Every so often, I’ll record something that might entertain or enlighten someone, and those are the bits I set aside. I thought I’d eventually put them in a book of diary entries, but when the printout reached a height of eight inches, I decided that maybe two volumes—the second of which will cover the years 2003 to 2017—would make more sense. It’s worth mentioning that this is my edit. Of the roughly eight million words handwritten or typed into my diary since September 5, 1977, I’m including only a small fraction. An entirely different book from the same source material could make me appear nothing but evil, selfish, generous, or even, dare I say, sensitive. On any given day I am all these things and more: stupid, cheerful, misanthropic, cruel, narrow-minded, open, petty—the list goes on and on.
A different edit, no doubt a more precise one, would have involved handing my diary over to someone else, but that is something I can’t imagine doing, unless, perhaps, that person is a journalist. (They never get beyond the third page, which they usually call “the middle,” as in “I’d hoped to finish this before our interview but am only in the middle!”)
That said, I don’t really expect anyone to read this from start to finish. It seems more like the sort of thing you might dip in and out of, like someone else’s yearbook or a collection of jokes.
It wasn’t easy revisiting what are now 156 volumes of my diary. I broke the job up—a month or two per day—but after reading about me, I’d have to spend the rest of the day being me. I don’t know that I’ve ever done anything quite so exhausting. Hugh would be in the next room and hear me shout things like “Will you just shut up!” and “Who cares about the goddamn pocket square!”
“Who are you talking to?” he’d ask.
“Me in 2001,” I’d answer.
By then I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. The early years, 1977 to 1983, were the bleakest. I was writing my diaries by hand back then. The letters were small and, fueled by meth, a typical entry would go on for pages—solid walls of words, and every last one of them complete bullshit. I’ve included very little of that time in this book. It’s like listening to a crazy person. The gist is all you need, really.
The diary lightened up when I moved to Chicago, partly because I was in a big city but mainly because I felt so much better about myself. I’d finally done what I’d talked about doing for so many years: I’d left the town I grew up in. I’d gone back to college and actually graduated. There was all the more reason to feel good when, in the fall of 1990, I moved to New York. I was only writing at night back then, either smashed or getting there. You’d think I’d have addressed my drinking, at least in the privacy of my diary, but it’s rarely mentioned. To type that word—alcoholic—would have made it real, so I never recounted the talking-tos I got from Hugh and certain helpful people in my family.
Similarly, it took me a while in the 1970s to write the word gay. “Oh, please,” I said out loud to my twenty-year-old self while reading my earliest diaries. “Who do you think you’re kidding?”
This project made evident all the phases I’ve gone through over the years, and how intensely. Oh, the ink that was spilled over finding the correct phone number of someone who’d obviously—and for good reason—given me a fake one, over losing weight, over my French homework. Later I’d throw myself into catching flies and feeding them to spiders, and all this leads me to wonder, What’s next? Judging from my past it could be anything: collecting hair, crossbreeding rodents in my basement—who knows?
I was also struck while rereading my diaries by the number of people I knew in 1980 whom I’m still close with now. It’s so hard to predict which friends will last and which will fade away. Quite often I’d move and lose half the contacts in my address book, people I thought would be with me forever. It’s not that we outgrew one another. They just couldn’t be bothered to put a stamp on a letter. Or I couldn’t. Of course it’s easier now with email.
It was interesting to read back through a diary and come upon someone who would wind up being very important, who would drop out of nowhere and change the direction of my life: Hugh, Jim McManus, Meryl Vladimer, Geoff Kloske, Ira Glass, Andy Ward. I’d have thought the initial meetings would be momentous, that I’d recognize salvation when it presented itself—“There you are!”—but more often than not, each of them was just someone I shook hands with, then sat down later at my desk thinking, What was that person’s name again? Hugh was different. Him I remembered. With the others, though, it’s sort of heartening. You never know whose hand you’re going to shake.
Then there were those who died: my mother, my sister Tiffany, Don Congdon, the lovely David Rakoff. I’d reread the entries that featured these people and curse myself for not including more. Why did I not transcribe their every word? And shouldn’t I get cracking so that when friends and family members die in the future I’ll have something greater and more comforting to reflect upon? That’s the thing with a diary, though. In order to record your life, you sort of need to live it. Not at your desk, but beyond it. Out in the world where it’s so beautiful and complex and painful that sometimes you just need to sit down and write about it.
*I do not think The Wire was overrated.
1977
September 5, 1977
Sacramento, California
Ronnie and I got a ride from Lonnie and Tammy, who are on their way to Mount Shasta. The state fair is in town, and Sherri Lewis is performing. We slept out in the open next to the American River.
September 8, 1977
Mount Hood, Oregon
Sidetracked en route to Yakima. We met a couple named Pops and Jeannie who will pick us up at six tomorrow morning and take us to an orchard. Pops, who calls himself a “fruit tramp,” guessed Ronnie and I might make $300 between the two of us before the season is over.
We’re sleeping tonight on a golf course. I feel the way I always feel before starting a new job—nervous.
September 11, 1977
Odell, Oregon
I wonder how long three minutes is? My soft-boiled eggs are on the woodstove, tumbling in their little pan. It’s Sunday, our day off. Raining. Ronnie and I are living in a wood cabin with a soft brass bed, a fridge, four chairs, a table, and lots of logs. Sometimes a cat comes in and I feed him (her?) hot dogs. My socks are drying, the floor needs sweeping, and the couple in the trailer next door are eating. This morning I saw the wife trudging to the outhouse in her bathrobe.
We’re working for a man named Norm. His friends call him Peewee. It’s cold enough outside to see my breath. Acorns are falling on the roof.
October 20, 1977
Vancouver, British Columbia
After a hotel for $8.50 a night, Ronnie and I found an apartment that’s $30 a week for the both of us. I worry about money, but when it’s gone, it’s gone. I smoked my first cigarette. It’s embarrassing, but you do get a buzz off it. I did, anyway, on Davie Street.
October 25, 1977
Vancouver
I now own a black jacket and a pair of brown heavy wool trousers that come up past my navel and button at the ankle. Canadian Army pants? When it comes to clothes, all anyone has to say is “That looks good,” and I’ll buy it. So I was walking down the street in my new uniform, very happy, when a guy looked me over and said to his friend, “Who’s the faggot?”
Then I was just an idiot with stupid clothes on. Ronnie and I leave tomorrow. I’ll be glad to go.
The dryers in Canada cost 10 cents for fifteen minutes.
October 26, 1977