A Writer’s Diary Entries From Mid-June, 1999
Saturday, June 12, 1999
3 PM. I’m writing now this because we’re going to Teresa’s sister’s house soon. I have to go there early with Teresa because Hattie goes with Paul in his van later. The party doesn’t begin till 6 PM, so I’ll bring the newspaper.
I’m not looking forward to this and would rather stay home alone, but it’s probably the last time I’ll get to see Teresa’s family.
This morning I went with her to the supermarket soon after she and Paul returned from Fire Island. At noon, while Teresa was cooking, I took the car to Greenvale and bought cheap gifts for her niece and nephew at Wheatley Plaza: a tape of Sense and Sensibility and a No Doubt CD. Then I sat in Starbucks for a little while and had iced tea.
When I got back here, Teresa said that my mother had called and that my parents had sold the house. I had a feeling they would. Teresa spoke to Mom for longer than I did, but the upshot is that the couple offered $185,000 and my parents accepted.
The buyers want to move in no earlier than August, probably at the end of the month, and they are going to apply for a mortgage right away – which is smart because interest rates are going up.
Teresa said that Mom told her how scared she was about moving to Arizona, but I told Mom that they don’t necessarily have to leave South Florida, that she and Dad could just buy a condo in Pine Island Ridge. But Mom seems determined to go to Phoenix, and I guess that, in a way, that’s healthy.
Now I’m glad I’ll be going back to Florida so I can help them get ready for the move. Mom said I could take the bedroom furniture and everything from the family room for whatever apartment I get for the year.
They’re going to a lawyer in downtown Davie, and Mom was already worrying about what she will charge them. We’ll see if my parents back out of this, but perhaps they’ll go through with it. Certainly once they go to contract, they’ll have to.
Satnam had emailed that lately it’s been comparatively cool in Phoenix. She said that Phoenicians don’t go into their swimming pools until the temperature hits 105° because at 95°, it’s too cold.
So it looks like I’ll be going to Phoenix for Christmas after all, as the rest of the family will be living there. Teresa pointed out that I’ll need a new permanent address, and I wonder if I should register to vote in Arizona and establish residency there.
Mom said my tickets for the flight back to Fort Lauderdale arrived and she’ll mail them to me.
Tuesday, June 15, 1999
9 PM. Tonight Teresa and Paul went to Floral Park to have their anniversary dinner at her aunt’s house.
Last night I slept well and roused myself just before 7 AM to exercise to Body Electric. WLIW/Channel 21 started running the series from 1997, so I’m going to try and tape the next two weeks of programs.
Teresa let me take her car at 10 AM, and in downtown Glen Cove, I finally bought a pair of sneakers that seem comfortable. The old ones are literally falling apart.
These cost $10 on sale and are really cheesy black canvas ones. However, Teresa says that Jade and her friends have them, so I may have accidentally stumbled onto something fashionable. Before returning home, I got to enjoy my wildberry iced tea at the Starbucks on School Street and chat with the neurotic baristas.
This morning I went online and saw this sad story from a guy requesting help on the XY message board. He’s Asian and when his parents found out he’s gay – I think they saw him with another guy – they immediately assumed that he’s ill. His father asked, “How can you know you’re gay if you haven’t been to a doctor yet?”
His parents told him he had to go into therapy and told him to remove his eyebrow piercings or leave the house. When his parents started screaming about his “faggot friends,” he did leave the house.
Assuming that he was about 14, I said that therapy with a relatable psychologist couldn’t really hurt him. It turns out that he’s 19 and goes to college part-time.
This evening I IM’d him in my identity as Jordan, 21-year-old law student and we ended up chatting for over an hour. Cameron is Chinese-Vietnamese, and while he’s very sweet, he’s also quite immature.
He loves his parents and feels he let his little brother and sister down, that his family will disown him, etc. Very depressed, he kept writing “Sigh” and then started in about his “pseudo-BF” and the problems of his friends.
But by the time he wrote, “This might be cheesy but do you have a pic?” I knew he was feeling better.
Kate Gale emailed after I told her about my sending the check. She wrote that “Mark likes nothing less than having to make changes in typesetting from a supposed final copy, so you need to let me know if the disk we have is not the final version.”
I thought this was kind of patronizing but figured they’ve had bad experiences before with authors, so I sympathized and told her that any changes would be editorial revisions that they would make.
To be honest, I’d be happy not to look at the manuscript again. I didn’t spend all that time with it before handing in the manuscript and disk to revise it now.
Kate also needs a black-and-white photo, and tonight I gave Jade $20 to buy film after she agreed to take pictures of me. (If they’re not okay, I’ll have them done by a professional in Florida.)
I also need a bio note for the book, and I can work on that and figure out what details I want in there.
As for blurbs, Kate said to get them from “the most famous writers you know,” and I asked her for some guidance. I’d like to try for some really big names I barely know or don’t know.
From Lexis’s Assets library, I have a list of the home addresses of famous people, but sending out the manuscript to them might be a waste of time. Maybe I should first query them with some information and funny begging letters.
I’m sure that Kate thinks I’m a pain in the ass, but for $5,000, I think I’m entitled to be a pain in the ass. Is it my subsidizing the book that makes her seem much more condescending than my other publishers?
I can’t help feeling a little condescending toward her, though; Kate’s faith in blurbs seems rather naïve to me.
I got Teresa and Paul an anniversary card, and flowers came in the morning. Some friends – a couple with the new baby I met on Saturday night – sent over a huge bouquet. Jade thinks it cost about $200.
Opening the compactor this evening, I shrieked when a mouse popped out of it and scurried off. Teresa and Paul will freak out. I did open the compactor again, but only with Hattie standing guard.
Tonight I called Mark Savage, who agreed to drive here on Saturday. Mark is the only person who would do that, and I’ll be thrilled to see him.
I told Mark I needed to go back to Florida before his school year ends because my parents are moving to Phoenix. Since Mark’s parents lived there half the year, maybe I can see him there.
I also wrote to Aldo Alvarez and told him that “Boys Club” would be in my new book and that Blithe House Quarterly would be getting credit. He asked if I had anything to submit, so I forwarded “Silicon Valley Diet” but since I can’t read it on AOL using Teresa’s Mac, he probably can’t read it, either.
Oh well. It’s okay if the title story of the new collection is first published in the book, though I’d hoped to see the story published somewhere by now.
Wednesday, June 16, 1999
7:30 PM. Last night I had a hard time getting to sleep. Between my conversation with Cameron – at least that’s what instant messaging felt like – and the stuff to do for the book and thinking about being in Florida in two weeks, I couldn’t shut down my brain.
But eventually I drifted off, and although I got only four hours of sleep, that was enough for me to maintain a high energy level all day.
Yesterday I wrote an essay for Pam, one she needs to be admitted to classes for the summer term at Montclair State, and I faxed it to her. But as of this morning she hadn’t gone over to the school yet.
Weeks ago I told Pam that night classes started this week, and she missed the deadline for non-late registration. Now all the night classes are closed and Pam can’t work for Susan taking care of Susan’s kid if she takes day classes.
Teresa says that Pam always sabotages herself like that. But Pam is upset because her dog is dying and that she found out that Norton went to the Hamptons with a woman.
Teresa said that after Pam had lucked into a full-time regular teaching job in the Bronx, all she had to do was pass the teachers’ exam. When she failed it the first time, she could have taken a free course with the UFT, but she was always busy with Passover or seeing her nephew or something and she failed the same exact test with an even lower score.
I just don’t understand some people. Like Cameron: everything yesterday was “Sigh,” “I have no choice,” “Yes, but . . .” and “Then there’s this other problem.”
There are always choices, and the great thing is there are no “wrong” decisions because each path leads to something interesting that gives us an opportunity for growth.
Yeah, you caught me. I was listening to Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway on the LIRR today.
I got into Penn Station at 10:45 AM and took the subway to 14th Street, heading for the Kinko’s on East 12th Street and Fifth Avenue, where I got on http://www.register.com, something I couldn’t do on Teresa’s Mac.
Now I own the domain name http://www.siliconvalleydiet.com for the next two years.
I also read my clips on Lexis and emailed myself versions of the “Diet” story – including one that enabled me to download it to Teresa’s Mac late this afternoon.
I would have spent more time on the PC, but it was nearly noon and I needed to go to Alice’s. She’d been working, of course, talking to a client she discussed with me over lunch at Portofino.
The woman, a Coors daughter-in-law in Palo Alto, had a storybook life until she picked up the phone and discovered her husband having an affair with her best friend; two weeks later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“I don’t normally take on memoirs,” Alice said, “but I broke my rule because of the wonderful voice here.” The book, tentatively titled My Life Is a TV Movie Starring Meredith Baxter Birney and I’ve Lost the Remote, Is funny and gets beyond the cliché of the author’s life story.
But no publisher will take it, and the woman at Random House’s Harmony Books who’s had it five weeks “is a big fat liar” when she tells Alice she plans to make her an offer.
Alice asked if I had any suggestions on who to send it to. Yeah, right – though I did tell her it didn’t sound like something for Soho Press.
Alice said that when she breaks her rules about doing nothing but diet, self-help, how-to and celebrity books, she always has trouble placing the manuscript.
She’s got the same problem with a book on how to plan a funeral – which sounds useful but the topic scares editors off.
On Monday, Alice saw her old Brooklyn College boyfriend Howie and later met his wife and 14-year-old daughter. It wasn’t a shock because she was prepared to expect the guy to looked terrible.
“He’s shaped like a sweet potato – Peter says that he also is but he’s not – and he has awful teeth,” Alice said. “But he’s still warm and witty.”
Alice appreciated Howie telling her anecdotes about her father because with her poor memory, she can barely remember him.
Peter made her ask Howie if he’s resented Alice all these years because she insisted that she and Howie leave Woodstock after the first day because she couldn’t stand the mud and the lack of amenities.
No, Howie said at first. But as Peter told her, any guy who’d worked 25 years as a disc jockey and loved rock as much as Howie did surely thought Alice was being unreasonably princess-like at Woodstock, and upon further questioning, Howie admitted he regretted missing out on some great performances.
I told Alice about my parents’ supposed impending move and I asked for her take on blurbs. She told me I should wait to call in the big guns on a “bigger project,” but I told her that I expect this to be my last collection of short stories.
For me, this is my best shot – and nothing will happen with a 1,000-copy printing of a small press book.
Naturally, I didn’t tell Alice about my $5,000 subsidy of Red Hen Press. Nobody knows but my parents, Teresa, Tom and Rick. Alice would think I’m crazy to pay any money to publishers rather than the other way around.
(Kate did email me and basically said to send newspaper quotes and harvest all the blurbs I can. While I write chatty notes to Kate she remains rather aloof.)
Back at Alice’s apartment, she gave me an issue of Publishers Weekly because it had an interview with “Jen Gish” and Alice remembered I’m teaching Gish Jen’s Mona in the Promised Land in the fall.
Alice opened the latest Richard Simmons Newsletter, which her concierge had for her when we returned from lunch. I guess she’s been editing that for years now.
Saying I’d be in touch, I kissed Alice goodbye and took the Sixth Avenue bus uptown. When it almost immediately got stuck in traffic, I got off and took the subway at 23rd Street, where a blind beggar on the platform was singing “I Like New York in June (How About You?)”
Actually, today was beautiful and delightfully cool. At Penn Station I caught the 2:14 PM home to Locust Valley, arriving to a house empty except for Ollie, who got excited as I made my veggies.
Mom sent my Delta ticket and a few other things, and Teresa left a message that Josh and Pete both called this morning. I called Pete and we rescheduled lunch for tomorrow.
Spurred by hearing an NPR story on ludicrous Republican censorship proposals to combat violence in high schools, I wrote a Boca Raton News Local Opinion column, a trifle on how Congress should ban C-SPAN because the GOP attacks on Clinton have undermined young people’s respect for authority and may be responsible for the Littleton, Colorado high school massacre.
Once done, I printed the column and went out to mail it and buy caffeine-free Diet Pepsi and some pastry sheets for Teresa.
P.J. was here for dinner. The other day Teresa said that he was so homophobic, he wouldn’t come over if her cousins Martin and John were here. I figure he might feel the same way about me, so I after saying hi to P.J. and talking a little with the family, I was happy to go upstairs to my room.
Saturday, June 19, 1999
8 PM. I had a really good time with Mark Savage today. He got here a little after noon and was very impressed with the house. Teresa and Paul were finishing up the day’s cooking and prep work and were getting ready for her to go the party she’s catering in East Setauket. She had a terrible cough last night and barely had any voice today, so I know she’ll be glad to be getting home soon.
Mark and I sat outside for a bit, and then we took off, first heading to Bayville and Ransom Beach. Then we headed to the water in Oyster Bay.
We stopped off at Youngs Cemetery to see Theodore Roosevelt’s grave and then went to Sagamore Hill, where we just missed the house tour but walked around to see what we could on our own for free.
As we did all day, we had stimulating, intelligent conversation. I really should spend more time with Mark, because we’re very much alike. He’s a vegan who eats healthy, lifts weights, listens to NPR, likes classical music, and is a dedicated teacher.
Mark told me that this year he had his best sixth grade class yet. He said that my telling him last summer that Ebonics/Black English follows its own definite rules helped him out a lot in dealing with his students’ writing.
Teaching is becoming no easier, but Mark has developed enough experience to work a little smarter and have more free time, though his graduate classes at Brooklyn College take up a lot of time. He took two classes last fall, one in the spring and two this summer. He’ll soon be halfway toward his master’s as a reading specialist.
Mark still moonlights as a proofreader for $20 an hour on Friday nights and on weekends at Shearman & Sterling, where the conversations among workers, he says, are ten times more intellectual than the ones in the teachers’ lounge.
Next month Mark’s sons and daughter-in-law and little grandchildren are coming to stay with him. His apartment on Avenue H off Ocean Parkway is a two-bedroom and he’s got four futon couches.
Mark said I could stay with him if I ever come to New York City, and I’d love to take him up on it one day. Since his parents live in Phoenix half the year, we may also see each other in Arizona occasionally.
Anyway, Mark was hungry so I directed him to Jericho Turnpike in Syosset, where we went to the Empire Szechuan Gourmet restaurant next to Borders. We had tofu dishes from their “Revolution Diet” menu that featured steamed veggies, no sauces, and a meal of less than 450 calories.
Then we went to Borders, where we looked at the hysterically funny Our Dumb Century: The Onion Presents 100 Years of Headlines from America’s Finest News Source and some magazines.
I got iced tea and we sat by the window. It really was a delight to talk with Mark, and I now remember why he was my best friend 29 summers ago. (Like Alice, Mark can’t remember anything, and I have to remind him of events in his own life.)
Tomorrow Mark is going with his father to see his grandfather, who, at 103, no longer knows who anyone is. Mark is the only person I know who has both a grandparent and a grandchild.
Leaving the bookstore, Mark said he wanted to go to someplace where he could see nature: “Maybe a marina?”
My first thought was Garvies Point in Glen Cove. The museum was closed, but I really wanted to walk the trails in the woods (we rolled our sacks over our jeans because of all the worries about ticks everywhere) and then down to the craggy cliffs to the beach at Morgan Park.
It was a beautiful afternoon – sunny, dry and about 75° – and we stayed there till almost 6 PM, talking and looking out at Hempstead Harbor and Long Island Sound and sailboats and geese and Central American families bathing and teens smoking.
Back here, we talked for another hour on the deck and the time continued to fly by before Mark left at 7:30 PM. What a pleasant day.
This morning I relaxed while Teresa worked like a demon. I was upstairs reading when I heard her scream and then say “Paul!”
I had a vision of Teresa discovering Paul dead or collapsed, but it turned out she called him after spotting “Mickey,” as I did, scurrying out of the compactor when she opened it.
Tomorrow 15 to 17 people are coming here for Father’s Day dinner: her parents, her sister’s family, Evelyn and Buddy, Paul’s kids and mother and God knows who else, so Teresa will be cooking up a storm again. I don’t know how she does it.