A Writer’s Diary Entries From Early September, 2000
Monday, September 4, 2000
7:30 PM on Labor Day. I’d wanted to mark half the English 105 papers today, and I’ve done all but eight of the 24 papers so far.
Tomorrow, after I teach at MCC, I’ll have the whole day to do the rest because I no longer have the Methodology class.
The papers from my 105 class are better than those from the 101, but not as good as I would have expected. In the end, they’re all still just kids – though there were two or three papers that showed a really fine intelligence or talent at work.
Anyway, I do feel better about grading. It will never be pleasant, but if I look at it as a way I can not only help students but also sharpen my own critical and analytical skills and learn how to become a better writer – then I guess I can live with that.
This morning at 4 AM, after maybe five hours’ sleep, I awoke with a feeling of dread that I found difficult to shake.
At times today I had that burning in the pit of my stomach. Even now as I write about it, I can feel that unpleasant sensation.
Maybe it’s emotional. This is just such a rough time for me, and I don’t see any change, a time when I’ll turn the corner and suddenly feel more comfortable in Phoenix or better about my future.
Probably, if it comes, it will only be gradual. I didn’t think the adjustment would be this difficult for me, but I feel so wiped out much of the time. Perhaps I need therapy or counseling or a new antidepressant.
Right now I’d like to try to handle this on my own because I don’t think my distress has gotten out of hand yet. I’d like to know that I could adjust to my new life – whatever that is – by myself.
But why do I feel that way?
I went over to Sat Darshan’s this morning. Kiran can now say my name, and she likes playing with me. We looked at Clifford the Big Red Dog books as his show was playing on PBS. Gurudaya came out of her room and joined us for a while.
Gurujot left for India on Friday. I never got to see her this summer, though of course she was in Los Angeles most of the time. It feels like she and Sat Darshan don’t really talk.
Last night I said to Dad on the phone how I can’t understand how he and Mom and Marc and Jonathan all live in the same house and never communicate. Of course he immediately replied, “Okay, well, I’m getting off the phone.”
I guess Sat Darshan’s family has their own problems.
I left soon after Nirankar and Trevor arrived and the whole tone of the house changed: suddenly Kiran was crying – which she hadn’t been for 90 minutes – and Trevor was running wild.
Nirankar is not a good influence on Kiran, and probably Trevor would be better off with Sat Darshan as his mother.
I had thought that Nirankar was leaving for that new apartment this week, but I guess not. Well, I enjoyed hanging out with Sat Darshan. At least I have one friend in Phoenix – and I neglect her, to my shame.
Actually, my new friend Jen called and asked if I could collaborate with her on some art project that has a literary component. I said sure.
It turns out that Jen is the person who took my books out of the ASU library. She said her friend Karolina would like a copy of my chapbooks.
It’s probably a sign of my pathetic state that the guy I am currently most intimate with is just an online relationship: Soner, that doctor in Bursa, Turkey.
We exchange affectionate greetings and call each other dear and sweetie and flirt and sort of have cybersex – except we’re not using Instant Messenger but regular email.
It’s sad that both of us are so lonely. Of course, Soner is living in a Muslim country where it’s almost impossible to be openly gay since he left Istanbul and now works back in his hometown, which is also on the Sea of Marmara.
Even though it hit 104° this afternoon, I walked to Starbucks at 2:30 PM to get some Zen iced tea and read the paper.
I’m adjusting to the heat, I guess, and I can see that in a few weeks, the harsh afternoons will be gone. Maybe I’ll start to feel better, too. There’s always hope.
Thursday, September 7, 2000
3 AM and I can’t sleep. I’ve lain here for hours and I feel sick to my stomach and I shake and I feel as close to insanity as I’ve been since adolescence. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
My laptop is broken, but I knew it had something the matter with it. Why am I taking it so to heart? Now I can feel tears in my eyes, and I want someone to hold me and tell me everything is going to be all right.
I’ve got to teach in the morning, in just a few hours, and I’m not only exhausted . . . I’m a wreck.
God – but I don’t believe in God; I told that to the Korean guy who called this evening – What I was going to write was: “God help me, please.”
I don’t know how to make myself feel better. I’ve tried everything, every strategy, to get to sleep. Now I’m writing.
My Newswriting class tonight was okay; I got A/A on last week’s exercises though I don’t know how I did on tonight’s lead writing.
When I got home from ASU, I shouldn’t have turned on the computer because once I started fooling around with it, I couldn’t stop. It will run Windows only in safe mode, and I can’t do anything to diagnose the problem.
Am I talking about the computer or myself when I write, “I can’t do anything to diagnose the problem”?
The CompUSA people will either fix the computer or replace it with a new one, so why am I so upset? Is it because there’s nobody who can fix me, that I don’t know how to replace myself, my present-day deeply unhappy self?
I keep thinking that this unhappiness will pass, but tonight is like a low point. I felt so good on Tuesday after I slept well on Monday night. I’ll sleep well again some night.
I keep thinking about my 7:30 AM class at MCC and my dental appointment and my Arizona Media Law class at ASU tonight. How will I get through the day?
I’m going to stop writing here.
*
3 PM. Last night one was – I mean, was one of the worst nights of my life. I slept, if at all, perhaps 15 or 20 minutes. I felt so miserable that I wanted to die, and I was sick to my stomach.
God knows how I go through my 7:30-8:45 AM class at MCC, but sheer will power can accomplish anything, I guess.
I canceled my dental appointment, but I felt so embarrassed about missing my first appointment with that dentist that I made a new first appointment with another dentist for two weeks from today – and of course, my teeth immediately began to hurt.
I don’t know how I did it, but after much work, I got my computer back to “normal.” It’s working, anyway. What a lot of aggravation – for nothing, really.
So I’ve been home since 9 AM and have done nothing more difficult than reading, light exercise and laundry. I haven’t been able to get any really good rest, and I’ve still got to get through Arizona Media Law tonight.
I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’ve got to be very careful not to bang up my car while I’m driving or parking. I know how intense sleep deprivation can wreck one’s body and mind.
I don’t really expect to get the kind of refreshing sleep that I really need tonight, but I’m pretty sure I’ll get four or five hours of decent sleep, if only out of sheer exhaustion.
Sleep is so important. Look at how different I felt – physically, mentally, emotionally – on Tuesday after a great night’s sleep.
I shouldn’t hang out on my bed so much, as I’m doing right now. In a way, I slept better on the air mattress in my parents’ house because I used it only at night.
Well, I knew that the combination of night and morning classes would lead to sleep deprivation: I get too stimulated in the evening, and then in the morning I’m too tired to teach at my best.
That call from the Korean guy who’s a grad student in finance at Thunderbird totally ruined my night because I’m so pathetically lonely that when we seemed to have a real conversation, I began to get all these silly fantasies, more foolish because he’ll never call me back – just like every other guy I meet.
I know that if I were rested, I’d be looking at everything differently, so my sole aim is to survive the rest of the day, to get through it without too much more damage.
Friday, September 8, 2000
9 PM. I felt so much better today after sleeping seven and a half hours last night. But having my Arizona Media Law class yesterday also made me feel better.
I’ve become friendly with some of my fellow students, and David Bodney is an excellent teacher. He’s especially good at giving us real-life examples, both from our casebook and in his descriptions of how media law works in practice for his clients in the state.
While I try not to hog the discussions, I do love dealing with the caselaw and constitutional theory. So my exhaustion disappeared in the classroom, and I didn’t go right to bed when I got home at 8:30 PM.
However, it was bliss to finally get some sleep, and I felt so much better in the morning even though I hadn’t quite slept enough and I had a little headache.
At 8 AM, I drove to ASU in an odd little thunderstorm that petered out by the time I got to campus. On the way to Language and Literature Building, I bought some iced tea at the Coffee Plantation stand outside the Old Main Building.
ASU’s campus is lovely, as Richard Kostelanetz mentioned in his last letter. (He lectured here 25 years ago.)
In the office, I had conferences with two of my honors students: Avi, a local Jewish guy, and Ryan, a conservative political science major who’s published letters in the Arizona Republic and American Spectator.
In my classes, I had conferences with the students who showed up – about half of each group – and it is so gratifying to see people actually revising their writing and working hard to make the paper better.
It’s also a pleasure to deal with the students individually. Who was it who said, “Teach writers, not writing”?
Anyway, I felt really good after today’s class sessions, if only because I was temporarily under the illusion that I was doing important and fulfilling work.
After lunch, despite the heat and air pollution, I drove to Apache Junction to see my parents and fetch my mail. The ride was horrible, as I smelled engine exhaust all the way and I could barely see Superstition Mountain until I got really close.
Unlike in Mesa and Tempe, which are filled with greenery and palm trees, the brown dust and cacti of Apache Junction really make me feel that I’m in the desert.
Filling up my gas tank at Diamond Shamrock, I noticed that an Osco Drugs is being built across Ironwood Drive, the first store in that area but hopefully the harbinger of more commercial development.
In the mailbox, I found a check from the Maricopa Community College District. I netted just $75 for two weeks of teaching at Mesa Community College.
Mom and Dad seemed happy to see me, and I was glad to see them, knowing it was just for a brief visit. Not wanting to add to their problems, I tried to be upbeat about my life.
Jonathan came out, and he was clean-shaven and his long hair was pulled back.
When Dad said that Jonathan is worried that being without a beard makes his nose look too big, I burst out laughing because it was so absurd, a product of body dysmorphia.
Jonathan went to a second job interview at the Apache Junction branch of Beall’s, the factory outlet store headquartered in Florida. I think he will get the job.
Dad said that Marc saw a lawyer who’s charging him $1,000 for his defense on the DUI charge.
After two days in his assistant manager job, Marc hates the work, but only because he’s now spending all of his time doing unfamiliar tasks at a computer.
At least he no longer has to deal with all those irate customers. When he finally learns how to deal with all the crap that Verizon must have on their system, Marc will be happier.
That’s why, when my parents asked me if I liked Florida better, I said there was no way I could compare being here for just three weeks – in which I started working two new jobs and enrolled in a new grad school program – with a place I lived in for twenty years.
I need to give it time, I told them. Maybe in six months, I can make a reasonable judgment, but not now.
I put my final unemployment check from Florida, my MCC paycheck and a rebate check from Capital One (I paid off both my canceled credit cards) into a Bank of America ATM deposit envelope with a deposit slip so I could put it in the bank.
Most of my mail was junk, but there were three credit card bills and a “pre-approved” offer from Texaco, which has rejected me in the past.
After chatting with Dad about his applying for work in stores and with Mom about Gore vs. Bush, I left to go home, where I spent time on the computer.
I wrote to various friends, read about Rick’s struggles dealing with Twyla as Margaret returned to work, and I made up a “Red Hen Press” press release that I’m sending to the State Press, the ASU paper, along with review copy of The Silicon Valley Diet.
It’s worth a try for some publicity although I’ll be very surprised if they do anything but toss the book.
Seung-hyun, the Korean student at Thunderbird, called, and we talked again for a long time. I don’t want to get overly excited, but as on Thursday, we had a nice conversation, and he’s going to call me tomorrow to see if we can meet.
I don’t expect him to be attracted to me, of course. On the phone we seem to be clicking, but it’s in person that counts. We’ll see.
Ronna left a message saying that they were all over this summer illnesses and she hoped I would visit them next year.
Saturday, September 9, 2000
3 PM. I’ve just come back from meeting Seung-hyun in Phoenix, and I’ve got a feeling of sadness because I liked him more than any guy I’ve met in a while and because I’m almost certain he wasn’t attracted to me and that he won’t call again.
To his credit, he didn’t say he would, and I asked him not to tell me he wouldn’t though I made sure he knew “it would make me very happy if you called . . . like tomorrow.”
But he didn’t give me his number, and I’m glad that he’s got the power – because I can deal with rejection better than he can.
Seung-hyun told me about guys who’ve lied to him and cheated on him, and then, after telling me this horrid story about one guy, he confessed, “But I think if he called me again, I would go see him.”
“Then you’re stupid,” I said, though I explained that I understand how some guys find it sexy when they’re not treated with respect.
He’s very cute and I kept wanting to jump all over his little body, but he’s not gorgeous or anything.
What attracted me to him was what I discern as his essentially sweet nature. He’s funny, smart and seems like a really nice person of integrity. Of course, I may be idealizing him. I’ll get over him.
I also can’t deny that at least part of me is relieved that Seung-hyun won’t call because I can go back to the safety of celibacy rather than risk everything that goes with a relationship that leaves me vulnerable to someone else.
I wouldn’t mind if he called again and made it clear that we’d just be friends; I’m lonely in Arizona, and I’ve always romanticized friendship and unrequited crushes.
All of a sudden I feel sleepy. I got up at 3 AM and only slept another half-hour after that – but at least I didn’t try to stay in bed while I was awake and instead read at the table.
Seung-hyun called at 9:30 AM and we agreed to meet at the Borders at Camelback and 24th Street in the Biltmore Fashion Park at noon.
He was half an hour late, and as I watched the magazine stand from my table at the café overlooking the main floor, I decided that I’d been stupid to trust someone again.
But he had a real excuse: they’d closed part of I-17 for repairs, so he got stuck on the freeway as all the cars had to get off at the same exit.
Seung-hyun is very slight and about my height. He had a fresh haircut and was wearing – as I knew he would – a polo shirt and tailored blue jeans.
We spent a long time in the Borders café, and then, in my car, drove to a nearby Wendy’s to have lunch together.
I thought it was a good sign that he didn’t want to leave after we left the bookstore, but maybe he just liked my company or had nothing better to do or he genuinely couldn’t decide whether he liked me or not.
How can I blame someone for not being physically attracted to me? It’s still possible that he was – he didn’t have to touch my shoulder as we said goodbye – but I guess I’ll find out in the next few days.
Anyway, I’m happy I met Seung-hyun and wish him only good stuff.