A Writer’s Diary Entries From Early August, 2000
Tuesday, August 1, 2000
5 PM. Today is the lowest point of my adult life. I can see no way out for me. I don’t want to commit suicide, but I don’t know how to get out of this situation in which I put myself.
The Cougar died. Or maybe I could spend $1,200 on repairs that may not work.
I signed a lease to pay $470 a month on an apartment, and I have to buy a bed and furniture.
To get a new car, I’ll have to take out cash advances, and by next winter or spring I’m not going to have the money to make my minimum payments at 21% interest or whatever.
I spent over 90 minutes in 105° heat waiting for an AAA truck that never came.
My air mattress deflated, and I had to sleep on the floor.
Everything in my life went wrong, all at once, all of a sudden. My life feels over.
Coming home from the movies last night, I heard a sizzling sound coming from the engine after I parked it. I knew there was a danger of the car overheating, but I had to go to Quail Creek today.
Since they never called yesterday, I assumed I had been rejected for an apartment. But it turns out I’d been accepted: Scott had just been “too busy” to call yesterday.
I went to the Bank of America on Southern and Dobson and got $500 out of the ATM and put another $91 in change into a money order at the post office.
The car began to overheat when I drove back to Quail Creek, where I filled out all the forms I needed to and signed the lease, looked at the apartment, had iced tea at Starbucks, put water in the radiator and attempted to get back to Apache Junction.
I almost made it.
–– Dad just came in here and said he would give me the $1000 I paid Jonathan for the car.
“I don’t want Marc to know about it, I don’t want Jonathan to know about it, but I won’t feel so terrible if you take the money,” Dad said.
I told him that I would take it later if I needed it, but he said I should take it now.
He left as I said, “Dad, I don’t want to take your money,” and I started crying.
I’ve got the chills now and I can’t stop shivering. It’s 107° out and I’m shivering from the cold.
Anyway, to try to get back to what I was saying: My car died just as I got off the freeway at the light at Ironwood. I was frantic but I got help from people.
An older couple called Dad from their cell phone – I had one, but it didn’t seem to work; I didn’t know you have to dial the local area code – and a nice man pulled me out of the intersection.
When Dad came, I called AAA, but I waited over an hour and they didn’t come, and when I called back, they said they had been there and I wasn’t with the car, which was impossible.
After I helped a woman whose car overheated – her husband was a tow-truck driver who came right after she called him on my cell phone – Dad managed to start up the car and I managed to drive it to the service station on Apache Trail.
They called a little while ago with the bad news, but I already set myself a $1000 drop-dead price for repairs and their price was way over it.
It’s a horror that I spent $900 to drive the Cougar cross-country, paid $450 for repairs just last week, and $50 for changing the title to Arizona the other day. I’m sick over it. All of this was like throwing money out the window.
But I did that with the publication of my book, too – maybe $6,500 in all. (Today I got a check from Amazon.com for $13.80 to cover the books I sold there.)
My life has been one unrelieved disaster lately. I feel like George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life: I’m facing total ruin. All this at the start of my supposed new life in Arizona.
Well, I can’t blame anyone else for my misguided choices. Every step of the way, I took the wrong path.
Yet this is a situation that would be solved if I had more money. So maybe the lesson of my life is how foolish I was in not being more concerned with money.
Well, what’s done is done now.
This may be the start of my 33rd diary year, but I don’t think I’m going to survive it. I need to avoid the “if only’s.” I’ve got to keep myself from drowning in despair.
Wednesday, August 2, 2000
7 PM. I feel as though I’ve been lurching from disaster to disaster. Right now I’m in the bathroom for privacy. Of course, I now have my own apartment in Mesa, but I am so spent that I couldn’t bring myself to get over there today.
I had, as I expected, a very bad night, alternating between depression, anguish, anxiety, terror and self-hatred. I slept from exhaustion on the blankets Mom had laid out on the floor, but I was up at 3 AM and it was awful. I tried to keep my crying jags silent so as not to wake anyone. I also returned to shivering despite the heat.
Part of me was in panic. I just kept thinking about all the poor choices I’ve made: trying to be a writer, taking so many months off, living on borrowed money and borrowed time. I see no way out to eventually drowning in debt.
I don’t know if I will survive this year in Arizona; it may break me or kill me. In the end, I think I’m finally going to be 50 and settling for a life of drudgery and security.
Well, I need to concentrate on living one day at a time. It’s hard enough to go through each hour.
I told Mom – after Dad and Jonathan came back and had all the antifreeze in Dad’s car burst out (it turned out to be merely overfill and a very hot day) – that maybe our family had been killed in an explosion and that we are really in hell. Could hell be worse than Phoenix in the summer?
Anyway, I tried to go through the motions of eating breakfast and exercising. And I bit the bullet and got out my credit card cash advance checks and wrote myself “checks” for $3,500, which I deposited in the ATM.
(The first time I got to Bank of America, I discovered I’d left my wallet home – because I felt so upset, no doubt.)
Marc was home today, and he drove my car from the local repair shop to his man on Main Street in central Mesa. Marc said the guy saved his Cadillac, charging him $1,500 but giving him an extra two years with the car.
To me, the Cougar is cursed, but I will listen to the guy. I don’t quite understand how a supposedly dead car can be driven 11 miles. I followed Marc in his Caddy, but he said my car remained cool all the way there.
Because this guy is such a good mechanic, he’s very busy, and he probably won’t have word on the car till Friday.
On the way back, I rented a car at Enterprise for a week. That’s more money spent, but at least I have a new, reliable car.
After getting it, I went across the street to Wendy’s and glanced at the Times as I had a baked potato and Diet Coke.
But all afternoon I couldn’t bring myself to do anything more about the apartment than to order home delivery of the New York Times.
I’m emotionally exhausted. I think I’m starting to feel better only because I’m so tired – and that once I rest up, I’ll be in agony again.
It hit 110° today with another ozone alert – so driving was discouraged. At 6 PM, I went to Walmart and bought a trunkful of stuff for the apartment, and that was pleasurable, as was playing with a cute baby on the long checkout line.
The one thing I will say for Arizona is that the people here are very friendly. Staying with my family no longer bothers me. I’ve grown accustomed to their ways, and they’ve all been a big help to me.
Besides, I know I’ll have my own apartment soon.
Things have been going badly for my family in the eleven months they’ve been here, and my parents both like Florida better.
I’m sure I’ll also feel that way although Dad tells me, “At least you didn’t come here to die.” Well, maybe I did.
Marc likes Arizona, but he’s been here over two years and he’s got a steady job, savings, and a support network.
I don’t know what fresh hells await me in the next few days or weeks or months. I fear that I will not be able to handle them.
I did write long letters to Teresa and Sat Darshan and sent out notices of my new address (1651 South Dobson Road #155, Mesa, AZ 85202) and phone (480-755-9180).
Sunday, August 6, 2000
8:30 PM. My brothers and father went to the Mets/Diamondbacks game, so I’m in Marc’s bedroom. I’ve been here about 45 minutes after having spent the day in Mesa.
This morning it was “only” 87° when I took over a few more things to Quail Creek and tried setting up the apartment. The VCR I thought I had was a CD player – useless without CDs – but my old video cassette player works.
My apartment’s “freezer” is just a freezer compartment, so I’ll have defrosting problems, and I somehow cut myself opening the door – but hey, it’s going to be a difficult adjustment.
I won’t have Internet access unless and until I get a new computer, and I can’t do that for a while. I guess there’s always the public library, Kinko’s, and ASU after the fall semester starts.
At 9 AM, I bought $107 in groceries and other stuff at the Albertsons on Dobson and Baseline, half a mile away, and there’s a Bank of America branch there as well.
At 10 AM, I went to Borders and got iced tea and the Sunday Times from the jokey guys at the café.
Last evening I spent two hours reading the paper online while Marc was at the movies, so after 90 minutes in the bookstore, I was left with only Education Life, Arts and Leisure, and the Book Review. But it was good to sit and read.
The Travel section had a page on downtown Los Angeles for next week’s Democratic Convention, with photos of the Grand Central Market and Angels Flight. The article also mentioned the Central Library, Olvera Street, Little Tokyo, the Geffen Contemporary and other sights I saw on Wyatt’s class trip.
In retrospect, that day was the highlight of my week in Los Angeles. Which reminds me: I must call Libby and say hi and give her my new phone number.
I went to the Wendy’s on Main and Alma School for a baked potato and then to the Target on Dobson off Main, where I got more stuff, including a cardboard chest of three drawers that I later put together.
Back at the apartment, while sitting on one of the plastic-molded chairs and using the tray table I got at Walgreens yesterday, I ate the rest of my lunch: the usual fat-free cheese on low-calorie bread with sweet onion slices, microwaved veggies and fat-free ice cream.
I’ll bring more stuff over tomorrow and sleep there on Monday night. I guess I’m a little skittish about moving in. It’s like hospitalitis, when patients don’t want to leave because they feel so secure there with doctors and nurses all around them. I do feel secure with my family.
Tuesday, August 8, 2000
3 PM. I didn’t sleep that well on the air mattress my first night in the new apartment.
I had weird dreams about being chased through the slums of Baltimore, and I was up from 2:30 AM till 4 AM, but that wasn’t too bad. More annoying was that I found it difficult to modulate the temperature so that I felt neither too cold nor too warm.
This morning, it was cloudy and humid but only 79° at 8:30 AM: cool enough so that I was comfortable going to ASU dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and khakis.
It took only ten minutes to get one of the metered spaces on campus, but there are no classes now and I’m not dealing with a parking lot.
I went to the English Department and introduced myself. Myrna, who seems to dislike me, gave me the packet of personnel stuff that I need to fill out to get paid.
Gina had me fill out a form to get a key to my office, though I’m not sure if it’s my own office or if I have to share it or whether there’s a phone or a computer inside.
Myrna told me where to get a parking decal (I couldn’t order one over the phone last night because I’m classified as an employee, not a student) and then had me go down to the Composition office, where the administrator, Demetria, gave me the text (The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing) and other info, and I was lucky enough to meet Greg Glau, the director of the Composition Program, who filled me in on how comp at ASU works.
There’s a day-long English Department meeting next Thursday, including an hour for new faculty associates. Greg said that I should have 26 students in each section, and that my English 105 honors students will be highly motivated and swift.
All of my students will probably be just out of high school and in college for the first time. Greg says they’ll be mostly white Arizonans.
Anyway, after spending about 25 minutes with Greg, I feel that the English Department expects a lot from me but will also provide resources.
At the Memorial Union, I got my SunCard photo ID – I have a non-photo faculty ID as well – and then I drove to the Towers near the stadium to pay $129 for a parking decal for a lot that’s far away from my classes. (I shouldn’t have a problem parking for my night graduate classes.)
On the way home, I stopped at the Mesa Community College English Department, where the office aide said that Doyle Burke, the chair, would be back at 1:45 PM.
So I came home and had lunch – which I started eating at Wendy’s, where I read a few pages of the Times. Delivery is supposed to start tomorrow, but who knows if it actually will?
At the Dobson Ranch library, I checked my email: just a couple of notes from Sat Darshan. The dog had bled from the mouth all over the living room and she’s going to need oral surgery next week.
Back at MCC, I met with Doyle Burke, telling him about my background, and we talked about the teaching of writing for half an hour.
On Tuesday at 2 PM, he wants to see my curriculum vita and copies of transcripts. He said he’d find a class for me somewhere if the Red Mountain Campus courses didn’t make.
I’d planned to go to Apache Junction today, and I still might, but now I’m tired. Tomorrow we’re not only going to move a lot of stuff with the van, but I also need to return the rental car and get my own car, about which I’m feeling very skittish.
There’s apartment stuff I need to do, but I accomplished a lot of work-related stuff today, and I can’t berate myself for not being perfect.
Thursday, August 10, 2000
6 PM. Last night I watched Survivor and Big Brother and got into bed at 9:30 PM. I was drifting off to sleep sometime after 10 PM when I got a call from Ray, the guy who answered my Planet Out ad.
Because I was half-asleep, I babbled, and Ray said he would call again tonight, but I don’t think he will. Which is too bad because he sounded sweet.
He’s a computer engineer at Intel and obviously brilliant. Originally from El Salvador, Ray came to Miami when he was 12 and has lived in Phoenix for six years.
I don’t think I have much to offer a guy like that, and I’m sure if we met, it would be like all the other meetings from the ads once he quickly established that he had no interest in me.
What bothers me is that when you meet guys from personals, if they’re not attracted to you, they won’t consider being “just” friends.
As lonely as I feel, I’m needing friends more than I do a boyfriend. I got another reply – this one from TJ, a graduate art student who sounds clever. I don’t think we’re each other’s type, but he sounds like someone I’d enjoy being friends with.
I am terrible boyfriend material, but a pretty good friend. But who knows if I’ll have time to have any kind of social life once school starts?
At Mesa Community College this afternoon, I gave my Arizona community college teaching certificate, CV and transcripts to Doyle Burke. After filling out all the forms at Personnel, I got my textbook and schedule.
I took an English 101 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:30 to 8:45 AM. So I’ll be up really early these mornings – and in fact I’ll be up early five days a week.
God knows how I will balance teaching three sections of comp with 26 students each with my three graduate classes at the journalism school. I don’t know if my own schoolwork will suffer or what, and I dread the possibility of one of those really hectic semesters.
On the other hand, I should be grossing $8,000 for the four-month term, so I won’t be starving or desperate for money. And after all, I haven’t worked since the end of April, so essentially I’ve goofed off for four months: one-third of this year.
As an article in the Times today said, a lot of the disparity in people’s incomes comes from choices they made about how much and how hard they want to work.
So far in my adult life, I’ve never had to put in the kind of grueling hours that associates at law firms, high-priced physicians, or millionaires in Silicon Valley start-ups must endure.
With my schedule, I can still come home for lunch every day: a major plus. And maybe the best thing for me is to stress myself a little bit.
Of course, I won’t have time for any literary career – and maybe not for a social life, though that could also be a plus.
This morning I went over to the shopping center on Baseline and Dobson: first to Albertsons to get some groceries, then to Bank of America to withdraw cash and get quarters for the laundry room, and finally to the post office station at the stationery store to buy a roll of stamps.
Sat Darshan said that the ASU parking gestapo will have no way of knowing that my car hasn’t passed an emissions test because I’ve got my license plate sticker for July 2001.
(I’d noticed they made a mistake and had my registration expire on July 31, 2000 – three days after I paid $48 – so it’s possible that my car’s registration has officially expired. Anyway, I’m not going to bother with an emissions test for now.)
After reading the paper at Starbucks, I called Sat Darshan at work. She stayed home yesterday because Kiran ran 104° fever Tuesday night due to a virus. Kiran was better today, “but in an ideal world, I would have stayed home with her for another day.”
However, with only so much paid time off, Sat Darshan needed to go to work and the fever had been gone a whole day, so Kiran went to preschool.
Set Darshan told me how badly her sister has behaved regarding their father. Ellen makes $75,000 at Amazon.com and declared bankruptcy a couple of years ago so she has little debt, but she never visits Phoenix more than once a year, and when she does, she never stays even 48 hours.
I guess Ellen with her father is like Mom was with her parents: my mother “forgot” to visit Grandma Ethel for the last three years of her life.
JCPenney called and it said they’ll deliver the bed between 10 AM and 2 PM tomorrow. Maybe if I can get to ASU really early, I could hand in my paperwork in Personnel and possibly even get my office key.
I’m also supposed to attend an orientation meeting for new adjuncts at MCC next Wednesday night.