Someone With a Pen: Richard Grayson’s Diary

Sunday, July 22, 2001

4 PM. I feel shaky right now. I’m struggling against relapsing into severe anxiety. I need to take my Triavil more regularly, cut down my caffeine consumption, practice more relaxation techniques and be patient with myself.

I went bananas this afternoon when, in trying to apply for a reporting job at the Ahwatukee Foothills News, I couldn’t print out my résumé except in red on Marc’s computer, and I couldn’t find the clips I wanted.

For some reason, I felt that it had to be done immediately. I’m not sure why I felt that way, except that I feel real pressure to get a job. So I went to OfficeMax and photocopied the résumé so it was printed in black.

Later, I went to the Mesa Public Library and looked online, where I found three jobs I’ll fax my résumé to. But there’s really no rush. If I can avoid it, I’ll probably be better off if I don’t work just yet.

That way, I can go to Dairy Hollow and enjoy Eureka Springs. If I find myself feeling anxious in that pampered environment, then I really have a problem.

Last night, after watching episodes of MTV’s The Real World, I slept only from 11 PM till 4 AM. In the early morning hours, I started to ruminate and obsess about my finances and career problems.

However, I did the same thing last year, and back then I had student loan money, more available credit than I have now, and secure adjunct jobs for the fall.

So it’s not the reality of the situation that matters; it’s my attitude towards it. I need to dispute my irrational worries.

Eventually I’ll have to go bankrupt, but I’ll survive that the way I did before. What’s more important is that I don’t relapse into serious anxiety and depression.

Nothing’s changed from what it was a month ago at Ragdale, or two weeks ago in Philadelphia, or back here two months ago.

I have a little money coming in via Unemployment, and even without that, I still have available credit. I didn’t worry when I spent lots of money on car rentals and other stuff, so why should I be worrying now?

I may need to up my daily dosage of Klonopin. I can renew my prescription at Osco, but in the meantime, I have plenty of the medication left.

I need to be patient with myself. Let’s say I do go to Arkansas. That wouldn’t be for another six weeks, which gives me plenty of time to get my computer fixed and to do all the other things that need doing.

I’ve already applied to Yaddo for late October and early November. Maybe I’ll also apply to VCCA, which I think has an August 15 deadline.

But if I can’t go to another artists’ colony, I’ll come back to Phoenix from the Ozarks at the end of September and pick up my life then.

By October it will be a little cooler here in Arizona, and maybe I’ll feel more like a snowbird, the way I felt in South Florida in the mid- to late 1980s, when I’d return from New York City in the fall or winter.

I’ve even thought of answering adjunct ads I saw for Kingsborough and St. John’s in today’s New York Times. If I had some place to stay in New York City for this fall, I could teach there.

Anyway, I certainly do have choices. If I’m feeling this bad in another week, I’ll call Susan and see if she can see me for a therapy session.

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Tuesday, July 24, 2001

9 PM. Last night I stayed up past 11 PM, reading Jude the Obscure, which I’ve just finished.

“The letter killeth.” Over 31 years ago, I was a freshman in Miss Glikin’s English 2.3 class. She began our discussion of the novel by asking what the epigraph meant.

I was the only student who raised his hand. “Like the letter of the law,” I said. “Details that people in power think are important, but which really aren’t so much.”

My weaknesses were not precisely the same as Jude Fawley’s – definitely not alcohol or women. But I had grandiose dreams about being a writer and a professor.

Rick Peabody sent out a mass email with the subject header “New Mexico News.” First, Rick wrote about the hiring of some hotshot young fiction writer at the University of New Mexico, a job that neither Rick nor I were a finalist for.

Then he went on, saying he realized at last how foolish his dreams were. He said he was quitting AWP and would never again apply for a full-time teaching job. He thanked all of us who gave him a letter of recommendation or a blurb and said he was giving up.

In my reply, I tried to be empathetic, reminding him of his real accomplishments in the literary world – but I’m sure it didn’t make him feel better.

I know how Rick feels, and maybe a little of how Jude felt in Hardy’s novel. Hardy gave up writing novels after the negative reception that Jude the Obscure got.

Today I agreed to take a job teaching paralegal students at Lamson College, a trade school in a shopping center on Scottsdale Road in north Tempe. In a couple of weeks, I’ll be teaching two classes: Civil Procedure and Litigation, and Estate Planning and Probate.

Debra, the school’s director of legal studies, had me speak to her Legal Research class, which consisted of seven or eight women who’ve been in the program for only a month. Afterwards, I talked with Debra and took the job.

Debra is a pretty, dark-haired Jewish young woman from Long Island. She went to ASU for her B.A. and M.M.C. and to Loyola in Los Angeles for law school. After teaching at Lawson starting only last November, she got her present position in January.

Debra told me that I’d find it difficult at first, that the students would test me and act defiant, that most of them have never held a real job and will give all sorts of excuses for not showing up or doing their work.

She said it would be like teaching high school. I’ve got both courses because their former teacher, a fairly young guy, had migraines and just couldn’t stand teaching anymore.

I don’t know whether this will be just a six-week job or I can go through the year teaching courses every six-week semester. I’ve got the texts – it seems like law school for dummies, very basic – and we’ll see what happens.

As I write this, I’ve got a washcloth under my sweaty palms, so my anxiety hasn’t entirely dissipated. On the other hand, it hit 114° unexpectedly today.

The commute to Lamson College will be rough, the classes will be long, and I’ll have to find a way to eat something so I don’t faint.

I need to go back on Thursday and fill out the personnel forms when the HR person comes back from vacation.

I met the executive director of the school and the guy who handles a lot of the administrative details – and I’d forgotten their names. But I’m sure I’ll eventually know everyone at the school because it’s such a small place.

I stopped at ASU afterwards to see about getting my residency status changed to in-state. To do that, hey want a whole lot of documents for me.

Tomorrow I’ve got my 11:15 PM appointment with Dr. Brubaker and then I have to see Sharon, the woman who bought my car, to straighten out the title problems.

Last night I spoke to Libby, who told me what a good time they had over a four-day weekend at Newport Beach, their favorite place in Orange County.

Libby said that Wyatt has Boy Scout camp this week and Lindsay still has pains in her knee. The x-ray looked like a fracture, but her growth plate hasn’t closed, so she’ll be in pain till it does. The good news is that she doesn’t need surgery.

Libby told me that I could visit “anytime you want.”

This afternoon I read most of the New York Times at the Apache Junction library and the Wendy’s on Rural Road.

Lamson College is about a mile north of ASU, but hundreds of miles away in terms of everything else. It feels like quite a comedown.

Still, Stanislavski said there are no bit parts, only bit actors. I could be teaching English at ASU if I wanted to, but I felt so uncomfortable on that campus.

I did write to Gwen Argersinger of Mesa Community College’s Red Mountain Campus, saying that I could teach a Saturday class there.

So here I am, 50 years old, with my education and experience and published books, having sunk to teaching at a trade school and sleeping on the floor of my parents’ living room, driving a car nominally owned by my brother, and replying to guys on PlanetOut I’m not attracted to but who answered my personals ad.

I guess I’m lucky I’m a Galsworthy, not a Hardy, and I see that it’s all comedy, not tragedy, so I have a rueful smile on my face.

Being here in Apache Junction and working at Lamson College will be sort of like living in Teresa’s living room in Manhattan and teaching at John Jay, except that everything is a hundred times crappier.

I feel kind of foolish. I guess I got the stuffing kicked out of me. But I’m still ticking, like John Cameron Swayze’s Timex watches.

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Friday, July 27, 2001

8:30 PM. Last night at this time I was asleep, but once again I awakened around 3 AM, feeling frustrated that I never got back to dreamland. I felt tired all day today.

On the other hand, I probably would not have felt bad if the times were Eastern and I fell asleep at 11:30 PM and woke up at 6 AM.

Either way, I slept six and a half hours, which is not enough sleep for me, but it’s not nothing, either. As I once heard Teresa say to Paul: “Pick any six hours between 9 PM and 5 AM; you can’t expect to sleep all of them.”

But I think some people – and I may be one of them – really need to sleep seven to eight hours to feel their best.

As the day went on, my anxiety level decreased as my yawning increased. Now I’m sleepy, and I haven’t taken my Klonopin yet. This morning I was quite anxious, but now I feel relaxed.

Last fall, too, I would feel better in the evenings when my depression and anxiety would fade – until I slept poorly and woke up (or didn’t sleep at all) feeling tired, dejected and anxiety-ridden.

I’ve been reading the textbook for Estate Planning and Probate. There seems to be a lot I don’t remember from D.T. Smith’s class, which, like Civil Procedure, was not one of my better classes in law school.

I’m not familiar with Arizona’s requirements for a will nor its intestate succession statute, just as I don’t know the Arizona rules of civil Procedure or local rules of court. I’ll have to do a lot of research to find out that stuff.

I didn’t accomplish much today, but I did send out all of the documents regarding my Arizona residency for ASU in order to get in-state tuition.

Going out at 9:15 AM, I took the Times to Starbucks, where I had Passion tea; I also had regular iced tea at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf across Power Road.

From there, I went to the Red Mountain branch of the Mesa library and got online for an hour.

Gavriel Rosenfeld, a history professor at Fairfield College, asked me if I was influenced by the “Hitler wave” of material in West Germany in the mid- to late 1970s. He believes that his father, Isaac Rosenfeld, in Imagining Hitler, “misread” my story. Instead, Gavriel believes that I was taking the normalization of Adolf Hitler to its sad and logical extreme.

I told him what I could, warning him about the intentional fallacy, and he seemed satisfied. I also directed him to the Dictionary of Literary Bibliography.

I also got emails from Tom and Sat Darshan.

Tom seems to be giving lots of lectures and readings in Germany, as well as other European countries, where he is treated quite well. He said that Annette is recovering from her surgery.

Sat Darshan wrote that it was hard last night to see Gurudaya go off to college in Eugene, Oregon– “she’s so young” – but then she mused that she herself was only 20 when she went to live in Germany.

I reassured her that Gurudaya will be fine and also said it would be okay to let Nirankar take Kiran on Saturday while Sat Darshan attends an officemate’s party. Nirankar may be crazy, but she loves Kiran so much that she certainly would never harm her.

I was surprised to hear that Ravinder is now living back in New York; Sat Darshan assumed I knew that. Anyway, who can blame him?

I chatted with Nick, one of the guys who answered my PlanetOut ad, who told me about his own background.

He didn’t come out until 1997, and then he spent all his time in the gay community being very active before he sort of got burned out by the fizzle of the community center and the gay bookstore.

The other guy I spoke to from PlanetOut was Bill, who said he had lived in North Miami and still has a sister living in Davie.

Ragdale forwarded a note I got from Theresa Knight McFadden. She seems to be doing well, and I will write her. I also should call Virginia, though maybe I’ll email her first.

I’ve begun to get accustomed to the awful heat here. The last two evenings, I sat outside in the backyard at sunset.

Arizona certainly does have gorgeous sunsets. Apache Junction feels closer to nature than urban Mesa, and maybe I need that feeling now.

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Monday, July 30, 2001

3 PM. I listened to my instincts and told Debra I wouldn’t take the Lamson College courses.

Last evening I again spoke to Nick from PlanetOut, who worked at proprietary schools and Ottawa University.

He said that Lamson has a bad reputation for suckering in students who later drop out. Ottawa University wouldn’t accept Lamson’s credits the way they would from other, better proprietary schools.

Teresa said it was a no-brainer: the money I’d make was hardly more than unemployment. Alice said I’d already known I wanted to go to Arkansas, so why did I first accept the job?

“But someday you’ll have to decide where you want to live,” Alice said, “and you’ll need to find a permanent, not a temporary, job.”

She’s right. I don’t know where I want to live now.

Tom said that Arkansas will be beautiful in September and that eventually some job will happen for me, whether it’s in or out of the classroom.

Sat Darshan was the only person who said that to her, $19 an hour was decent pay. But she didn’t realize that, although I wouldn’t be grading papers, I’d be spending time preparing for classes as well as commuting. (Tom said that the commute alone would drive him away.)

My parents aren’t happy with my decision. “What are they paying you to go to Arkansas?” Dad asked sarcastically. But I can’t let my parents’ lack of faith in my decisions sway me.

I had thought I’d be feeling more secure in Arizona, and I do feel that way somewhat, but I have to decide whether the trade-offs are worth it.

I emailed Dairy Hollow asking what the earliest date I can come is. I’ll make plane reservations once I know.

While I can’t be sure I’ll find Eureka Springs to my liking, my gut tells me not to turn down this opportunity. I should have gone there last year, but I let fear stand in my way.

I also probably should have gone to Ragdale last September – but I didn’t know I wouldn’t like ASU’s English Department and journalism school, so I can’t really regret the way things worked out.

It seems that my experiences with anxiety and depression here have taught me nothing. It’s probably that I don’t quite understand what I’ve learned, and of course, I’m still going through that process.

I fell asleep during Six Feet Under about 10 AM, and once I awoke at 2:40 AM, I had the familiar fear that I wouldn’t get back to sleep. I didn’t, although I took an Ativan. I might have fallen asleep for a little while, but I’m not sure.

I did exercise today, just as I eventually did yesterday, but I’m feeling a little shaky. I probably should have taken another Triavil, and I’ll go get one now.

Last night I took only a quarter milligram of Klonopin along with half an Ambien, and this morning I took an eighth of a milligram of Klonopin, so I probably need to up my dosages.

After returning the books and papers to Lamson College, I went to Borders in Mesa, where I read the papers over iced tea until CompUSA opened at 10 AM.

They will ship my computer back to Compaq and see if the monitor or the monitor driver is the problem.

From there, I went to the Walmart supercenter off Stapley Drive, where I bought the decaffeinated Crystal Light iced tea that Mom has been wanting.

Then I had a baked potato at the nearby Wendy’s and bought two bags of frozen mango chunks at Trader Joe’s on Gilbert Road.

I spoke to Sat Darshan, who is still swamped at work, and I think I got her to understand why I quit the Lamson College job.

It was going to pay me about $900 a course, which is much less than I’ve ever made teaching a class – and it was 48 hours (50-minute hours) of teaching.

Even the Maricopa Community College District is paying adjuncts $1,800 this year.

My first teaching job salary of $525 at LIU was far more in real dollars than Lamson College was paying. Maybe if I still lived in Mesa, I would have considered it, but I don’t know.

Now, what am I going to do over the next month?

Nick seems like the nicest guy I’ve met through PlanetOut, but he’s my age and fat. Can I get past that and see what a great guy he is? We talked for a while again.

He’s lived everywhere, including Johannesburg, after leaving the small rural Iowa town he grew up in.

Nick came out only a few years ago, and his Iowa family accepts him “at a distance.” He’s ex-Air Force and a Republican, so I doubt he’s an ideal match even to become friends. I think he would find me obnoxious.

Liz from Red Hen Press called and said that Elihu phoned last week, trying to locate me. She gave me Elihu’s email address, but I’m so embarrassed over portraying him in the “Salugi at Starbucks” story in the book that I probably won’t write to him.

I guess he has a right to be angry. I feel ashamed of putting his life out there in my book. Elihu might very well be okay with the story, but I’m afraid to find out.