It's up, it's up! No, not the stock market (badumbum). My article for Time!
Not that you shouldn't go to the supermarket and buy a copy of your very own. Because not only does the print version have my article, but it also has a version of the publisher's letter that includes an only-slightly-better-than-the-one-I-posted-yesterday photo of me. The one online, sadly, is photo-less.
Still, did you see that byline? And that mention of me in the pub letter as an 'author'? Yeah, I could definitely be in a worse mood.
(I'm sure I'll be returning to angst and depression--and acting like I really care about keeping this blog pseudonymous--soon, soon, soon. It's just that after what may have been my Worst December Ever, I'm really enjoying January. I figure I earned it.)
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Felonious
The photo editor from Time (which, um, oops, doesn't come out until this Friday, so I bragged too soon) called today, looking for a headshot of me for the "publisher's letter" in the issue. (My article--which is titled "Marry Me"--is part of a special section in that issue; the publisher's letter will be focusing on the various articles in that section.) I sent them a couple of cute shots I have of me--one with Snug, one with me all windblown at Legoland a year and a bit back--but they told me they needed something that at least resembles a professional headshot, since that's what the other 'featured writers' have. Well, shit. I don't have a headshot. Who keeps a headshot around of themselves? (OK, other than my husband and all of my brothers-in-law, because they have all written books and/or are actors. And, OK, other than 83 percent of the rest of the population of Los Angeles. Oh, never mind.)
So I threw on some makeup (and my mother and sister know that I mean that more-or-less literally) and asked Baroy to take a few headshots of me against a 'plain' backdrop. After looking at what he'd gotten, Baroy whooped with laughter at their hideousness and kindly had me move to our living room, where he shot a few more of me leaning against our book case. We did eventually get one that the photo editor said she can use, and I went on with my life.
Baroy, however, did not. The Baroy's-Last-Name Boys, as they are generally known, all have a wicked sense of humor, all have exceptional Photoshop skills, and all have waaaaaaaay too much time on their hands. Baroy is no exception. And so, while I was sending the 'good' photo off to Time, he was sending the following to his brothers and others. He's lucky I have a sense of humor.
[An aside: I'm still unsure how, when I said to the hair stylist, " I want my hair shorter, like to the bottom of my neck," she translated that into "I want my hair to barely reach the bottoms of my ears...and, oh, can you give me some dewlaps while you're at it?" I hate this haircut. I truly despise it.]
So I threw on some makeup (and my mother and sister know that I mean that more-or-less literally) and asked Baroy to take a few headshots of me against a 'plain' backdrop. After looking at what he'd gotten, Baroy whooped with laughter at their hideousness and kindly had me move to our living room, where he shot a few more of me leaning against our book case. We did eventually get one that the photo editor said she can use, and I went on with my life.
Baroy, however, did not. The Baroy's-Last-Name Boys, as they are generally known, all have a wicked sense of humor, all have exceptional Photoshop skills, and all have waaaaaaaay too much time on their hands. Baroy is no exception. And so, while I was sending the 'good' photo off to Time, he was sending the following to his brothers and others. He's lucky I have a sense of humor.
[An aside: I'm still unsure how, when I said to the hair stylist, " I want my hair shorter, like to the bottom of my neck," she translated that into "I want my hair to barely reach the bottoms of my ears...and, oh, can you give me some dewlaps while you're at it?" I hate this haircut. I truly despise it.]
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
The Best Of...N's IEP
First, some quick housekeeping: I have yet to see my article in Time, since I cannot find a copy of it. It is supposedly in the issue that came out yesterday, which--for reasons I will never understand--has a January 28th cover date. It's NOT the issue with the voting-booth curtain on it, but I can't tell you what cover it IS, because, you know, see above. And the website still has the voting-booth cover. So, I don't know. It's the Ghost Issue of Time!
And now, on to the IEP.
So, it went well overall. I will be obsessing over some of the test results for a while, but until I've processed that part a little more, I'll save you from my thought processes. The overall results, however, are exactly what I started this process asking for: He's been 'accepted' into special ed on the basis of a speech and language delay in the area of pragmatics. He'll get twice-weekly speech therapy at school: one half-hour of group therapy, one half-hour of individual. And because he qualified under speech, that enabled OT to kick in some services too, though fairly minor. He'll get twice-MONTHLY occupational therapy sessions, a half an hour each.
When you get services in an IEP, they write up very specific goals. He has three goals for speech, all of which are pretty straightforward: incorporating appropriate plurals and tense forms into his speech; being able to retell an age-appropriate story in the correct order and being able to provide the salient details when asked; being able to 'fill in the blank' on a sentence (which is something he has a real problem doing, hence his continuing to do quite poorly on reading tests and other language-based tests).
In OT, he has only one goals, but it's such a broad, if-we-can-solve-this-we'll-have-totally-fixed-this-kid goal that it makes me laugh: "N will be able to participate in all tasks within his school day without getting upset, crying, or saying 'I don't want to do it,' in 4 of 5 school days, using sensory strategies as needed." I also love the '4 of 5 days' thing--as if that allows him to pick one day a week to just go to pieces.
There is also a nice long list of in-class accommodations that should help him in the interim; basically, they allow for him to come up with ways to deal with the anxiety that school produces (things like being allowed to stand up to do his work, taking away the time-pressure of tests whenever possible, giving him classroom tasks to do that involve being able to get out of his seat and do something physical) or to try to address some of his issues (finding him a peer buddy, giving him pencil grips and something called a chair band that he can hook his feet into).
So, it was generally all good.
If you're still with me, here are a few samples of what these various professions saw and heard in dealing with N:
From the School Psychologist's observations: "When another child approached the examiner, N stated, 'You guys, she's not here to talk to you guys. She's here to talk to me!'"
And again: "During an observation at recess, N remained at the table for 10 minutes eating his snack, lying down on the benches, sitting up, and lying down again. He did not interact with any of the other children at the table during the time now did he appear interested in watching the playground activity...He did not approach other children."
And again: "When tasks appeared more difficult, he would give up easily, demonstrate a short attention span, wander away from the desk, or state 'I'm too tired' or 'I don't like this book.' He required frequent breaks to maintain his attention, and incentives such as stickers also helped."
The one that really made me want to cry: "On one item, he completed 'It makes me sad...to not play with anybody.' When queried further about when and where he feels this way, N was nonresponsive."
The one that really made me laugh (and say 'Oy'): "When asked what he would do if given three wishes, he stated he wanted a gun, a bazooka, and a shotgun; when asked what he would do with the guns, he stated that he would shoot some bad guys." (She told me that she actually wondered at first if she should worry about this, but that he made it quite clear that he knew it was just pretend/playing.)
From the OT's in-class observations: "He was observed to transition back to his seat appropriately. N stood at his desk and twirled his hair with his pencil. Mrs. N was pointing out a student's good behavior and N said, 'What about me?'"
From the Speech Therapist's notes about testing: "I feel it important to note that my testing with N was done over three 20 min sessions. After 20 minutes, he would simply lose interest, and no amount of coaxing or bribery could get him back on task..." (That's my boy.)
From the Special Ed Teacher's notes about some of the individual tests he took: "Story Recall measures a student's ability to listen to a story and retell it back to the evaluator...It requires N to recall increasingly complex stories that are presented. He did not score since he said he didn't remember any of the stories presented to him." (This is not a typo; it's not that he didn't score well, but that he DID NOT SCORE AT ALL. He got a 0 on this part. Talk about 'showing the problem.')
From the Special Ed Teacher's classroom observation: "N was observed in the general education classroom in science. though he was attentive to the teacher, he was unable to fill in a science sheet. He became frustrated and started crying and pulling at his hair."
So, we'll see. I took the reports home to look them over before signing the IEP, but I'll be returning that in the next couple of days, since they can't initiate therapies before we agree to them on paper.
I'm hopeful that he's now going to be getting at least some of the help he needs. There are academic issues that aren't being addressed here, but that's stuff I can help with, and stuff that the general ed teacher is supposed to help with, so I'm OK with that for now. I'm OK with it all--even all the fighting it took to get here. I'm just sad that it was required in the first place. And I wonder what happens to the kids whose parents can't--or don't know to--fight this hard and this long.
And now, on to the IEP.
So, it went well overall. I will be obsessing over some of the test results for a while, but until I've processed that part a little more, I'll save you from my thought processes. The overall results, however, are exactly what I started this process asking for: He's been 'accepted' into special ed on the basis of a speech and language delay in the area of pragmatics. He'll get twice-weekly speech therapy at school: one half-hour of group therapy, one half-hour of individual. And because he qualified under speech, that enabled OT to kick in some services too, though fairly minor. He'll get twice-MONTHLY occupational therapy sessions, a half an hour each.
When you get services in an IEP, they write up very specific goals. He has three goals for speech, all of which are pretty straightforward: incorporating appropriate plurals and tense forms into his speech; being able to retell an age-appropriate story in the correct order and being able to provide the salient details when asked; being able to 'fill in the blank' on a sentence (which is something he has a real problem doing, hence his continuing to do quite poorly on reading tests and other language-based tests).
In OT, he has only one goals, but it's such a broad, if-we-can-solve-this-we'll-have-totally-fixed-this-kid goal that it makes me laugh: "N will be able to participate in all tasks within his school day without getting upset, crying, or saying 'I don't want to do it,' in 4 of 5 school days, using sensory strategies as needed." I also love the '4 of 5 days' thing--as if that allows him to pick one day a week to just go to pieces.
There is also a nice long list of in-class accommodations that should help him in the interim; basically, they allow for him to come up with ways to deal with the anxiety that school produces (things like being allowed to stand up to do his work, taking away the time-pressure of tests whenever possible, giving him classroom tasks to do that involve being able to get out of his seat and do something physical) or to try to address some of his issues (finding him a peer buddy, giving him pencil grips and something called a chair band that he can hook his feet into).
So, it was generally all good.
If you're still with me, here are a few samples of what these various professions saw and heard in dealing with N:
From the School Psychologist's observations: "When another child approached the examiner, N stated, 'You guys, she's not here to talk to you guys. She's here to talk to me!'"
And again: "During an observation at recess, N remained at the table for 10 minutes eating his snack, lying down on the benches, sitting up, and lying down again. He did not interact with any of the other children at the table during the time now did he appear interested in watching the playground activity...He did not approach other children."
And again: "When tasks appeared more difficult, he would give up easily, demonstrate a short attention span, wander away from the desk, or state 'I'm too tired' or 'I don't like this book.' He required frequent breaks to maintain his attention, and incentives such as stickers also helped."
The one that really made me want to cry: "On one item, he completed 'It makes me sad...to not play with anybody.' When queried further about when and where he feels this way, N was nonresponsive."
The one that really made me laugh (and say 'Oy'): "When asked what he would do if given three wishes, he stated he wanted a gun, a bazooka, and a shotgun; when asked what he would do with the guns, he stated that he would shoot some bad guys." (She told me that she actually wondered at first if she should worry about this, but that he made it quite clear that he knew it was just pretend/playing.)
From the OT's in-class observations: "He was observed to transition back to his seat appropriately. N stood at his desk and twirled his hair with his pencil. Mrs. N was pointing out a student's good behavior and N said, 'What about me?'"
From the Speech Therapist's notes about testing: "I feel it important to note that my testing with N was done over three 20 min sessions. After 20 minutes, he would simply lose interest, and no amount of coaxing or bribery could get him back on task..." (That's my boy.)
From the Special Ed Teacher's notes about some of the individual tests he took: "Story Recall measures a student's ability to listen to a story and retell it back to the evaluator...It requires N to recall increasingly complex stories that are presented. He did not score since he said he didn't remember any of the stories presented to him." (This is not a typo; it's not that he didn't score well, but that he DID NOT SCORE AT ALL. He got a 0 on this part. Talk about 'showing the problem.')
From the Special Ed Teacher's classroom observation: "N was observed in the general education classroom in science. though he was attentive to the teacher, he was unable to fill in a science sheet. He became frustrated and started crying and pulling at his hair."
So, we'll see. I took the reports home to look them over before signing the IEP, but I'll be returning that in the next couple of days, since they can't initiate therapies before we agree to them on paper.
I'm hopeful that he's now going to be getting at least some of the help he needs. There are academic issues that aren't being addressed here, but that's stuff I can help with, and stuff that the general ed teacher is supposed to help with, so I'm OK with that for now. I'm OK with it all--even all the fighting it took to get here. I'm just sad that it was required in the first place. And I wonder what happens to the kids whose parents can't--or don't know to--fight this hard and this long.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Not Nearly As Selfish As I'd Hoped To Be
I'm not ignoring you on purpose, I promise. It's just that, somewhere between "I resolve to be more effectively selfish" and, well, today, I picked up about 73 million little freelance jobbers, and they're all due on Monday. Which makes finding time to blog--or, frankly, to breathe deeply--ever so challenging. But it will make it easier to breathe when I consider how exactly to pay next month's bills. So it sort of balances out in the end.
Meanwhile, here it is...the semi-big reveal about that article I kept jabbering on about last week. If nothing disastrous happens in the next couple of hours, it will be appearing in this Monday's issue of Time. Or should I say, TIME! (Because exclamation points are there for a reason, after all.) And while it features neither my lovely Ambre nor my lovely Paula (or, rather, I should say it NO LONGER features either of them after the edits), it does feature a (dramatically cut down version of my interview with) my lovely Mir. Who isn't really mine, of course, since she has about 40 bajillion readers, all of whom love her as I do. But I'm claiming her for now, even if she does file for a restraining order.
I will be posting a link as soon as there is one to post. Trust me; this is not the last you'll hear.
Meanwhile, here it is...the semi-big reveal about that article I kept jabbering on about last week. If nothing disastrous happens in the next couple of hours, it will be appearing in this Monday's issue of Time. Or should I say, TIME! (Because exclamation points are there for a reason, after all.) And while it features neither my lovely Ambre nor my lovely Paula (or, rather, I should say it NO LONGER features either of them after the edits), it does feature a (dramatically cut down version of my interview with) my lovely Mir. Who isn't really mine, of course, since she has about 40 bajillion readers, all of whom love her as I do. But I'm claiming her for now, even if she does file for a restraining order.
I will be posting a link as soon as there is one to post. Trust me; this is not the last you'll hear.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
It's hard not to assume it's done out of spite and meanness
[Before I go any further: I can't say I got an A or anything, but the initial word from my editor on the article was positive, so I didn't fail. Yay me! More when the piece is out and ready for general consumption...hopefully within the next week or so.]
At the end of last week, we got official word on N's IEP meeting. They scheduled it for next Monday, January 14. At 7:45 am.
Here's what you need to know to understand why that made me want to spit fire. The school's playground opens not a moment before 8 am. It's their school, and their 'no exceptions' rule; clearly, they know this. And so WHY EXACTLY would they schedule a meeting that both parents should clearly want to attend for FIFTEEN MINUTES BEFORE those parents are allowed to drop their kids at school?
It was an easy fix: I called the school, told them we couldn't be there until 8 and that we would not agree to having the meeting start without us, and they said, "Oh, sure! No problem! We'll make that change for you!"
But you know (and by you, I mean anyone who has dealt with a school district in this manner) that this was, at best, a passive-aggressive screw you to us as parents. I'd like to assume that she just wasn't thinking...this SPECIAL ED SPECIALIST who is in charge of our IEP. You know, because she's probably not had to do this much before in her 20-PLUS YEARS OF WORKING FOR THE DISTRICT IN THIS CAPACITY. Because it's probably unusual that the parents involved in the IEP have KIDS TO SCHEDULE AROUND. Maybe it's just that I'm being overprotective, not wanting my not-yet-7-year-old to drive himself to school in the morning. That must be it. I'm sure it's my own fault.
Calling an IEP for 15 minutes before school opens. For crying out loud.
This is going to be fun, don't you think?
At the end of last week, we got official word on N's IEP meeting. They scheduled it for next Monday, January 14. At 7:45 am.
Here's what you need to know to understand why that made me want to spit fire. The school's playground opens not a moment before 8 am. It's their school, and their 'no exceptions' rule; clearly, they know this. And so WHY EXACTLY would they schedule a meeting that both parents should clearly want to attend for FIFTEEN MINUTES BEFORE those parents are allowed to drop their kids at school?
It was an easy fix: I called the school, told them we couldn't be there until 8 and that we would not agree to having the meeting start without us, and they said, "Oh, sure! No problem! We'll make that change for you!"
But you know (and by you, I mean anyone who has dealt with a school district in this manner) that this was, at best, a passive-aggressive screw you to us as parents. I'd like to assume that she just wasn't thinking...this SPECIAL ED SPECIALIST who is in charge of our IEP. You know, because she's probably not had to do this much before in her 20-PLUS YEARS OF WORKING FOR THE DISTRICT IN THIS CAPACITY. Because it's probably unusual that the parents involved in the IEP have KIDS TO SCHEDULE AROUND. Maybe it's just that I'm being overprotective, not wanting my not-yet-7-year-old to drive himself to school in the morning. That must be it. I'm sure it's my own fault.
Calling an IEP for 15 minutes before school opens. For crying out loud.
This is going to be fun, don't you think?
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Articles and Invitations
Invitations first, because I know Green is waiting with bated breath. (No, that's not a typo; baited breath, though often used, is wrong. Yes, yes I am a word geek. And proud of it.)
All was well in Party Planning Land; I'd decided to take the advice given here and just go with N's flow, and was feeling just fine about it. Until they went back to school on Wednesday. Because Wednesday afternoon, he came home and said, "I want to invite Luke to my party. He's funny."
So now we're in negotiations over who else from his class to invite. Because I'm not going to invite Luke and no other kid from the class--especially because I've never, not once, seen him and Luke even LOOK at each other, much less pal around, and also because if there is nobody else from the class here, who will Luke get to hang with? We'll see where this goes from here.
Funny thing is, as I was saying to Kristen the other day (a conversation during which we came to realize that my parents live near her, and hers live really, really near me--which is irrelevant but oh-so-cool): It hadn't occurred to me that one of the reasons he didn't want to invite the kids from his class might have been the simple fact that he hadn't seen any of them for two weeks when we had the initial invite conversation, and that the whole out-of-sight-out-of-mind thing, plus the feeling-shy-when-you-haven't-seen-someone-in-a-while thing (which he has in spades, being N) might be playing a part. I feel dumb now, actually.
As for the article: No, no word yet. I do appreciate the words of support, though I could tell you all the reasons why just being a good writer sometimes isn't enough. Oh, and to make things a little clearer...If you read my comments, you've probably realized that among the people I talked to for this piece were some of my friends (who are also some of my blog readers, obviously). It's true, and it's fine; they were perfect for it, and fabulously helpful. Not to mention that I got to interview them with a strong drink in my hand...and, OK, several in my belly, along with some truly delicious crab dip...on New Year's Eve. Yep; it's a hard-knock life for me.
[Since you guys asked for a scorecard: Paula and her hubby unfortunately didn't make it out of my first round of cuts; Ambre the Spotlight Hogger and her very interesting comments did, but are on a list of possible cuts that I gave to my editor, since the piece is still a bit long. Time will (hopefully soon) tell.]
All was well in Party Planning Land; I'd decided to take the advice given here and just go with N's flow, and was feeling just fine about it. Until they went back to school on Wednesday. Because Wednesday afternoon, he came home and said, "I want to invite Luke to my party. He's funny."
So now we're in negotiations over who else from his class to invite. Because I'm not going to invite Luke and no other kid from the class--especially because I've never, not once, seen him and Luke even LOOK at each other, much less pal around, and also because if there is nobody else from the class here, who will Luke get to hang with? We'll see where this goes from here.
Funny thing is, as I was saying to Kristen the other day (a conversation during which we came to realize that my parents live near her, and hers live really, really near me--which is irrelevant but oh-so-cool): It hadn't occurred to me that one of the reasons he didn't want to invite the kids from his class might have been the simple fact that he hadn't seen any of them for two weeks when we had the initial invite conversation, and that the whole out-of-sight-out-of-mind thing, plus the feeling-shy-when-you-haven't-seen-someone-in-a-while thing (which he has in spades, being N) might be playing a part. I feel dumb now, actually.
As for the article: No, no word yet. I do appreciate the words of support, though I could tell you all the reasons why just being a good writer sometimes isn't enough. Oh, and to make things a little clearer...If you read my comments, you've probably realized that among the people I talked to for this piece were some of my friends (who are also some of my blog readers, obviously). It's true, and it's fine; they were perfect for it, and fabulously helpful. Not to mention that I got to interview them with a strong drink in my hand...and, OK, several in my belly, along with some truly delicious crab dip...on New Year's Eve. Yep; it's a hard-knock life for me.
[Since you guys asked for a scorecard: Paula and her hubby unfortunately didn't make it out of my first round of cuts; Ambre the Spotlight Hogger and her very interesting comments did, but are on a list of possible cuts that I gave to my editor, since the piece is still a bit long. Time will (hopefully soon) tell.]
Friday, January 4, 2008
High Anxiety
When I was in college, I drove people absolutely batty with my personal insecurities. "I'm going to fail, I'm going to fail," I'd wail incessantly before each and every exam, only to sheepishly return, days later, saying, "OK, I know I got an A, but I really did think I was going to fail."
I've been trying to keep that in mind these past few days as I've worked on a not-so-top-secret article for a Very Impressive Magazine Title under somewhat unusual circumstances. (My editor is someone I know very, very well. Working for him combines not only my usual somewhat-suckup-y and clearly daddy-related/this-woman-needs-therapy-badly need to please my editor, whoever he may be, but my much more specific need-to-please-this-specific-person-because-if-his-opinion-of-my-writing-really-really-really-matters-to-me issues.) I've been failing miserably. This morning (well, late last night) I handed in the piece with much, much trepidation. It just felt like so much less than what I'm capable of; it felt like something I'd overthought and overresearched and had way too little fun with, and I'm certain the writing reflects that. It's been so long since I've done a piece of 'real' science writing for any place even resembling the Very Impressive Magazine Title. I felt rusty and awkward, as if I couldn't trust my instincts.
My editor says he won't be able to read the piece for a few days, and that is only increasing my anxiety. I want him to read it NOW. I can't wait days to hear that it sucks, that I've let him down, that I need to do about seven days' worth of work on it in an hour and a half so that it can be published. I definitely can't wait days to hear that they won't be paying me for it; that they're scrapping it. Nor can anyone around my house wait days for me to just shut the fuck up about my insecurities and move on.
I'm going to fail. I'm definitely going to fail.
[If this sounds at all familiar to you--not just this particular type of angst, but the way in which I presented it--it is. I felt oddly deja-vu-ish while writing it, and so checked to see if I'd written it before. Yup. Everything old is old again. I will, however, point out that while the meeting I talked about for that particular day didn't go as badly as I'd thought, I did get fired from that job--well, laid off--just a couple of months later. I don't always get an A in the end.]
I've been trying to keep that in mind these past few days as I've worked on a not-so-top-secret article for a Very Impressive Magazine Title under somewhat unusual circumstances. (My editor is someone I know very, very well. Working for him combines not only my usual somewhat-suckup-y and clearly daddy-related/this-woman-needs-therapy-badly need to please my editor, whoever he may be, but my much more specific need-to-please-this-specific-person-because-if-his-opinion-of-my-writing-really-really-really-matters-to-me issues.) I've been failing miserably. This morning (well, late last night) I handed in the piece with much, much trepidation. It just felt like so much less than what I'm capable of; it felt like something I'd overthought and overresearched and had way too little fun with, and I'm certain the writing reflects that. It's been so long since I've done a piece of 'real' science writing for any place even resembling the Very Impressive Magazine Title. I felt rusty and awkward, as if I couldn't trust my instincts.
My editor says he won't be able to read the piece for a few days, and that is only increasing my anxiety. I want him to read it NOW. I can't wait days to hear that it sucks, that I've let him down, that I need to do about seven days' worth of work on it in an hour and a half so that it can be published. I definitely can't wait days to hear that they won't be paying me for it; that they're scrapping it. Nor can anyone around my house wait days for me to just shut the fuck up about my insecurities and move on.
I'm going to fail. I'm definitely going to fail.
[If this sounds at all familiar to you--not just this particular type of angst, but the way in which I presented it--it is. I felt oddly deja-vu-ish while writing it, and so checked to see if I'd written it before. Yup. Everything old is old again. I will, however, point out that while the meeting I talked about for that particular day didn't go as badly as I'd thought, I did get fired from that job--well, laid off--just a couple of months later. I don't always get an A in the end.]
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