Less than what I'm worth

I spent this morning complaining about being offered two new freelance gigs...or, rather, being given the chance to take tests/do some kind of audition for two new freelance gigs. What's my problem? My problem is that my career seems to be going in the wrong freaking direction. It seems like every offer I get these days pays less than what I used to make...or even what I'm making today. And yet there are reasons not to turn them down flat, reasons to take the tests or do the spec work or whatever and see what comes of it. Still, how is it possible that, 20+ years down the line, I'm earning LESS per word, per hour, per week, per year, than I did when my career actually started to take off? How is it possible that someone with 20 years' experience in the writing and editing field can have to work two or three serious jobs to make enough to live on? (This is not about Baroy; comments about his work life are unwelcome at this point. This is about the fact that writers and editors get paid less and less each year, even before you do things like adjust for inflation. This is about the fact that I made $1 a word as a writer in 1988, and now have to fight for jobs that pay half that.)

[Stefania, Jess, I don't think this actually qualifies as a Life Change, but dang. It's definitely a Yearning for a Change. Does that count?]

Shove

N gets out of school 20 minutes before Em does, so we wait on the playground and he hangs around with his first-grade friends and the other first-, second-, and third-graders who have fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade siblings. (The middle of that sentence--"and he hangs around with his first-grade friends"--is a freaking miracle, by the way, and don't think I'm not well aware of it. I thank God, the universe, and whoever else might be responsible for it on a daily basis, don't think I don't.)

As I stood talking to another first-grade mom today, N suddenly came over, crying, and hid behind my back. "He called me 'weirdo'," he said, pointing to a third-grader standing across from us. I looked where he was pointing, and the little boy immediately began sputtering apologies--"I didn't mean it! We were just fooling around! He was bothering me!"--in that way busted little kids always do.

I pulled N around so I could look at him and said, "You're not a weirdo, and you know it. You can tell that boy it's not nice to call names, or you can just ignore him, but go and play with your friends."

N nodded, then walked right up to the boy...and shoved him. Not hard. Just one good, solid shove.

I gaped for a full minute, then began the official dressing-down-and-punishing routine, which included going over the little shit...um, I mean, the boy he'd pushed...and apologizing to him.

But, really? In my heart? I wished he'd kicked him, too.

Ball buster

A couple of years ago, N had a twofer surgery to take care of an undescended testicle and an epigastric hernia. The surgery went well in the sense that he woke up from the anesthesia, had no complications, and was in very little pain. But other than that, well, it was more or less a complete bust.

Today we went to see a new and different urologist about N's right testicle, the one that used to be just fine, at least until a couple of days after the surgery on his left one. And...hey! Who didn't see THIS coming?...they want us to schedule a surgery to pull this one down, too. I said that I wanted to see yet ANOTHER surgeon before we did so, though--again, one to look at the hernia and tell us if there's likely to be a reason to operate on it within the next couple of years, because if there is, then I want them done at the same time AGAIN. Except this time? I want a written guarantee. Not that they'll give me one, but still. Because I'm really not sure what I'll do if my kid gets cut into again only to have everything reverse twenty minutes post-op. All I can say is that it will probably involve the cutting-into of said surgeons' own scrotum. And maybe a little twisting of the balls held therein.

Make believe?

While I was out taking one of my errand-running walks (though I suppose I should call them errand-walking walks!) Em and N decided to put on a show. By the time I returned, they had created this very surreal, mime-ish, fully choreographed skit about a robber (Em) and a policeman (N). There were flips and parts where Em threw N over her shoulder and carried him across the room; they wrestled and did martial arts moves, and you could tell they'd rehearsed every move. And at the end, the policeman was lying on the bed in a heap, and the robber was raising her fist in victory.

"Hold on!" I protested. "The robber wins?"

"Yup," Em said, smiling.

"So what kind of point does that make?"

"No point," she replied. "That's just the way it goes."

Deep Yom Kippur Thoughts

Twenty-six hours without food is a long fucking time.

Matzoh balls are little spheres of heaven. And they are only more heavenly when you haven't eaten in 26 hours.

The only thing less fair than having to buy and set out the snacks for the kids at the family service is having to watch them EAT the snacks during a break. The only thing less fair than having to watch them eat the snacks during a break is having to clean up the snack table after the services are over. dumping bowls of nuts and raisins and dried apricots and carrots and celery and tiny tomatoes into baggies and sealing them, even though it seems like each raisin is a tiny mouth screaming, "Eat me! Eat me!"

It's hard not to believe in God somehow when you're in the midst of a prayer about the cleansing of your soul and the heavens open up and the entire WORLD, it seems, is cleansed in the space of about three minutes. Cleansed and, possibly, drowned. But let's focus on the redemptive, shall we?

It's also hard to keep a room full of young children in their seats singing said prayer when said heavens open up.

And it's hard to keep praying while those same children are screaming, "Hey! Check it out! Everything's flooding!" and asking if they can go dance around outside.

But it was OK. It felt...right. And it feels even righter now, in retrospect, with a full belly and the sound of the last shofar blast of this season still ringing in my ears.

Boy Crazy

Em: I think S likes me.

Em's friend, C: He better not.

Me: Why 'he better not'?

Em: Because C likes him...a lot!

C, nodding: I'm boy crazy.

Em: She likes a lot of boys in our grade.

Me: What about you?

Em: Me? Nah.

C: She just thinks of them as friends. That's what different about us. She just likes boys as friends, and I'm boy crazy.

Em: Yeah that's why I'm more of a jock than you. I just see boys as friends. Plus, I have a brother.

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Forget what I said yesterday. The REAL advantage to working from home is being able to listen in on/be part of these post-school-day-snack conversations. They crack me up.

Homemade

In general, my working from home hasn't been quite the boon to the kids and the homefront that I'd thought it would. Because there is no outside-the-home office that I have to go to, there is also no inside-the-home place to get away from work. As I've complained about before, I'm always at the computer, always putting the kids off. And housekeeping? Even worse. Because if I'm going to take time away from working, I'm CERTAINLY not going to spend it vacuuming or dusting.

But every now and then, I pull myself away from the computer for a moment to give my brain a break, and I do something that I wouldn't be able to do otherwise. And that helps make me feel a little better about this whole enterprise, however tenuous is may be.

All of which is to say that, today, when my kids get home from school, they will each get to have a slice of fresh-from-the-oven, made-from-scratch banana bread for a snack. As they chow down, my inner Martha will smile, pleased with what she accomplished this morning while also answering emails and templating articles for the not-yet-relaunched website and compiling a Religious School PTA Parent Handbook.

And so, for jsut a few moments, all will be well...so long as Inner Martha keeps her eyes on the kids, and doesn't look at the stack of plates in the sink and the dirt-splattered floor and the dog hair piling up against the baseboards and...