A Writer’s Diary Entries From Mid-April, 2000

 

Wednesday, April 12, 2000

4 PM. Today has been a horrendous day. Everything went wrong except my teaching, which was brilliant – and I’m not usually so confident. Of course, my class was the one thing I had control over.

Last night I fell asleep at 11 PM, but once again, I woke up around 4 AM and couldn’t get back to sleep.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve had such a bad spell of insomnia. Because last Saturday night was the only really good night’s sleep I’ve had in the past ten days or more, perhaps I’m overreacting to everything.

Here’s what went wrong: On Yahoo mail, I just received a note from Kate dated last Thursday, asking where I want the 50 copies of the book and my postcards sent. Of all the email for Yahoo to screw up, that was probably the most important.

When Kate wrote me on Saturday, it was because she thought I hadn’t responded to the first email. So I could have had the books already. Now I’ll probably get them on Friday at the earliest if they were sent out Monday via surface mail, as I expect.

The worst problem is that I was adding email addresses to my address books when suddenly I had a glitch and I went from 3020 names to 2080 names. I lost nearly a thousand names!

Later I found that I’d lost everything under the letters S-Z, one-third of my address book, representing God-knows-how-many hours of tedious work.

I feel so forlorn, that everything I did was a waste. I have no idea how to even start figuring out what’s missing.

Of course, this is Yahoo’s fault, not mine. I should not have depended on them. I guess I’ll become more sanguine about this as time goes by, but it’s a big loss in my plans to publicize the book. I’ll never be able to recreate that list. I’m disgusted with the whole thing already.

I finally figured out how to write to Yahoo and tell them, but I doubt they’ll ever be able to get those thousand names back. Well, I once thought I wouldn’t have two thousand names, and if Kate is sending postcards, I still have my regular addresses list.

So what else went wrong today? I stepped on my foot badly and my tendonitis kicked in; the same thing happened very suddenly on Monday.

I got stuck at Nova without an umbrella during a downpour. Borders didn’t have the new Publishers Weekly, but if they had had it, there wouldn’t have been a review of my book anyway.

Did anything go right? Well, I did go to Publix just now and get the groceries I needed, and I did just put up a wash – though all the washers were busy, so there’ll be problem getting a dryer.

The point is that what I could take care of, I did. I need to cede control of the other stuff – stop grinding your teeth, Grayson! – and let go.

As I said, I had a wonderful class, making brilliant connections between Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education and between Cooper v. Aaron and an NPR report on black parents trying to end court-ordered school desegregation in Louisville.

Except for the laundry room, I ain’t going nowhere the rest of the day. Bed is the best place for me to be. I’m tired, cranky, depressed, disgusted and overwhelmed.

Thursday, April 13, 2000

9 PM. The book arrived at 3 PM today. I really wasn’t expecting it until Monday, fearing that they’d sent it five-day ground with UPS rather than three-day air.

I was reading the book on tobacco litigation when I heard a knock on the door and I was going to prepare myself before I looked at copies – but the package tumbled open.

My reaction: The cover is truly horrendous, one of the ugliest I could imagine – though not quite as bad as the cover of Lincoln’s Doctor’s Dog. There’s an outline of a barechested guy, but he’s disgusting-looking rather than cute, so the effect is – as I think Judge Woolsey said of Ulysses – emetic rather than erotic.

It took me awhile to realize there was no photo of me, which indicates that I’m just as happy not to have it – but right away I saw there was no bio note, either.

They used my jacket copy summary about the book, though they didn’t catch a typo (a word should be plural, not singular).

But the back cover has quotes from reviews of my earlier books from the Times Book Review, Rolling Stone, etc., giving the mistaken impression they’re concerning The Silicon Valley Diet, which is misleading and unethical.

I didn’t catch the Tama Janowitz blurb on the lower left corner of the front cover until two hours after I’d seen the book.

The trim is so tiny that I was able to send copies to Teresa, my family, Chauncey Mabe and Jesse Monteagudo in regular 6” x 9” manila envelopes. And the text is crammed onto the paper, with the final story ending on the bottom of the last page without a blank page after it.

On the other hand, it could be worse. The cover might grow on me, and I like the opening page of “More praise for Richard Grayson” featuring good blurbs from newspapers and magazines.

It’s a book.

I remember 21 years ago when I drove up to Manhattan to Taplinger’s office in mid-afternoon and Wes showed me Hitler, I said, “it resembles a real book” or something like that. What do parents say when they see their newborn infants?

Last night I managed to sleep deeply and long enough so that I couldn’t complain about being tired today.

What I could complain about is my foot. Since Monday I’ve been getting pain in the tendon when I stepped down a certain way, particularly in going downstairs, and it almost feels as if I’m going to rupture the tendon. I may resort to the Camwalker this weekend.

Other than that, I’m okay, the same way that other than everything I complained about, my book is okay.

Seeing my book makes me less upset about the thousand missing email addresses. At my office at 7 AM, I added the easy ones – the ones from the Yahoo email search of Web addresses for the New York Times, San Jose Mercury News, the well, etc.

But why have I bothered to do this at all? It’s not as if my little book is going to do anything. Maybe this is how I felt when I Survived Caracas Traffic came out, and it explains the mystery of why I didn’t try harder to promote that book.

I was also expecting the postcards, but they didn’t come. I did email Valentine Publishing Group (not Kate) about whether they were sending out review copies or postcards to people on my mailing list. If I had gotten the postcards, I would have taken one to Kinko’s to see if I could get more printed up. My print mailing list is probably a better bet than email.

Of course, since the book isn’t listed on VPG’s website – it hasn’t been updated since Terry Wolverton’s book came out, and I know that their new fiction anthology, as well as my book, has been published – and it’s not on Amazon so nobody could order it anyway, and VPG can’t take online orders.

Well, I’ll see what happens next. Probably nothing, of course.

I went to check at Borders both at 9 AM and at 7:30 PM, but the new PW hadn’t come in. Not that they’ll review my book, of course; I just need to torture myself.

At Borders, I did chat with Nathan while he was on a break about the stories he’s writing, and we spoke about Nabokov and Pynchon and Don DeLillo and Mark Leyner and other literary stuff. Maybe Nathan can order a copy of the book for the store.

Also at the bookstore, I bought last Sunday’s Tallahassee Democrat. I’m convinced I can find an apartment for June even if I go there after school ends in two weeks. Charles said that apartments there will be vacant when students leave in May.

Charles is a bit upset that the hiring committee wants Gary Gershman rather than his friend Nick for the permanent Legal Studies position. He didn’t like Gary’s teaching and style – probably because they’re too much like mine.

Monday, April 17, 2000

3 PM. It’s a sunny, perfect day. I’m a little tired, but I slept deeply last night and I’m sure I’ll be fine for my evening class if I just lie down for an hour before dinner.

I’m better prepared for class than usual, having graded the late papers and read reviews of Cornered and other articles about tobacco litigation in Lexis this morning.

I got to the office early and read email from Mark Savage and George Myers.

George told me he left his position as assistant arts editor at the Columbus Dispatch to get away from a depressed boss and that in going back to news reporting, his new supervisor has given him some leeway to exercise his creativity.

In class, I lectured on the curbs on executive power, touching on the Steel Seizure, Pentagon Papers and Nixon Tapes cases. Then I gave the class 55 minutes to take my test, 30 multiple choice (the new buzzword is “selected response”) questions.

Since I can’t gauge the test’s reliability or validity, I’ll give the papers a raw score and then curve them accordingly. But all of the students had finished by 9:40 AM, so I got out of class early along with them.

During the next few hours, I did the usual Web surfing and recorded the grades of papers I had marked.

Home at 12:15 PM, I had lunch, lay down for 30 minutes, and listened to a report about the D.C. protests against the World Bank and IMF.

It’s interesting to see that these young people seem to be aligned with union leaders – a far cry from those of us in the antiwar movement when the AFL-CIO was hawkish and hardhats beat up peace demonstrators.

Although I think the IMF and World Bank and World Trade Organization are generally bad actors around the world, I’m not sure globalization is a bad thing unless it means American hegemony exploitation of workers and degradation of the environment. While I believe that there’s some already some degree of both of these phenomena, they are being set of by other benefits, including for the poorest people in the least developed countries.

*

10 PM. It was a pretty good night. I’ve just gotten in.

Class was mostly a discussion, and as usual, not on the highest level. I hope my students’ reaction papers are better, but I’ll find out by the weekend.

Still, though I’m fond of the students although I don’t know what they said about me in their teacher evaluations. Probably that I’m disorganized.

Well, I still feel I did the best I could this year, with all these new courses starting every eight weeks.

I am certain that I will miss teaching, which is probably why I’ll end up doing at least some teaching in Tallahassee.

Nathan emailed me to say that my book’s ISBN didn’t work when he tried to order copies for the store, and he wondered if the book is actually “out” yet. That’s discouraging.

I hate to bother Kate because I know she’ll be annoyed with any questions.

I’ve already half-got the feeling that now that she and Mark have their money from me, they’re going to do nothing to help sell the book.

I guess I should trust them more. Why wouldn’t they want to sell copies?

But because I subsidized the book, I’ve always had the feeling that Red Hen Press published it only for my $5,000 and that Mark and Kate don’t like the book and don’t like me.

Tuesday, April 18, 2000

9 PM. I’ve been totally farblonjet for the past few hours, ever since I got the mail at 5 PM.

Totally unexpectedly, I found the big white envelope from Arizona State admitting me for the fall to the Master of Mass Communications program. I don’t even remember sending all my transcripts and recommendation letters to ASU.

But it’s made me rethink going to Tallahassee, and I’ve been obsessing – or perhaps more kindly, ruminating – about the possibility of going to Phoenix instead.

Ever since I got word of my acceptance to FAMU when I was in Arizona in December, I’d put ASU out of my mind. Am I out of my mind to consider it now?

It’s still much more expensive, and as a nonresident till at least next year, I’ll be paying a ridiculous tuition. And a 45-credit M.M.C. isn’t as tailored to what I want as is a 39-credit program in journalism.

Of course ASU is a better school than FAMU, and Phoenix has lots of advantages, and I have to admit that being home to my parents and brothers is one of them.

Family is family, finally. And Sat Darshan is there while I have no close friends in Tallahassee. Maybe I don’t want to be alone.

Phoenix has all the advantages and disadvantages of a huge metropolis: compared to Tallahassee, it’s cosmopolitan, with a lot more of everything, and it’s not Southern but Western.

I’ve liked Phoenix from the first time I arrived there nearly two years ago. It’s comfortable, and while traffic is horrendous, I know my way around.

If I stay in one of those extended-stay hotels when I get there, I wouldn’t have to rent an apartment until the fall. I could leave things at my parents’ house and spend time at Dairy Hollow and in New York without paying rent for the summer months. (I’ve pretty much decided to give up all my furniture.)

Well, it sounds like I’m leaning toward Phoenix, but I also have many misgivings. Life in Tallahassee would be easier than in Phoenix, where I’ll have to struggle more, and I don’t know if I can deal with that as I near 50.

On the other hand, my ultimate goal is to move out West, so why go through the intermediate step of Tallahassee?

There have been other times in my life when I was all set to go to SUNY Albany or the doctoral program at the University of Miami but ended up elsewhere. It’s not that I think I’ll “ruined my life” if I choose “incorrectly”; I’ll do fine wherever I go. It’s just now that I unexpectedly find myself with a choice, that I need to reconsider all my options.

After all, I was going to go to the University of Maryland in 1998 until I unexpectedly got a fellowship here, and I was going to Maryland a year ago until the visiting professorship in Legal Studies at Nova landed in my lap.

I’ve been so nonplussed that I burned my hand getting the bean-and-cheese burrito for my dinner out of the microwave.

I spoke to Jonathan, who’s registering at ASU tomorrow, and to Mom, who began obsessing, wondering what I’ll do about my “dishes.” (I basically use the same plate over and over again.)

Not knowing what else to do, I went to Nova, where I found Micki sitting outside with Adrianne, one of my former BPM students.

Micki herself is moving to Orlando on July 1 to run the out-of-town programs from there. I told her about my situation, and while she said she could give me courses in Tallahassee, “Richard, you’ve got to follow your heart.”

In the office, I wrote to Teresa, Kevin and Sat Darshan, using my friends to try to think this through.

I know that once I do make a decision – by the end of next week – I won’t look back or second-guess myself. But until then I’ll stay awake nights deliberating.

Last night I graded my students’ papers and scaled the letter grades accordingly. Sheila Alu wrote an amazing, law review-quality paper on Justice O’Connor.

Not feeling rested, I spent the morning from 9:30 AM onward at my office, emailing friends, gathering email addresses, and making up a list of “Selected Burger Court Decisions” for my day class.

After lunch, I went to Barnes & Noble for a cup of iced tea (no refill). I read most but not all of the paper there. There was no review of my book in the new issue of Publishers Weekly.

Teresa sent an excited note titled “The book!!!” She spent yesterday in the Bronx school with Pam’s adorable second graders and was so thrilled to find my book in her mailbox when she got back to Locust Valley. Teresa said the cover was “great.”

Kevin wrote that he’s up for a commercial in Venice this afternoon for Grill Meats and that if he gets it, he’s going to come to Florida on vacation.

I also sent a supposedly funny press release to New Times.

Thursday, April 20, 2000

8 PM. Last night I went back to my office for an hour and then came home and tried to veg out with TV till 10 PM. It was about 11:30 PM when I fell asleep, but I had weird dreams, awoke at 3:30 AM, and never got back to sleep.

While you’d imagine that I’d be thinking about my immediate plans, I also began remembering stuff from I-don’t-know-where, like how Leon tried to get the Mugwumps to run Charlie for student government president at Brooklyn College in 1971.

Oh, it just hit me why I was thinking about that: On WB’s Felicity last night, the plot revolved around the student council president election. I still sometimes think that I could use my now 30-year-old material about LaGuardia Hall and my college friends in fiction or a screenplay.

Anyway, I’ve been even less coherent today than I was yesterday, but twice as tired. But I’m now definite about going to ASU.

I surfed their website today and they do have a great faculty compared to FAMU, including some professors who are lawyers or political scientists. Once I see the intellectual stuff, I know I’ll feel comfortable.

What I fantasize about is, of course, having professors see how bright and talented I am and that leading to interesting stuff. I know that with my CV, I can’t get an academic job until people get to know me.

And as Teresa said, if you don’t like Arizona, you can leave. Sat Darshan is excited that I’m moving there.

Dad seemed noncommittal when I called him an hour ago, though he suggested I look into having someone drive the car to Arizona for me, something I hadn’t thought of.

This morning at 7 AM, I put dirty laundry in the washer, lay down back in bed for an hour, put the clothes in the dryer, got back in bed for another hour, fetched and put away the clothes, and got back in bed for another hour. The rest helped a little, but it wasn’t like real nighttime sleep.

After a light workout, I went to the Hollywood Barnes & Noble to have iced tea, read the paper, and get the new issue of TWN, though I didn’t really expect Jesse to review my book right away.

This afternoon at school, I emailed Kate with some of the questions I had about the book.

Other email: Patrick is working hard at getting P’an Ku out; while he sort of ridicules my continually going back to school, he said he’d like to do something similar.

I congratulated George when I read in the Dispatch that he got a $5,000 Ohio individual artist fellowship.

Teresa said she went to a seder in the Village with Diane, and the rabbi was a doddering old man who barely got through the service.

Mark Savage flew to Los Angeles to spend the holiday with his brother and brother-in-law, and his parents, who drove in from Phoenix.

Jaime set me a very brief note wishing me well. His final “Stay in touch” was his way of being polite.

Set Darshan welcomed me to “a right-to-work state” and tried to list the conservative horrors of Arizona. I told her that I’ll bet Florida has lots more pickup trucks with Confederate flags then Arizona does.

Arizona is much more Republican than Florida, but TWN had an article in which Tempe’s gay Republican mayor discussed what kind of guys he’s attracted to.

I got accepted at Ragdale, but it’s for the month of September, which must have been my third choice. Still, it’s always nicer to get accepted than rejected. So this summer I only got into Dairy Hollow, but summers are hard at artists’ colonies.

I called the FAFSA student financial aid people and had my info sent to ASU, and I emailed Lisa, the coordinator of graduate studies at ASU, who said she’s mailing registration material out next week.

It’s a beautiful evening, But I need to finish reading The Buffalo Creek Disaster and grade a few more papers. Maybe if I have insomnia again, I’ll have time to do everything in the middle of the night.