A Writer’s Diary Entries From Mid-December, 1999
Monday, December 13, 1999
3 PM. Last night I slept fairly well and had a couple of dreams set in New York in which Grandma Ethel appeared. It’s six years since she died. I guess if she had still been alive all these years, I would have made different choices about where I’ve lived.
This morning I began feeling low-level anxiety about my trip. It’s that gnawing feeling at the pit of my stomach, but as uncomfortable as it can be, I welcome it because it tells me I am doing something that’s making me a little afraid – and that means I’m doing something challenging, something that promises growth.
It’s been a long time since I’ve listened to Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, but I recall the book saying we need to turn fear into a companion that accompanies us on all our adventures as we take risks.
It would be easy to stay here over the holidays, go into the office every day, sit at the computer and plan my winter courses and publicity ideas for the book. But in May I’m facing a scary challenge – scarier than anything since I left Gainesville in 1997 after six years there – and I’d better get some practice in changing my life.
I haven’t felt this way since the last days of June, when I was preparing to leave Teresa’s house after staying there a while. Long Island was so comfortable for me, but of course, two months earlier, I felt anxiety when I was about to fly to New York.
I expect some problems while I’m in Arizona – illness, most likely, or an accident – but I need to get away. Moreover, I truly want to travel. I’ve always wanted to travel, which is why that deep down at my most phobic, I’ve endured fear as I went on planes and moved frequently and lived in a lot of new places.
Remember me thirty years ago, when I came to Miami Beach with Dad at Christmas? Or twenty years ago, when I flew to Fort Lauderdale to see my parents’ new Florida home?
Even before I was 10, I didn’t let my fear stop me from going to Puerto Rico – even if Dr. Stein had to give me a tranquilizer to take before the plane ride.
Though I’m still subject to anxiety attacks in the air, I no longer fear flying.
Anyway, I began packing this morning, and although I’ve packed lighter than usual, I think I’m going to eliminate some articles of clothing. I usually travel with two suitcases, and it would be an accomplishment if I could get by with one. After all, I went to Philadelphia with one suitcase for a week in June – now I’m going to Arizona for only two weeks.
I should probably take either or both of the textbooks for next term with me, but I could also plan for next semester’s courses without doing so. I expect to have time to create my syllabi when I’m back in Florida over the weekend before school begins.
In the office today I did my Core Studies grades, which were very high and quite narrow: I gave lots of A-’s but only nine A’s out of 28 students. Even if Ben is upset with my higher-than-average grades, knowing that I will be gone after next semester, he’ll probably leave me alone.
I unsubscribed from my listservs and online newspapers (the Herald and Mercury News) to limit my email messages while I’m gone. Actually, it may be nice to be unwired for a while.
On the Web, I noticed that the nearest real bookstore to my parents’ house – by “real,” I mean a bookstore with a café where I can hang out – is the Borders in Mesa, which has to be around 20 miles away.
I guess I’ll go a lot to the Superstition Springs Mall on Power Road, which is “only” seven miles from my parents’.
As I wrote Teresa – the closing for the lumber yard should be over by now – I hope I don’t go buggy in Apache Junction.
*
9 PM. I feel more relaxed now, and I’m going to try to enjoy my last night here. Yes, tomorrow is my last night, but I’ll probably be awake a lot of it, knowing I have to get up before 5 AM on Wednesday. (Of course, I often get up around then, though I usually drift back to sleep.)
At 3:30 PM today, I went out to the Davie Public Library, where I checked my email.
Les Lindley wanted to know where I was leaving off in Constitutional History I, and Backinprint.com sent a reply to my query, saying that they never received my submission for With Hitler in New York, but that they are extending the free membership for all Authors Guild members until April 30.
The postal mail was here when I got back from campus. I got four credit card bills I’d already paid and a sweet Christmas card from Kevin.
After a quick Weight Watchers dinner, I returned to Nova, where I logged on to Backinprint.com, resubmitting the application for Hitler.
At Barnes & Noble later, I saw some of the Authors Guild-reprinted trade paperbacks, and Hitler would be nice to have in that format.
I remember how disappointed I was when I learned in the fall of 1980 that Taplinger had decided not to print a trade paper version of the book. That’s actually what decided me to leave New York and move to Florida.
If Hitler were in trade paperback form now, I could let go of all the hardcovers I’ve got.
I kept the evening class for a little more than an hour, giving them a brief overview of Reconstruction, the Civil War Amendments, Johnson’s impeachment and the Slaughterhouse and Civil Rights cases.
I told Ann Page that ethically I could not accept her Christmas present, but I was very grateful for the card. Dave Merrikan was really in pain from his knee, and he needs another operation. He was the only student who said he would have to email his paper to me tomorrow.
In my office I holistically graded the final exams and the late papers and then I figured out tentative final grades. Out of 18 students, six got A’s and the two students who never showed up got F’s. I also gave one C+, three B’s, three B+’s and three A-’s.
I’m sure some of the students will be disappointed, but let’s see if any challenge their grades. It’s always been hard for me to judge students. Even though my grades are usually very high, I worry that I was unfair to someone.
George Alexakis left a voicemail for me. He’s got a Language 1500 class next term that meets five weekends: Friday evenings starting at 5:30 PM and then Saturday morning starting at 8:30 AM and going to early afternoon.
While I really could use the extra $2000, the class sounds like such a pain, especially traveling to God-knows-where in Miami. I guess I’ll think about it for a little while before I get back to George.
After cleaning up my email accounts – the different ones on Yahoo and the ones I rarely use on Netscape, Hotmail, Excite, etc. – I headed home for the night.
The fall semester is over. My foot hurts, so I’m icing it.
Wednesday, December 15, 1999
7 PM in Apache Junction – though of course my body is still two hours ahead. I’m in Jonathan’s tiny room, as he’s not returning from work at Sports Authority for another hour.
Last night I didn’t sleep much and woke up at 4:30 AM. The cab arrived just before 6 AM. Tom, the driver, was a former high school English teacher about my age, and he knew a lot about literature, so I had a pleasant ride.
The America West direct flight to Phoenix lasted a bit less than five hours and was very boring, though I did pay to see the film Runaway Bride and had my usual moment of nausea – but nothing resembling nervousness, much less a full-blown anxiety attack.
Changing planes on other airlines makes for a longer trip, but it also breaks up the monotony of a continuous flight.
Unfortunately, my tendonitis is as bad as it’s been for weeks, and so I probably made it worse during the day with all the walking I did.
We arrived at Sky Harbor on time at 10:45 AM, but the luggage took forever to get unloaded. It did not help that on first go-round I put my own suitcase back on the carousel because I thought I had the wrong one.
Getting the rental car from National was kind of a pain, but they let me select from any compact, so I took a forest green Chevy Cavalier so new – only 614 miles on the odometer – that it has only a temporary license sticker.
At first I felt disoriented, but I’ve been in Phoenix enough so that the brownness and cacti and mountains are by now somewhat familiar, as was the ride from I-10 to U.S. 60.
But before I could face my parents, I needed to stop at the Borders across from the Fiesta Mall on Alma School for some iced tea. I didn’t sit there for too long, just long enough to center myself and read a few pages of today’s New York Times.
It took about 20 to 25 minutes to get to the house once I got back on the freeway. This neighborhood is very new, and many of the houses on the other side of the street are still under construction. The sidewalks outside – Mom and Dad have the corner house – have the date of construction “1999” stamped into them.
Although I probably wasn’t very effusive in my greeting, it was nice to see my parents and the dog again although China, who’s now so old that she is basically blind, barked and growled when I walked in until she got to smell me and recognize my scent.
I sat down at the kitchen table to chat for a bit, and then Mom and Dad showed me around the house. It’s a lot smaller than the one in Florida, though the master bedroom is quite large. The other bedrooms remind me of the tight squeeze in my tiny bedroom back in our Brooklyn house on East 56th Street.
That took me out for a drive to see Apache Junction. The main drag, Apache Trail (which becomes Main Street in Mesa and then Apache Road in Tempe; all the east-west mile streets go through to Phoenix) is a horrendously ugly retail strip with the most upscale stores being supermarkets and a Kmart.
Later, Dad and I went to the Apache Junction Public Library, where he gets the books he devours daily. It was filled with very old Midwestern types, and in the parking lot Dad kept pointing out all the Minnesota license plates of the snowbirds who dominate this area this time of year.
A.J. is certainly very old, very Midwestern and very white bread. (I don’t want to say “white trashy,” but that too.) It made me grateful I was able to see young people with artistic tattoos and pierced chins and noses at the Borders café earlier today.
Marc had the day off but was having a root canal at his dentist. When he got home, I accompanied him to Power Road, where all the stores are (near the Superstition Springs Mall), and he used his Circuit City credit card to buy a Compaq computer system he’s trying to set up at the moment.
I can see that Marc needs to get away from Mom and Dad as much as possible because they’re as crazy-making as ever and maybe worse.
After living in South Florida for two decades, Dad is having trouble adjusting to the cold even though today’s high was 67°. (I didn’t feel chilly until after sundown.) Dad, of course, is also having to adjust to not working “after fifty years.”
Mom hasn’t driven here even one time yet, Marc said.
Thursday, December 16, 1999
1 PM. I’m in Marc’s room. He’s working late tonight, so I’ve been able to have privacy and also use the computer I helped him set up last night.
Alice emailed that she came home early from four days in Los Angeles because of bad news: After years of suffering in silence, her brother has left his wife, whom Alice has always described as a monster.
Poor Michael: he worries that his wife could take the kids back to her native Australia.
Alice says she’s also annoyed at Wesley, who backed out of the book project at the most crucial point: just when the proposal, with his name, was submitted to the publisher.
“It was a good suggestion, so I don’t blame you,” Alice wrote, “but Wesley ended up being very childish and immature.”
I responded by reminding Alice that she was the one who came up with the idea and all I did was supply Wes’s address when she asked me for it!
Teresa reported that Monday’s closing on the lumber yard went well, though their $1.7 million check is a drop in the bucket to Charles Wang.
They had to put the money in the bank for two weeks, where it’s earning only 5¼% interest, but they’ll invest it soon and pay the IRS. The real estate broker got $100,000 for doing practically nothing.
Teresa is still busy with her catering and preparing for the two days of Christmas celebrations at her house. Paul is as calm as it’s possible for him to be, and though the kids came over on Monday night, he’s not giving away his money anytime soon. He and Teresa need to go slowly with their windfall.
On Lexis, I noticed that Susan Mernit will be in charge of all Netcenter content as the new vice president of Netscape. She’s really important now, but of course Susan is extremely competent and talented. Obviously, I’d like to get her help with my book or try to get some writing work from Susan, but of course she’s much too busy to care about me – and why should she?
But I’ll send her a notice about the book.
A young-looking 47-year-old guy replied to my Planet Out ad, and he sounded nice, So I wrote him at his AOL address asking if he wanted to get together while I’m in Phoenix.
Blithe House Quarterly is now up live on the Web. It’s too bad the link I gave Aldo to Valentine Publishing Group/Red Hen Press doesn’t yet have anything about my book.
Last night I slept on the air mattress Jonathan got at his store after Mom inflated it using the hose from her vacuum cleaner. I didn’t sleep very much and was up at 3:45 AM.
At 5 AM, I had breakfast and then exercised to a Homestretch video. (Stupidly, I mistakenly brought that instead of a Body Electric tape.)
While Jonathan and Marc we’re getting ready for work, Mom was in the kitchen and Dad was out walking, I used the shower in the master bedroom.
Then I went to Safeway on Apache Trail for some groceries. (My parents say they usually go to Fry’s or Bashas’.) I used the Safeway discount card I got when I lived in Silicon Valley.
Walking around the supermarket, I came to believe that the people in Apache Junction seem to fall into one of two categories: doddering or redneck.
After eating a yellow sweet potato I got at Safeway – I wish they had them back East – I took the freeway to Alma School Road, back to Borders.
I stayed there well over an hour, reading Wednesday’s New York Times over iced tea and also collected names of reviewers from Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review.
In the afternoon, using Marc’s computer, I got the email and property addresses of these reviewers from Lexis, Yahoo and various university websites. Then I went out to Taco Bell, where I got a large Diet Pepsi and read for an hour.
Around 3 PM, as I was parking in front of the house, I realized that it’s actually quite pretty here. From just in front of the house, there’s a startlingly clear view down the block of Superstition Mountain framed by the 14-foot saguaro cactus (currently topped with a Santa hat) next door and lots of palm trees.
My foot hurts although I guess it’s not as bad as it could be. I put ice on my inflamed tendon and hope that will help.
Luckily I can escape this house with my rental car or otherwise my parents would probably drive me crazy. They drive each other crazy a bit, too.
Saturday, December 18, 1999
9 PM. I slept only sporadically last night. Jonathan came home after midnight and went straight into our parents’ bedroom.
I could hear that he was upset that he’d been given only a few hours for the coming week at Sports Authority. As Dad told me today, Jonathan needs to find a better job.
I asked Dad if Marc could get Jonathan hired at AirTouch, and Dad said Jonathan didn’t know anything about cell phones. But what did Marc know about them before he was hired?
Well, maybe it’s better that Jonathan got out of the army/navy store in Davie and had to face the fact that he was at a dead end.
My tendonitis has been acting up since I’ve been here, but it hasn’t been stopping me from doing anything.
After my usual morning routine, I left the house at 9:30 AM, going to Power Road, about seven miles away, which is really the nearest place where there is what seems to me civilization. I found a Starbucks and read today’s New York Times for a couple of hours while nursing an iced tea.
Instead of driving back via the Superstition Freeway, I returned to Apache Junction via Main Street/Apache Trail, where I found Borders’ downscale brother store, a Waldenbooks & More.
Back home at noon, I rather cheesily asked Sat Darshan if we could postpone my visit until tomorrow because of my 4:30 PM meeting with Daryl. Today would have been better for her, but she said that tomorrow I could go with her to the nursing home to visit her father.
After lunch, I proposed to Dad that he accompany me to the Robinsons-May at the Superstition Springs Mall. He did, but he didn’t like my making him wear a seat belt, which he had no idea how to put on.
It was one of those times when he seemed very much an old man. After all, who doesn’t wear seat belts?
When I exited the freeway at Power Road, we were immediately stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. As Dad said, today was the last Saturday before Christmas and perhaps the biggest shopping day of the year.
So I turned our jaunt into a ride around east Mesa and an expedition with Dad to the Apache Junction Safeway, which was filled with what Dad derisively terms “hicks.” He feels very out of place here.
Marc had been exploring on his new computer and somehow reconfigured things so that it was impossible for him to log on, and by the time Dad and I returned home, Marc had been trying to fix things for about two hours.
I diagnosed the problem as having to do with the Microsoft Outlook program, which can screw up systems badly and suggested he call Support for help in undoing his mistake.
I left the house at 3 PM, heading back to Mesa. At the Kinko’s on Southern Avenue at Dobson, across from Mesa Community College, I went on the Web for six minutes just to check email, but the only new item was a forwarded joke from Celeste.
Somehow I managed to find a space in the parking lot at the Fiesta Mall, and right at the Robinsons-May door that I entered, I found a display of plush toys.
I finally settled on a cow that goes “moo-moo” when it’s squeezed, and although the price tag said $11 marked down from $18, my Robinsons-May card got charged only $7.24. I hope Kiran Kaur likes it.
They had only half a cup of iced tea left at the Borders café but said they’d give me a free refill after making another batch. But I barely drank my initial half cup and just sat at the counter.
Although I didn’t think Daryl would show, he did, and at my suggestion we went to the outside tables to chat as the sun began to set.
Daryl is not unattractive, but he’s not my type physically and I could sense that I am not his. Still, we had a pleasant conversation, mostly about Phoenix and South Florida and other places where we had lived.
He’s been working for Northwest Airlines and its corporate predecessors for many years, and he liked Phoenix now after spending years here. Just before he moved to Arizona, he had been living in Los Angeles and Honolulu.
I’m sure that, as usual, I talked too much because I don’t know a lot about him after chatting for 75 minutes. I gave him my parents’ number before he left even though I don’t expect him to phone.
It’s interesting that I was not at all nervous about what kind of impression I would make; I really was figuring that he needed to be the one to please me.
Daryl is quite sensible, and he seems perceptive and kind, but who knows if we have anything in common? Clearly, we were both more attracted to other guys in the store.
Well, that’s life: no harm done, and I got to meet a decent person. It also made me feel different from my parents and brothers (or at least from Jonathan), who don’t try to get out and meet people.
I drove back slowly, checking out the Christmas lights on downtown Mesa’s Main Street; the display at the Mormon Temple was spectacular.
I got back here just as Dad and Jonathan were bringing in Domino’s Pizza for dinner. But I had the Weight Watchers Sichuan chicken that I’d bought at Safeway to share with China.
You’ve Got Mail was playing on HBO, and I enjoyed seeing it again, especially the scenes of the Upper West Side, exactly one year after I’d caught it on the Friday it opened in Mesa.
The Internet email exchanges between the characters reminded me of how I got to meet with Daryl.
Hey, I met Gianni online, and Kevin, too – today I sent Kevin a Christmas card in return for his – as well as Jaime and other nice guys. I still believe meeting someone online is possible.