A Writer’s Diary Entries From Mid-October, 1999
Monday, October 11, 1999
7 PM. Igor just phoned, asking if I wanted to go with him to the Vicki Hendricks/Elisa Albo reading at Tobacco Road in downtown Miami. He hadn’t read the email I’d sent him earlier in the day.
I’m so much not a night person that I don’t even go to events like poetry readings, much less the bars that most gay men go to. And I’m comfortable with that, and at my age, I have no desire to change. I guess that goes against my usual stance against stick-in-the-mud behavior, but hey, we’re all bundles of contradictions.
For me, literature is basically a solitary activity – which is why I enjoy the solitude of writers’ colonies so much. I’d almost always rather read a work of poetry or fiction than see and hear its author, and while I’ve enjoyed seeing various writers over the years, it doesn’t make me less sure that my most profound experiences with literature have involved me and a book and no other humans around.
On the other hand, this afternoon I went to Barnes & Noble to grade the evening class’s papers, and when I finished that task, I read a couple of magazines – and bought XY and Content.
Up at 4 AM, I never really went back to sleep, though I drifted off during NPR’s Morning Edition and somehow a news report on the problems of air travel found its way into my dream in the form of a monologue by a woman at an airport.
In class today I had no tapes, only me lecturing on the scope of equal protection. I left early so the students could evaluate me.
Javier Cardone came up to see me to ask about applying to UF law school. I can tell these students a lot about law schools that nobody else teaching Legal Studies at Nova can – and unless the history Ph.D. they have next year has a law degree, the students will be out of luck next year.
I told Mike Torres he could take my night Legal Research and Writing class next term even though he’ll miss classes because of baseball games, but said he’s got to see me during the day for conferences. Mike was in my Language 2000 class, and I know his writing problems; he’s diligent, so I don’t mind.
As I told Josh when he IM’d me this morning, I really do love my job. Of course, he had only the usual bad news: stuff about the cost of his new kitchen, which bored me, and then he talked about Joyce’s press conferences and the possibilities she can win a lawsuit from the U.S. for its responsibility in Charles’ death – that did interest me.
“You know what?” Josh brought up out of nowhere. “I think Todd’s son is schizophrenic.” I resisted the impulse to say it takes one to know one as he went on about how crazy the guy was and how depressed Todd is about his son’s behavior. Typical Josh gloom.
I had tons of email today, and before class, Vish IM’d me. Yesterday he got soaked on his apple-picking jaunt upstate, he said, and then he started really getting affectionate and suggestive. I did the same and said I’d call tonight – though I hope I’m not leading Vish on. He’s so lonely and closeted and I don’t know if we could be good together.
Both Travis and Tim replied again. Travis told me he works for Time Out Youth, a gay youth advocacy agency in Charlotte.
Of course I remembered them from the controversy over that girl who’d won a city playwriting contest that uptight Charlotte wouldn’t produce because of its lesbian content. In June, the New York Public Theater put on one-night production as a benefit for Time Out Youth. Travis seems like a great guy in addition to being incredibly hot.
Tim in San Francisco – well, he’s definitely taken with me, even if I am his age. He again called me handsome, but since he went on about my “big brown eyes” I have to question his judgment as well as his vision since my eyes are clearly somewhere between blue and green.
Weirdly, this is coming from a 48-year-old wealthy and sophisticated guy who tells me about “raging” – taking drugs and having group sex all night – all the while explaining that he really much prefers a serious relationship with one guy.
Jim in Atlanta – oh, how could I forget Jim? – wrote after being at a work seminar (rehashed Stephen Covey Seven Habits crap) that bored him out of his mind. His Southern family seems like it’s a passel of weirdos out of O’Connor or Williams. Why is it that guys I’m only mildly interested in find me more appealing?
The truth is that I could get through however long I have to live without ever having sex again, so I don’t plan on having any more hopeless crushes on guys. Hey, I’ll be honest: I’m clumsy and unsophisticated and boringly vanilla in bed.
But I’m not desperate. I’ll never be desperate, knowing that guys find desperation a turnoff – just the way I do. Well, we’ll see where all this goes. My guess is nowheresville.
Meanwhile, Jaime – my last crush (using last in the sense of “final,” I hope) – wrote back but still hasn’t told me what his trip to Europe was like. Maybe he didn’t have a good time – or maybe he had so great a time he didn’t want to share it.
Alice emailed to ask how she could order my book; I told her it won’t be out till Red Hen Press-knows-when but I’d let her know.
Mark Savage wrote that he enjoys being a teacher of a “2” rather than a “3” class. They’re smarter, and several students have moved, so he’s left with only 25 students (“It’s like teaching in the ’burbs,” he wrote).
Mark said this semester’s grad school courses aren’t too onerous. But he doesn’t have the money to go to Phoenix for Christmas. I don’t, either, but that isn’t stopping me.
Dr. Sidney Silverman’s obituary was in the Times today – he was Mom’s obstetrician/gynecologist (and also Ronna’s) and delivered Jonathan. His senior partner, Dr. Levine, delivered me and Marc as well as Mom and Marty.
When I called Apache Junction, Dad answered, so I faxed him the article about Dr. Silverman. Dad said his knee is better and everything is okay – but it’s probably not.
Today’s Variety said that Sony Pictures paid Wes Strick half a million and points for his screenplay of The Glass House, a thriller they expect to go with soon.
I told that to Kevin, who was waiting to hear about an agency representing him. On Friday he’s got an audition for a part in a TV series, The Voyeur, though I couldn’t find it listed in Lexis’s INPRO (In Production) database.
Saturday, October 16, 1999
9 PM. Last night around 7 PM, the power knocked out by Hurricane Irene finally went back on and stayed on, so I started doing stuff.
I went out to Publix and bought ten items so I could go through the express line, and then came home to do my usual half-hour of exercise and a load of laundry.
The phone rang and it was Libby, a pleasant surprise. She finally tracked me down after first calling the other two Richard Graysons in Broward County. She wanted to see how I was doing in the storm.
She and Grant had changed their number to an unlisted one, so I’d been unable to get to them for quite a while.
The previous night they were all awakened at 3 AM by an earthquake in Joshua Tree, all except Wyatt, who slept through it. But there was no real damage in L.A., and they were all fine.
Grant’s business is again doing well, which is a relief. He’s just returned from seeing his mother, who’s been ill and depressed and stays in bed most of the day.
Lindsay has started middle school, which proved to be a difficult adjustment because she’s in regular classes while all her friends are in enriched classes. She’s still into gymnastics, and her teacher opened up a studio closer to the house so Libby doesn’t have to drive to Agoura Hills all the time.
Wyatt has a good third-grade teacher after a bad one last year who caused his grades to fall. He plays soccer and is in the Boy Scouts.
This past summer they took their RV on many trips, staying everywhere from the most spartan campgrounds to the Ritz-Carlton.
Libby’s brother is still living in the old family home on Ninth Street in Park Slope, and Brendan from Brooklyn College and his partner are living a few blocks away.
Libby said I should definitely consider moving to Los Angeles and that I can always come for a visit; they’re converting the garage to a spare room where I could sleep.
Anyway, we exchanged phone numbers and said we wouldn’t lose touch this time.
After chowing down a burrito and a sweet potato, I went out again, this time to Kinko’s, where I paid $2 to check my Yahoo Mail. I had 14 messages, some of them forwarded jokes from Camille and stuff from the Miami Herald.
One student, Randy Fein, mailed me his final exam essay, and Jeff Baron sent me a nice note.
Jeff said there have been a lot of productions of Visiting Mr. Green all over the world. His new play, Mother’s Day, will premiere next year in Sydney, and he’s also doing a lot of directing.
Because Jeff’s partner has begun working the night shift as a nurse at Columbia-Presbyterian, their home routine is different, but everything else is fine.
I also got two emails from Tim. I wish he’d stop saying how handsome I am. Not only that, but he asked me if I’d ever consider getting involved in an LTR (long-term relationship).
Tim’s wondering why I live in a “backwater” annoyed me – that smug arrogance of San Franciscans I find so creepy. Also creepy is his constant telling me how sexy I look when he knows me only through some emails and a few photos.
There were also two emails from Vish – plus a mushy card, the third one he’d sent this week. He is not anywhere as creepy as Tim, but at times he sounds a little lovesick.
I didn’t answer any of the emails even though that will probably make me even more desirable. Though it may sound heartless to say so, I think that I wouldn’t care if I never again heard from some of the respondents to my ad.
Is it a problem I have, rejecting guys who profess to like me so much? Is it because I have so little self-esteem that I don’t respect guys who give me all these compliments? Or am I just being realistic, understanding that neither Vish nor Tim can really know me until they’ve spent time with me in person?
In some ways, 17-year-old Carlos seems more mature and realistic than the guys who answered my ad who are twenty or thirty years older.
I don’t have to worry about being a pedophile with Carlos because he seems both sensible and self-protective. I’ll trust my instincts and my judgment and just chat with him. I like developing an online friendship slowly, the way I did with Kevin and Jaime.
Anyway, after I left Kinko’s, I bought an Interplak at Target and more groceries (15 items) at Albertsons, and later I went out twice to fill up both cars at Shell with the new Shell credit card that arrived yesterday.
Sunday, October 17, 1999
8 PM. I slept deeply, but when I woke up at 3:30 AM, my mind couldn’t stop racing with all the stuff I have to do in the next three weeks, and I never did get back to sleep.
Only now is my body starting to disengage and shut down. It’s been an odd weekend. The eight-week term ended anticlimactically, and since I left my papers in the office, I couldn’t even grade the final exams that were turned in during class.
I don’t like having to begin a new term when I haven’t ended the last one; I don’t have the feeling of satisfaction that comes at the end of a 16-week semester or even the eight-week B.P.M. classes when I no longer have to return to the same place every week.
I guess I’ll manage to grade the finals tomorrow and Tuesday. I don’t have to write comments and can just circle problems and put check marks next to the good points in their answers.
Besides, I already have a reasonable idea of what grade each student will get, though I tend to agonize over grades more than I should.
I stayed in the apartment most of the day, going out first at 1 PM to the West Regional Library, where I got some videos related to immigration for Core Studies: documentaries on Ellis Island and Mazursky’s Moscow on the Hudson.
It’s a little scary that I’ll be reading all five books – the story collections by Alexie, Danticat and Diaz, and the novels by Jen and Mukherjee – for the first time along with my students, and I’m also new to a lot of the pre-American Constitutional History material, too.
Well, it’s like being a student again.
Another thing I need to prepare for is the three-hour workshop at the Center for the Book a week from Saturday. I figured I’d wait to see if enough people will register because otherwise Jean Trebbi might cancel it.
Tuesday, October 19, 1999
7 PM. Last evening I started reading the chapters in Benedict’s The Blessings of Liberty, our Constitutional History I text.
The first chapter is on the English origins of American constitutionalism, and it’s the history of the struggles between kings and Parliament and the various courts, the Protectorate and the Glorious Revolution and stuff I know mostly via Masterpiece Theatre.
I put the book down at 10:30 PM, and after falling asleep for maybe an hour, I jolted awake and spent hours lying in bed, my mind on fire with all sorts of stuff. My foot hurt, I felt queasy, and I could not get back to sleep till 4:30 AM, when I managed another two and a half hours.
This morning I had very bad vertigo, either from sinus problems, lack of sleep or stress. I really felt quite sick and didn’t know if I could make it through my class today.
But I had to go to the podiatrist at 10:30 AM. Dr. Chusid got me my orthotics, and he told me to wear them only an hour today and to add an hour each day.
Starting to feel better, I stopped at Barnes & Noble for some spring cherry iced tea, a variety of green tea that perked me up quite a bit.
All of a sudden I realized that my Internet writing workshop is this coming Saturday, not the week after. Somehow that hadn’t registered before. I started preparing handouts and material for a talk, but I was not ready to panic today. I still have three days to panic.
At least it will be over a week before I thought it would be, and then, starting next week, I can completely concentrate on my Nova classes.
Back home, I read a little of the New York Times and had lunch and then went off to school.
Although I still haven’t gotten all the papers from last semester, I’ve got to do the grades for the night class tomorrow. I do have everything for the day class, so I can also get that finished tomorrow, provided I don’t agonize unduly.
After handing in this term’s syllabi to Santa, I went to my Core Studies class, where I introduced myself and the texts and went over the course outline. I asked each student to tell me about themselves, their major and their ethnic background. (I never did the latter before, but this is, after all, a class in multiculturalism.)
In addition to the usual students whose families were “from all over” Europe, I’ve got ethnic Indians from India, Guyana and Bahrain, a Chinese-Vietnamese, a Thai, a Japanese-Brazilian, two Trinidadians (one black, one Indian), two Jamaicans and two Colombians – some of whom were born here and some who arrived in the U.S. only a few years ago.
After a break, I showed the History Channel tape about Ells Island and then let them go twenty minutes early, at 3:30 PM, so they could go the bookstore and get at least the first text.
Back in my office, I thought the class went okay.
Vish sent me more emails; he obviously cares about me a great deal. I sent him a homemade birthday card via snail mail, and I’ll call him in a couple of hours.
I really don’t know how to deal with him. He said he told his cousins that I’m his “mentor” and made it sound as if it were a York College requirement.
Sat Darshan said that she and Kiran Kaur both had a stomach virus. She seemed very stressed out even before getting sick, worrying because at 13 months, Kiran isn’t walking yet. I told her that Ronna’s daughter didn’t walk at that age, either.
Next week is the severance hearing with Kiran’s birth mother, and while Sat Darshan heard that Rebecca isn’t planning to fight for Kiran, she wants to take Tyler away from Nirankar – although the Brooklyn-born Child Services caseworker will make sure that doesn’t happen.
Patrick said he really got into Vicki’s Iguana Love once he started, and Steve Alford gave it a great review in last Sunday’s Sun-Sentinel.
This evening I went over to the Falcon Pub, a bar right here by my apartment complex, where some of the Liberal Arts people were gathering: Ben, Suellen and her husband Chris, Lynn and her husband Paul Joseph, Marsha, Steve, Linda Gordon and others.
It was good to sit and chat and joke for a couple of hours, though the excess of Diet Coke I’ve had today probably won’t help me sleep tonight.
Suellen was very upset by the death of a 13-year-old boy in Cooper City. He was electrocuted when he touched a live wire under the water that had accumulated after the hurricane. Apparently he thought it was just a twig.
Suellen has been spending time at the middle school, where counselors have been brought in to help the boy’s grieving classmates. As the mayor, she takes every tragedy that happens in town to heart.
Wednesday, October 20, 1999
7 PM. I called Vish last night. Talking to him on the phone will probably help to put the damper on his puppy passion because I can steer the conversation to non-erotic, non-relationship topics like school (his and mine), the weather, and our health issues.
I thought that maybe if I kvetched enough about my foot problems, insomnia and dizziness, I’d turn him off – but today he sent me three animated get-well cards on email. I didn’t look at any of them because they take so long to load. This sounds like a Seinfeld episode.
I think Vish may end up paying for the calls because he’s got a cell phone. Oh well.
I got wrapped up in last night’s exciting playoff game – more extra innings – even if I had the feeling that the Mets would ultimately lose to Atlanta. After dozing off briefly, I was back at Insomnia Station for another three-hour layover.
It’s incredibly frustrating, but I’ve often had patches of bad nights in a row, sometimes lasting weeks at a time. Perhaps once I get into my new routine for the semester, I’ll be better off.
At least I was able to remain more or less asleep till 7:30 AM, and I just lay about for part of the morning between doing laundry, exercising and grading exams.
At 11 AM, I stopped at Wendy’s for a baked potato and Diet Coke, and then I went to my office, where I agonized over my students’ final grades but finally turned them in to Santa.
In the office till 4 PM, I began reading the Alexie book, feeling guilty that I’m just about keeping up with my students.
Later I went to Publix, where I stood on line for fifteen minutes to get a flu shot from a representative of the Visiting Nurses Association. My shoulder already hurts, so I can tell she didn’t do it deftly – or maybe I just tensed up. But since I don’t get reactions to flu shots, the soreness is no big deal.
The two hours I had my orthotics on did make my tendon sore, though, and I put on my Camwalker when I got back home.
Mom called to say she’ll pay the insurance on the Camaro until next April.
Jonathan has been unable to find a retail job because of his appearance, and Mom says he’s very depressed. He refuses to cut his hair although he says he may shave off his beard.
Mom is talking to him about going back to school and maybe trying to become a teacher. I told her about ASU East and NAU’s courses at the Central Arizona College campus right near the house in Apache Junction.
Jonathan told Mom that he’s never listened to anyone’s advice because he always thought he knew best what he should do, but he may be feeling differently now that, as Mom says, “he’s down on himself.”
At least Marc seems to be doing okay on his new job. Mom said the store manager already recommended Marc to her supervisor as a possible store manager himself.
After being on his own in Mesa for so long, Marc must find living with our parents and Jonathan very weird.
I’ll be glad to see my family for two weeks at Christmas, but I’d probably be more likely to move to Phoenix if my family lived somewhere else.