A Writer’s Diary Entries From Mid-January, 2001
Tuesday, January 16, 2001
6 PM. I’ve just taken my Klonopin and 300 mg. of Serzone, which probably helped me sleep eight hours last night. At least I’ve got a good night’s sleep in me if anxiety keeps me up before the first day of the new semester.
The weather couldn’t be any worse. Today’s high was only 46°, and rain fell most of the day, with tomorrow’s forecast about the same. Last winter, Mom said, it never rained, and around this time, it was in the high 70°s.
But I’ve always figured that I should let all the stresses of life try to overwhelm me in the next three weeks – and if I can survive without a relapse into intense anxiety and depression, I feel that I’m going to make it through the term.
At 6 AM, I called in for two weeks of Florida unemployment benefits, which I later found out will be sent out tomorrow in the form of a $550 check.
I’ll need it because I’ve been spending money like water: $700 alone today on my crown and my refill of Serzone.
I decided to drop my graduate course in Precision Journalism because I know I would withdraw anyway. If ASU demands some of my student loan money back, so be it. I can’t take more than six credits while I’m teaching three sections of composition.
It’s too bad that most graduate courses in Mass Communications are given in the evening. Although I probably would have enjoyed being a full time grad student, I could never have survived financially.
It’s become obvious that I didn’t think things out too well. Last year, when I could have taken courses at Nova for free as a full-time professor, I knew I didn’t have time to do so. Hopefully I can handle my Thursday night class and my online Multicultural American Film class.
Sat Darshan called at 7:30 AM and told me she needed to take another day off because Kiran was still feeling ill.
It doesn’t look like Sat Darshan can achieve her dream of going to India this spring. She’s rescheduled appointments with the recruiter and bankruptcy attorney during lunch hours.
I was grateful for the gloves Teresa sent me when I got to ASU and had to walk in the cold from the parking lot to the Language and Literature Building.
In my mailbox were my syllabi, a form about classes and office hours that I later turned into Gina, and other stuff.
Nobody was in the office I share with John, who teaches on Wednesday night until the other faculty associate, John’s friend Maximilian, came out of his Tuesday morning class.
The great thing is that this office has a computer that actually connects with the Web, so I could read my email and answer it. Unfortunately, we don’t have a way to print out, but today I was saved from having to go to the crowded Computer Commons.
I got a lot of replies to my ad, mostly from unsuitable guys; still, it’s nice to be called “good-looking” by people who’ve seen my photo. And Timmy sent me another sweet note.
While online, I gave Josh and Mark Savage updates on what’s going on, and I wrote Mark Bernstein telling him that I hope he finds his mother okay on his trip to Miami Beach tomorrow.
While Mark would like to bring his mother up to a nursing home near him in Ohio, it’s “very Christian,” and his mother always expressed the wish to die peacefully in Florida – “except I didn’t expect all these complications.”
Is he serious? Everything that happens when you get to be 95 are complications.
After seeing that Maximilian went to talk to Ron Carlson when he passed by our office, I decided I would introduce myself when they were finished.
Ron remembered me from Bread Loaf and said his email reply to my original note bounced back, so he wondered what became of me.
We reminisced about the 1977 Bread Loaf and how the writers’ conference has evolved into something more professional than the sybaritic free-for-all it was in the 1960s and 1970s.
Ron said that the ASU teaching assistants enrolled in the MFA program find it hard to write regularly with their heavy class load.
And we talked about Miami and FIU (he was at Utah with Les Standiford) and Phoenix – which Ron, like everyone else, says is a hard place to adjust to.
It felt great to talk to Ron. I also chatted with Greg Glau for a while, and later, in the men’s room, I introduced myself to a guy I’ve seen around: an MFA student trying to publish his stories in litmags.
I advised him that whenever he gets a rejection for a story, he should send it out again the same day. Of course, I’m not exactly the person who should be giving advice to young writers.
On the way back to my rental car – the mechanics didn’t call today – I checked out my 9:40 AM classroom, which is in the basement of Life Sciences Annex A.
The room has raised seats, like a theater, and it smells bad because, someone told me, they use formaldehyde to take tissue samples from dead animals (and people?).
While at ASU, I passed Avi and Bethany from last term’s English 105 class, and they both smiled at me.
All afternoon I felt gassy, though I was okay during the 75 minutes the dentist worked on me. I just now realized that my lips and gums are no longer swollen from the Novocain.
They finally put on a temporary crown – the dentist said I missed needing root canal work, but just barely – and told me to chew on the other side and rinse out with warm salt water because I’ll probably have pain in the next few days.
So I got salt along with all the groceries at Bashas’ when I picked up my Serzone at Osco. At home, I read the Times, had Amy’s veggie loaf for lunch, and I guess I’ll read before I go to sleep.
No matter how tense tomorrow is, I’ll be finished teaching at 10:30 AM and free the rest of the day, though I should expect some unexpected stuff happening.
Wednesday, January 17, 2001
3:30 PM. Today went as well as I could have expected.
Last night I took 300 mg. of Serzone along with Klonopin at dinner and slept from about 8:30 PM till 5 AM with frequent but brief interruptions after dreams.
Driving to school in 35° darkness, I was on campus by 7 AM. That gave me time to write a long email to Teresa, who is getting exasperated with Pam because she keeps canceling appointments with the divorce lawyer.
Today Teresa had to go by public transit to Avenue X and Ocean Parkway to pick up the car she bought for Pam from Diane’s father and drive it home.
Pam wanted Teresa to go to the DMV to register it, but Pam has a New Jersey driver’s license, and I said I was sure that Pam had to do it herself.
Teresa is still working on getting one of the upstairs apartments at her mother’s or another one in Williamsburg for Pam.
Meanwhile, Teresa has her own problems to deal with. She, her father and aunt arranged for her grandmother to be put in the nice nursing home attached to Long Island Jewish Hospital, as her grandmother has been hospitalized for weeks and her aunt can no longer take care of her.
Jade is living at home during her last term at Purchase. She’s now working for a restaurant chain in Mineola, where they’ve offered her an accounting job after graduation.
In other email today, Kevin said that Annie and Pinocchio will be the last children’s stage shows that he will be performing in, as he needs to concentrate on film and TV work.
Mark Bernstein is anxious about his trip to Miami Beach – during Art Deco Weekend – and reminded me of how we first met on the sand in front of the Cardozo in 1981 or so. Can it be that we know each other for twenty years?
Rick wrote that his appearance at Ucross went fine. He’d like to go there someday for a residency if his wife, as planned, needs to go to Asia for a month. If he is going to be a single parent for that long, he’d like his wife to reciprocate. At least Margaret brings a very good salary to their household.
According to Rick, Mondo Jimi Hendrix is almost done, and he thinks it’s great.
Rick said he liked the Night and Day chapter in which I discussed my writing career as a hobby and said that Gargoyle is his. But it’s hard for Rick not to feel bitter when three of his former students have gotten six-figure contracts from New York for novels or memoirs.
Rick said that if he had more money, he’d publish something on the style of The Faulkner Reader for underappreciated writers like me, D.E. Steward and Tom Whelan.
I told Timmy that his photo was good-looking enough so that he should place a personal ad just to feed his ego when guys write in and tell him how handsome he is. (It works for me.)
Luke Gordon of Mesa Community College emailed that I’m teaching a computer-based course and so I need to get a MCC email account and learn how to set up an electronic bulletin board. If this will be a lot of extra work, I’ll just quit. Certainly MCC will cancel my class if registration for my class is too low.
When I got to my 7:40 AM class at ASU, I found we had more than enough students for the class to go on.
I spent much of the time basically rambling, talking about the writing process, making students laugh, going through the roster and probably giving the (accurate) impression that I don’t really give a shit and will probably be an easy grader.
The same thing happened in the 9:40 AM class. I told them I realize that some students probably don’t react well to my flip, cynical attitude, and that they should drop my class and pick up an instructor that would be better for them.
I think I got it across that I’m really qualified and smart, but that will eventually come out.
While some students may have been offended by my dissing ASU, today’s front-page State Press headline was about our terrible dropout rate and yesterday’s headline was about the lousy faculty salaries here.
That familiar depressed feeling came over me while I had my office hour, but I tried to push it away. When I got home, I had calls from the auto mechanic, who said that fixing the leak, the shocks and the struts will run about $500. I said to do it.
I’m hemorrhaging money. I may have to declare bankruptcy this summer, though hopefully I can hold off until fall. It’s not that terrible.
After all, I’ve declared bankruptcy before, and companies are doing it every day (today, Chiquita Banana; yesterday, TWA), and so will lots of folks with credit card debt before this downturn is over.
Maybe it’s my meds, but who cares?
The local Arizona Republic had an editorial yesterday decrying the bronzes controversy that I started, so I know they won’t print my last reply. They want to be through with the controversy already.
Regarding the response to my critics, Debra Black asked me, “Couldn’t you leave it alone?” No, I said, I’m a provocateur – but then that’s why I’m leaving Arizona.
I got a call from Cindy Dach at Changing Hands Bookstore, who said the owner of the store, Gail Shanks, loved my letter. They like The Silicon Valley Diet and will try to order it from Red Hen Press since Ingram doesn’t stock it.
Next week Cindy will talk to the marketing director, but mid-list small press authors like me draw such small crowds that it would probably be better to put me with another author or replace the First Friday with an open fiction reading instead of poetry.
Cindy also gave me the number of the woman who runs the YMCA Writers Voice in Phoenix because she thought maybe there’s something I could do there. So I called and left a voicemail message.
In the afternoon, I went to the Mesa Public Library and had iced tea at Starbucks, where I read part of the Times.
Thursday, January 18, 2001
2 PM. Today has been the most stressful day I’ve had since December, and it’s ironic because it’s the last day I could sleep late.
I have all the symptoms of anxiety: the flatulence, sweaty palms and trembling that I had back a few months ago, along with back pain and just a general feeling of nervousness.
My car will probably be ready late this afternoon, but I’ll pick it up tomorrow because it will be stressful, as I have to leave for my graduate class at ASU by 5 PM.
Otherwise, I’ll have the stress of rushing to get the rental car back to Enterprise tomorrow by 11 AM after my last class at ASU even though the Enterprise guy told me not to worry if I’m an hour late.
Hopefully, the car will be done by then or else I’ll pay for an extra day or keep the rental over the weekend.
I’m way too neurotic, worrying about what will happen. Do you know I’ve actually put out my clothes for tommorrow tomorrow morning? And I’m getting brain fog again, misspelling simple words like “tomorrow.”
The MCC library was closed today, and the Mesa Public Library computer wouldn’t let me on to the ASU online course website or into MCC’s website so I could log on for a college email address.
Not having my computer or car sucks. I’m really scared that this semester will be even worse than last, that I won’t be able to have sessions with Susan anymore, that I won’t be able to function.
Sat Darshan saw a bankruptcy lawyer, and she said it relieves her to consider the possibility of riding herself of debt.
I wish I could feel the same way I did a decade ago, but now it bothers me. What’s changed? I guess I’m just more anxious and depressed.
Friday, January 19, 2001
1 AM. It doesn’t look like I’m going to sleep tonight, so I’m better off obsessing on paper.
The worst thing of all happened tonight as I was trying to find the key to my apartment while all the outside lights were out.
Two black teens or twentysomethings grabbed me from behind, told me not to yell, which I did anyway, and then, after I stupidly started to fight back, one guy knocked me down by these sand pebbles and knocked off my glasses.
He was on top of me, holding my hands over my head. As our eyes met, I realized that both of us were scared and I stopped struggling.
The standing guy pointed a rifle or a stick at my groin, and the other guy took my wallet, keys and bookbag.
After they left, I screamed for help. But nobody came out – even at the doors I knocked at – until the black man next door opened his door after his young white stepson implored him after he had heard me screaming.
I suppose I came off as absolutely hysterical. But they called the cops, who got there pretty quickly. I said I didn’t need the paramedics – although bruises are now breaking out all over my arms, legs and ass.
The cops questioned me, I wrote down and signed a statement that sounded lame, and I expect that will be the end of it.
I got a police case number and tried to get my parents (their line was busy) and kept trying to call the banks and credit card companies whose cards were in my wallet so I could report them stolen.
When I finally spoke to my parents, they got as hysterical as I was.
The cops did find my glasses, but the Quail Creek management had to send someone down to install a new lock in my apartment.
I think my parents will have to get a new lock for their house because my driver’s license and other stuff have the Apache Junction address on it.
I’ll need to get new insurance (health and car) cards, Social Security card and ASU ID card. But I can’t deal with any of that now.
Marc came over for an hour to sit with me. I called the psychologist on call at Susan’s office and later the EMPACT suicide prevention hotline, but there wasn’t much they could offer.
As Marc said, this would traumatize even a non-depressed, non-anxious person.
In the bookbag were my texts for Professor Yuan’s class, which I’ve decided to drop. (It looks interesting, but a 500-word paper every week, plus a ten-page proposal and a 20-page research paper is too much for me.)
I don’t want to go to school anymore, and now I don’t want to take classes at night. Maybe I’ll pick up another Internet class so at least I’ll have six credits this term.
I’m not going to school tomorrow, and if the English Department has a problem with it, fuck them. I have to call Enterprise because I don’t have the key to the rental car.
There’s an incredible amount of stuff that I have to do. Can life possibly become more stressful than it is now? Will I be more afraid after this mugging?
I don’t care about the $100 or so they got. Those stupid kids are probably on drugs, and they’ve had fucked-up lives.
I’m ready to leave ASU, MCC and Arizona itself.
My parents wanted me to sleep over at their house tonight, but I couldn’t deal with it, and I won’t be able to sleep much wherever I am.
Should I have tried to keep fighting off the muggers? I might have been badly hurt or even killed. At the moment I gave up, I realized I was not suicidal.
Maybe God sent these kids as a message for me to get out of here. Maybe I’ll even feel better for having survived all this. As Marc said, all the petty things I agonize about are shit.
Who cares about reading the New York Times every day? Why am I constantly checking my email? Does any of all the other obsessive stuff I do have a point?
In June 1990, when I survived that car crash at Kennedy Airport, I felt euphoric and creative. But now I could become more meek and helpless.
The trauma hasn’t really set in yet.
Those guys got my Ativan and my last bottle of Serzone – as well as my cell phone, books, food and other medical supplies.
This was unforeseen, and couldn’t have been avoided – unless Quail Creek’s lack of outdoor lighting means they breached their duty of standard of care for us tenants.
Earlier today, when I talked about taking on all the stressful stuff now, I didn’t expect this.
Yet I’m still alive, barely hurt, and this incident will probably be the turning point in my decision to leave Arizona. I just hope I can handle the stress.
*
7 PM. Somehow I got through the night and today. Dad was a great help, but I also did stuff on my own.
I’ve been pretty shaky and prone to crying jags and I feel a bit fearful outside my door. Everything’s pretty much a haze.
I’ll take 300 mg. or 350 mg. of Serzone soon and hope I can sleep more than the two hours I did last night. Still, that was more sleep than I expected to get.
I needed to talk to people badly. I called Teresa at 5:30 AM – 8:30 AM her time – and she was sympathetic. Like Sat Darshan, she said I seem to be getting signs that I need to leave Arizona.
I definitely need to leave ASU. I dropped last night’s class and took another Internet class in Theater (Pre-Columbian Theater of the Americas) so I can be a half-time student and keep at least some of my student loan money.
I’ll try to do the work, but I know I couldn’t have coped with Professor Yuan’s class and I don’t want to take night classes now because of my experience as well as my early schedule.
Knowing the teaching ends at 10:30 AM three days a week and at 8:45 AM the other two days makes me feel more comfortable, especially since I can return to ASU later in the day whenever I feel like it.
I got my computer back from CompUSA, but right now I can’t deal with setting it up again.
Teresa advised me to look at dumpsters around the neighborhood to see if anyone left the wallet, keys or bookbags in them, but I had no luck.
Glenn from the mechanic called this morning about an unexpected rack problem he found. It cost me $300 more ($863 total) and delayed my car’s being ready until late this afternoon.
I’m pretty sure I canceled all the credit cards in my wallet. I should get replacements in a few weeks. Same with my United Health Care card, and I’m getting a replacement Social Security card application.
I got a new ASU parking sticker and paid with a different credit card – one of the few that wasn’t in my wallet but in a drawer in my apartment.
After we went to CompUSA to fetch my computer, Dad took me to Apache Junction. Before that, the Enterprise people took the rental car away.
At the DMV in Apache Junction, I got a replacement driver’s license for $4 and straightened out the registration date.
At my parents’ house, I called Greg – Demetria had left a message to say that people there hoped I was okay; the subs told my classes what happened – and I spoke again to Teresa.
(She’s furious with Pam, not only about avoiding the lawyer but for agreeing to see Norton’s shrink. He’s used up Pam’s city benefits seeing that doctor!)
Teresa’s sister said I should write a letter threatening legal action to Quail Creek, given my theory that the lack of outdoor lights (which were all on during the day today) were the proximate cause of my injuries because otherwise, I would have been in my apartment safely before those guys grabbed me.
All during the night and parts of today I relived the scene, but I can’t really remember how I ended up being dragged so far away from in front of my apartment door and ending up on my back in the pebble garden. I’m sure I sounded confused to the police.
Typically, Alice said I should look on the bright side, that I wasn’t shot or beaten badly, though I found it hard to walk today, and my arms, buttocks and legs are badly bruised and scraped.
It feels good to write about this despite not being eloquent or even coherent.
I didn’t even look at today’s New York Times except the front and op-ed pages, and I didn’t exercise. It took me an hour to get home during rush hour after I picked up the car.
Dad told me that he would like to go back to Florida, too. I managed to mail out the application Broward Community College sent yesterday for the four positions teaching English at the North and Central campuses.
Several times today I spoke with Sat Darshan, who tried to cheer me up. When she was mugged in New York, she’d been stabbed and didn’t realize it until Justin, her roommate back then, saw all the feathers coming out of her heavy down jacket.
Well, I’m shaking a bit, but today could have been worse. I made an appointment with Bev Reinhart on Tuesday morning to have a medical person to talk with.
Saturday, January 20, 2001
9 PM. I’m shaky right now, which tells me my anxiety is up high. On the other hand, I feel really sleepy. Last night I took 300 mg. of Serzone and then another 50 mg. in the middle of the night when I was up for about an hour.
I had many dreams, most of them unpleasant ones dealing with death and bodily decay. Hopefully, my unconscious was working through some of the problems as I slept for a full eight hours.
I did laundry, went to Albertsons (and later Bashas’, where I got the bananas I forgot to get at the first store and got a new discount card for my key ring).
I bought the same plant I got my parents at Christmas and a box of Reese’s Pieces miniatures and a thank-you note for my neighbors and placed it all in a Pokémon gift bag by their door.
But when I saw the guy later, he didn’t say anything, so I just said, “I want to thank you again.”
How weird – unless someone came along and took the box. Oh well, if he did get it, I did what I felt was right.
Last night I spent about 45 minutes thinking I need to send UF Law School the money I took as extra vacation pay in 1997, with interest. It’s bad karma to have not returned the money, although right now I’m at my worst financial position.
Sat Darshan found a guy who thinks he can get her a new home equity loan to pay off all her debts and still have money left over.
Despite having the same shakiness and sweaty palms I’ve got now, I did yoga this morning. Later, I was so tired that I just lay down and listened to Bush’s inaugural.
Later I went to the Mesa library, where I got a new card and went online for an hour, mostly dealing with email. I told Mark Savage and Josh about the mugging, but tonight Josh sent a note saying his mother passed away in the hospital this afternoon.
Her paid companion had phoned Josh and said she went peacefully, but he doesn’t believe her. He’s not sure when to arrange the funeral because his Florida relatives, like his brother, need to come up, but there’s a storm causing flights to be canceled.
Josh said he will hate having to deal with the “so-called friends” of his mother who show up at the funeral but who never visited or called her.
I wrote him back and said he was the best and most caring of sons, and that although this kind of loss can go on forever, I hope he will eventually feel some peace. I’m sure Josh will be upset tonight and for days and weeks to come.
Timmy sent me a beautiful note, copying out a Sade song, “By Your Side.” He’s the sweetest friend, and I probably shouldn’t have written that depressing note to him after the mugging.
While I was out, Alice called, but I’ve think I bothered my friends enough.
After eating a baked potato at Wendy’s, I went to the Hollywood Video store at Rural Road and University Drive to become a member so I could pick up the first film for my Multicultural American Film class. But I stupidly rented Do the Right Thing instead of Malcolm X, the movie I’m supposed to see.
Back at home at 2 PM, I dealt with the computer, which I knew would be a struggle. I had to start from scratch, installing software for the printer, Prodigy Internet, Word 2000, etc.
So many of my files are gone. It’s like having my wallet stolen. I did download some files from Driveway.com and the Web, but I lost so much.
Well, you remember the lyrics from “Me and Bobby McGee”: “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”
At least I’ve got a lot of work done already. But I can only do so much. When I don’t distract myself, I’m still stressing out and feeling depressed or anxious.
Mom called to say that my Florida unemployment check arrived today, and I talked with Sat Darshan for an hour.
Last night I forgot to leave cat food out until I woke up at 1 AM and did it, but the cat didn’t touch it.
I’ve still got a ton to do: my teaching, my Internet graduate classes, applying for jobs, reading library books and the papers.
But I need to manage time and make priorities and also make sure that I take time out just to relax and try to have fun.
I hate feeling like the victim although I know it lets me pretend to be powerless to change.