A Writer’s Diary Entries From Mid-November, 2002
Monday, November 11, 2002
6 PM. I’m going to get back in my work clothes and return to school in a little while. My 3 PM Contracts exam writing workshop seemed to go well, and I expect a decent crowd at the 8 PM workshop.
I’m glad this will be the last scheduled evening workshop for me, so I can have my Monday evenings back.
There’s a lot to do at work these days with students coming to see me.
This morning I met with Drew Wilson, who said he did badly on Richmond’s practice exam because he had a death in the family just before law school started and he didn’t really take good notes or learn as well as he could have for the first two months of the semester. Who knows?
Cindy told me she’s had a lot of problems with that Ron guy who complained about her. I suspect his paper was indeed late and that he walked out of Harrison’s class and handed it in so that he could later claim to be in class when the paper was turned in.
Since he claimed that the same thing happened on a previous paper, and Cindy’s had other excuses from him, I figure Ron is a slacker.
Another one is Steve Fiorina, who got an F on the closed memo from Cindy. (It was a D but late; as I’ve said, A papers never get turned in late.)
Steve was also one of Richmond’s students who did poorly on the practice exam. I have little sympathy for students who are too lazy to work hard.
Someone who obviously wanted to apprise me of my TA Katie B’s poor attitude towards the students in her ARP section anonymously forwarded a copy of his or her evaluation.
On the other hand, the evaluations for Matt McKim and Ellen Fine, Matt Wolper and Steve Bell were glowing.
Sat Darshan emailed that she’s leaving for India tomorrow; she dreads the 22-hour plane ride. She also said they still haven’t rented their house across the street.
Because today was Veterans Day, Kiran had no school, so Gurudaya was watching her. But she had to go to her home health care job in the afternoon, so Sat Darshan had to go home at 3:30 PM.
Sat Darshan’s reaction to my seeing 8 Mile was “Ugh, Eminem!” That’s what I expect from most of my contemporaries. Today I wrote to Tom and Mark B, who both disapprove of hip-hop.
Of course, I’ve never heard Tom talk enthusiastically about younger fiction writers I admire: people of the stature of Jonathan Safran Foer, Michael Chabon and Zadie Smith.
The same goes for Pete Cherches and Josh.
It just seems as if most failed writers – or writers who view themselves as failures – can’t bear to either read or praise younger successful writers. Perhaps I’m overgeneralizing, but I don’t think so.
Toni Latino dropped by to give me a friend’s self-published punk rock zine, and Sydney Lennon came by just to check. She’s moved back on her own and is commuting from Stuart, a 90-minute drive away.
Well, I’m going back to work now to do my workshop.
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
9 PM. It’s such an odd time, really. The weather changed from record high temperatures to chilly, rainy weather today. Okay, 70° isn’t exactly chilly, but it feels like it by comparison.
This is supposed to be a cool winter like the last El Nino winter in 1997-98. Back then, I was living in downtown Davie and seeing Gianni. After the fall semester ended, I’d take long walks, and it always seemed to be damp and chilly.
Last night I slept well enough to shake off the tiredness. I had a dream in which my parents were young and glamorous-looking, all dressed up on a Saturday night, ready to go out on the town. That’s the way I remember them.
I’ve been writing a lot more of the autobiographical essay. I think I have about 5,000 words, and I’ve hardly said anything yet. I’m just putting down random stuff.
Mark B says that eventually I’ll find the voice and the form I want, and I have to go with that.
Vincent finally surfaced. He’s not mad at me; he’s been in Omaha for the last month, trying to finish his novel, and he’s got another month there.
He realized that he could simplify his life away from Memphis, though of course there are the distractions of coffee, CDs, books, and his friends in Omaha.
Vincent’s had some rough times, but it sounds like the book is coming together. He’s got another 60 pages to go, and then overall light editing to tie up the loose ends.
“With the book, I go from overconfidence to despair,” he says – which sounds about right.
Vincent had a bad evening with his impossible father, whom he says is awful: “Essentially I’ve had to be my own parents.”
Finally, he wrote this:
I know you hate your job, Richard. But don’t forget that you are a real writer. Most other people who call themselves writers are prostituting themselves in some way. (Spoken like a true hooker, no?)
Listen, I will be better about writing once I get to Memphis again . . . but I always think of you and I am never angry or upset or anything bad when it comes to our friendship. Be paranoid about others but be sure of at least this one thing, okay?
For now I should go, so I can pretend to be cut off from everything again. (I’m writing this in front of the TV.)
Much love and more to come,
Vincent
That, of course, makes me feel very good.
I don’t know that I hate my job, but in writing this memoir, I feel that there’s my real life, the core of my life, and then there’s being the director of the Academic Resource Program at NSU Law.
But at least in my job I do get to interact with people.
When I went into the Student Affairs office, Lisa Jaffe told me about her trip to Los Angeles, when she got to see celebrities as an audience member in the Craig Kilborn and Jay Leno talk shows.
Thelma told me that I looked ten years younger with a wave in my hair; it was barely intentional, just because of how I combed it and because my hair is getting longer.
Zane came to see me, very upset because they’re trying to kick him out of law school.
In his application to law school, he forgot to put in that he was arrested – no, he wasn’t exactly arrested, but after he beat up the man he found in bed with his wife, there was a warrant out many years ago in Lake Havasu City.
The police weren’t involved. Zane just met with the judge, who told him to leave town – and now the judge is dead and can’t confirm Zane’s side of the story.
At that point in life, Zane lost everything: his marriage, his house, and the restaurant he owned, and he had to file for bankruptcy after moving to Atlanta.
This morning Pat told Zane the admissions committee is leaning toward dismissing him because they view the omission as a lie rather than what it was: forgetfulness.
Zane shouldn’t have been spurred into action by that hell-and-brimstone speech from the member of the Florida Bar Examiners at Orientation.
I think the NSU admissions committee, like the Florida bar, is far too intrusive and unforgiving.
Oddly, another older male student came into my office today and told me how he, too, had found his wife in bed with another man and how, going into court without a lawyer, he had also lost everything, including visitation with his kids. But he said that is what spurred him to apply to law school in the first place.
Later this afternoon, I met with Doug Drummond and helped go over his Torts practice exam answer with him.
“I’m thinking that maybe I don’t belong in law school,” Doug said, “and that what I really might want is an MBA in entrepreneurship.” However, I can’t see Doug being a successful entrepreneur any more than I can see myself as one.
Ron Brown emailed that he had heard I had a Contracts exam writing workshop and wanted to see the question and model answer, so I put it in his mailbox.
Ordinarily, I’d worry about repercussions, but I’m no longer scared of losing my job or even – why does this rate an “even,” as if it’s worse? – getting someone angry at me. But now I don’t care.
Nobody can take away from me the stuff I’m writing about in my autobiographical essay for Contemporary Authors.
I did find time to write at work today. and I printed everything out and added it to my document on my home computer tonight.
Maybe eventually I’ll have 20,000 words or more that I can shape the material into the 10,000-word essay that Gale Research wants.
After that, I can figure out if I’ve got the makings of a book here. Of course, I don’t want it to be the kind of boring “I did this, I think that, then I went here” autobiography that Dr. John Graves read from at the Stonewall Library last winter.
My book has got to have a voice, a form, a stance, or a thesis; it’s not going to end up an artless, pointless narrative.
This morning I hurt my back when I stretched after exercising – but it’s not too bad, and it’s not my lower back.
I don’t like it being almost dark and chilly when I come home at 5 PM now, but I still have time to do stuff. This evening I did laundry, finished reading the paper, and watched Dawson’s Creek.
I also started listening to the tape of The House on Mango Street, and I looked over other writers’ Contemporary Authors autobiographical essays.
Zack Rogow did a better job than Lisa Zeidner, whose piece seemed shapeless to me – but apparently she has a lousy memory.
I can see how easy it is to get constrained by the formality of a contract from a reference book publisher like Gale Research.
Saturday, November 16, 2002
10 PM. It’s been a dark day, with heavy thunderstorms starting in the late afternoon.
During one of the lulls in the storms tonight, I went out to Publix – but just as I came out of the supermarket, the rain was raging again, so I got soaked.
This morning I woke at 4 AM, which I guess is something I have to expect if I fall asleep at 9:30 PM. I still wish I could get more than six and a half hours of sleep.
On the other hand, I didn’t feel sleepy during the day. I ended up exercising at 6:30 AM, my usual time.
Arriving at the Starbucks on University Drive near Oakland Park Boulevard after 8 AM, I sat with my iced tea and New York Times next to a sign that featured the question of the week, the answer to which would get someone a chance for a free drink.
Two teenage boys at the next table were puzzled by the question: What event in New York in 1969 was the start of the gay rights movement?
“The Stonewall riot,” I told them. Later, I said the same thing to a heterosexual couple in their late twenties who couldn’t figure out the answer. For them, I added, “In 1969 I was 18 and used to hang out in Greenwich Village.”
“I wasn’t born till 1974,” said the woman.
I spent more time writing my autobiographical essay. adding another 2,000 words about the publication of Disjointed Fictions and With Hitler in New York.
I was just getting to the point when my parents moved to Florida in 1979 and I got my first apartment in Rockaway. So I’ve still got 23 years to go.
I’ll probably end up with more than twice as much material as Contemporary Authors will print – but it’s good to get this down.
Right now it’s just an artless recording of details, but I have almost two months to work on the essay and shape it into something real. And of course, if I want to transform it into a book, I can do that anytime.
It’s funny: Despite what I said to Tom, I still have a glimmer of hope that one day I can get a contract with a New York trade publisher even as I know how vain that wish is.
This afternoon I sat in the audience among the elderly Jews at the theater in Sunrise and saw Frida, Julie Taymor’s wonderful biographical film about Frida Kahlo.
Kahlo didn’t have her first exhibition in Mexico until she was practically on her deathbed. I can recall hearing about her only in the 1970s from Miriam Sagan.
Of course, there’s no hope that anyone will “discover” my work after I’m dead.
Yesterday I thought of Scott Sommer and his novels and story collections. I couldn’t find much on the Web about Scott, and I imagine few, if any, people have ordered his books on Amazon.com. That’s a shame, because Scott was a decent writer, and he doesn’t deserve to be forgotten.
There have been recent warnings, including a tape that may have had the voice of Osama bin Laden, that Al-Qaeda may launch a “spectacular attack” on the U.S.
Aviation is still listed as the first target, but when I think of the possibility of my being on a hijacked flight, my first thought is: I should be so lucky.
If I had died in the World Trade Center, I would have gotten more interest in my books than I ever could even if I live to 90.
At the least, the New York Times would have mentioned my riding in their “Portraits of Grief” series.
Hey, most likely I’ll die alone and obscure, so going out in a catastrophe would be a godsend.
At 10 AM today I got a massage from Angie. It was a treat, not only because it relaxed me but because I got to talk with Angie, whose life is still hectic.
I have always liked talking to people.
Yesterday that Indian guy whom I met at BarBri and PMBR came by to see me. He passed the NBA with no points to spare, but he failed the Florida part of the bar exam by four points.
He’s been very upset, he told me. In February, he’ll just sit for the Florida part, and he’s not taking BarBri again but will study on his own.
Also yesterday, I saw Zane right after Pat and Nancy had told him the school will allow him to take his finals this semester, but he won’t be allowed to continue law school until January 2004.
“I’ll be 62 then,” he told me, “and it’s getting harder to learn.” I’m afraid Zane may not come back.
That adherence to the letter of the law is what I hate about law schools. No graduate school would care about arrests, especially old, silly ones like Zane’s.
I don’t see why the law school has to follow the Bar Examiners’ standards. Why can’t people just study law for its own sake, the way I did?
People get master’s and doctoral degrees without using them. Alice has a master’s in education; Ronna has one in American studies; and many law students already have graduate degrees.
Thank God you don’t need an MFA to be an artist or writer.
I read Bard Cole’s online diary about his MFA program at the University of Alabama MFA, and it made me wonder if getting that degree will make Bard’s fiction any better than it already is.
Around 7:30 PM, I felt at loose ends and didn’t feel like writing anymore, so I went to the office to print out articles from the Sunday New York Times. After that is when I went to Publix for groceries.
I think I may be heading into a period where my anxiety is lessening as I start to feel comfortable in my job.
I guess I would miss it if I had to leave Nova Law, and now I’m thinking about staying there another couple of years.
But I don’t know if I’ll ever really fit in, and even if I do, I don’t know that I’ll ever really feel it.
Maybe I’ll sleep past 4:30 AM tomorrow morning.
Tuesday, November 19, 2002
9 PM. I fell asleep about this time last night, and when I woke up at 3 AM, I took a whole 0.5 mg. Klonopin pill and slept till 6 AM.
Too tired to exercise this morning, I put it off until after I came home at 5 PM. But catching up on Zs definitely helped me make it through the day.
Yesterday I still managed to write a little more of my autobiographical essay, but the words were dead on the paper.
Maybe the words I managed to wrangle today were a little better, but the upshot is that I have 14,000 words and I’ve just gotten to the summer of 1984.
That’s when I began my years of snowbird “retirement,” spending winters in South Florida and summers in Manhattan, living off adjunct work, credit cards, student loans, and unemployment insurance, as well as those 1988 state arts council grants from Florida and New York.
Going over my adult life helps remind me that as decent a job as I have now – as horrible a job as I have now – it won’t last, and in five years, I’ll be doing something completely different.
Four years ago I was teaching at FAU and at Nova and just about to meet Gianni and head off for my spring 1998 adventures out West.
Libby emailed, saying that Lindsay told her that I’m definitely coming to Los Angeles, and she said they’d be around until Christmas Day, after which they plan to go traveling.
As much as I’d like to visit California, I really don’t know if I can visit L.A. this year. I could easily spend two weeks in Phoenix and not do everything I want to do while I’m there.
Four weeks from today, I’ll be in Arizona, but in one week I’ll be in New York, spending my first night at Teresa and Paul’s new house.
I’m sure I will be freaked out by the cold weather and unfamiliar surroundings. It would be easier if I were returning to their house on Underhill Avenue, but by now that’s two houses ago for them.
This is one time when they moved twice while I stayed in the same place. But everything changes.
Mark B wrote that his wife is unexpectedly going on business to Phoenix next weekend, so he asked me what there is to see.
Not much in central Phoenix, I said, but I recommended the Heard Museum. I asked Dad for suggestions when I spoke to him on the phone, but he couldn’t add much.
Last evening I watched TV mindlessly for a change, spending an hour on 100 Mexicanos Dijeron, a Spanish language version of the Family Feud game show.
At least tonight I read something stimulating. After finishing the paper, I went back to my book on the history of L.A. hip-hop.
I’ve also been working on ideas for a story I’d like to send to Rick at Gargoyle. For years I’ve had the title “The Best Barnes & Noble in America,” and I thought I could finally use it in a story that’s kind of meta. (I also reread Laura Miller’s essay.)
Lots of people came into my office to chat today. A couple were students whom I’m trying to recruit to be teaching assistants next term.
Also, Richard Corbyns sat down and talked about his days in the music business in New York. He worked at The Village Vanguard, Trude Heller’s and Max’s Kansas City.
Later, he got into academic facilities management at NYU, where he dealt with everything from hurricanes to bomb threats.
Zane came in and talked with me for about an hour.
His suspension really has gotten me angry because it illustrates everything I despise about the law school culture.
Talk about “The letter killeth,” the epigraph from Jude the Obscure.
Zane would have been okay if only he hadn’t amended his application after hearing that guy from the Florida Bar Examiners at Orientation.
Of course, the message that Zane’s punishment sends to other students is to not admit any omitted peccadillos, stay in school, and then take your chances with the Bar Examiners.
You may not become an attorney in Florida, but at least you’ll have your J.D.
It warmed up a little today with a high of about 75°. I spent a lot of time at my desk reading the Times on the Web and chatting with people. In the end, my job doesn’t require heavy lifting.
Dina Irshad came by today for the sample Criminal Law exam question and model answer. She’s very nervous about final exams and worried about her open memo. Later, I helped another student edit hers.
The 1Ls should at least feel some relief tomorrow when their open memos are due (though Mark Padin extended his class’s deadline to Friday).
Evonne, the Contracts TA, told me that now that Paul Joseph is so sick, the students in his section are worried because Michael Richmond and Mike Flynn are taking over the grading of their final exams. I can understand that.
Compared to our first-year law students, I don’t really have a stressful life. Today Peter Kotze told me, “It seems like nothing ever ruffles you.”