I thought this morning couldn't get any better.
I started off by opening up my email and reading that wonderful scorcher of a letter (see the comments to the last Mad posting) that Tinamama sent to our friends at Truth Publishing. This beauty was so red-hot that I was glad I always keep a bottle of water at my side, since I was required to periodically douse the flames that kept bursting from her furious posting.
With friends like this, who needs coffee? Or even chocolate?
It was just a great way to start the morning.
And then it got better.
Jean in Chico (CA -- I assume; I know we HAVE a Chico, and I'm just guessing she's from that one) then alerted me to the fact that NaturalNews has actually retracted the article in its entirety.
"The awful headline is there," she pointed out; but the text is gone.
I (virtually) ran over to the NaturalNews page in question. Sure enough, all that I could see was this lovely little paragraph:
"(NaturalNews) This article has been retracted. It was published after the events it documented had already been resolved. NaturalNews regrets the error in the late publication date of the original story."
WOOHOO!
I've been watching a lot of Buffy as I work on the mailing, and this line came to mind just in terms of how we, the mighty and righteous homeschooling parents, brought about justice in this little corner of our world:
"Good thing we're hot chicks with super powers."
P.S. Truth Publishing did get back to me on this one, later in the morning. They even signed a name. Here's what they said:
Hello,
Thank you. We are aware of the inaccuracies in the article and will be posting an accurate one shortly.
Lacey
I have a soft spot for lasses named Lacey, plus she was the only one from the whole company who's had the courage to actually sign her name when she got back to me; so I either won't reply or I'll go easy on her.
I'm interested to see if that new article materializes, and what it will be like. Here's the page to watch if you want to keep an eye out, too:
http://www.naturalnews.com/024287.html
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
UPDATE: Truth [sic] Publishing, or half a correction is still a *#%#ing lie
So: Truth Publishing, the people who are apparently in charge of Natural News (and if you don't know who they are, go back and read the last item or two on this blog), failed to respond to the email I sent them several days ago.
When you write to them, they give your email a ticket number, and tell you that you'll be sure to hear from them in two days or less.
When I clicked on my ticket this morning, I was told that no such item existed.
A friend of mine had a similar experience with an email he sent them on the same subject.
Since I live to make people's lives easier, I sent them an email this morning that was much simpler for them to answer than my original request for them to clean up their stupid act. All I wanted was for them to confirm that Natural News was, indeed, their baby.
Here's what I wrote:
I'm the editor of Secular Homeschooling Magazine. I contacted you a few days ago, but received no reply.
Please confirm that you're the publisher of Natural News. I have been and will continue to be writing about the outdated, inaccurate article that site still has up about homeschooling in California being illegal. The article is getting some very angry response from the homeschooling community, since there are homeschoolers and people who would like to homeschool who are being told by friends and family that it would be illegal for them to do so.
If Natural News isn't your site, please let me know.
If it is -- please either get them to take the article down, or change your name.
Signed, Deborah Markus, Editor, Secular Homeschooling Magazine
Apparently being insultingly snippy is one way to get a response. I received this not two minutes later. In the interest of not misrepresenting Truth Publishing, I have not corrected grammar or stupidity:
Hi,
We received your message and has put an update in this article about the new ruling. Thank you for contacting us.
In health,
That comma without anything following it is in the original. They may on occasion answer their mail, but that doesn't mean they're going to admit it.
I ran over to take a look at the update mentioned. Here's what the Natural News article now says:
[headline]:
Homeschooling Banned in California as Turns Parents Into Criminals for Teaching Their Own Children
Tuesday, September 23, 2008, by: David Gutierrez
(NaturalNews) A California appeals court has ruled that homeschooling of children is illegal unless their parents have teaching credentials from the state. UPDATE: This ruling has now been overturned. While accurate at the time it was written, this article now no longer reflects the current situation in California.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wrote back to Truth, Shmuth Publishing:
A few things about the Natural News article about homeschooling in California -- and if you're sick of hearing about it, guess what? So am I. I'm getting letters from homeschoolers all over the country saying that they've got anti-homeschooling acquaintances gloating over the fact that California just outlawed homeschooling.
Homeschoolers have enough idiocy to deal with from the civilian world. We don't need this kind of thing on top of it.
First, your update says that the article was correct at the time it was written. The article was posted and dated September 23. The ruling in question was overturned in August. Therefore, your "correction" is entirely incorrect. This says to me that in spite of the name of your company, you don't want to lose a little face by admitting that this article was a mistake from beginning to end. You'd rather stand by a very untruthful piece.
Second, please read the headline on that article and tell me what that conveys to readers long before they reach the "update" -- assuming they bother to read that far.
I'm not leaving this alone, and I'm not keeping it to myself.
Signed, Deborah Markus, Editor, Secular Homeschooling Magazine
Haven't received so much as an automated response yet, but we'll see.
In the meantime, it would be great if I weren't the only one pestering them. You don't have to be a California homeschooler. You don't have to be a homeschooler at all. You can just care.
Here's their feedback page:
https://www.truthpublishing.com/Articles.asp?ID=46
When you write to them, they give your email a ticket number, and tell you that you'll be sure to hear from them in two days or less.
When I clicked on my ticket this morning, I was told that no such item existed.
A friend of mine had a similar experience with an email he sent them on the same subject.
Since I live to make people's lives easier, I sent them an email this morning that was much simpler for them to answer than my original request for them to clean up their stupid act. All I wanted was for them to confirm that Natural News was, indeed, their baby.
Here's what I wrote:
I'm the editor of Secular Homeschooling Magazine. I contacted you a few days ago, but received no reply.
Please confirm that you're the publisher of Natural News. I have been and will continue to be writing about the outdated, inaccurate article that site still has up about homeschooling in California being illegal. The article is getting some very angry response from the homeschooling community, since there are homeschoolers and people who would like to homeschool who are being told by friends and family that it would be illegal for them to do so.
If Natural News isn't your site, please let me know.
If it is -- please either get them to take the article down, or change your name.
Signed, Deborah Markus, Editor, Secular Homeschooling Magazine
Apparently being insultingly snippy is one way to get a response. I received this not two minutes later. In the interest of not misrepresenting Truth Publishing, I have not corrected grammar or stupidity:
Hi,
We received your message and has put an update in this article about the new ruling. Thank you for contacting us.
In health,
That comma without anything following it is in the original. They may on occasion answer their mail, but that doesn't mean they're going to admit it.
I ran over to take a look at the update mentioned. Here's what the Natural News article now says:
[headline]:
Homeschooling Banned in California as Turns Parents Into Criminals for Teaching Their Own Children
Tuesday, September 23, 2008, by: David Gutierrez
(NaturalNews) A California appeals court has ruled that homeschooling of children is illegal unless their parents have teaching credentials from the state. UPDATE: This ruling has now been overturned. While accurate at the time it was written, this article now no longer reflects the current situation in California.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wrote back to Truth, Shmuth Publishing:
A few things about the Natural News article about homeschooling in California -- and if you're sick of hearing about it, guess what? So am I. I'm getting letters from homeschoolers all over the country saying that they've got anti-homeschooling acquaintances gloating over the fact that California just outlawed homeschooling.
Homeschoolers have enough idiocy to deal with from the civilian world. We don't need this kind of thing on top of it.
First, your update says that the article was correct at the time it was written. The article was posted and dated September 23. The ruling in question was overturned in August. Therefore, your "correction" is entirely incorrect. This says to me that in spite of the name of your company, you don't want to lose a little face by admitting that this article was a mistake from beginning to end. You'd rather stand by a very untruthful piece.
Second, please read the headline on that article and tell me what that conveys to readers long before they reach the "update" -- assuming they bother to read that far.
I'm not leaving this alone, and I'm not keeping it to myself.
Signed, Deborah Markus, Editor, Secular Homeschooling Magazine
Haven't received so much as an automated response yet, but we'll see.
In the meantime, it would be great if I weren't the only one pestering them. You don't have to be a California homeschooler. You don't have to be a homeschooler at all. You can just care.
Here's their feedback page:
https://www.truthpublishing.com/Articles.asp?ID=46
Sunday, September 28, 2008
FLOOD THEM!
I know you'll be shocked to hear this, but I'm furious.
I ought to be transported to realms of bliss, since after a more difficult delivery than was expected, issue #4 of Secular Homeschooling finally came home last Friday. Which means that I get to spend a lot of time catching up with Buffy and her buddies while I stick labels and stamps on envelopes. (They don't mind if I work while we chat. They're used to my busy schedule.)
Instead, I'm fuming.
You saw (didn't you?) my last posting, about the idiots over at Natural News claiming that homeschooling is now illegal in California. As a California homeschooler, a homeschooling journalist, and a control freak with dangerously thin boundaries, this really steamed my clams. I spent precious hours posting on lots of forums and loops the information that homeschooling is fine and dandy in California -- better than ever, thanks for asking.
I really thought I might be going overboard, especially when my son pretended not to recognize me when I finally pulled myself away from the computer; so I figured that between that and posting here, my work was done and it was time to let it go, already.
Then I received this, via the email loop of my statewide homeschooling support group:
I have been told by many "well-meaning" friends and family, inside and outside the state of California, that homeschooling is illegal in CA unless one is a credentialed teacher. In fact, one site I googled stated that parents are still not in compliance with the law if they file a PSA [private school affidavit]. Can someone please clarify this for me. I was planning on filing my PSA this October, and now am wondering if this is what I am supposed to do.
[&%*$#@^?+!]
[that last bit was the noise I made on reading this letter. it sounded a bit like the noises that guy makes right before he turns into the Hulk.]
I have already contacted Natural News twice. No answer (other than an automated response).
I even went on to contact their ironically named publisher, Truth Publishing. No human answer.
I'm tired of this.
The initial ruling against homeschooling went through, in my not at all humble opinion, because of a fundamental misunderstanding of homeschooling and homeschoolers. They didn't realize how many of us there are, what it is we do, or how vocal we can be when we put our minds to it.
All of us -- Californians or not -- need to flood Natural News and Truth [sic] Publishing with mail.
Please put the word out to your homeschooling loops and let's get a letter-writing campaign going.
Here's the last letter I sent Natural News:
I am the editor of Secular Homeschooling Magazine, and a California homeschooler. I have contacted you twice regarding the article about homeschooling being illegal in California. You have neither replied nor taken the article down.
Are you aware that your misinformation is causing a great deal of stress to California homeschoolers who have already been through quite enough, thank you?
[I then posted the text of the letter above, explaining that it had just showed up on one of my homeschooling loops.]
I can only assume that, as you've had plenty of time to look into the matter and correct your mistake and have not done so, you are keeping this article up from nothing more than malice. I will be telling my readers so, both on my editor's blog and in an article in the next issue of SHM.
(Ticked off enough? Here’s hoping someone cares.)
Here's the contact page for Natural News:
http://www.naturalnews.com/Feedback.html
And here's the contact page for "Truth" Publishing:
http://www.truthpublishing.com/
Please, please, please send an email or two, and spread the word. It absolutely kills me that people who are considering homeschooling in California are not only being told by their nearest and dearest that they can't legally do so, but are finding confirmation of that idea on what looks to be a reputable news site.
I ought to be transported to realms of bliss, since after a more difficult delivery than was expected, issue #4 of Secular Homeschooling finally came home last Friday. Which means that I get to spend a lot of time catching up with Buffy and her buddies while I stick labels and stamps on envelopes. (They don't mind if I work while we chat. They're used to my busy schedule.)
Instead, I'm fuming.
You saw (didn't you?) my last posting, about the idiots over at Natural News claiming that homeschooling is now illegal in California. As a California homeschooler, a homeschooling journalist, and a control freak with dangerously thin boundaries, this really steamed my clams. I spent precious hours posting on lots of forums and loops the information that homeschooling is fine and dandy in California -- better than ever, thanks for asking.
I really thought I might be going overboard, especially when my son pretended not to recognize me when I finally pulled myself away from the computer; so I figured that between that and posting here, my work was done and it was time to let it go, already.
Then I received this, via the email loop of my statewide homeschooling support group:
I have been told by many "well-meaning" friends and family, inside and outside the state of California, that homeschooling is illegal in CA unless one is a credentialed teacher. In fact, one site I googled stated that parents are still not in compliance with the law if they file a PSA [private school affidavit]. Can someone please clarify this for me. I was planning on filing my PSA this October, and now am wondering if this is what I am supposed to do.
[&%*$#@^?+!]
[that last bit was the noise I made on reading this letter. it sounded a bit like the noises that guy makes right before he turns into the Hulk.]
I have already contacted Natural News twice. No answer (other than an automated response).
I even went on to contact their ironically named publisher, Truth Publishing. No human answer.
I'm tired of this.
The initial ruling against homeschooling went through, in my not at all humble opinion, because of a fundamental misunderstanding of homeschooling and homeschoolers. They didn't realize how many of us there are, what it is we do, or how vocal we can be when we put our minds to it.
All of us -- Californians or not -- need to flood Natural News and Truth [sic] Publishing with mail.
Please put the word out to your homeschooling loops and let's get a letter-writing campaign going.
Here's the last letter I sent Natural News:
I am the editor of Secular Homeschooling Magazine, and a California homeschooler. I have contacted you twice regarding the article about homeschooling being illegal in California. You have neither replied nor taken the article down.
Are you aware that your misinformation is causing a great deal of stress to California homeschoolers who have already been through quite enough, thank you?
[I then posted the text of the letter above, explaining that it had just showed up on one of my homeschooling loops.]
I can only assume that, as you've had plenty of time to look into the matter and correct your mistake and have not done so, you are keeping this article up from nothing more than malice. I will be telling my readers so, both on my editor's blog and in an article in the next issue of SHM.
(Ticked off enough? Here’s hoping someone cares.)
Here's the contact page for Natural News:
http://www.naturalnews.com/Feedback.html
And here's the contact page for "Truth" Publishing:
http://www.truthpublishing.com/
Please, please, please send an email or two, and spread the word. It absolutely kills me that people who are considering homeschooling in California are not only being told by their nearest and dearest that they can't legally do so, but are finding confirmation of that idea on what looks to be a reputable news site.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Yes, Virginia, Homeschooling Is Legal In California
Yesterday, Karen Taylor of CHN (the California Homeschool Network, an outstanding statewide support group) posted the following:
"We are NOT in the middle of a new legal case, however one very slow journalist is just getting around to reporting the very old in re Rachel news. Can you believe it's actually making the rounds on lists around the country as ‘news,’ and that CHN's 800# has already received a phone call this morning about it? Just goes to show you can't believe everything you read."
She added a link to an article by David Gutierrez, posted on Natural News (www.naturalnews.com), and dated September 23. This article reported the news that homeschooling is now illegal in California unless parents are certified teachers.
Oh, for the love of Pete.
We did this, already.
Back at the end of February, a California appellate court ruled that children had to be taught by legally certified teachers, period. This understandably freaked a lot of people out.
The case was soon vacated, and the court agreed to a rehearing in June. Tons of information about homeschooling, homeschoolers, and how homeschooling has been acknowledged by the educational laws of California was presented.
In August, the court issued its opinion that homeschooling is indeed legal in California, that teachers of private schools are not in fact required to be certified by the state, and that we could all relax and get back to teaching our kids.
All of which flew right by David Gutierrez’ pretty little head, apparently.
His article is getting around fast. Creepily, most of the blogs and other sites reprinting it are paranoid-freak-anti-Semitic-racist-jerk-type places; but some of them are sane enough that they really ought to know better.
I've contacted half a dozen sites, but this is one slippery hydra. Life is short; I don't have time to keep repeating myself.
Please blog, post, and email about this yourself, and either link to this posting or feel free to quote huge chunks of it. At this point, I don't much care about author credit (although it's always nice to be acknowledged). All I want is for the truth to be out there.
Here is a timeline of what really happened in California, with links to reputable sites and appropriate articles.
Initial ruling, Feb. 28, 2008 -- "Parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children":
http://www.dailycasereport.com/index.php?q=adv_sheet_by_case/3229
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/06/BAJDVF0F1.DTL&tsp=1
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080307/news_1n7school.html
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1720697,00.html?imw=Y
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-03-09-home-schooling_N.htm
March 25: "On March 25, the California Court of Appeal granted a motion for rehearing in the 'In re Rachel L.' case... The automatic effect of granting this motion is that the prior opinion is vacated and is no longer binding on any one, including the parties in the case."
http://www.tiprr.com/blog/?cat=9
June 23: State appeals court meets to reconsider ruling:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/23/BAC211CNBV.DTL
http://www.tiprr.com/blog/?p=125
August 8: Ruling overturned:
http://www.californiahomeschool.net/howTo/updates.htm
(this page has a link to the complete text of the in re rachel court opinion)
Spread the word, okay?
"We are NOT in the middle of a new legal case, however one very slow journalist is just getting around to reporting the very old in re Rachel news. Can you believe it's actually making the rounds on lists around the country as ‘news,’ and that CHN's 800# has already received a phone call this morning about it? Just goes to show you can't believe everything you read."
She added a link to an article by David Gutierrez, posted on Natural News (www.naturalnews.com), and dated September 23. This article reported the news that homeschooling is now illegal in California unless parents are certified teachers.
Oh, for the love of Pete.
We did this, already.
Back at the end of February, a California appellate court ruled that children had to be taught by legally certified teachers, period. This understandably freaked a lot of people out.
The case was soon vacated, and the court agreed to a rehearing in June. Tons of information about homeschooling, homeschoolers, and how homeschooling has been acknowledged by the educational laws of California was presented.
In August, the court issued its opinion that homeschooling is indeed legal in California, that teachers of private schools are not in fact required to be certified by the state, and that we could all relax and get back to teaching our kids.
All of which flew right by David Gutierrez’ pretty little head, apparently.
His article is getting around fast. Creepily, most of the blogs and other sites reprinting it are paranoid-freak-anti-Semitic-racist-jerk-type places; but some of them are sane enough that they really ought to know better.
I've contacted half a dozen sites, but this is one slippery hydra. Life is short; I don't have time to keep repeating myself.
Please blog, post, and email about this yourself, and either link to this posting or feel free to quote huge chunks of it. At this point, I don't much care about author credit (although it's always nice to be acknowledged). All I want is for the truth to be out there.
Here is a timeline of what really happened in California, with links to reputable sites and appropriate articles.
Initial ruling, Feb. 28, 2008 -- "Parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children":
http://www.dailycasereport.com/index.php?q=adv_sheet_by_case/3229
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/06/BAJDVF0F1.DTL&tsp=1
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080307/news_1n7school.html
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1720697,00.html?imw=Y
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-03-09-home-schooling_N.htm
March 25: "On March 25, the California Court of Appeal granted a motion for rehearing in the 'In re Rachel L.' case... The automatic effect of granting this motion is that the prior opinion is vacated and is no longer binding on any one, including the parties in the case."
http://www.tiprr.com/blog/?cat=9
June 23: State appeals court meets to reconsider ruling:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/23/BAC211CNBV.DTL
http://www.tiprr.com/blog/?p=125
August 8: Ruling overturned:
http://www.californiahomeschool.net/howTo/updates.htm
(this page has a link to the complete text of the in re rachel court opinion)
Spread the word, okay?
Saturday, September 20, 2008
What a big baby!
Last night I pulled into the printer's parking lot about twenty minutes before they closed, with the PDF file for the new issue of Secular Homeschooling in my hands.
What really killed me, though I'm trying not to think about it, is that I could have brought it in first thing that morning. Except that it hadn't been ready yet. Even though I'd been up until two the previous night working on it.
Here's what happened.
Short version:
I'm a moron.
Slightly more detailed version:
Finally, everything was finished. Every article had been read over and every regular column had been put in its proper place. Every piece of writing I needed to do myself had been done; everything by everyone else had been received and formatted.
One of the things I like about editing this magazine is that because so many readers enjoy long in-depth articles, I don't have to cut for length in terms of any word-limit policy. If an article needs to be three thousand words in order to say what it has to say, or four, or five -- well, more power to it.
I do have to trim now and then, though, for technical reasons. We'll lay it out and it'll be perfect, except that it dribbles over for several lines onto the next page. If it goes over a whole column or two, we'd fill in the space with artwork, or stick a really short piece right after, or see if that could be the page an ad the right size could go. But for just a few lines, it's a lot easier for technical reasons to make a little snip here and there.
For this issue, I was glad that it was pretty much only my own articles that needed this kind of haircut. I'd always rather cut my own work than anyone else's, because I know what I meant to say and I'm not going to inadvertently delete my own favorite sentence.
There was one piece in this issue that wasn't written by me and that absolutely needed a trim for formatting reasons, because it was part of the one department of the magazine where we actually do have space limitations. For some reason, when my husband (who's still introducing me to all the strange customs on Planet Layout) put all the articles that needed trimming up for me to work on in his computer, he left that one out. I think he still needed to do some work on the section in question. At any rate, we both knew that there was one article I needed to give a quick trim, but we both also sort of felt like I was "done" with that part of editing this issue.
When it comes to emotions versus intellect, guess who wins every time?
Having done all the trimming and article-order decision-making, I had to give the proofs of the issue one final going-over. That means me sitting on the couch late at night with a big stack of loose pages and a red pen, reminiscing about the good old days when I worked in retail and only had to worry about total strangers screaming at me because I couldn't find a book they wanted because they couldn't remember the title, author, or what it was about, though they were pretty sure the cover was red. Or brown.
Left to myself, I can read for hours on end, effortlessly and with great pleasure; but proofreading isn't the same as just plain read reading. First I have to tell my inner editor to piss off, because she keeps begging me to rephrase something no matter how many times I tell her that we're done with that part, already. All I need is help with spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
Which are the things I'm pretty good at. Except that after an hour or so of eagle-eyeing page after page after page, I start questioning my own understanding of the English language, which is sad since it's the only language I have other than a little French. I no longer have any idea how anything is supposed to be spelled. I've forgotten all rules of capitalization. Participles are dangling brazenly, knowing that I'm helpless to do anything about them.
So of course the job that I'd said I'd be done with in an hour, tops, has taken more like two and a half. It's almost midnight, and my husband still has to incorporate all the corrections I've just made into the master document. I could do that, but it won't get him to bed any earlier if I do, since he's the one who knows how to turn this whole thing into a PDF file and transfer it onto a CD for the printer.
He couldn't go to bed even if I could handle that part alone. I've been feeling hideously guilty for being so behind on everything around here -- the housework, the magazine, homeschooling, my toenails, everything you could possibly think of -- and so that morning, in some burst of wild ambition, I tore all the sheets off the bed and washed them, and I hadn't had time to put them back on yet. I'm a huge believer in multi-tasking and everyone doing what they're best at when times are tough, so it was much better that I wrangle the sheets and either wash or destroy the dirty dishes, while my husband put the last touches on the magazine.
So we were both making pretty good headway. At one point I came into the back bedroom to check something on my laptop -- one of the articles still didn't have the author's name on it, and I had to look up who'd written it. I opened up my "SHM 4" file folder, and looked death right in his grinning face.
"Oh, $#@&!" I said.
"What's wrong?"
Here was a lovely, funny little article by a woman who had a hilarious article in the last issue, and who was mentioned by name in an editor's note in the letters column as having an article in this issue.
And here was a how-to article about teaching elementary-aged children about science -- an article I'd been thrilled to get, since this not-back-to-school issue had managed to gather between its covers essays about teaching pretty much every subject I could think of, and this would round that out just perfectly.
And I didn't remember proofreading either of them.
Which means I hadn't read them.
Which means I hadn't emailed them to my husband to format.
Which means that in spite of the sheets finally being on the bed, we were no closer to sleep than we had been two hours ago, and it was almost one in the morning.
And the magazine was already just the right length. 64 pages. One of the unincorporated articles in question was a couple of thousand words -- and I wasn't willing to do without it.
I managed to communicate all this to my husband, and I have to say that part of the reason he still holds that title is that he didn't even blink. He waited for me to stop verbally stabbing myself in the gut for being such an opossum-brained idjit, and then he said, from the experience of having worked on company magazines for over a decade, "There's nothing you can do or not do that I haven't dealt with before. This is fixable."
So he just plain fixed it. One article I'd written was absolutely huge, and I would have been happy to cut a bunch out of it. There's nothing like being forced to sit down and carefully read every word of something you've written -- after having already read it several times in the course of writing and editing and copy-editing it -- to make you detest it enough that you'd be willing to kill every last syllable of it. If it had been any earlier in the evening, I think that piece would have died, or at least sustained some serious flesh wounds.
But my husband preferred to add the material I'd found and have this be a slightly bigger-than-usual issue; and since he was the one who had to stay up so late for a magazine that was only related to him by marriage, I thought he should have final say on that.
So we sat up and added the articles, and they fit pretty well; and at just before two in the morning, my husband handed me a CD with the PDF file of the current issue, and instructed me to read over the magazine and "make sure it looks okay."
I instructed him to put it somewhere painful. If I had to look at this issue one more time, I was going to murder it in its sleep.
An editor friend of mine once told me that when it comes down to the final proof before the printer of her own magazine, there's always a point where she thinks to herself, "Unless it says 'f-you, f-you, f-you,' it's ready to go. I'm done." I thought she was kidding until this particular two in the morning, when I realized that if anything, she was being far too rigorous. I would have been willing to give the occasional f-bomb a pass if it meant I could finally go to bed.
So I did, blearily happy in the knowledge that I could finally bring this baby to the printer in the morning.
I woke up to learn that although I've been feeling a lot better than the last time I posted here, I'm still not exactly well -- at least not well enough to be able to stay up until two and then get up at a reasonable hour the next day. Which I had to, since unfortunately we had a morning appointment that I couldn't break.
So I staggered around with the gut-wrenching nausea that had bid me a reluctant adieu earlier in the week and was now delighted to see me again. I brushed my hair and my teeth in lieu of breakfast. I was staring at myself in the mirror, trying to decide if I should fight with the bangs I'm growing out or just jam a hat on and risk a return of Super Headache, when something hit me.
"Oh, DAMN it!"
Which really isn't a nice thing to scream at eight in the morning in the room where, in our apartment, you're most likely to be overheard by people in the other apartments. But which was way nicer than what I was thinking of screaming.
"What's wrong?" my son said anxiously, running in.
"Nothing!"
I stormed into the back bedroom as if the whole mess were somehow its fault, picked up the phone, called my husband at work, and when he answered, screamed without any preamble:
"We never made the final cuts to that article!"
You know -- the one that had been waiting patiently for my attention right when I realized that two other articles were also waiting for a little love. The one that hadn't been in line when I was trimming everything else that needed help.
If I took the CD to the printer as it was, my readers would get an issue with an article that ended mid-sentence at the end of a page without being continued anywhere else.
And the best part?
It was an article in the children's section.
Here's how really moronic I am:
I was genuinely hoping that, on hearing this, my husband would say something like, "Oh, didn't I tell you? When I was formatting those two late add-ins, I just did some trimming myself. I hope you don't mind. There was a little repetition anyway, so I just deleted a couple of sentences where the writer basically said the same thing twice."
Yeah, that's what he said. And then Santa came and gave me a year's supply of chocolate.
No, what my husband really said was, "Oh, #$%@!"
What ticked both of us off was that staying up until two o'clock in the morning is fine now and then for a good cause; but staying up until two in the morning to only be almost done bites. And knowing that if you'd just stayed up until two-ten in the morning, you would be done...well, that burns with the flames of a thousand blue-white stars.
Well, again, he handled it really well. He didn't blame me, and he said he'd get home as early as he could so that we could finish up and I'd be able to bring it over to the printer before they closed and only lose half a day, instead of having to wait to bring it until Saturday (which, because of the way the printer works, would basically be like waiting until Monday to get the job started).
So I'm in labor as we speak, and issue #4 of Secular Homeschooling Magazine -- all 68 pages of it -- should come into the world early Tuesday morning.
Let's hope it's not as stupid as its mother.
What really killed me, though I'm trying not to think about it, is that I could have brought it in first thing that morning. Except that it hadn't been ready yet. Even though I'd been up until two the previous night working on it.
Here's what happened.
Short version:
I'm a moron.
Slightly more detailed version:
Finally, everything was finished. Every article had been read over and every regular column had been put in its proper place. Every piece of writing I needed to do myself had been done; everything by everyone else had been received and formatted.
One of the things I like about editing this magazine is that because so many readers enjoy long in-depth articles, I don't have to cut for length in terms of any word-limit policy. If an article needs to be three thousand words in order to say what it has to say, or four, or five -- well, more power to it.
I do have to trim now and then, though, for technical reasons. We'll lay it out and it'll be perfect, except that it dribbles over for several lines onto the next page. If it goes over a whole column or two, we'd fill in the space with artwork, or stick a really short piece right after, or see if that could be the page an ad the right size could go. But for just a few lines, it's a lot easier for technical reasons to make a little snip here and there.
For this issue, I was glad that it was pretty much only my own articles that needed this kind of haircut. I'd always rather cut my own work than anyone else's, because I know what I meant to say and I'm not going to inadvertently delete my own favorite sentence.
There was one piece in this issue that wasn't written by me and that absolutely needed a trim for formatting reasons, because it was part of the one department of the magazine where we actually do have space limitations. For some reason, when my husband (who's still introducing me to all the strange customs on Planet Layout) put all the articles that needed trimming up for me to work on in his computer, he left that one out. I think he still needed to do some work on the section in question. At any rate, we both knew that there was one article I needed to give a quick trim, but we both also sort of felt like I was "done" with that part of editing this issue.
When it comes to emotions versus intellect, guess who wins every time?
Having done all the trimming and article-order decision-making, I had to give the proofs of the issue one final going-over. That means me sitting on the couch late at night with a big stack of loose pages and a red pen, reminiscing about the good old days when I worked in retail and only had to worry about total strangers screaming at me because I couldn't find a book they wanted because they couldn't remember the title, author, or what it was about, though they were pretty sure the cover was red. Or brown.
Left to myself, I can read for hours on end, effortlessly and with great pleasure; but proofreading isn't the same as just plain read reading. First I have to tell my inner editor to piss off, because she keeps begging me to rephrase something no matter how many times I tell her that we're done with that part, already. All I need is help with spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
Which are the things I'm pretty good at. Except that after an hour or so of eagle-eyeing page after page after page, I start questioning my own understanding of the English language, which is sad since it's the only language I have other than a little French. I no longer have any idea how anything is supposed to be spelled. I've forgotten all rules of capitalization. Participles are dangling brazenly, knowing that I'm helpless to do anything about them.
So of course the job that I'd said I'd be done with in an hour, tops, has taken more like two and a half. It's almost midnight, and my husband still has to incorporate all the corrections I've just made into the master document. I could do that, but it won't get him to bed any earlier if I do, since he's the one who knows how to turn this whole thing into a PDF file and transfer it onto a CD for the printer.
He couldn't go to bed even if I could handle that part alone. I've been feeling hideously guilty for being so behind on everything around here -- the housework, the magazine, homeschooling, my toenails, everything you could possibly think of -- and so that morning, in some burst of wild ambition, I tore all the sheets off the bed and washed them, and I hadn't had time to put them back on yet. I'm a huge believer in multi-tasking and everyone doing what they're best at when times are tough, so it was much better that I wrangle the sheets and either wash or destroy the dirty dishes, while my husband put the last touches on the magazine.
So we were both making pretty good headway. At one point I came into the back bedroom to check something on my laptop -- one of the articles still didn't have the author's name on it, and I had to look up who'd written it. I opened up my "SHM 4" file folder, and looked death right in his grinning face.
"Oh, $#@&!" I said.
"What's wrong?"
Here was a lovely, funny little article by a woman who had a hilarious article in the last issue, and who was mentioned by name in an editor's note in the letters column as having an article in this issue.
And here was a how-to article about teaching elementary-aged children about science -- an article I'd been thrilled to get, since this not-back-to-school issue had managed to gather between its covers essays about teaching pretty much every subject I could think of, and this would round that out just perfectly.
And I didn't remember proofreading either of them.
Which means I hadn't read them.
Which means I hadn't emailed them to my husband to format.
Which means that in spite of the sheets finally being on the bed, we were no closer to sleep than we had been two hours ago, and it was almost one in the morning.
And the magazine was already just the right length. 64 pages. One of the unincorporated articles in question was a couple of thousand words -- and I wasn't willing to do without it.
I managed to communicate all this to my husband, and I have to say that part of the reason he still holds that title is that he didn't even blink. He waited for me to stop verbally stabbing myself in the gut for being such an opossum-brained idjit, and then he said, from the experience of having worked on company magazines for over a decade, "There's nothing you can do or not do that I haven't dealt with before. This is fixable."
So he just plain fixed it. One article I'd written was absolutely huge, and I would have been happy to cut a bunch out of it. There's nothing like being forced to sit down and carefully read every word of something you've written -- after having already read it several times in the course of writing and editing and copy-editing it -- to make you detest it enough that you'd be willing to kill every last syllable of it. If it had been any earlier in the evening, I think that piece would have died, or at least sustained some serious flesh wounds.
But my husband preferred to add the material I'd found and have this be a slightly bigger-than-usual issue; and since he was the one who had to stay up so late for a magazine that was only related to him by marriage, I thought he should have final say on that.
So we sat up and added the articles, and they fit pretty well; and at just before two in the morning, my husband handed me a CD with the PDF file of the current issue, and instructed me to read over the magazine and "make sure it looks okay."
I instructed him to put it somewhere painful. If I had to look at this issue one more time, I was going to murder it in its sleep.
An editor friend of mine once told me that when it comes down to the final proof before the printer of her own magazine, there's always a point where she thinks to herself, "Unless it says 'f-you, f-you, f-you,' it's ready to go. I'm done." I thought she was kidding until this particular two in the morning, when I realized that if anything, she was being far too rigorous. I would have been willing to give the occasional f-bomb a pass if it meant I could finally go to bed.
So I did, blearily happy in the knowledge that I could finally bring this baby to the printer in the morning.
I woke up to learn that although I've been feeling a lot better than the last time I posted here, I'm still not exactly well -- at least not well enough to be able to stay up until two and then get up at a reasonable hour the next day. Which I had to, since unfortunately we had a morning appointment that I couldn't break.
So I staggered around with the gut-wrenching nausea that had bid me a reluctant adieu earlier in the week and was now delighted to see me again. I brushed my hair and my teeth in lieu of breakfast. I was staring at myself in the mirror, trying to decide if I should fight with the bangs I'm growing out or just jam a hat on and risk a return of Super Headache, when something hit me.
"Oh, DAMN it!"
Which really isn't a nice thing to scream at eight in the morning in the room where, in our apartment, you're most likely to be overheard by people in the other apartments. But which was way nicer than what I was thinking of screaming.
"What's wrong?" my son said anxiously, running in.
"Nothing!"
I stormed into the back bedroom as if the whole mess were somehow its fault, picked up the phone, called my husband at work, and when he answered, screamed without any preamble:
"We never made the final cuts to that article!"
You know -- the one that had been waiting patiently for my attention right when I realized that two other articles were also waiting for a little love. The one that hadn't been in line when I was trimming everything else that needed help.
If I took the CD to the printer as it was, my readers would get an issue with an article that ended mid-sentence at the end of a page without being continued anywhere else.
And the best part?
It was an article in the children's section.
Here's how really moronic I am:
I was genuinely hoping that, on hearing this, my husband would say something like, "Oh, didn't I tell you? When I was formatting those two late add-ins, I just did some trimming myself. I hope you don't mind. There was a little repetition anyway, so I just deleted a couple of sentences where the writer basically said the same thing twice."
Yeah, that's what he said. And then Santa came and gave me a year's supply of chocolate.
No, what my husband really said was, "Oh, #$%@!"
What ticked both of us off was that staying up until two o'clock in the morning is fine now and then for a good cause; but staying up until two in the morning to only be almost done bites. And knowing that if you'd just stayed up until two-ten in the morning, you would be done...well, that burns with the flames of a thousand blue-white stars.
Well, again, he handled it really well. He didn't blame me, and he said he'd get home as early as he could so that we could finish up and I'd be able to bring it over to the printer before they closed and only lose half a day, instead of having to wait to bring it until Saturday (which, because of the way the printer works, would basically be like waiting until Monday to get the job started).
So I'm in labor as we speak, and issue #4 of Secular Homeschooling Magazine -- all 68 pages of it -- should come into the world early Tuesday morning.
Let's hope it's not as stupid as its mother.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Another Bitter List
I have an appointment to see a doctor tomorrow. I may or may not go.
Partly, I’m just not feeling that trusting of, well, anyone. My marriage is going through some hard stuff right now, and a big part of it is that I never, ever get to be the one who just plain gets taken care of.
Speaking of which — look, I’m sick. Or I have something going on, anyway. I want to just be able to go somewhere and get it taken care of. And I can’t. I can’t take myself in like a car that needs repairs. I’ve got to read and research and ask questions and know when to be pushy.
And damn it, if I were up to that kind of work, I wouldn’t be going to the doctor in the first place.
Anyway. With apologies to all the medical practitioners it may upset, here’s a little list of stuff I hate about dealing with doctors. Please let the record show that I do not hate doctors. I hate dealing with them. I’m sure it’s mutual. Fair enough.
11 Things I Hate About Dealing With Doctors
1. That us/them mentality. You don't have to tell me they're not the only ones who have it. I worked in retail for six years. But they're the only ones I can think of, other than the military, who can legally kill whoever they decide "them" is. And unlike the military, they don't even have to try. They just have to not do anything.
2. The ones who don't know what the hell they're doing sound exactly like the ones who will swiftly and skillfully save my life.
3. The fact that they want extra credit just for being doctors. Like they're not charging enough already; they want to be worshipped on top of it. Or at least be nominated for sainthood. Face it: you don't get to take moral, magical credit for what you do when you send a bill for services rendered. Jesus never billed anyone, and he told his patients not to go around telling everyone how great he was.
4. Speaking of money: The only people that make doctors madder than the people who imply they're in it for the money are the people who don't pay their bills on time.
5. They get mad at me if I imply I might have an idea as to what's wrong with me.
6. They get mad at me if I have something wrong that they can't figure out.
7. They make me wait at least an hour when I come to see them, even if I show up on time for my appointment, and then act all put upon if I take up five minutes of their precious time to ask them any questions about what exactly the hell is wrong with me.
8. Speaking of time: when I'm late, I'm a troublemaker. When they're late, I'm a troublemaker if I ask what's going on. They would be shocked and outraged at the idea of my getting an appointment for, oh, let's say two-ish; yet when I ask why I haven't seen the doctor yet when it's two thirty-five and we had an appointment for two o'clock, they reply that the doctor and his staff can't be held responsible for "unexpected emergencies" shaking up the schedule.
9. If I have an unexpected emergency that throws off my ability to show up on time for an appointment, I have to reschedule, I may have to pay for the appointment I didn't use, and I'd better apologize.
10. They use the phrase "patient complains of" when they write down what's bothering me. Or else they say, "patient claims to suffer from..." Claims and complains are not neutral words. If any doctor thinks they are, let me just ask after his marital status and family situation, and then write his answer down in doctor-ese. "Doctor complains of being married. Claims to have two children."
11. They act all snooty about the fact that I couldn’t do their job, when the fact is, they couldn’t do mine, either. Being this bitter only looks easy.
Partly, I’m just not feeling that trusting of, well, anyone. My marriage is going through some hard stuff right now, and a big part of it is that I never, ever get to be the one who just plain gets taken care of.
Speaking of which — look, I’m sick. Or I have something going on, anyway. I want to just be able to go somewhere and get it taken care of. And I can’t. I can’t take myself in like a car that needs repairs. I’ve got to read and research and ask questions and know when to be pushy.
And damn it, if I were up to that kind of work, I wouldn’t be going to the doctor in the first place.
Anyway. With apologies to all the medical practitioners it may upset, here’s a little list of stuff I hate about dealing with doctors. Please let the record show that I do not hate doctors. I hate dealing with them. I’m sure it’s mutual. Fair enough.
11 Things I Hate About Dealing With Doctors
1. That us/them mentality. You don't have to tell me they're not the only ones who have it. I worked in retail for six years. But they're the only ones I can think of, other than the military, who can legally kill whoever they decide "them" is. And unlike the military, they don't even have to try. They just have to not do anything.
2. The ones who don't know what the hell they're doing sound exactly like the ones who will swiftly and skillfully save my life.
3. The fact that they want extra credit just for being doctors. Like they're not charging enough already; they want to be worshipped on top of it. Or at least be nominated for sainthood. Face it: you don't get to take moral, magical credit for what you do when you send a bill for services rendered. Jesus never billed anyone, and he told his patients not to go around telling everyone how great he was.
4. Speaking of money: The only people that make doctors madder than the people who imply they're in it for the money are the people who don't pay their bills on time.
5. They get mad at me if I imply I might have an idea as to what's wrong with me.
6. They get mad at me if I have something wrong that they can't figure out.
7. They make me wait at least an hour when I come to see them, even if I show up on time for my appointment, and then act all put upon if I take up five minutes of their precious time to ask them any questions about what exactly the hell is wrong with me.
8. Speaking of time: when I'm late, I'm a troublemaker. When they're late, I'm a troublemaker if I ask what's going on. They would be shocked and outraged at the idea of my getting an appointment for, oh, let's say two-ish; yet when I ask why I haven't seen the doctor yet when it's two thirty-five and we had an appointment for two o'clock, they reply that the doctor and his staff can't be held responsible for "unexpected emergencies" shaking up the schedule.
9. If I have an unexpected emergency that throws off my ability to show up on time for an appointment, I have to reschedule, I may have to pay for the appointment I didn't use, and I'd better apologize.
10. They use the phrase "patient complains of" when they write down what's bothering me. Or else they say, "patient claims to suffer from..." Claims and complains are not neutral words. If any doctor thinks they are, let me just ask after his marital status and family situation, and then write his answer down in doctor-ese. "Doctor complains of being married. Claims to have two children."
11. They act all snooty about the fact that I couldn’t do their job, when the fact is, they couldn’t do mine, either. Being this bitter only looks easy.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Giving In Without Giving Up (or, Hey! Maybe I won't barf after all!)
I got a lovely email today from reader Jean Ping, who likes to make my life easier by summing up her message in the subject heading. Hers read: "Hey, are you OK?"
Seeing as how, she added with kind concern, I haven't posted to this blog in several weeks.
Jean is psychic, and has sworn to only use her powers for good.
I'm not OK at all, and I'm really glad she brought it up.
I've been doing the girl-macho thing. These past several months, I've sort of faced up to my health problems; but still, as soon as my symptoms let up even a little, I go into heavy denial mode. I'm fine! I'm great! I'm busy! Can't do that whole health thing right now!
Don't get me wrong -- I take care of myself. I exercise when I'm well and even when I'm only halfway well; I'm mostly vegetarian, big on the whole grains and fruits and veggies. I sleep. Even shower sometimes.
This past week has been a not-so-gentle wake-up call, and I'm putting that out here mostly so I don't get arrogant again and decide that everything's fine and dandy and I can deal with this on my own. Doctors? I don't need no stinkin' doctors!
I've spent most of the last two months grappling with various fun symptoms. The past four days have been a torture session of gut-wrenching nausea, screaming headaches, and numbing exhaustion. I spent most of Friday and Saturday bedridden, desperately trying not to puke my painkillers.
Okay. I give.
I'm still wearing the eyeglasses of pain (my fellow migraine sufferers know what I'm talking about), and still feeling pretty swimmy; but it's all at a level I’ll laughingly call workable at this point.
I am now frantically trying to make up for a lot of time lost this summer -- lost partly to research for an article that will end up being in the issue after this one, but lost mostly to my own refusal to listen to my body's demands that I give it some damned attention, already.
We -- my husband, who has been an absolute rock through all this happy-happy-joy-joy, and I -- are currently working our patooties off on issue #4. It's almost done, and then off to the speedy-quick printers.
I have also printed up labels for all the issues that have been ordered since the last time I did a mailing. I'll be doing a big mailing tomorrow.
SHM is alive and well, and will continue to be so. I intend to follow its good example.
This is not an invitation to a pity party. I just want people to know that I'm alive, on-duty, and this issue is in fact coming together beautifully. I've even managed to sketch out a few ideas for theme issues for the upcoming year. More about that soon.
For now -- thank you, Jean, for checking in, and for looking up endometriosis so I didn't have to explain. You're right, it's a total yuck and it is surgery I'm looking at. Surgery that may not even help, in the sense of treating my symptoms. But I think that just knowing of a certainty what I'm dealing with will be a help. I think it will be a help if I can make myself face the fact that there's a time to try and tough things out, and a time to sit down with the calendar and start marking out what are most likely to be days when I'll feel well enough to be a thinking creative person, and what are the days when I'd better count on only being able to do comparatively mindless work.
It's time for me to stop being tackled and surprised by this thing, whatever it is. It's painful, it's exhausting and it's degrading; but it's also cyclic, and therefore to a certain extent predictable. If I'm willing to admit it.
I've always been willing to work my ass off; now maybe it's time to use my head a bit instead. Time to start being just a bit of a practical grownup, even. Not enough of one to kill off the creative kid in me that got this whole thing started, but enough to help her keep it going.
Seeing as how, she added with kind concern, I haven't posted to this blog in several weeks.
Jean is psychic, and has sworn to only use her powers for good.
I'm not OK at all, and I'm really glad she brought it up.
I've been doing the girl-macho thing. These past several months, I've sort of faced up to my health problems; but still, as soon as my symptoms let up even a little, I go into heavy denial mode. I'm fine! I'm great! I'm busy! Can't do that whole health thing right now!
Don't get me wrong -- I take care of myself. I exercise when I'm well and even when I'm only halfway well; I'm mostly vegetarian, big on the whole grains and fruits and veggies. I sleep. Even shower sometimes.
This past week has been a not-so-gentle wake-up call, and I'm putting that out here mostly so I don't get arrogant again and decide that everything's fine and dandy and I can deal with this on my own. Doctors? I don't need no stinkin' doctors!
I've spent most of the last two months grappling with various fun symptoms. The past four days have been a torture session of gut-wrenching nausea, screaming headaches, and numbing exhaustion. I spent most of Friday and Saturday bedridden, desperately trying not to puke my painkillers.
Okay. I give.
I'm still wearing the eyeglasses of pain (my fellow migraine sufferers know what I'm talking about), and still feeling pretty swimmy; but it's all at a level I’ll laughingly call workable at this point.
I am now frantically trying to make up for a lot of time lost this summer -- lost partly to research for an article that will end up being in the issue after this one, but lost mostly to my own refusal to listen to my body's demands that I give it some damned attention, already.
We -- my husband, who has been an absolute rock through all this happy-happy-joy-joy, and I -- are currently working our patooties off on issue #4. It's almost done, and then off to the speedy-quick printers.
I have also printed up labels for all the issues that have been ordered since the last time I did a mailing. I'll be doing a big mailing tomorrow.
SHM is alive and well, and will continue to be so. I intend to follow its good example.
This is not an invitation to a pity party. I just want people to know that I'm alive, on-duty, and this issue is in fact coming together beautifully. I've even managed to sketch out a few ideas for theme issues for the upcoming year. More about that soon.
For now -- thank you, Jean, for checking in, and for looking up endometriosis so I didn't have to explain. You're right, it's a total yuck and it is surgery I'm looking at. Surgery that may not even help, in the sense of treating my symptoms. But I think that just knowing of a certainty what I'm dealing with will be a help. I think it will be a help if I can make myself face the fact that there's a time to try and tough things out, and a time to sit down with the calendar and start marking out what are most likely to be days when I'll feel well enough to be a thinking creative person, and what are the days when I'd better count on only being able to do comparatively mindless work.
It's time for me to stop being tackled and surprised by this thing, whatever it is. It's painful, it's exhausting and it's degrading; but it's also cyclic, and therefore to a certain extent predictable. If I'm willing to admit it.
I've always been willing to work my ass off; now maybe it's time to use my head a bit instead. Time to start being just a bit of a practical grownup, even. Not enough of one to kill off the creative kid in me that got this whole thing started, but enough to help her keep it going.
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