A Writer’s Diary Entries From Early May, 2001
Wednesday, May 2, 2001
6:30 PM. I’ve got stuff in the dryer now because I had another little flood in the bathroom after someone upstairs took a shower. Things are not that bad in the bathroom itself, but I used up four bath towels soaking up the water from the carpeting in front of the bathroom door. Jeez.
And the Cougar gave us a last gasp of trouble. I insisted that Dad come with one of my brothers so that he could follow the Cougar home, but of course Dad lost Jonathan, and naturally the car got stuck. Luckily, Jonathan managed to pull into a station at Baseline and Sossaman.
Dad ended up selling the damn car for $500 to the tow truck guy. Originally Dad had figured he could get $1,000 for it, but I know what a piece of crap it is.
Thank God that car is out of my life. If only I’d gotten rid of it a year ago in Florida, I would now have $4,500 more, given what I spent on shipping it to Arizona and then all the repairs.
Of course, that doesn’t account for all the anxiety and the depression the car caused me. I don’t expect much better from the Geo Prizm, which is not a great car, either.
This morning I made reservations on America West for a Phoenix-Burbank trip for Monday, June 4 to Monday, June 11, and I’ve rented a car from Sears for the week.
Due to bad timing, I’ll miss seeing Kevin in Room Service at the Woodland Hills Playhouse, right near Libby and Grant’s house, as it starts a few days after I leave.
My bank account is getting really low. Soon it will be ATM cash advance time, but at least today I got a $10.76 check from Amazon.com for the two copies of Lincoln’s Doctor’s Dog that sold in March. None of my books sold in April.
I applied for a credit card online just so that I can get my credit file after they reject me. I want to see if the bankruptcy has come off my credit report after a decade the way it’s supposed to.
I slept okay and for the first Wednesday in a long time didn’t have to leave the house at 7 AM.
This morning at Borders, Michael, the black barista I like, was really nice to me when I ordered my iced tea. I mentioned that I was an author and that my last book was stories about gay relationships.
He guessed that I was 38, though perhaps he was being polite. When I told him I’d be 50 in a month, Michael said that his mother is 52 and young-looking and that his great-grandmother is 104 and “pretty frisky.”
I keep meaning to call Mark Savage, but the time difference makes it problematic.
It’s hard to fathom that I have class at ASU tomorrow when I haven’t yet looked at the students’ research papers yet.
Josh told me that he sold his share of the KGB Bar back to Denis for the original price even though Josh knows it’s worth three times that. To make himself look good, Denis told Josh that Melvin Jules Bukiet said Josh shouldn’t even get that much.
Bukiet is a total asshole. He’s the son of a rich Holocaust survivor and people suck up to him because he’s got these anthologies, but everything I’ve read about him convinces me that he’s a pompous jerk.
Tom seems blissfully lazy in Stuttgart now that he has time to write and to read. Most recently, he liked Roth’s The Human Stain. He also takes a lot of long walks around town.
Tom turned down an adjunct job because he “has too much respect for the teaching profession” to work for the equivalent of $26 an hour. I replied that this term I netted only $99 a week from Mesa Community College.
Tom and Annette are going to Zurich for the weekend for a $25 train fare: “I couldn’t get a taxi ride to the airport in New Orleans for that little money.”
The T. Whale series of six books will be out this year and next from the same guy who published The Wrong Mistake.
I wish that, like Tom, I lived in a place where I didn’t need a car. That’s why I’m looking forward to Ragdale – although I have to admit I like driving a rental car the way I did in New York and will in Los Angeles.
I canceled my GEICO insurance for the Cougar and will get a $52 refund. Jonathan is the official owner of the Geo Prizm, of course, so I will pay him the insurance and he’ll pay the insurance company.
So in the last couple of days, I’ve learned what I’ll be doing in June and I’ve made my travel arrangements for Los Angeles and Chicago. The 6,000 bonus miles should definitely get me a free flight on America West.
I’ll go check now to see if my laundry is dry and then watch Dawson’s Creek and do whatever.
Monday, May 7, 2001
3 PM. Today was stressful, and the anticipation of the stress probably provoked my insomnia last night. Even though I took an Ambien, I slept only the four hours from 10:30 PM to 2:30 AM.
On top of everything, it’s been over 100° today, adding to my stress.
Just getting all those research papers from my students felt overwhelming. I missed one girl who claimed she came in five minutes after I left ASU at 11:50 AM. She said she’s emailing the paper to me and also putting it in my departmental mailbox.
I’ve “graded” most of the papers already. While I feel guilty about holistically grading the ones from students who didn’t hand in a self-addressed stamped envelope, my mental health is more important than academic integrity.
I have half a dozen papers from students whose work I need to mail back to them, but I can get to those tomorrow despite the MCC papers that will be coming in.
In my 7:40 AM class, I gave out 17 A grades even though I also failed the two kids who stopped showing up. The rest of the class got B’s.
I expect the results in the second class will be similar. I desperately want to avoid any challenges to my grades.
Myrna, who opened the English Department office for me at 7:30 AM, left a memo telling us to leave our grade books with Heidi and to turn in our office keys by May 25. I hope to go in with my grades on Wednesday; the deadline is Friday at noon.
I know I’ve given an A to some people who don’t really deserve one, but at this point I just want to get through the semester. I need to remind myself that I never have to see any of these students again.
I probably should have closed the door on returning to ASU, either as a student (by refusing financial aid for the fall) or as an adjunct (by not applying to Justice Studies, which is looking for faculty associates), but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to do either of those things.
I think I’ll write the rest of today’s entry later. I’m really anxious right now, so I needed to vent a little.
*
6 PM. I reduced some stress merely by letting time go by.
Everything related to my teaching at ASU and MCC will get done. I read and graded more papers, but now I’m through for the night.
Last evening I spoke to Mark Savage, who seems to be doing all right, given the shocking circumstances of his mother’s sudden death.
“It helps to talk to other people whose parents have died,” he told me.
No one expected his mother to die – her own father passed away only three years ago at 103 – but compared to the horror stories he’s heard about, Mrs. Savage’s quick death was in some way a blessing. At least she got to see her kids and her new grandson at Passover.
She died here in Arizona, but before Mark could get a flight out – his father phoned him in his classroom – Mark’s father and his brother Steven, who had come in from Seattle, pulled the plug when they realized there was no hope.
His grandfather had gotten the family plots at Beth David in Elmont, where my Sarrett grandparents and my Ginsberg and Cohen great-grandparents are buried.
Lots of people showed up for the funeral, including a delegation of Mark’s colleagues at his school, who brought condolence cards made by his fifth-graders.
He stayed out of work a week, and Lanny also stayed with their father a week while their middle brother had to go back to Seattle a little bit sooner, given that he’s the CEO of a food company.
At the end of the week, Lanny and his father are coming out here to close the house in Sun City West and put it on sale.
When his brothers marveled at how well their father was doing, Mark told them it was his obsessive-compulsive behavior that was getting him through everything.
Even after being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes a few years ago, Mrs. Savage did not really change her eating habits and remained overweight. Still, before the TIA she had last month, her health had been fine, and as Mark said, while TIAs may sometimes be harbingers of strokes, they certainly aren’t always.
Mark’s mother complained of headaches, but as he said, everyone gets headaches. She was only 75.
I told Mark how upset I got when I learned of the death when I was reading the obituary pages in the New York Times at the Wendy’s on Southern and Country Club.
Since I couldn’t be there for Mark in person, I’m glad I spoke to him for over an hour last night. After I got off the phone, Mom called me and we chatted for another half an hour.
Sat Darshan said that Kiran got sick again over the weekend and that she took her to work yesterday so she could bring her to the doctor in the afternoon.
I know kids in day care get sick a lot, but Kiran seems to get these respiratory infections so often. Maybe it’s because she was born with marijuana in her system and that affected her lungs?
Sat Darshan sent me two photos she took at her niece’s wedding in India. The scenes were so colorful, they looked like something out of a Bollywood movie.
Theresa Knight McFadden said that she and Chuck will be coming to Phoenix on Friday to visit their son and his family. His new baby, born last August, has already had six surgeries and has to be partially tube-fed. Theresa’s other son got married recently, and she said she’s had “a surreal year.”
Theresa said she’s been so busy teaching full-time at Northern Virginia Community College that she’s had no time for her own art. I’ll try to see her and Chuck while they’re in town.
My left eyelid has been twitching like crazy sporadically during the day. Obviously that’s a sign of stress. But things should get more relaxed soon.
Tuesday, May 8, 2001
3 PM. It’s 105° and I’ve just come back from the I-can’t-believe-the-theater-is-still-in-business Harkins Poco Fiesta, where I did not lose my sunglasses in the seat the way I did last week.
I went to see Town and Country, which the studio had kept unreleased for years.
The film wasn’t all that bad, really. It featured decent actors (Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, Gary Shandling) as two wealthy couples in middle age hanging out in Fifth Avenue luxury apartments, Hamptons beach houses, Sun Valley cabins, Paris night clubs and Mississippi plantation homes. And there was a nice self-parody by Charlton Heston.
As I drove my noisy Geo Prizm home the mile and a half from the theater, I was behind cars with the bumper stickers “TGIF: Thank God I’m Female,” “Friends Don’t Let Friends Vote Republican,” “Friend of Lois W.” (who may or may not be a Republican), and on the same car, “Higher Powered.”
In my mailbox were just the neighborhood shopper and a coupon book. Walking to my apartment, I passed one of the little boys in this complex – Jordan or Justin or Cody (I hear them talking to each other, so I know their names), who was trying to get a caterpillar to walk a straight line by training it with a stick.
I’m wearing the utility pants I wore to school this morning, but with the bottoms zippered off so that they’re shorts.
Since Sunday, I’ve been listening to Ron Silver read (“perform”) the audiobook version of Philip Roth’s I Married a Communist, which probably stimulated me so much on Sunday night that I couldn’t get to sleep.
Last night, even without Ambien, I couldn’t make it past the first third of Ally McBeal, and I slept soundly for nine hours, 8:20 PM until 5:20 AM.
So far I’ve read only the first and op-ed pages of today’s Times, but I handed in my grades and my office key at ASU. Even though I still have to comment on papers I need to mail back to students, my semester is officially over.
Earlier in the day, I was feeling anxious, but at MCC, nine of my students turned in their papers and I edited others that the students will turn in on Thursday.
At the Starbucks near Whole Foods on Rural Road, I graded most of my ASU papers. Once I’d done that, a feeling of calmness and well-being swept over me.
I went across Baseline Road and had a baked potato and Diet Coke at Wendy’s and came home to exercise to the Body Electric episode from the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York that I’d taped at 6:30 AM.
Last night I had two dreams in which I was in Philadelphia at Ronna and Matthew’s house and other dreams that took place in Chicago and Los Angeles. All of these are places I expect to be this summer.
Sat Darshan wrote that although Kiran still has a cold, she sent her to preschool with her fingers crossed today.
Despite the cool weather in New York, Teresa has been staying on Fire Island, having missed the beach during the hot spell last week because of the theater and ballet tickets.
She says that Ron and Diane keep complaining to the landlord of the house Teresa used to rent for the summer, annoying him so much that he’s going to raise their rent by $3,000.
“They don’t see it as just a beach house,” Teresa said. “When I was a renter, I knew not to expect too much from the landlord.”
Now that she and Paul own their own house in Fire Island, they’ve been fixing things and getting it ready for summer. Paul spent a whole day laying down the new floor.
Teresa said that Barbara is having “so much anxiety that she sounds like you did last fall.” Barbara’s been having palpitations and is on Valium, a beta blocker and other drugs. To me, it sounds as if Barbara’s going through a delayed reaction to Stewart’s death.
Teresa wants me to call Jade to tell her to do the stuff she needs for that professor to make up the Incomplete, as graduation is at Purchase is this Saturday. “I’m asking you to do it because you’re one of the few people Jade will listen to,” Teresa wrote.
I just took a Triavil because I’m feeling a little shaky. Usually I take one at noon but I decided to wait today.
The good news is that I’ve had no sweaty palms today and no eyelid twitching.
Thursday, May 10, 2001
7 PM. I’m exhausted after a stress-filled day – but mostly I did it to myself.
Oddly, I slept better last night than I do most nights, but I couldn’t get back to sleep after awakening at 4 AM following a dream in which I brilliantly ad-libbed and brought the house down in a series of skits for a gay comedy troupe.
Unable to sleep, I ended up going to Albertsons at 6 AM to buy groceries, printer paper and a graduation card for Jade.
After putting everything away, I got to MCC for the last class of the semester. Doyle Burke, Ben, Deborah and Diane were all in the mailbox room/adjunct hideaway.
We still haven’t gotten the grade rosters, so I felt in no hurry to grade the 15 or so papers that came in today, though I did give back the ones I got on Tuesday.
Next Friday is the deadline for turning in grades. But today I had to write letters for my four Dobson High School girls, who need to pass English 102 in order to graduate.
I have to admit that I did feel nostalgic saying goodbye to Roberto and Robert, Clay and Rachel and the other students who’ve been with me since the fall. They obviously liked me a lot and said they wished I would stay on at MCC.
Yesterday an ASU student told me, “You part-time teachers underrate yourselves. I learned a lot from you.”
The line was too long when Great Clips opened, so I went to Starbucks for a grande iced tea.
At home, I tried several times to file an additional claim for Florida unemployment benefits on the phone, but I got frustrated and all I did was leave a message. I ended up applying online, which was tedious, and I fear that something’s going to go wrong with my unemployment benefits.
Because I have to register with the Arizona Job Service in order to get benefits from Florida, I went over to the downtown Mesa Department of Economic Security – the unemployment and welfare office – after I exercised and had lunch.
Their offices are the as skeezy as you’d expect. After entering my info on one of their ancient dedicated terminals, I had to wait half an hour before an intake interview with a bored civil servant.
At home, I got three credit card bills. I ended up making out some new checks and changing my address on the cards back to the Apache Junction house.
I’m at the point where I’m very low on my checking account, given that I used to have a balance of $3,000 or $4,000. In order to simply make minimum payments, I’ve already started having to take out cash advances.
But yesterday Mom said that I got a new Capital One card with a $300 credit line. It’s ironic because I applied for that card with the assumption I’d get turned down in order to see if my bankruptcy is off my credit reports.
I still have at least $18,000 and maybe as much as $23,000 in unused credit, but the high interest is killing me. However, I’m not going to get upset about it now.
Kanori Lee called with an urgent request. Could I do a reading in Los Angeles at Skylight Books in August? No, I said, I’ll be on the East Coast then.
On June 9, I’ve got the Midnight Special reading in Santa Monica with Kate at 3 PM and I’ll have a 7 PM reading at A Different Light in West Hollywood, one of the few remaining gay bookstores in the country. Their website doesn’t list me, but I see that Christopher Rice and Felice Picano are reading there.
I’m a little nervous about having two readings on one day and anxious about the logistics. I also wish I didn’t have all those days in Los Angeles before June 9 to think about it.
Martin Arnold’s publishing column in the Times today described a “quiet,” “unsettled” period in gay fiction. Nobody wants to read dated coming-out stories anymore, and more gay authors want to shed that title and be treated as literary authors.
I’ve never been treated as a “gay author.” The Lambda Book Report evidently feels that The Silicon Valley Diet is not gay enough to deserve a review.
Probably not too many people will show up for my readings at either bookstore.
Bree just called – her baby was crying in the background – to confirm my noon appointment with Susan tomorrow.
Teresa said she told Barbara to get a therapist and used me as an example of someone who’s come through a bout with anxiety.
This morning I took the regular 0.5 mg. of Klonopin, but I’ve been trying to lower my evening dosage. I’m tired now, so maybe I’ll sleep well tonight without taking too much medicine.