I got up before 5 AM, but I went to bed early last night, and if I awaken frequently during the night, I also slept enough so that I didn’t feel the need to lie down during the day.

After my morning exercise of very low-impact aerobics, I bathed and dressed and went out to bring my old linens to the laundry room.

Debbie was here, awaiting Rosemary’s departure, and she told me my telephone number was (501) 253-7708, which she discovered when she called each of the suites and I answered the phone to that number.

So now I can have people call me here, which may make the next few weeks of solitude a bit easier to endure.

Cedric is leaving tomorrow although he plans to return in two weeks. This afternoon, he took me grocery shopping in his van. After I got some stuff I needed, we drove over to The Great Passion Play grounds.

Rhoda, a previous Dairy Hollow resident, had paid for his and others tickets to the event. Cedric said that at three and a half hours, it was too long, but that it was a magnificent spectacle.

I thought the outdoor stage was quite impressive, and I could see the grandeur in it all, but I felt slightly repelled at all those Christian tchotchkes in the gift shop, many of which were really tacky.

Moreover, the Gerald Smith I read about on plaques as the “founding spirit” of the pageant and religious theme park was, according to a plaque “Gerald L. K. Smith” – the notorious anti-Semite, as I explained to Cedric.

Certainly I was grateful for the opportunity to see the place, but as a secular Jew, it kind of freaked me out. It’s way too Bible-thumping Christian for me.

A man from Vegas asked me to take a Polaroid of him with his girlfriend and daughter. He said they’d just come from Branson, where he was shocked they served popcorn and lemonade instead of alcohol at the shows: “I thought it would be more like Vegas, but this whole area is real religious.”

I got my Sunday Times at the bookstore – the owner said the delivery guy came fifteen minutes after I left on Sunday – and she put me down for an order for the rest of the month.

I again had iced tea at the Local Flavor Café, sitting outside but at a table with an umbrella on a relatively hot day. I read most of the main section of the Times, but mistakenly threw it in the garbage, thinking it was the Sports section, before I got to finish it.

Still, I had all the other sections to read today and the rest of the week. The Book Review had reviews of new story collections by T.C. Boyle and David Levitt.

I’m really haunted by reading my diary entries from those dark days of March.

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Tuesday, September 4, 2001

6 PM. Cedric is staying for dinner, so at least I won’t be alone this evening.

Last night I slept poorly, or I guess I should say not enough, as I did sleep, with my usual awakenings, from about midnight to 5:30 AM.

This morning I heard an NPR story on legislation about mental health parity and insurance coverage, and I began to fret about being one of the United States’s 43 million uninsured. Luckily, I tried “thought-stopping,” which basically worked.

I guess lying in bed isn’t the best thing I can do for myself, either here or in Apache Junction. But I want to exercise after breakfast, so I get back into bed for an hour before I work out. However, if I keep obsessing, I may need to change that.

I may always be at my worst in the early morning, so if last spring’s students at ASU and MCC got a raw deal, at least I was forced to leave the house by 7 AM every day of the week.

I haven’t done any writing today. Cedric was at the library at 11 AM when I got there and went on the computer. Today I wrote lots of emails, using the same basic draft.

Teresa wrote that she had a wonderful weekend on Fire Island. Last night they had a clambake and watched the moon rise over the bay. Teresa said that Pam is still in Locust Valley, suffering from a case of separation anxiety even though she’s already paid rent in Brooklyn for this month.

Teresa admitted that she’s probably contributed to the problem, especially since she needs Pam to stay at the house while she and Paul go to St. Maartin in early October.

But Pam’s bed was being delivered in Brooklyn today, her grad school classes have begun, and the public school classes she’s teaching will start soon.

Teresa figures that once Pam sees that her commuting time will be cut in half, she’ll want to stay in Brooklyn.

Sat Darshan wrote that she feels terrible about subjecting Kiran to oral surgery tomorrow only ten days after her abscess procedure.

She also related a strange anxiety dream about her being in a movie with a 20-year-old Scott, directed by “Dean De Luca”; the anxiety stemmed from not knowing her lines or where she should stand.

Tom wrote, in response to the Jonathan Franzen profile in the Times, that Franzen is a mediocre, unimaginative novelist who has a good press agent and high-placed friends like David Foster Wallace and Don DeLillo. He said that the story about refusing to take antidepressants may be hype, but if it is true, then yes, it certainly isn’t worth a million dollars and literary fame to have tortured oneself.

I needed to hear that breath of reality from Tom. How could I, of all people, forget that stories don’t just appear in the media?

Tom wrote that Poets & Writers recently featured a “hagiography” of Franzen.

Just as Aldo Alvarez emailed me and all the other Blithe House Quarterly contributors about his new short story collection, the book got savaged in a Newsday review by Chase Madar, who says Aldo “can’t write” and gave some evidence of it.

However, perhaps Madar was rejected by BHQ and is getting revenge. Besides, he also thinks that Michael Chabon can’t write, either.

When I got back from the library, there was a note on my door, from Debbie. It said to call Mom at once because “the university” had called me. I got scared, but Mom said that Thelma Sampedro of Nova called about a phone interview, so I called her in Florida.

It’s for that administrative job at the law school that I applied for online, and the hiring committee will call here next Monday at 10 AM their time – 9 AM here.

I apply for so many jobs that I can’t quite remember exactly what this job was, but I recall thinking at the time that the pay level was good – in the $30,000 range – and that I had a good background for it.

I’ve probably gotten a little too excited about the job. I’ll definitely take it if offered, but that’s getting way ahead of myself.

Probably having connections at Nova helps. I’ll check out the job on the NSU website if it’s still there when I go to the library on Thursday.

Cedric was going to Hart’s to get some food for his trip and took me along with him. I went with him to the service station to check out his van and to the store where he FedExed a package.

I’m going to miss Cedric’s company a great deal. I’m not sure how I’m going to make it through the next couple of weeks living in a “artist’s colony” of my own.

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Thursday, September 6, 2001

8 PM. I just shamed myself into writing a single-spaced opening of a story. It’s probably garbage, but at least I’m writing a little every day, right? I’d written some more pages in my notebook earlier.

Yesterday was a long day, but at least Cindy joined me at the dinner table last evening. She grew up in Iowa, but she’s moved around a lot in her life, coming here from the Missouri Ozarks a couple of years ago.

You wouldn’t know it, but she’s older than I am and has three grandchildren, with the oldest being 12.

I told Cindy – like the Ancient Mariner, I stoppeth one in three – about my breakdown or whatever it was last year. God, what did I have to talk about a year ago before it happened?

After last evening’s dinner, I took a little walk down Spring Street, then sat on the rocking chair by the porch of the other studios, watching the cars, motorcycles, mopeds and the tourist horse-and-carriages going by.

I didn’t get back into bed till after 9 PM – yes, I know how early that is – after I’d had a very long conversation with my parents. “If you knew you’d be alone there,” Mom said, “you probably wouldn’t have gone.”

Okay, that was all I need to hear to buckle down and make myself adjust to solitude at Dairy Hollow. But it ain’t easy.

Still, before dinner I got to talk with people, as Crescent had a 4 PM to 6 PM memorial showing the art (drawings, jewelry, paintings) of her friend Elsie Bates Freund, who died in June.

Elsie, with her artist husband Harry Louis Freund (known mostly for his murals), started a summer academy, the Art School of the Ozarks, for artists here in the 1940s. The couple seemed to have quite a salon, and Elsie’s work was fluid and instinctive.

I got there at 5 PM, while Crescent was telling John and Mary, John, and David and David (married couple, straight guy artist, two gay guys) the story of how she met Steve when he emailed her for permission to use an essay of Ned’s essay in book about historic preservation. I’d heard the story before.

Later, the single John told the story of how he got arrested in Mexico in a town that was sketched by Elsie, where she and Louis once lived.

Mary told me that the Freunds had bought Hatchet Hall, Carrie Nation’s house, southeast of downtown Main Street, for $200.

Mary complained to the mayor, Beau Satori (whose impressive ponytail is even longer than Jonathan’s), about “the dummies” she serves with on the town’s historic preservation board who think that tourism is the only reason for preservation.

I guess one of the people she meant was Frank, who I was happy to hear from this morning. He didn’t return my call yesterday, and I thought I had turned him off. We’ll get together on Saturday.

Tomorrow Debbie may drive me to the Walmart in Berryville, a superstore where I can get groceries.

Last night I again slept too little, and I was up at 3:40 AM. This morning I didn’t really obsess and worry, but I came close enough.

Because I had a 10 AM date with the library computer and I arrived way before they opened, I kept walking all the way downtown, past the bookstore, where I found the USA Today vending machine and also bought the Tulsa World.

At the library, I first went on Nova’s Human Resources webpage and saw the job for which I’ll be interviewed: Director of Academic Resources at the law school.

The starting salary is good, in the high 30s, and I sort of matched the qualifications if you stretch “academic experience in support services” to include teaching freshman comp.

As I wrote in my emails to Tom, Mark, and Sat Darshan, I don’t expect to get the job at Nova Law, but I would be thrilled if I did.

I came back here and ate lunch, read some more, lay down, avoided writing for as long as possible, scribbled about four pages, and fretted.

Sat Darshan wrote (I heard it on Yahoo By Phone) that Kiran did okay with yesterday’s dental surgery and that she seems to be resilient.

I’m going to check my email on the phone because at this point every human contact I have, even twice removed, is a treat. It will be 11 days before Cedric gets back here.

Mom called after getting a phone call from Daryl, the guy from the insurance company who interviewed me about the Quail Creek attack.

I phoned him, and he said the doctors have sent no record that indicate I got any more treatment than I would have, and the Quail Creek manager says, of course, that she checked the lights and there’s no record of them being out on the night I was mugged.

Annoyed, I told Daryl, “So forget it,” and I hung up without any pleasantries. I’m sorry I wasted long-distance phone card minutes on that shit.

When I’m feeling like I’m a bad person, I can view the mugging as payback and bad karma, but I just want to put it behind me.

In my life, I’ve gotten away with financial stuff, like the extra vacation paycheck I got from the University of Florida when I left CGR, just as those guys and my landlord got away with my being mugged.

All I want now is never being as sick psychologically as I was last winter – not ever again.

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Saturday, September 8, 2001

3:30 PM on a cool, rainy day. Once again I woke up very early at 3:20 AM, after getting less than five hours of sleep despite taking Triavil and an Ativan.

What worries me is that I’m falling into the same pattern of early awakenings that was my only symptom last September and early October.

While I don’t really feel any anxiety yet, I worry, of course, whether such symptoms could occur again. I’d like to sleep until 5 AM at least one morning to break the pattern.

But I guess I’m lucky that I’ve had no totally sleepless nights here.

Anyway, I felt crummy this morning, but I had a cup of strong tea at Frank’s house and then a big Diet Pepsi when we walked to Subway for lunch. So I don’t feel all that tired, but I hate relying on caffeine, which of course is a drug.

Last night I was on the phone, first with my parents and then with Josh and with Pam.

Mom and Dad said it had cooled off to a high of 100° yesterday, and that Jonathan had called from the Grand Canyon, where it had been 38° in the morning. Before he left, Jonathan put new tires on my car and says it’s riding fine.

I must have sounded lonely and bored to my parents, and that’s because I’m feeling both those things.

When I called Teresa’s house, Pam was the only one home. She’s not moving to Brooklyn so fast although her bed is there and she bought a computer for the apartment. It seems hard for her to make the move, but she’ll have to do it sooner or later.

I feel the same way about leaving my parents’ house, but if I had a job like Pam’s, I surely would move.

She said her new class is wonderful. They’re bright and attentive and catch on quick, a big contrast to her prior classes, so she’s happy about that – although she preferred having a room in the classroom to her current one in the main building, where she can hear another class behind the partition.

Pam’s only grad course this fall is her thesis preparation, and she’s a little nervous about that.

She said that Teresa and Paul are fine and they’re still supposedly considering the offer of $615,000 for the house, “but we all know it ain’t gonna happen.”

It’s odd that they’re even considering it, but they’ll probably never get such a good offer for years to come. Housing prices can’t possibly keep going up this fast forever.

Jade hasn’t moved out, Pam said, and it doesn’t seem as if she’s looking for an apartment. I can’t blame either Jade or Pam for wanting to stay in Locust Valley.

Josh told me that his visit to Kiel was better than expected, as Gabrielle acted civilly, and he got to spend a lot of time with his son, who’s almost two.

Josh said the kid is cheerful, very sociable and cute. He emailed Sat Darshan to ask if Deutsche Haus or Berlitz would be better for learning German.

Josh will probably be flying to Germany every six months, and since the kid has already started talking, Josh has to learn at least a child’s German vocabulary.

I reminded him to make sure Lufthansa credits him with all his trips for frequent flyer miles.

Josh also visited his friend Kristof in Heidelberg and met Kristof’s kids, wife and ex-wife. He’s got a beautiful house, Josh said, and that’s where most of the money goes.

When I went to the library, instead of spending my time emailing (I wrote only to Sat Darshan), I spent a long time researching Nova Law’s Academic Resource Program (ARP), now headed by Professor Goodman, who’s teaching a weekly workshop in skills and success for first-year students.

They also have workshops in first-year classes taught by upper class students, kind of like the ones I attended at UF Law on Torts, Con Law, Contracts, Civ Pro, etc.

Mercy Moore teaches a grammar and writing workshop on Saturdays, and they have PowerPoint presentations on case briefing, IRAC, time management, etc.

I printed out the two pages of Nova Law’s ARP webpage and the ad I answered, which said they need someone to “implement, direct, update and expand upon” their present program.

Do I have the “strong leadership and interpersonal skills” and “excellent organizational and communication skills” they’re looking for? I suppose.

This job would be daunting, but I think that in many ways I’d love doing it. Well, we’ll see what Monday’s interview is like.

Online, I read a couple of law review articles on academic support programs for law students, and that’s about as prepared as I can get.

Frank picked me up at the library, but before he arrived, Kathy, the librarian said I should get Frank to take me to an art opening at the Mud Café tonight.

How did she know I knew Frank? Kathy had been trying to set us up, and Frank told her he already had hung out with me. That is what life in a small town is like.

Frank had what seemed to be a bad cold, but he said it was allergies and sinus and that he wasn’t contagious. I sucked on my zinc lozenges anyway.

I wasn’t that interested in watching the antique auto parade, but Frank knew every model that passed: “That’s a ’57 Chevy coupe”; “That’s a ’62 – no, a ’61 – Pontiac Bonneville.”

Our interests don’t seem to converge; I couldn’t care less about gardening or British mysteries, either. But Frank is certainly a nice person who has been kind to me.

We went to Subway, walking there at my suggestion, and then stopped off at Hart’s, where I bought the skim milk I forgot to get yesterday.

At Frank’s house, we chatted. He really has an enormous number of food and other allergies and he takes a lot of supplements.

The zipper on my cargo pants finally broke when I went to the bathroom, so when I got home, I changed into jeans.

I don’t really feel like writing at all.

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Monday, September 10, 2001

3:30 PM. Frank just canceled on our dinner tonight, as he’s still sick. He kept saying he just had allergies on Saturday, but I could tell he had a cold.

I’ve just popped a zinc lozenge in my mouth, hoping to avoid catching it, but I don’t know if the lozenges will prevent the cold; probably they just treat colds and make them milder.

Well, a bad cold would just make this a bad week.

I did sleep well last night, till about 5 AM, and I had resonant dreams. In the last one, Ben Mulvey hired me to teach at Nova full-time again, and I felt overjoyed. But I don’t think that’s an omen about the law school job.

My phone interview with Nova Law School was actually for 10 AM our time, not 9 AM as they had told me.

I was interviewed by Dean Patricia Jason, Professor Jane Cross and Billie Jo Kaufman, the head librarian.

I occasionally became tongue-tied on their preselected list of questions for all candidates, and I have no idea how I came off or who the other candidates are and what their credentials are.

I tried to sound enthusiastic, and I told them “In this job” when asked the obligatory where-do-you-see-yourself-in-five-years query. I’m still coming down from the hyper feeling I had after our 40-minute interview.

I walked to the library and the computer was open, so I emailed thank-you notes to each of the interviewers. Billie Jo responded almost immediately. They are going to ask the finalists to campus for visits and more interviews.

Right now I can’t tell if I’m going to be one of the finalists. After all, I thought the Nassau Community College interview went well, too.

They’d like to hire someone before the end of the semester but will wait till next semester “for the right person.”

Their final question was a fun one “designed to show you that we’re human and playful”: What kind of fruit would you be?

A mango, I replied without hesitation.

I really want this job at Nova Law School, so I felt kind of down after the interview, not knowing if I’ve already been eliminated from the running.

I have no control over what happens next, and I guess I did the best I could on the interview.

I checked out the references on my “legal” résumé – and they are Liz McCulloch, David Bodney (who said he’d “be delighted” after I wrote him about it), Betty Taylor, Greg Glau, Patrick and Ben.

Anyway, in three weeks I’ll be back in Arizona, and I’ll still be facing unemployment, unsure of how much longer I can go on without declaring bankruptcy.

I guess I’ll have to take some kind of job and hold up emotionally. I’m glad I came to the Ozarks, but being here has only been postponing dealing with my life.

If I get accepted for Yaddo for late October and early November, I’ll probably go and just postpone future decisions further. But I’d make sure to go there with a printout of my In The Sixties stories manuscript, so I’d have a solid book project to work on.

Right now, I still don’t feel like writing, and I feel that until a week from today, when Cedric returns, I have nothing to look forward to except the possibility of catching a cold.

By the way, last night’s other dreams introduced people I haven’t seen in years, like my pen-pal Blair Apperson (“Blah”), who I met when he visited Fort Lauderdale and who died of AIDS years ago.

In the dream, Blair was at our old East 56th Street house in Brooklyn with me. In other dreams, Gary Marcus found his job in jeopardy, and Jon Mills, Russ and others from CGR were at the White House for a state dinner, but I couldn’t find a seat at their table for myself.

I think all of this was very telling about my emotional state.

Today Sat Darshan and I exchanged a couple of emails. She painted the bathroom this weekend but aches from it, and that made her realize she’s not the youngster who painted whole apartments in Bremen and Brooklyn.

Ronna finally replied to my last email. For the last two weeks, they’ve been in Florida, having driven to Virginia and taken Amtrak’s Auto Train to Orlando.

They stayed with Ronna’s mother for a week and then drove to Miami to spend time with Matthew’s sister’s family and attend his niece’s bat mitzvah.

Rona said that Matthew is on the verge of being offered that position at SUNY Stony Brook, but she doesn’t want to move there. I admit that they have a nice life in Jenkintown, but selfishly, if Ronna and Matthew were on Long Island, I could see them more easily when I visit Teresa and Paul.

I also exchanged real-time emails with Mark Bernstein and wrote to everyone else who’d sent me messages except Virginia, who deserves a longer letter.

This afternoon I took the trolley into town to mail my deposit of last week’s unemployment check to Bank of America and to get iced tea and read USA Today at the Local Flavor Café.

This morning it was chilly, and I’m glad I slept in my Ucross long-sleeved t-shirt and sweatpants; it must have been only about 50° when I got up.

At least Debbie came in to work today, so I could chat with her. With Frank out of commission, I’m on again my own for dinner this evening.