Someone With a Pen: Richard Grayson’s Diary

Sunday, June 2, 2002

9 PM. While I was taking a long walk up and down University Drive, listening to the last cassette in my Property tape just now, the Shakespeare quote, “Sweet are the uses of adversity,” came to me. 

The difficult times of the last three months and maybe the whole half-year since I moved back to Davie suddenly seemed like part of some plan that’s eventually going to work out for me. 

As I began my walk, I thought about that walk I went on in Mesa on a Monday night in November 2000 – one of the most difficult times of my life – when suddenly the world seemed okay as I walked across the overpass at the Superstition Freeway on Dobson Road. 

The next day, Susan, who did not yet know me that well as a new patient in therapy, wondered if I’d been cycling into a manic episode. But I reassured her that I didn’t feel euphoric, just peaceful. 

God, that’s exactly what I felt just now. 

Maybe all of this will make sense eventually, everything that I’ve suffered with for almost the last two years: the dreadful anxiety and, recently, the physical problems. 

The night was so beautiful and the flowers so fragrant that I felt as if I was where I wanted to be. 

I walked through University Village, where my parents had their townhouse, taking the familiar old route from the swimming pool to their house at 2732 South University Drive, #8. 

Part of me wishes my parents had never left there and were still living across the street the way they were when I lived in this complex for several winters in the late 1980s. 

But I also wish my parents had never left the last house in Oak Knoll Ridge, or for that matter, the house I grew up in on East 56th Street in Brooklyn. 

I would have lived a very different life had we all remained in New York City. But would I have seen so much more of the world? 

I walked south down the east side of University Drive, across SW 30th Street, past Walgreens and Wendy’s and the other stores and restaurants, all the way to the ITT Technical Institute, where Marc got his degree. 

Then I looked across the street at the medical school and the health care center where I’ve been treated and where I had my MRI, the results of which I will hopefully get when I see Dr. Listopad on Tuesday. 

The Tony Awards are on at 9 PM. Two years ago, I watched them with my parents in Apache Junction, bedding down in the family room, about to go to Los Angeles to visit Libby and Grant the next day. 

I wish that right now I could be in Apache Junction and flying to Burbank to visit my friends the next day, but life has put me back here in South Florida studying for the bar exam. 

Who’d have thunk it a year ago, let alone two years ago? 

Twenty years ago, my parents did still live on University Drive, but that was long before it was urbanized the way it is today. 

I came home by walking past the offices of my insurance agent, my chiropractor and my optometrist, as well as Sonny’s BBQ, where we used to get the salad bar and baked potatoes, and the other stores and restaurants. 

Twenty years ago at this time of year, I was teaching the summer term at Broward Community College, but mostly I remember something more important: having my love affair with Sean at my apartment in Sunrise. I’ll never forget my going over to his house on my 31st birthday and how sweet he was that day. 

Ten years ago at this time, I was in summer school after my first year of law school, taking Property 1 with Dick Julin, Con Law 2 with Charles Collins, and Law and Psychiatry with Chris Slobogin. 

That summer in Gainesville, I had no money and had to cancel a trip to New York that I couldn’t afford, but it was still a wonderful time. 

Today on Lexis/Nexis, I saw an article that said that Mary Barley of Save Our Everglades was being represented by, among others, “Jon Mills and Russell McLaughlin of Gainesville” in her suit against the South Florida Water Management District. 

That reminded me of working at the Center for Governmental Responsibility and how wonderful my six years as a student and staff attorney at UF Law School were. 

I miss Jon, Russ, Liz and everyone at CGR. Maybe I shouldn’t have left. 

But that’s who I am, and I would have missed out on a lot had I stayed in Gainesville. 

Hey, if we’re going back ten and twenty years, why not go back thirty years? Shelli and I were seeing each other, acting like two fucked-up kids. . . 

No, wait, Shelli and I were seeing each other in 1971, not 1972. I must be getting early Alzheimer’s. 

In the summer of 1972, I’d long broken up with Shelli, and she got married to Jerry around Memorial Day. That summer I went to our double summer session, hanging out a lot with Mike and Mikey and other friends, and in the second summer session that started in August, I took Classics 1, sitting next to Ronna most of the time. 

That summer I also drove down here to South Florida with Mikey after we got him elected a delegate to the Democratic Convention. We stayed at The Moorings at my grandparents’ condo with Skip and Leon. 

I stayed in the same Moorings development last October when I came here for the job interview at Nova Law.

Doesn’t this all seem to make sense? It does when I write it down. 

This afternoon, while I was reading the Times Sunday Magazine section while drinking Calm Tazo tea at Starbucks, a short story title came to me: “The Klonopin Club.” 

Or maybe it wouldn’t be a story but a fucked-up children’s book about anxious kids. 

Someday I have to make sense of the last couple of years and write about the anxiety that I felt. 

Someday I will do so, but this is going to have to suffice for now. 

Last night, even though I didn’t take Klonopin or Ambien, I slept well. And when I woke up at 5 AM, I didn’t feel any dread. Instead, I got out of bed, ate breakfast, and then immediately started doing MBE questions. 

After taking a bath with Epsom salts – yes, my leg still aches – I stopped at Walgreens and bought adult diapers to try them out for the bar exam, something that Kenny said we should do because “You won’t have time to go to the bathroom, which will be filled with vomit anyway.” 

I went to my office for a bit, and then I drove to Barnes & Noble, where, over iced tea and a plain toasted bagel, I read most of the Sunday New York Times. That’s one pleasure I don’t want to give up during my bar prep weeks if I can avoid it. 

Back home, I exercised, did laundry, and went back to do more MBE questions. By early evening I’d finished 200 Property questions, getting only 97 of them right – but I’m learning as I go. 

I also read another outline in the Conviser Mini Review about the specific Florida differences in contract law. I’m also almost finished listening to the Property MBE tape for the third time. 

Back on the Nova campus again, I returned my for-pleasure videos and cassettes to the library.

In my office tonight, I ordered myself a birthday present on Amazon.com: the video of LIE. 

I don’t know how I could have bought a “used” copy since the video has not yet officially come out, but a guy in New York City offered it to me for half-price. 

Back home at 5 PM, I had an Amy’s low-fat beans-and-cheese burrito and some blueberries and papaya with diet ginger ale. 

Hey, I know that the next couple of months – and probably after that as well – aren’t going to be easy, but it will all make sense someday, the way everything does now. 

This feeling I’ve got – the peacefulness – won’t last, but nobody can say that it isn’t real for now.

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Tuesday, June 4, 2002

9 PM. I was awake at midnight when my birthday began, and despite taking Ambien, I slept only four hours. 

At the office at 7:30 AM, I looked at my email and bought the New York Times from Maurice at the cafe; I figured I could read the paper on my birthday. 

Then I went to the first hour of the BarBri lecture, a video that’s the first of three Contracts sessions, with a professor at the University of Alabama, David Epstein, who has a thick Southern accent. 

Then, back at the office, I went to Student Affairs, where there was a big “Happy Birthday Richard” cake and bagels and orange juice. 

Thelma had brought the food in, and I got a birthday card signed by everyone, including Jessica and Jonathan and all the women who work in Student Services and Student Affairs. 

I don’t like to have a fuss made for my birthday, and boy, did they make a fuss over me today. 

I guess I usually worked at colleges where the academic year had ended before my birthday. 

I think maybe at CGR, they celebrated birthdays with a cake, but I can’t quite remember. 

At 10:30 AM, I left for the Health Center, where Dr. Listopad showed me the report on the MRI. 

It didn’t find anything abnormal except some narrowing of the spine, which is normal for someone my age, and the doctor now thinks my pain could be arthritis. 

Next Thursday at 9 AM, I have to go for some blood work to check for arthritis, PSA, and all the usual stuff. I’ll have to fast for 12 hours, which will drive me crazy – but I guess I can do it. 

So, anyway, it appears I have nothing that would cause sciatica. I’m sure I had it back in March and April when I had clear symptoms. But I’m perfectly willing to believe what I have now is psychogenic because I am under stress. 

Back at school, I went upstairs to the faculty offices, where we gathered together our group – Jane, Kathy, Debra, Angela, and Mark Padin and his stepdaughter – and went to the Tower Deli in two cars. 

After a long wait, we finally got seated, and I enjoyed lunch. 

It’s weird to me that I’m so much older than other people. For instance, when I mentioned that I was a college teacher in 1975, Debra replied that she was in kindergarten then. Yet Debra is somebody that I think of as “around my age.” 

Jane bought me a leather-bound memo book she had bought in Puerto Rico; it had a picture of the coquí frog on it. 

Jane and I talked about Seattle – I got the package about the conference from LSAC today – and we discussed various students and other law school stuff. 

I tried to be gregarious with my work colleagues. No, that’s really not true because I didn’t feel I had to make an effort. 

I understand that birthdays are a big deal to some people like Thelma, who made sure to send me an electronic birthday card. 

Soon after Kathy drove us back to school, I took off for Rolling Hills, where I had missed about half an hour of the Contracts lecture. A woman (I want to say girl because she’s so young compared to me) let me fill in on my handout some of her notes of what I’d missed. 

Only about 20 people were there in the afternoon, so I didn’t mind going at that time. I still prefer going to the morning lecture because once it’s over, I know that I’m done for the day.

After the lecture ended at 4:45 PM, I returned to school. From Tracy, I got the printout of all the first-year students’ grades, and even though it was after 5 PM, I started looking for certain students, and I’ll do more tomorrow. 

The printout is fascinating. I was amazed, for example, that Carlos Paterno (who’s really cute) went from a 1.8 GPA in his first semester to a 3.5 GPA in the spring semester. 

Anyway, it seems as if some students raised their grades high enough to get out of probation; I’m glad Ursula Wing can study in China this summer.

But of course, some students who were over 2.0 their first semester fell below that. I’ll have to examine people’s grades more closely. 

My stomach was a little upset, perhaps because I’d had slices of onion and tomato on my turkey on rye at lunch, but I had a veggie burger for dinner. 

Dad called, and just as I was talking to him, FedEx delivered my office chair, which I will open tomorrow. 

In the mail, I got cards from my brothers, and there were also email birthday greetings from Theresa and Alice. 

Today I managed to keep up with the BarBri study plan, though I didn’t review my notes. 

Still, I did do 28 “advanced problems” for the MBE in Criminal Law. They were very hard, and I got the right answer only on 11 of them.

Tomorrow I’ll do 50 Florida Crim Law multiple-choice questions at the very least. 

I did just speak to Teresa, but now I’m tired (though not necessarily sleepy), and I need to stop writing. It’s after 10 PM.

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Friday, June 7, 2002

9 PM. I must have felt relaxed last night, or else President Bush’s speech outlining his plan to reorganize different agencies into a cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security had an anodyne effect. 

Although I woke up at 4:45 AM, I had already slept well. (In one dream Tom Whalen threw Jackie Onassis into the street, where she was run over by a car.)

After exercising at 6:30 AM and eating breakfast, I went grocery shopping at Publix. 

At the law school, I saw Joann, who was on campus for a series of workshops on mediation because she wants to become certified as a mediator. 

I told her about Nova’s master’s program in dispute resolution, which used to be in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences and is now in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. 

I later looked at the graduate certificate program in peace studies. It’s too bad that their classes are at the East Campus (the old law school), but they meet at 6 PM to 9 PM on weeknights. I would definitely take advantage of the free tuition and deferment of student loan payments. 

Pat came into the office early, telling me that everyone had a wonderful time on their Scandinavian cruise. For my birthday, she got me a small but lovely wooden box decorated with an enamel drawing of one of St. Petersburg’s onion dome churches. 

After I told Pat that twelve students had been academically dismissed, she asked me to find out from Alicia, the new assistant director of admissions, how many of them were online AAMPLE students. 

Alicia, who’s very nice and has lived in Queens and Brooklyn (on Snyder Avenue and East 35th Street), found that five of them were. I sent FYIs about that to Pat, Joe and Paul. 

Anyway, Pat seems pleased with the job I’ve been doing. Of course now that she’s back, it will be harder for me to slip away from campus. Yet today I managed to study a lot at work. 

I did 36 Contracts “intermediate problems” and 27 “advanced problems” in the BarBri MBE testing book. I also listened to the online audio lecture by Epstein and did everything in the Florida Contracts workshop (easy). 

At home, I did 50 Florida Contracts questions after dinner. They were only a review, because Florida has tested the subject, the way they do Criminal Law, only on essay questions. 

I hope to do my first essay question this weekend, and I need to start reviewing my notes. 

I finally wrote to Tom and Mark B yesterday, and of course they replied almost immediately today. 

I sent Vincent a brief note thanking him for the birthday card, and I bought a thank-you card for Jane Cross, which I slipped under her door. 

At 9 PM, I went over to the library and took out two videos and got some iced tea. 

Although I didn’t take Triavil this morning, I didn’t feel any anxiety despite the caffeine. 

Today my leg really didn’t hurt at all. I’ve told myself I’m over the sciatica, and so I will just ignore whatever aches I “plan” to get. 

Despite studying, I had enough free time to read much of today’s New York Times on the Web. 

As Dad noted when we talked this evening, it’s nearly six months – it will be half a year on Sunday – since we arrived in South Florida on Sunday, December 9. 

Dad said Marc is happy that his manager got promoted and has been replaced by the guy who ran Cricket’s old store on Mill Avenue in downtown Tempe. 

Marc did apply to be manager of the Tempe store, but he doesn’t think he will get the job.

Dad said it’s very hot in Arizona, but at least with the snowbirds gone from Apache Junction and many other people away for the summer, traffic is light on the roads and in the stores.

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Tuesday, June 11, 2002

11 PM. I just got in after spending the evening at the Fort Lauderdale Borders with Jeff Baron, who last night woke me out of half-sleep when he called at this time to say he would be in South Florida today.

Jeff’s mother was hospitalized last week, but she’s a bit better today and in a convalescent home.

Of course, I didn’t really want to break up my routine of studying and getting to bed early, but I had never met Jeff in person before, and after all, he is the one who’s a famous playwright.

Jeff is a very nice, unaffected guy. He told me that in New York City he’s got the reputation of a mediocre playwright who got lucky with Visiting Mr. Green when Eli Wallach agreed to star in it and so it ran for a year.

But there have been so many productions of Mr. Green all over the U.S. and the world, from Paris to Manila and lots of small American cities, and Jeff has a lot of funny stories about that.

Because Jeff is a screenwriter, he hasn’t optioned the movie rights; he figures that while a producer might be very enthusiastic right after he buys the rights, he’d just sit on them for a couple of years and then gradually lose interest.

The productions of Visiting Mr. Green probably allow Jeff and his partner Gary (who works as a nurse and is finishing his B.A.) to live comfortably in Manhattan and Greenport.

They’ve traveled all over the world—though they canceled their visit to Tel Aviv, where he was supposed to be a guest of the U.S. Embassy, after a particularly bad suicide bombing in late January.

I envy Jeff for being able to live the life of a writer. His play Mother’s Day has had six productions, and he directed the one in Sydney, an experience that ended his stage-directing ambitions.

Jeff said he doesn’t want to be working with actors in a theater all day long: “In film or TV, they only have to get it right once, so it’s a lot easier.”

Anyway, it was good to meet Jeff even though he probably disrupted two nights of my sleep.

After sitting too much today, my butt hurts. But then I also didn’t take any Vioxx or Celebrex, which I probably need.

I did just take 0.125 mg Klonopin for the first time in maybe a week or more. God, it’s so late.

The second Evidence tape at BarBri ran four hours and 15 minutes, and it felt even longer.

I didn’t accomplish much today, but I’m still ahead of the BarBri study plan by a day.

Of course, I’ll get behind next week when I’m in Seattle.

I wrote Ellen to tell her I was coming, but I don’t expect to see her while I’m there.

Justin sent me a belated birthday email greeting. He said that his work at the Henry Street Settlement “remains its usual conundrum of both pleasure and pain.”

The Settlement’s 2002 series of three plays written and performed by the teens of the Urban Youth Theater went off splendidly, but Justin’s boss is the type for whom nothing is ever good enough.

They just began full-scale rehearsals of The Wiz, which is opening in a month.

Justin told me that he is experiencing middle-aged farsightedness, saying, “I have to hold papers up to my nose to read them.”

Larry is still working at the frame shop and working at the museum one day a week; he sold two paintings recently.

Today at work, I saw Pat, but only briefly. She told me that Emily had come to see her about her academic dismissal, but of course there’s nothing Pat can do to reinstate Emily as a law student.

I just wonder: How does a woman with a graduate degree in chemistry get a 0.98 GPA in her first year of law school?

When someone’s grades are that bad, I told Pat, something must be wrong. I often think that some first-year students unconsciously sabotage themselves or there’s a cognitive mismatch.

Scientists just can’t cope with the ambiguity of law school exams. I tell everyone the right answer to every question is “It depends.”

I skimmed today’s New York Times on Lexis because their website was too slow.

It was good that Jeff called because I was getting frustrated doing Florida Evidence problems this evening.

Next week at this time I’ll be in Seattle. I expect the trip will be a nightmare and that my GERD and sciatica will act up.

I noticed that I’ve been getting old men’s haircuts; nobody under 50 wears their hair like I do anymore. I guess I need to get it cut short.