Know what I miss?

Reporters' notebooks.

I'm talking about these jammies. The ones I used, though, were not so crass as to announce themselves on the cover; they had the same basic, glossy cover as your average Spiral notebook, the kind you buy in a pack before each new semester of college. But the shape. 4x8 inches, tall and slim, gave me more go-get-'em-Scoops courage than ten press passes.

They honestly never made much sense. I am assuming they were originally created in that shape to fit into the breast pocket (some might call it a flask pocket) of a blazer, and they don't even put those pockets in womens' blazers. (Plus: who wears women's blazers?!) I'd been carrying notebooks for years before I was a reporter, in the service of being a standup comic, and for that I just carried a tiny notepad. Granted, I was writing fewer words that wouldn't have to be transcribed or fact-checked, but still: I knew, as I strode into Staples and picked up a megapack of these guys, that this wasn't a practical act. I had like 900 Steno pads stolen from temp jobs (the ones with the mint green paper and the little red line down the middle? Swoon).

(yeah, I may have a little office-supply problem. Yeah, I might.)

 Anyway. The point is, these were as much a part of my emotional preparation, going into a reporting situation (a Russian bath in Brooklyn, a boat to Ellis island packed with Jewish celebrities, the release of a G.I. Joe based on the standing Secretary of State), as pair of comfortable shoes, a cup of coffee, and a set of ready questions so I wouldn't be tongue-tied.

Yet it was surprising to me when people saw the notebook and said "Oh, here's the reporter." I can't tell you when I realized reporters had their own style of pad; I didn't think of it as a general cultural signifier. I was in a relationship with my notebook, it wasn't for the world to see. Except it was; people recognizing it gave me an additional charge, a jolt of self-confidence.

I see now there are moleskine reporters' notebooks. What. The fudge. No WAY would I carry one of those! Ah, but I don't carry the real thing anymore, either. The most important interviews, I capture on a digital recorder. When I take notes, I grab whatever half-empty notebook is handy, most often one that was given out free at a press event (read: cocktail party my friends and I took as an excuse to meet up). Or I do my interviews over the phone, so I can type my notes in garbled, but more accurate and harder to lose, format.

Maybe I've gone soft. Or I've moved on to a different kind of reporting. Or both! But the sight of these little soldiers makes me feel all gooey inside. They bring to my memory the urgency of hurrying through an unfamiliar neighborhood, peering at building numbers, trying to soak up local color while staying focused on the story at hand. Jotting down possible other stories (what's that cool blue house? There's a puppet theater -- here?!) on the way.

I'm not even tempted to buy a set - I don't want to dilute those memories.

Deadlines Alive!

I had a devastating series of missed deadlines a few weeks ago that I thought I'd never recover from. Clients are like boyfriends in a weird way. I mean, you have a bunch of them, so maybe they're like ... uh ... maybe I'm like a whorey ... wait. I'm-a start over.

I missed a bunch of deadlines for a client I absolutely adore, and I was devastated over it. Just gutted. I hated letting them down, and worse, I feared they'd dump me, because I kind of deserved it. My writing's good, but not good enough to justify missed deadlines. I was so pissed at myself.

I had tried to shift over from Google Calendars to this thing called Cozi and for some reason I didn't get it all entered right, so I didn't get the reminders I depend on. THat was the whole point of ditching Google Calendars -- sometimes their stupid reminders get borked for no reason -- so it wasn't working for me. Honestly, I think some of this was user error, but I don't use an online shared calendar because I'm a super-genius at figuring stuff out; I use it because I'm an overwhelmed multitasker who can't hold a calendar's hand.

Anywho, now that I've upgraded my computer and my phone -- via the Genius Bar, for free, so easy, THANK YOU GENIUS BAR -- I can use iCloud and for the first time I'm using iCal for this crap. I figured out how to have it text me reminders, which was the whole reason I started using Google Calendars in the first place. Here's what I did:

Figured out the email-to-text address for my carrier
Entered that into the "email" field for the iCal alert

DONE AND DONE. Actually there were a few more steps, but that's the gist of it, and it's beautiful.

The other thing I did was, with this one client, when I submit one article, I confirm the due date of the next one. THAT has been what really helps, and I recommend it highly.

Printer

It's ever-fascinating to me, the things that I will find completely necessary -- nay, urgent -- when I sit down to work. I'll spend all night fretting about an upcoming -- nay, looming -- deadline, and as I walk into my office I'll be mentally calculating how much I can get done in my allotted four hours of desk time. And somehow as my butt lowers onto my yoga ball, I magically pass into an enchanted land where the only concievable problem is that I don't have a working printer.

Here are some ways I drag that out to fill my work time:
- Price-comparisons at different stores
- Price-comparisons within each store
- Searching for and entering various coupon codes
- Reading reviews
- Comparing prices of ink, to see if that offsets the cheapness of the printer

The funny part ... and there is a funny part ... is that I'm always just going to buy the cheapest Epson regardless of what any online review says.

Did I say funny part? That's the sad part.

Anyway. Once I realized that this expense would go into our new family business account, I somehow let go of the idea of doing it now and emailed the best printer to my husband, who's in charge of our bookkeeping. ooooookkkkkkkkeeeeeeee i love that word.

And now? Back to work. I have the exact perfect story to work on and I just realized I was totally looking forward to it, back when my butt was up higher.

Crap, I never found a place to say nay, something again just so it'd be clear I was kidding about ever saying nay, anything. Well listen, do you want me to go back and revise, or do you want me to make this deadline? I thought so. Thanks for your patience -- nay, forbearance. HAHAHA.

The Pause That Refreshes

I Tweeted the other day that "broke is the new single." What I meant was this: when I was single, I felt shame, worry that I was a freak who would always be this way, envy that others seemed to have figured all this out, and determination that I would always, always remember what this felt like, even when I was no longer single.

I kept that promise to a certain extent. Part of me is just too freakin busy, at this point, to even notice that people feel at loose ends. Yesterday was Mother's Day, and as I lovingly nuzzled my daughters' hair, noticing the difference in their smells and the way their skin feels, I didn't remember -- possibly for the first time! -- that one Mother's Day twenty-odd years ago, when I trudged down into the subway and saw a beautiful family running up and out, the mom adorable in her hippie dress, the dad slinging kids one-armed like a pro, and sunk into a slough of despond. Never mind that that family ended up divorced a few years later (Park Slope is a small town, yo) or that, you know, it just wasn't my time yet, and it wouldn't have killed me to just Enjoy Myself rather than constantly comparing my life to everyone else's. My response to seeing a happy family was worry and a pervasive sense of inferiority.

Now that I really am that hippie mom (uh sorta), I don't miss a chance to feel grateful and lucky, rather than put-upon and resentful. But it's not a constant awareness. It's fading. The same way that "I will always be a smoker, even after I stop!" eventually faded. And that "I will always remember how annoying grownups are!" lost its charm when I realized how self-obsessed twelve-year-olds are. We can't stay frozen in amber. Our policies evolve along with our circumstances.

Anyway, so I'm not obsessively single anymore. I'm not a smoker anymore, not even emotionally. But I retain my outsider status by being hella broke, underemployed, and resentful of my friends who do zany things like have date night or buy pants. And I want to remember always how crappy this feels so I don't make broke friends feel worse when I'm feeling better. I seem to remember an essay by Anne Lamott on this theme -- having to cut off a friend who was kvelling too much about her own good fortune. At the time, I thought she was emotionally stingy. I still would not allow myself to do such a thing -- suck it up, I tell myself, because friends are harder to make than money. But I do see how the emotional energy required to negotiate being too broke to pay every bill, every month, can be so draining, there's no energy left over for applause.

Like a single person obsessing over a new potential mate, I spend so much energy hitting "refresh" on my email account that I have to force myself to actually take the steps to get new work and, you know, do the work on my plate. I'm sure that metaphor could be more elegant. But if I spend any more time on it, I won't make today's deadline.

So here's my vow: Universe, give me enough work to support my family, and I'll keep my mouth shut and clap for my friends when you do the same for them. Deal?

More time to write...

Well, I guess the good news is that I no longer will have to cram my writing time into the early mornings, but the bad news is that Husband is laid off again. I'm going to focus on the first half of that sentence. Of course, as I said to him, I am unwilling to cede much of my time with the girls -- though it's been horribly frustrating, trying to find time to get work done, it's also been glorious to be with them so much. Such is the back-and-forth pull of the working mom. Anywho. Look for a lot more bylines in the coming weeks.

The BIMI column is too, too much fun. The great thing about having an editor who loves me is that since I know what she likes, I have a great time hiding little bon mots that I know will make her snicker. Has to make it better for the reader, too. Hope so, anyway. Go there and comment so she knows she's not the only loller!

My new column!

I'm a columnist! Watch for me every 2 weeks at Recipe.com, where I'll be doing a regular feature called "Buy It Or Make It." Too awesome. The first ten are set, and they're things I've already made. Woo!

I'm a blurber, too.

Oh, this is cool. Back when I wrote for AOL/Lemondrop, I interviewed the author of Sex At Dawn, an amazing book about monogamy, fidelity, and bonobo apes that you really must read. And he blurbed me! Or I blurbed him. I'm in his blurbs. We're blurbing. Someone who works at CafeMom alerted me to this because she'd just finished the book and wanted to discuss it in depth. How cool! Also: I need a book group.

But mostly, I'm so flattered, and I so miss writing for AOL. Those were really fun stories. Well, that just means I should pitch some more. So off I go.

It's Saturday night, by the way. Husband and I are sitting with our laptops facing each other, both working. It's a huge relief to be catching up, but now I have to forge ahead. Yep, big night in for mommy and daddy. 

I'm becoming a commenter!

This isn't a byline, but I'm acting like it is -- I wrote a Letter to the Editor of the NYT Magazine, and it got printed! I sent it in via email and thought nothing of it, since I thought they called to confirm before printing anything, but a friend posted it on my Facebook wall on Saturday. I'm pleased as punch!

I'll admit that I almost said "kittens" instead of "marshmallow Peeps" as a nod to Zooey Deschanel, but thought I would be the only one who noticed.

In the olden days, I used to listen to my then-local daytime NPR shows (Brian Lehrer and Leonard Lopate) in lieu of chatting with office mates. It's an old freelancer trick. And when the loneliness (and need to procrastinate) got to be too much to bear, I would call in and lend them my thoughtful thinky thoughts on whatever they were talking about that day. I did this so often that my friend Cindy would tune in while dropping off her kids just to see if I was on that day. I'd call in, yap, then watch my email to see if she was listening. (Freelancing is very, very lonely, people.)

I've called in to the local shows here, too, but it's not as satisfying. But since my friend KJ has been writing for Motherlode at the NYT, I've been commenting like crazy on her posts. Lucky for you (and my pride) that i can't link directly to them. Go on over to Motherlode and read and comment for yourself, and see if you can spot me there.

Meanwhile, back to work. Actually, I'll have to work later -- I have an interview today with a really terrific kids' clothing company that needs a copywriter. If they pay me in pinafores, I'M IN!

Deeper Pitches

This week was much improved. I've been hitting deadlines and getting promising responses to better-paying pitches, and had a terrific tryout for a new copywriting client. Oh, and another client -- a startup -- was just "acquired," and I'm being called in to discuss the new playing field (and pay scale) with the new owners.

But daily blogging v. reporting an article are two different skills. Back at home, I would bounce back and forth, every few years, between writing and editing, and it was always a relief no matter which way I went. Change is refreshing! It's harder now, though. I don't know if my brain has atrophied like my hamstrings, or if these two skills are farther apart, but it feels like more of a challenge to shift from "poop out this blog post NOW!" to "Do several layers of research, work up a deeper pitch, get approved, and then put the rest of the research you already did into the article. Then revise it."

Wait, it is more of a challenge. That's why it's better to read ... and why it pays more. RIGHT. News flash to Arianna Huffington: you get what you pay for.

Okay, off to do some actual research. Oy, my brain-hamstrings.

Adjusted expectations

Phew. I have changed my schedule around a bit so that I can hit my deadlines, and it feels a lot better than, you know, not doing that. But I'm feeling a bit forlorn about two recent job prospects that didn't pan out.

Plus -- and this is weird -- someone in the internets got upset about an article I wrote in -- let me check. March of 2005. I interviewed I guy about some singles parties he was running and wrote a very brief article about the trend. Six years later, the online magazine was still using the content, and another guy who eventually bought the rights to these parties (this is a living?) started harassing me on LinkedIn and Twitter because he wanted me to change something in this six-year-old article.

First of all, seriously? Why do people think the writers with the byline have the least bit of control over what happens to this copy after we hand it in? In the olden days, if you had an embarrassingly bad story under your byline, meh, big deal. The issue would be gone in a month and nobody would remember. Now it's all trapped in amber and on view for all time, like Han Solo in the carbonite. Uch, it was just annoying to deal with this doofus complaining at me.

Meanwhile I'm pitching an old contact at a site I loved writing for -- gotta keep plugging away. Oh: the girls fell asleep an hour early because I haven't changed the clocks in my house. Everybody's happier this way, and I'm pitching and posting like a champ. For now.

Job Interview

GAAAAH I JUST INTERVIEWED FOR THE WORLD'S MOST PERFECT JOB!!!! argh. I hate when this happens. Mustn't get hopes up. Though even if it doesn't work out, I've GOT to get some great freelance work out of it.

I'm reminded of the sketch on Saturday Night Live where a bunch of girls adjust the song "Tell Him" to actual dating. On the first date, you tell him that you don't want kids, that you never want to get married, etc. But with jobs, you DO tell 'em that you're always gonna love them, tell 'em that you're never gonna leave them, and the rest. Argy blargy.

All right. As with dating, there's no point worrying right now -- better get back to work (for the next 20 minutes) because the more I work, the better I look. This entire metaphor has now crumbled to the ground like the tower of Babel. Thank you and good day.

Workin' on a Sunday

a Sunday a Sunday cuz that's how this week weeeeeent. Okay, also planning birthday party, but hoping to catch up and get ahead anyway. Thing is, I need to talk to my editors and change my schedule and, instead, I'm just starting each day with the vain hope that this is the day I'll suddenly work 5 times faster than ever before. This is not just a problem in my work life; I am late 75% of the time to either pick up or drop off Penny, even when I'm working a shift at the co-op, and Randy says I have no concept of what time is or how long things take. He's right. And with that, off I go to write about OH SHIT the jack o'lantern post!!! i have to take one more photo. okay. bye.

Here's how yesterday went

So you know how they say that being a working mom means you're always letting someone down? Yesterday I put that into action.

When I ran out of office time at 10:30, I had only gotten one post done. But I was really really close to having the second one done, too, and I knew if I could just grab a half hour of quiet time, I'd reach that day's minimum baseline goal. I know, wow, really reaching for the stars here.

Now, Penny was at preschool, and my afternoon shift at her co-op didn't start for a while, so I tried working with Abby at my feet, playing with blocks. She needed to snuggle, so I moved her onto my lap. Snuggling turned into napping, and I thought, "Bingo! I'm gonna get this sucker done."

This is where things get muddy. The alarm went off on my phone, playing the opening of "Camp Granada" and telling me to get going for my work shift. My mind then did a switcheroo: "I set that early, so I'd have time to get dressed after it went off, right? So I have a half hour?"

I looked at the clock. I was supposed to be at school at 12:20. But for the morning shift, I arrive at 8:50. So somehow my brain turned that into "I don't have to be there till 12:50, I can get this done!" I typed and posted feverishly, and got the damn thing in.

I was just pushing the "publish" button when my phone rang. It was Teacher Tom. "You're supposed to be here!" he said. And my brain suddenly sproinged back into the real world, and I realized what I had done. Amazing: I completely self-sabotaged in the interest of making a deadline.

I was so mortified, so absolutely embarrassed (this is only the most recent in a string of late-pickups, tardy-arrivals, and school-screwups), that I briefly considered not showing up at all, hiring someone to pick up Penny, and moving to another state, but I faced the music and worked the rest of my shift with appropriate humility.

I'd like to say I'm ditching the guilt to celebrate the deadline I made, and that I'll do the same in reverse (refuse to feel guilty about deadlines when I get to school on time), but come on. I think we all know that's as likely as my making today's deadlines.

Off I go, then. At least I get to make jack o' lanterns out of unconventional materials today! Colon close-parens!

Between a rock and a hard place

The hard truth is, I don't even get my full 2 hours in the morning to work, and whatever I do have, it's not enough to get my work done right now. The only way around this is to hire childcare. But the only way to make enough $$ to hire childcare is to pack more work into the time I have.

I always think of how Stephen King would get up at 5am and jam himself into the boiler room of his family's trailer to write Carrie for 2 hours each morning before he went to work as a teacher, and I feel horribly lazy.

I'm sure there's a conclusion to be reached here, but I'm now down to an hour and a half and I gotta write about signing at daycare and I dunno what the heck else. And I haven't had coffee. So grumble grumble grumble.

Seriously people we need to get started earlier.

I have 45 minutes to work today because we got to sleep so late last night / slept in today again. This is nuts in the butts. And with both girls I won't be able to use the Ergo to gain an extra little work time. arrrgh.

I did find a cache of pitched/approved ideas, so at least I can get rolling right away. The first one is, of course, a child-safety story, and those I really have to steel myself emotionally to deal with, but that's not time-consuming, it's just hard.

My friend emailed me the other day, my freelance role-model who got me started in this whole game, and asked "How can you stand to only work two hours a day?" I've been too embarrassed to admit it's nooooo problem. I wish I had more time to blog, but the issue isn't "oh! i want to work," it's "oh! we need the ducats." That'll change, I'm sure, as the weeks wear on and I realize this isn't just a temporary state of affairs.

ok then, safety story, 20 minutes to have it up and out.

This is me working today.

She's watching Teletubbies on my browser in an unidentifiable language. Late wakeup + no nap = at least I made my 2 deadlines today.

Let's try that again

So I would have to define my first week of being a mom-working, as opposed to working-mom, as an epic fail. As a mom, I ran the kids absolutely ragged and now they're both spending the weekend dazed and exhausted with runny noses. As a worker, I think I did 2 days' worth of posts? Or maybe 1 days' worth of work, spread out over 2 days?

On the other hand, it was Rosh Hashonah, and it was also my first week, so I'm not firing myself just yet. I'm grabbing 3 hours of work today, and was supposed to do the same yesterday but had to help out a friend instead. So let's see if I can do.... Rocker Lawsuits, Flame Retardants (maybe not that one, I'll look at the emails), and I'll Pray Later.

I'm bummed that I can't seem to make the startup blog happen. I just don't have the bandwidth to work for free for them, and they aren't answering my emails. I also want to post to my craft blog. So don't forget that.

Sheesh. Okay. One thing at a time! Bird by bird! Let's start again. Rocker lawsuits to start.

Ramping up (did I really just say that?)

Okay. Okay. Yesterday I only did one story. Today, I should do three. Actually I should do five because technically I should not be working tomorrow, on Rosh Hashonah, but COME ON. And now it's past 9am and I only have an hour and a half minus eight minutes. arrrrrgh.

The morning is just effed seven ways to sunday. Randy wakes up and makes breakfast, and then somehow the girls end up on me. Meanwhile I should be bounding out of bed, grabbing coffee, and disappearing into the office, but somehow I end up pulling the covers over my head and just closing my eyes for five more blessed seconds. What's funny about this is that as good as it feels to feel my eyelids slip down over the burning orbs that cannot yet stand to see the day, I immediately think, "you lazy, lazy slattern, there isn't enough self-loathing in the world for you right now." But I just pile the self-loathing on top of the blanket and it makes me feel even warmer. Mmmmm. Loathy.

I really really need to pitch some relationship stories today! well, what can I do.

Oh! I did enable comments, though. So there's that. Huzzah!

Let's see if I can poop out two stories RIGHT NOW and then another one HA HA. Okay. Which one first? Gloria Vanderbilt! GO!

Day Two

Okay. So yesterday I did a bunch of organizing and today I was supposed to write two posts, but I didn't sit down at my desk untilllll... um 9:24. For the record, I'm allegedly working from 8:30-10:30 Pacific time. (Tangent: Can we just say PT and ET and not make it PST or PDT, which I never remember which is which, and just let the computer make the necessary adjustments?)

Anyway, I like to complain that the girls have me up 2-3 times in the night, and all I want to do when they get up is grab a few more minutes' worth of sleep, but come on. I go to sleep earlier to compensate, so let's ovary up and get to work.

I got a subscription to a magazine now helmed by my beloved executive editor at Big Glossy Mag where I worked. I don't think she knows she was beloved unto me -- we only worked at the same place a few months, and she only edited one of my stories, but it was my first one, and it was really hard to research, and she praised it, for which she will be forever beloved. So. I'll be pitching them again soon, and should be pitching Match again today. Shoot. Maybe tomorrow. Argh!

Today I'm supposed to do: Rocker Lawsuits and Gloria Vanderbilt. I think I can do those two in an hour, because I did a bunch of prep-work yesterday. Let's see how I do. GO.

Game Changer

Okay. As of today, I am a mostly stay-at-home-mom, as my husband has finally, after three years of searching, found an amazing full-time gig that tickles his funny bone and fills our bank account. Somewhat. I still have to keep working, but around his schedule, so I get 2 hours in the morning, and whatever I can cobble together during naps and after bedtime. It'll be a challenge, but I'm going to make it work.

Here's the thing: It's Day 1, and I'm already 1/2 hour into my work time with nothing to show for it but a bunch of dinnerware sets saved to Pinterest. So that's awesome. Nice to see some things never change.

I have to figure some things out. Do I stick with the low-pay but very-steady gig that I KNOW I always have, but that pays so little per hour that I'm always scrambling? Or do I ditch that gig in favor of higher-paid work that I have to fight for each month?

I think we all know I'm going to stick with the steady gig for now, but man. It's a real grind. Then, in the middle, there's the low-paying gig for a startup that may or may not pay off when they get funding. Ha ha, did you hear what I just said? But hope springs eternal, people. This is the land of Pixar and Google.

Okay. Off to work. See you on the morrow.