Pictures

I'm inspired. I need to add photos!!!

So here I am with the L-man on my lap at a birthday party. Note the artificially flavored and colored lollypop in carcinogenic red. We throw caution to the wind (or attempt to) at birthday parties. Miss M is wearing the crown and is sitting next to one of her very best friends, Ava Lane.

Here's one of BooBoo and the brain surgeon. We should have named her Pinky. Then I'd have Pinky and the Brain. Both pictures are a few months old. We are uploading them all to the brain surgeon's computer now and he takes it to work.

Anyway, that's a start. Back to interviewing people for my news story on competitive bidding.

Tax Day

Tally Ho.

The last two months were tight financially. I’ll just put that out there before I even get started.

Part of that is because I’m a classaholic and I spend a ridiculous amount of money on classes for my children to attend. It's not very unschooly, but that’s fodder for another post.

So today it was time to pay Uncle Sam. Oh boy.

I’m usually pretty adept at keeping track of expenses, saving receipts and guesstimating how much our family will owe the government come tax season. Usually the brain surgeon doesn’t mark down any deductions, so we have a hefty amount from his paycheck going to the IRS. This plan doesn’t leave the brain surgeon any spending money, but that’s what his babe is for.

The babe's bringing home the (vegan) bacon.

I make some estimated payments so by the end of the year, we’re usually pretty good to go. I usually even overpay, so I can roll the amounts over each year for extra insurance.

But I really screwed up this year.

Somehow I owe almost $6,000 more than what we’ve paid. That’s fun. I’m a freelance writer. I'm supposed to have more writeoffs than income. Clearly I’m doing something wrong.

It’s the self-employment tax that got me. The total was over twelve grand and, obviously, I paid only about half that. Yikes.

That got me thinking about what projects I have in the pipeline and things are looking up.

At the moment, I’m working on three articles for a hospital alliance that I’ve been working with for about four years: one for Health Affairs, one for HFM magazine and one for Critical Care Medicine.

All of these publications are peer-reviewed in a sense, but I’m most interested in publishing the Critical Care Medicine piece. It's a manuscript about Rapid Response Teams and has a lot going for it as far as topic and data, and I swear this manuscript has been with me for years. Really.

Anyway, it's medspeak, but trust me, Rapid Response Teams matter if you're the person lying in the hospital bed.

I’m also working on a peer-reviewed manuscript on adrenoleukodystrophy. This one is for a physician who’s wife works with the brain surgeon when the brain surgeon works trauma at the county ER. Good stories from that place. Anyway, adrenoleukodystrophy is the disease that is the focus of the movie Lorenzo’s Oil.

Great flick. Horrible disease.

I’m ghostwriting two books for addiction specialists this spring. This one is two separate projects. The authors know each other, but are not working together. These are newer projects and are quite juicy, but I'm not sure how much I can disclose.

I’m writing a poster for a CME provider, writing a news story for IVD Technology magazine, and doing my usual copyediting and occasional writing for the Center for the Advancement of Health: that’s my current nonprofit gig with Health Behavior News Service. I think I’m well into the hundreds of articles edited for them, but only write about one a month. Still, if you see proofing errors, they are likely my fault. I’m starting to really like writing those stories, though, especially the more controversial ones.

I’m doing some PR work this month on a product launch for a line of greener cleaners. More on that as it unfolds.

Oooohhh.

Ahhhhh.

What is this mystery cleaner?

Stay tuned...

Oh, and Thursday I’m writing an edition of FiercePharma to as a mutual test to see if I will write and edit for them, as I’m on the West Coast and they want their news to the copyeditor by 11 a.m. EST. Not sure that gig’s gonna work, but we’ll see.

So that’s it on the writing front at the moment.

Today was hectic (like that’s unusual). We had a broker caravan parade through our condo at 11:00 a.m. With client calls – which I try to pack in on Tuesdays and Thursdays – and three kids, imagine how NOT FUN it was to try to scramble and get the place spic and span by 11. It sucked.

It especially on tax day and especially when I had nowhere to actually put the kids during the caravan.

My office space on the strip was packed full and the caravan was, of course, right during lunchtime and naptime. Urgh.

After the logistical caravan hell was over, the kids finally had a brief (and late) car nap. Then we had dinner (vegan spaghetti and mushroom meatballs from Trader Joe's) cooked by the brain surgeon.

I'm going to miss him when he starts operating again.

Then the brain surgeon put the kids to bed while I finished up everything with urgent deadlines. Mainly, I copyedited one news story on mistletoe and another on exercise and cognition.

The brain surgeon ordered “Alien vs. Hunter” from Netflix, so I made fun of him all night. He was hoping it was like “Alien vs. Preditor,” so I made even more fun of him.

He apparently thought a sequel to a bad movie would be entertaining. The brain surgeon sometimes (usually) enjoys movies that allow him to be brain dead, but even had to laugh at himself on this one.

Toodles!

School Night

Except for my writing class, I spent the day playing with my fabulous children.

The L-man has his mommy-and-me class in the mid-morning (10-12), but it’s really mommy-and-all-three on Mondays, since I take them all. Today, BooBoo crashed right when it was time to leave. I let her sleep, so we missed all but the last 10 minutes of the two-hour class.

I packed a picnic, though, so we stayed at the park until 1:30, which is when Miss M’s afternoon class (no mommy) is. While we ate, a nice woman approached me and asked if I was homeschooling the kids.

I felt so crunchy.

And sort of itchy.

Do I look granola? I wondered. Or like a born-again? How does she know?

But then she clued me in. “I noticed you have an older one not in school.”

I felt better when I realized I hadn’t developed the universal homeschooler sign on my forehead, but sad when I realized Miss M had grown up so much.

It really goes by much faster than people say. Just seconds ago, it seems, I wasn’t yet a mother. Now, my oldest is over five-and-a-half. Whoa.

After dropping Miss M off, I took the younger two to the library. We read stories until they started to melt down and began YELLING in the library. I dropped the books and headed out through the annoyed stares. L-man then threw himself on the sidewalk in front of the car and had a crying fit because he wanted to go to the sand park. I hugged my tired muffin and let him know I felt his pain.

That's when I realized I had POOP on my arm from carrying BooBoo. How had I missed that?

So I changed her, head to toe, wiped my hands and the affected arm, doused myself in sanitizer and strapped the babes in their carseats.

We headed home for naptime, but they both were out cold before I left the parking lot.

I didn’t know what to do, so I went to Del Taco. I’m not vegan at Del Taco - or even health conscious. I had cheese on my bean burrito. Yummy Del Taco, artery clogging, unhealthy cheese. Ummmmmmmmmm…

Did you know you can add Del Taco as a friend on MySpace? I did and now I have two friends, including Tom.

The embarrassing thing about this trip to Del Taco, though, wasn’t my flagrant disregard for my commitment to veganism or good eating habits in general. Nooooooooooooooooo. What was embarrassing was the fact that I had no cash and had given my debit card to the brain surgeon so he could pop by the bank for me. As a result, I had to charge the Del Taco run on the credit card.

Suze Orman would so disapprove.

And I’m a-double-whammy-shamed. Del Taco and using plastic in one day?

Okay, the guilt has passed.

Soon the brain surgeon came and met me back where Miss M was so I could go to class, but I couldn’t pay much attention because I had to finish a draft for the HFM paper. I worked on it while the, um, star of itsallaboutmetv read his stuff.

I did finally learn about screenplay formatting, though.

My mean girl (if you don't count that most are boys) clique became official when the ringleader emailed the five of us after class. Since the other four are showbiz types, I feel pretty special to be included. They’re more than just the pretty people…they’re pretty ACTOR people.

Since they’re aching to be famous, I think I’ll direct to you them here, especially since Tom Kiesche made it so easy with his email last night:

Tom is here, here, here, here and here. No, I did not surf for all of those.

The comedian is here and here.

I had to Google Shannon and Seth.

Really, I’ve been surfing the four of them when I need a writing break and they’re all quite entertaining. I laugh all through that class and it's usually because of something one of the mean girls said. They're witty, I tell you.

Plus they all want to be famous.

So, I'm adding that to my task list.

1. Hug a brain surgeon.

2. Help actor types in the mean girls clique become famous.

I went to class to bring some creativity back to my writing. I stay in class cuz I like my new posse.

Toodles!

Open House and Salary.com

Today we had our first open house. We’re selling our little slice of Los Angeles. Despite the fairly crappy real estate market, our neighborhood is a nice one and values are holding pretty well.

We could be deluding ourselves thinking we will get our price, but I believe we’ll do great.

Our place is small. It’s just about 1,000 square feet. That’s right…just 200 feet per person, if you don’t count the dog or the brain surgeon’s sister.

Plug for the sister…she’s hot and single.

Anyway, having an open house when you have three kids crammed into two bedrooms is a Herculean effort, to say the least. We spent the early part of the morning moving toys and boxes of things that normally belong in our bathrooms and such into our very-accommodating neighbor’s condo.

Then I cleaned like never before, did some amateur real estate staging, baked cookies and chilled lemonade.

And then I pretended to be my realtor, since he was out of town.

This was challenging. And not just because I’m not a studly gay male as my realtor is. It’s also tough to watch people open all the cabinets and closets while suppressing the urge to apologize profusely for the mess.

Sometimes I admitted the condominium was mine. Other times I didn’t. One time when I didn’t, the couple went on and on about how neat and organized it was for a couple with two kids. Yea me!

For this, FlyLady deserves a plug. I owe it all to her. Attention all crazed housewives: Sign up for those FlyLady emails!

I didn’t tell them what a HUGE effort it took or that there were really THREE kids. They did wonder aloud where everyone slept – I guess because the kids have a queen bed in their room. We are such co-sleepers that I honestly don’t realize it anymore.

I felt horribly dishonest about the whole thing, though. I almost want to call them and come clean. What if we meet again? What if they make an offer?

It happened by accident – as lies sometimes do – and then grew enormous – as lies often do. They asked a question about the owners and I answered in the third person. That might have been fine, but then they stayed a half hour, asking and commenting about everything under the sun. Whew.

All this while the brain surgeon and the kidlets ran around and went down to the pool.

Did I mention it was SO HOT today? I think our combo of air conditioning and cold lemonade was a hit. Now we just need some offers to prove that theory.

I do love our little place, but I must now have a yard and my own laundry facilities or I will simply perish.

On the money front, I just read this article entitled, “Brain Surgeon: Dream Job.”

Now, some of you might know that residency training is highway robbery. During the brain surgeon’s first two years of residency, I calculated his hourly earnings and he made a whopping

HOLD

YER

BREATH

(and don’t be envious now)

FIVE dollars an HOUR.

Yes, folks, you heard that right. The brain surgeon was operating on human brains for 5 bucks an hour.

Now that he’s chief, he’s almost doubled that hefty wage, but still makes less than our nanny does, and we aren’t rich so she isn’t paid as well as she deserves. All this for 4 years as a pre-med plus 4 years of med school plus over 5 years of residency thus far.

And people ask me why I work. Um, yah, the brain surgeon can support a family of 5 on this. In Los Angeles. Yah.

The only reason I don’t slap people who say doctors make too much money is because I used to BE one of those people. Really, if you are out there, you are so clueless.

Now, the only major flub in the "Dream Job: Brain Surgeon" article is that it says you have to have a minimum of 14 years of training before being legally qualified to poke inside somebody’s head, but the brain surgeon has been performing brain surgery – albeit attended – since his first year of medical school – so gifted a surgeon and social schmoozer is he.

But here’s a clue for those who don’t know better: That’s was residency is. The surgeons in training OPERATE.

My particular brain surgeon, for example, has performed over 1,000 surgeries as a neurosurgeon, and many more as a medical student.

Even I, lowly writer, had my days in the operating room back when I was a lowly medical student.

Anyway, the article on the dream job, if anything, had a touch of inspiration that I’ll share with my own beloved brain surgeon.

Because it’s tough to be a brain surgeon. Intuitively, everyone knows that, but living it – especially during residency – is another thing entirely.

The next time you have a chance, hug a brain surgeon. They need hugs. They really do.

I'm having visions of T-shirts, mugs and bumper stickers...

Toodles!

Art Star

It’s dang hot in LA today. The brain surgeon took the kiddies to the pool and my mom is here. I’m taking a break to blog and to edit a few news stories – one on baldness, one on cord clamping, one on children taking antihistamines and one on dopamine agonists.

It’s Saturday and usually BooBoo has mommy-or-daddy-and-me swimming lessons at the YMCA in the morning, but we skipped it because of her little cough. In the afternoon, there was a first birthday party for one of BooBoo’s friends, which we almost forgot after the chaos of the swim-tap-dance-art-contest-fair day. Instead, we were just very, very late.

Miss M had a serious scheduling conflict today. She had a tap dance performance at the YMCA’s Healthy Kids Day. I have no idea why they call it “Healthy Kids Day” and then serve hotdogs, hamburgers, chips, pseudo-juice drinks and candy. Are they insane? It’s a total junk food fest.

Really, it is hard going to many of the events in LA that supply food, because it is always just crap. We bring our own, though we do get the occasional crap, but when every table we go check out offers candy, it makes my day challenging.

Anyway, Miss M had to miss her tap performance, which is a bummer, because she loves Teacher Michelle and her friends in tap. Today was also West Hollywood Kids Fair, and little Miss M won FIRST PLACE and a blue ribbon. We tried to race between both events, but they ended up delaying the art contest and Miss M had to choose. She chose to collect her prize.


Now, I hate to brag, but I must say I was shocked when I saw the sheer number of entries. This was the 20th anniversary of the art contest and my daughter beat out over 50 other kids. (Somehow it was the 20th annual art contest at the 13th annual Kids Fair, but whatever). Seriously! Could I be more proud?

AND...(could there be more to this fascinating story???)...it was her second time winning an art contest. I swear. I think the first one was rigged, but still...What are the odds?

More bragging: I can see why she won. Every other entrant, even the 6th-graders, used one medium for their project – crayon, colored pencils or colored pen. But not little Miss M. She used pencil, crayon, markers, glitter glue, pipe cleaners, pom-poms, craft sticks and more. She’s a flipping creative genius.

The theme was “What I Want to be When I Grow Up.” My daughter chose to be a cheerleader. Yes, Heroes fans, Save the Cheerleader, Save the World! But, she didn’t want to be a lily-white cheerleader to match her own fair skin. No. My daughter wants to grow up to be a black cheerleader.

Now there is irony in this. I grew up during the Cabbage Patch doll frenzy. My dear mother waited in long lines and spent way-too-much money getting me the coveted dolls. And I just had to have a black Cabbage Patch doll. Much like my daughter, I was somewhat oblivious to race or genes or how it all worked. I told my mother that when I grew up, I was definitely having a black baby and my mother said that would be great.

I didn’t. I married a man who is German and Italian – and quite pale at that, although he tans better than I. But if my daughter’s wish comes true (they often do), I’ll apparently have my black child someday – and she’ll be cheering for her favorite team.

Miss M did recently ask about skin tones and I explained melanin to her. She loves science (should I call her “Brain Surgeon’s Baby”?), and so she found the explanation of melanin fascinating.

Mostly, I love the innocence that is still in her at 5 years old. She has no concept of race or racial differences. Her friend Ava has a little more melanin than her; her friend Emma has a lot more; her friend Tabitha has less. That’s it. Nothing more. Nothing less. They love each other for who they are, and when they fight, it’s over whose turn it is or who is first or who gets to sit where.

It’s a beautiful thing.

Toodles.

PC Hell

Today started uneventfully. BooBoo was feeling better and I was feeling a little worse. I tried to get some work done since the MIL is still here and the brain surgeon stayed home until about 8 a.m. because he had a dentist appointment this morning.

On the writing front, one of my favorite editors assigned me a news story for this month and I had another ghostwriting offer. It’s my second in the self-help psychology arena. It’s about sex. Writing a self-help book is like getting to play psychologist in a way. Since it’s about sex, it’s also like being a voyeur in a way. I also fixed the references and sent off the edits on a peer-reviewed medical manuscript for Critical Care Medicine. Am I boring enough yet?

Mostly, today was a day I planned to take off with the kids. And mostly, that didn’t happen. The brain surgeon had to take his mother a follow-up appointment with the cataract surgeon and decided to take the kids along. I took my evil laptop (PC) to my office to switch out the keyboard with a different one.

Oh, and when I say, “my office,” it really is one of my client’s offices. Annually, they have been one of my largest clients for the last few years. I use one of their laptops for work with their clients, so they service it when there is a problem. My beloved Sprint card (also provided by said client) works only in the PC, so it tends to get a lot of use.

Anyhow, the POC has been freezing and the “A” key came off in my hand the other day. IT had a spare for me to switch the keyboard out with, but of course, after 20 minutes toiling as a wannabe-IT guy, when I finally had both keyboards off and tried to do the switch, it didn’t work – there was a tiny connection difference despite both computers being R51s. Then my dear colleague, V, attempted to pull the “A” off the one we were supposed to switch with, but that too broke. Oops!

By the time we put it all back together, my laptop had clearly had it with me and we clearly f*d something up, because it kept freezing even before it would boot. So, we packed both up and called FedEx. Too late for a pickup.

So, I get in my husband’s car – which would be even more embarrassing than hopping in my minivan if I cared about cars, which I don't – and I head to the FedEx at Sunset and Doheney, next to BlowFish (I’m now linking to everything, just for fun, but this is actually a pretty cool sushi place – even though I only eat vegan sushi, which might just be an oxymoron) and, of course, there’s no parking and nowhere to turn around. On the second round, I get a meter, but there is no change to be had. I always throw mine in my car, but apparently the brain surgeon does not.

So I played meter roulette, dropped the two laptops in one box on the FedEx counter, ran back to the care and beat the meter maid. Whew.

But when I got home, the FedEx guy called to tell me anything insured for over $500 is subject to inspection. What? By the time that conversation was over, I purchased two laptop shipping boxes for 10 bucks each and paid 10 more bucks each to have the guy pack them.

I tried the “I have three small kids and can’t bear the thought of coming back there” sob story, but it didn’t work at all.

Now I’m on my Mac, which I prefer anyway. But what a pain.

I asked the brain surgeon to take Miss M to ballet, which is near a park where BooBoo and L-man could play. I don’t know why it is, but Miss M, who loves ballet and her other classes (since I try not to enroll her in anything she doesn’t love) has meltdowns and doesn’t want to go to class when the brain surgeon takes her. I think she is just trying to see what her daddy is made of. I coach him through what to do and say. He usually succeeds.

I need an editor. I write too much and I bore myself.

Toodles.

Dear Diary

Well, I think I’ve finally found my direction for this, my umpteenth attempt at blogging for me. I think I’ll just make it a journal of my day and forget it.

So, today here is what happened:

I woke up this morning with two out of three kids in bed with me. The brain surgeon was headed to the lab to research brain tumors. It was somewhere around 6 a.m.

I’m a night owl, so I hate 6 a.m.

Since I have a crazy toddler, I had to get up. There was no choice.

I dragged myself out of bed. I just couldn’t be peppy yet, so I did what any self-respecting-wannabe-anti-TV-but-not-really mom would do…I turned on Noggin.

Oh wait, no I didn’t. Because it was already on.

I forgot that my mother-in-law was (is!) here. She came in last night unannounced, as usual, from Kuna, ID (where?). Not that I mind. I don’t. It’s just that I’d like a little warning. A little mental preparation.

And the brain surgeon is VERY patient about my mother, too.

It's how I met her, too. The brain surgeon and I had begun cohabiting (yes, in sin), only then he was a a mere medical student. It was my first time cohabiting and he hadn’t told his parents much about me yet, including that we lived together. I’m on my way home from the hospital en route to the gym when he announces, “By the way, I’m picking my mother up from the airport on the way home, so you get to meet her.” WHAT?

She used to be a flight attendant for United, so the woman just hops on a plane whenever the hell she feels like it. SURPRISE!

The night she met me, I was stinky and sweaty and I promptly hopped in her son’s shower.

I’m not the ho, you da ho, Idaho.

Anyway, so the truth is I left the TV on this morning. I admit it. I watched whatever was on – Jack’s Big Music Show or some kid video segment. It was so unschool cool of me, except all I know was they were bouncing around singing something about having a party for no reason and I wanted to throw the remote at the screen.

But instead, I dragged my lazy ass to the kitchen and started assembling breakfast. Fruit, cereal. Too tired to make their usual green smoothie. Yes, my little children love green smoothies.

Then, I had to get everything ready for Carmen to arrive, because well I just had to. (My friend, a former high-end nanny, says I should fire Carmen over the fact that I have to prep things for her, but whatever).

In case you’re wondering, Carmen is legal, but she didn’t used to be. Everyone in L.A. asks that question. Is she legal? Would they ask that if she was from Canada? nnnnoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Oh, also for the record, she has helped our family for almost three years and works about 20 hours a week.

Carmen arrived at 8. I spent the next hour trying to dress my eldest, Miss M., and myself, while my two younger children clung mercilessly to my legs. I know what you're thinking: "Where was Carmen?" It's complex.

Anyway, I load my crap (computer bag for me, computer bag for Miss M, lunch for us both, big bag of recycling) and drag my daughter to my office to work (I go in about two or three times a week for half a day and I bring Miss M with me). I arrived at 10 a.m. Only four hours after getting out of bed to get to my office less than six blocks away. Not bad!!!

Geeze.

Today was busy. I squeezed in two new client calls (one marketing gig for a low-toxicity cleaner and one book ghostwriting gig) between finishing two news stories (one on antioxidants and one on physician advice about smoking) and reviewing my edits on four more news stories that other people wrote (good writers, so not too tough). Plus, I reformatted a peer-reviewed journal article.

My daughter did her Time4Learning home school curriculum and made presents for me including pictures of princesses and one of me from a recent new business presentation pasted on Snow White. Oooooh, the symbolism.

She also does Kumon, as does L-man, but it's like pulling teeth to get them to do it, so we are transitioning away from it.

Then, the brain surgeon left the lab to bring his mother back from her cataract surgery (also news to me!) and picked up Miss M at my office for lunch. Then they went home and picked up BooBoo and the L-Man and took them all to story time at the Beverly Hills Public Library (which is a pain to sign up for, but really nice). Carmen left at 1. Go Hubby! I love that you’re on research.

So, in a nutshell, I worked uninterrupted for several hours today. I felt productive. Usually I don't feel productive at all. And I didn't even have to feel guilty most of the day, because the children were with their father (who happens to be the best young father on the planet. He's handy with brains, too!). Oh holy sanity!

Then, at 5, the brain surgeon called to tell me the baby was feverish and barfing, so I raced home, gave her a bath, nursed her, got barfed upon, took a bath with her, nursed her some more, got barfed upon some more (repeat cycle over and over), shoveled down vegan Pad Thai while nursing some more, and finally got my sick BooBoo to sleep in my bed.

Then the brain surgeon came in to lay with sick baby while I handled the BBR (before-bed routine) with Miss M and L-Man and put them to bed.

I was then really excited (um) to get this peer-reviewed article back to my client, but realized that the movement of some paragraphs means I’ve got to reorder the references. Sigh. I couldn't face it and thus I blog.

Bliggy blog blog.

Anyway, this is fun. The diary I haven’t had time to do. We’ll see how it goes.

It’s 5 minutes shy of 1 a.m. Time to attempt to shut the brain down (totally not what happens, but you know that) and get my 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 hours of sleep. 1, 2, 3, 4, Hi-5!

Toodles!

Sophomore English

Okay, this is going to sound really bitchy at first (or maybe throughout), but at class the other night, five of us were standing around bonding, joking, perhaps being a little catty (actually, doggy and catty, as three of “us” were men) when I realized that high school just repeats itself and we were forming our clique.

Now, of course, it is because the week before, we had actually gone back to high school. It was Caesar Chavez day and our normal room was closed, so we went to Fairfax High School, which was much more depressing a place than my high school ever was.

Anyway, we all sat there in our high school desks. Several people I spoke to admitted it made them feel rebellious just sitting there. Everyone was less engaged, sighed more and seemed genuinely bored.

Of course, it might have more than just the setting that caused the boredom, but anyhoo…

I definitely have already figured out with whom I’d choose to break bread – or in reality share nachos with – because if I’m gonna break code and eat something processed, it may as well be a gastronomical joy.

I’m just going to say it. Some of these people are really quirky. I’m quirky. I know this. But I’m quirky in a nondescript, mainstream kind of way. I’m pretty vanilla.

But SOME OF THESE PEOPLE. Well, a lot of them are actors and we all know how actors are. At those of us in Los Angeles do.

See? There you go already forming opinions about my opinions before you even know what I’m going to say.

I love actors. Some of my best friends and favorite family members dabble in the sport. Actors are the people who will go out on a limb in my writing class. I love this.

In my class, we have:

• People who can write, but cannot act. They read well, but they don’t get all into it.

• People who write well and read well, adding an appropriate level of oomph.

• People who write not-so-well, but read and act so well, you start to think, "maybe this guy's writing is not so bad after all."

But then, there are my absolute favorites:

• People who cannot write to save their lives and cannot act either, but read as if they are putting on an academy award-winning performance of the best screenplay ever written.

And then there’s this guy, who wears a shirt advertising his public assess TV show each week and seems a bit too peppy.

I honestly don’t know why I haven’t wet myself a few times. So damned funny.

Toodles.

Adventures in Homeschooling

We are really starting our adventures in homeschooling. I’ve read voraciously about everything from radical unschooling to more traditional (and definitely more rigid) routes. I’m unquestionably an eclectic homeschooler, but I suppose our children will help define how it all turns out. Plus, my eldest is only 5, so I’m still enjoying my time exploring the options.

I don’t know why I sometimes act like I’m still on the fence. Really, I’m now fully convinced that homeschooling is the best option for us. Besides, we never really get the strange looks I hear others suffer from when we say we are homeschooling.

Since my dear husband is a brain surgeon and I’ve got a decent education, people don’t worry about if we’re “smart enough.” Plus, he taught Kindergarten before med school and I’ve done some teaching myself, so we can pull out those cards.

I do think the idea that you have to have an education to facilitate your child’s learning is a farce, though. My sister quit school very young. The fact is, she’s friggen brilliant and school bored her. She learned everything she needed to know without the drudgery and she’s a successful (and not just moderately) business co-owner with her husband today.

Many have documented successful homeschooling students regardless of the education levels attained by the homeschooling parents.

However, now that homeschooling is potentially in jeopardy in California, I realize it is time for me to take an official position on homeschooling. No more “we’re probably going to homeschool for a while” comments for me. Now that a judge in the 2nd Appellate Court in Los Angeles decided that public school is a good solution for the problem of child abuse (huh?), all of our rights are in jeopardy (see court docs here).

Most homeschooling organizations (e.g. CHN and HSLDA) are saying not to panic, but I do find myself watching the news about homeschooling with fervor I haven’t had since I first started entertaining the idea.

On the other hand, I think the worry is a bit silly and the logic flawed. If we expect those who teach children in California to have a teaching credential, for example, that would practically shut down most of the private schools – and even many of the expensive, chi-chi schools in L.A. have non-credentialed teachers.

Like having a credential guarantees you can teach kids? Then why are so many kids in public schools failing?

And honestly, from watching my children thus far, I’m not sure anyone needs to teach them anything, although out of paranoia or instinct or habit or all three.

I do think there is a place for public school. I’m just not sure what it is. Some kids do need an escape from the home, I suppose, but then shouldn’t we just call a spade a spade in that circumstance?

Some parents don’t have the patience, resources or desire to homeschool. Institutionalized education is certainly an alternative for those families. Alas, some parents don’t want to be around their children all day. Let’s be honest: Many folks can barely contain themselves until kindergarten – and thus free daycare until adulthood – kicks in.

Scoff if you will, but I hear parents say it all the time. “Once they’re in school, I’ll….” It’s sad, really, but it is so universal in our culture that it sounds almost normal to say that we are essentially so sick of children that we can’t wait until all we have to handle is before school, bedtime and weekend duty.

There are agendas, there, as well. What are some possible motives to pull all children away from their families at young ages? Per the precedent court case, is the teaching of “patriotism” to nation and state (that line is just too reminiscent of little children saying “Heil Hitler”) to mass quantities of little Americans necessary to assure enough volunteers for the military (who would have signed up for the Iraq war without a little brainwashing!). What about the economy? Kids in school means more mothers in the workforce. The bureaucracy behind public schools and the public schools themselves, create jobs.

So obvious. More later.


Toodles.

Blogging Me for Real

Okay, so I honestly started this blog just to have a sample blog I could show clients. Cuz I’m a righter. Yee Haw. No, seriously. I’ve never blogged publicly as “me” before. Does this make me a coward?

But now, looking at the stats, people are actually reading this thing. Okay, not many people, it’s true. Still, I feel like I have an obligation to my 67 new fans. I’ve gotta blog.

For fun.

A lot.

And I’ve also realized that I’m at the point in my writing career where I don’t really need to worry about what potential clients think of me or my personal life. That realization gives me a whole new feeling of freedom. Blog publicly. Fear ye!

I’ll leave the medical/science/journalism stuff on this blog for now, because I don’t really know what else to do with it. The epilepsy stuff I wrote for the brain surgeon, but then he never used it, so here it sits. In case you’re like, “What the hell is this epilepsy stuff?”

Anyway, I’m taking my first class since becoming a mom. When I think about it, I’ve been in class my whole life until procreating…and then I went to Mommy and Me classes (or Nanny and Me here in L.A.)….but this is my first class for me for like five years.

It is a screenwriting class. I have no idea why I’m taking it. Partially because it is only 45 bucks, the brain surgeon is on research and it is just down the street from my house. Partially it’s because a lot of what I write for pay is BORING. No offense, my dear clients, but you know it’s true.

If you look at my partial portfolio, you'll see what I mean. I do find ways to keep myself amused and luckily the people who hire me are often pretty cool, but really, few want to read what I write.

Enter my screenwriting class. I think I’m learning much more than many of my classmates, because I really have NO CLUE how to write a screenplay. Maybe tomorrow I’ll write more about that.

But my classmates are the most interesting parts of my class so far. Seriously, I just laugh through the whole class (seriously…or not seriously? Whatever.)

Toodles.