October 1996

Autumn, cooler and overcast. Received letters from friends in Chicago. Out of boredom and rebellion I went to a rave in San Francisco. It took place on one of the piers from which we had a perfect view of Bay Bridge. Did E. By daylight faces looked clammy and weary. The limbo continues as I long to take the world by storm.

I feel different, older, better. This year broke me, or is it a past I cannot escape that has prepared me? Books continue to succeed in connecting me to pieces of my history that have occasion to feel so intensely large. As if I really am back in that room in that little apartment off Devon and dreaming. As if the dogs still follow me in the darkness to Zoo Place in Tennessee. Parts of me remain in the past, while pieces of the past remain in me. It is a fair exchange. I beg life to continue making a point not to forget all those otherwise monumental miniscule moments, days without which the present would not exist. I indulge because this is my diary.
For the first time in years I long like a teenager for a man to appease my voracious sexual appetite, and stay for once, stay longer this time.
We've given our bloodiest, haven't we?

I remember coming to the U.S. in the seventies to visit with relatives that had already emigrated here. I remember seeing longhaired men, American Indians, and for the first time in person blacks. It was fascinating. The architecture, scents we'd never smelled, words we'd never heard. But we went back to Iran even though Iran had undergone a revolution, and to war. America turned again into a faraway novelty, a fantasy. Now that I've lived here for as long as I have it is Iran that has become the novelty, the fantasy. And I wonder if I'll ever set foot on Iranian soil again. See the neighborhood I lived in last as a child, walk on those streets, step again into those shops, smell those scents, walk through forgotten doorways.
I will never belong to this country, and I will never fully belong to that one. As an Assyrian I'll never know what it's like to have a country, national solidarity, unity. Even while I have lived this new uninhibited life I have always heard the cultural whisper of my upbringing in my ears, keeping me from crossing wholly the invisible line of total abandon.
Still the Assyrian voice vies with the American in me. And I hope it always does. Always. I cannot stay for too long on either side. I have duel duties.

I ache from a weekend in San Francisco. Vivian and I fill the hole that we have in our lives. I wanted a sister, she a brother. We walked everywhere. My feet are destroyed. Vivian, who is only seventeen, even got into bars with me. We danced and were drunk together for the first time. Luay, an Assyrian gentleman, became our guardian. I met one of Vivian's lesbian sisters, Shamiran, whom everyone calls Shammi. I also met one of Shammi's friends, another queer Assyrian who is an immigration lawyer. We ate at an Arabic restaurant, talked and laughed while watching a very talented belly dancer. It was the first time that I have been with so many other gay Assyrians. It was almost overwhelming.

Vivian is a sweetheart. I miss her dearly even now as I write. Her lionlike hair, her great round brown eyes, her swinging childlike walk. So free. So small in stature. Born here, raised here.
San Francisco is crazy. Panhandlers everywhere. Riffraff, culture, and extravagance intermingled everywhere.
I am sick of men, tired of their leering, their philandering. Rodney told us he is HIV-positive and we were deeply saddened. He seems so emotionally shut-off and speaks for the sake of sensationalism. He says vulgar things, comes off callous. Yet inside there has to live frailty.
I am tired. I'm going to take a bath.

Had a dream that a strange man kept coming into my room at night to stab me. I was helpless. Then I was walking on a wide avenue, naked.
E-mail from friends in Chicago cheer me up.

Dreamed that I was in a forest, in a tree. There were huge pythons all around me hanging from the branches. I grabbed one and threw it to the ground and it slithered away.
The days are cooler and sunny. It is a crisp autumn day in California.
Madonna gave birth to a daughter.

Finally at twenty-three regrets have caught up with me. Eighteen shows its consequences. It's so easy to feel tainted and I don't know if it's part of being human or in America. Whose product am I? Because I know I am not original. I ask God to help me forgive myself and move on. Because when I saw my reflection in a window tonight I wanted to hold Emil and console him. He feels quite spent.

In Playwriting I asked two girls to read the lines of my two gay male characters because girls have musical voices, which my characters long for. The boys in class seem to have no animation in their bones. When they were finished reading the rest of the class applauded. No one else is ever applauded. It's embarrassing, but deeply, deeply gratifying and flattering.
Lena and my father called me today. They never call. I love them so much. It made me happy to talk to them, and a little sad as always. I wish Iran hadn't forsaken them so. If you were to ask me now my biggest wish isn't to be famous, but for all dispossessed men and women of Iran and Iraq to be able to return to restored lives.

My one-act "Cabin Fever" is finished for class!

Last weekend when I was sick I got to watch Betty Davis in "All About Eve". Was she fierce!
Writing continues to satisfy an inner need, my boredom with life.
Money is a slut, too fast for me.

Been reading obsessively. Plays.

Went to church today just so I could spend time with the family. Heard nothing new, but had an empty feeling as I looked at the backs of others' heads. I felt empty not just about Assyrians, but humanity in general. And wondered, What is truth?
Especially in my world.
The day I admit that I'm no good as a writer is the day I'll shoot myself. Writing is my last dream.
My playwriting instructor tells me to take my one-act to theaters in San Francisco, and is convinced they'll produce it. I think it needs work. And time.
I am running out of money and will lock myself in for the next two weeks, with the exception of the occasional latte.

Talking to Mom-Suzie is both motivational and disheartening. She gives me that kick I need and without intending it puts me to shame for having procrastinated in life. She herself has worked so hard to get to where she is and the things she's overcome surely would have broken my bones. Her strength is unique. Her Christian faith immeasurable. She is an Assyrian grandmother and a shrewd businesswoman.
She tells me the story of the time she was a little girl in a village in Iran when she spent an hour watching the same ant trying repeatedly to carry something much bigger than itself up an impossible surface. And she talked about being in an abusive marriage to my grandfather for twenty-seven years, longer than I've been alive! How she never gave up hope and got out, but did more than just survive- she became an independent woman. She says she could never just sit on her ass, as she puts it, and receive assistance from the government or her own children, that she would rather die.
Talking to her I feel spoiled, ashamed for complaining so much. And about what? Sure, I've had my share of setbacks but none as tragic as the ones I've created for myself. The past has happened. The mistakes were made. But I must go on. Stop beating myself up. I must take extra care. If anything I should be motivated by my experience, no matter how unpleasant I may think it has been. I'm good at turning grief into glory.
Alright dreams, get ready to come true!

I can hear the rain outside my window. And there's another sound I hear tonight, one not as pleasant as the rain. It is the sound of big disappointment. It is the sound of disenchantment. I feel the sting. I cannot blame anyone. Feelings I feel I cannot tell my closest of friends, nor a doctor. No one. Not even myself. Now begins the grueling process of dealing with facts!

A pact with the self: Never share your joy with your mother no matter how excited you may be, she will only shoot it down. I will live under the same roof and keep my passions and interests a secret.