Category Archive

Recently I spent an hour talking with a business coach about improvements I want to make to Rosso Writing. I heard myself passionately explaining to her why I charge what I charge and how I think it’s a reasonable rate given the quality of my work and how I’m tired of defending it to people, or worrying that I’m going to have to defend it to people when I write proposals for new projects.

She asked me if I could describe what value I provide to my clients. I quickly rattled off a list. I know what I’m good at. I also know what my imperfections are, but no need to mention those to people, right? She suggested that I articulate the value I bring to my work and to my clients in a succinct way and mention it every chance I get. If people know what they’re getting is that good, they’ll be willing to pay for it, she theorized.

This makes sense to me. I hope that I can be better at standing up for myself when these situations arise. I am constantly being told by prospective clients that they have no money. I fully realize that I have made it my mission to work with nonprofits because I care about what they do and who they serve and how they make life better for people and communities. And most nonprofits, especially in this economy, operate on lean budgets. But that doesn’t mean they can’t plan to set aside money for something they think is important, such as good writing. When people ask me if I can work for a little less, I think “do you ask the doctor to charge you less? The plumber? The guy at the Apple store selling you a laptop?” No, you pay what they charge because you believe they’re giving you a worthwhile service or product and that’s how much it costs. Somehow, since I am an independent contractor, or a nice lady, people think that my rate isn’t real.

It’s not that I expect to get rich being a freelance writer working for nonprofits. But I do expect to make a living, and I expect to be fairly compensated for the service I provide. Now I just have to be as clear expressing that to everyone else as I am to myself.

Last night I took Zoe trick or treating in the neighborhood where I grew up. She was a fire chief and I accompanied her up and down my parents’ street and the next block, boring her with fascinating stories at every house. Next door: one of the daughters in this family used to babysit me and she wouldn’t help me clean up the mess she made. Two doors down were British brothers who wanted to wrestle when I babysat them but I didn’t know how. Next door to them was the guy who drove home from his job every day at lunch to intercept the mail because he was embezzling money and didn’t want his wife to find out. I didn’t mention that story to Zoe. At the next house lived two sisters who I played with often before I changed schools and they stopped speaking to me. I lost a tooth once playing in a tent set up in their basement. They had an aunt who was Miss Mississippi in the Miss America Pageant whose talent was twirling the baton and they tried to teach me as well. At the next house lived the family whose house I went after school the day my mom was at the hospital giving birth to my sister. Next door to them lived several British families in a row, all of whom I babysat for and one of whom I stayed with briefly when I studied abroad in England many years later. Across the street from my parents live a family where the mom is a nurse and I remember her once using instruments of torture, such as tweezers and antiseptic, to help me out when I wiped out on the sidewalk and embedded gravel in my knee. Further down the block were the kids who I used to watch monster movies with in their basement. And all that was before I was eight years old.

Halloween for Zoe was about the parade at her school, trick or treating at the most houses ever (did we go to 200 houses? she joked) and filling her bucket to the brim. She loved seeing all the other kids and decorations and it was the first time she was captivated by vampires and skeletons and witches without being the least bit scared. For me Halloween was about ghosts of years past, but definitely the friendly kind.

Infertility is distracting.

Never mind the agony, but trying to conceive takes up a lot of space in your daily routine and fills your brain with crazy. Last month my always-regular period was five days late. Five days is an eternity when you are hoping to be pregnant and thinking of course you’re pregnant, your period is never late and this is FIVE DAYS with no sign of a period. Every time you go to the bathroom, which is frequently, you brace yourself for any sign of blood.

When you’re trying to conceive, you spend a lot of time thinking about sperm and exactly what and how they’re doing at any given moment. I watched this fascinating documentary by National Geographic called Sizing Up Sperm, which very cleverly illustrates the process sperm go through to fertilize an egg by using hundreds (thousands?) of real people hiking up hills, swirling down pipes, and scaling ladders to represent the challenges of insemination.

Every invitation and trip and activity must be considered through the lens of a possible pregnancy. Will I be able to fly to that wedding across the country if I’m several months pregnant? Should I have that glass of wine if I might be pregnant right now and don’t yet know it? Is it safe to go on a carnival ride or a hayride that says “NOT SAFE FOR PREGNANT WOMEN” when it’s possible I’m two weeks pregnant? How can a ferris wheel be dangerous for an embryo anyway?

When you add fertility treatment into this mental maelstrom, there are so many more details to consider. What if I get pregnant with quadruplets? What if it’s twins? What if it’s twins but one of them has a condition that will make it impossible for it to survive outside the womb? What if I get pregnant with multiples and some of the embryos aren’t viable and have to be reduced? How does that work and how would I handle it? How do you even breastfeed twins? How will we buy a new house in this market if we have twins? Will our daughter ever get any attention again? You also learn new things, like the follicle that houses an egg until it’s time to ovulate should be at least 17 millimeters when it’s ready to pop out that egg. When a follicle releases an egg, it’s supposed to tell the other follicles to shut down. But what if it doesn’t? You analyze every tiny feeling inside your belly, wondering if an egg is on the move. You rush to embrace every pang of nausea in case it means what you hope it means. But then again maybe you just have a virus. You foolishly succumb to the constant temptation to google “early signs of pregnancy” and various other conception-related topics even though you’ve already done this hundreds of times, have never learned anything new, and mostly find bulletin boards filled with stupid comments by people who are not actually authorities on anything and possess no medical expertise.

And of course, all this is supposed to be secret. So you just wait and wait and count down days and try not to be completely driven to distraction.

This afternoon at the neighborhood library Zoe was in the children’s reading area while I looked for books for her on nearby shelves. There was another little girl in the kids’ section and I heard her talking to Zoe. A few minutes later Zoe walked over to where I was and said, calmly, “that girl is being mean to me. She said I was ugly and I wasn’t pretty. She said she didn’t care about me and she took the books out of my hand, that I had first, and she said I was jealous of her dvds and I don’t even know what she was talking about.”

Where do you start?

I walked back over to the children’s area with Zoe. The girl started to say something else to Zoe and saw me and immediately stopped and sat down with her dvds. I thought about saying something to the girl, like “why were you being mean to my daughter? That wasn’t nice!” but decided against it. I didn’t think it would go over well and I didn’t really want to get into it with the girl. I worried that I was going to teach Zoe to be a wuss. But I didn’t really know what to say. I knew Zoe was telling the truth, but since I didn’t witness the exchange, and I didn’t know anything about the girl, I just felt like it wouldn’t be productive.

Instead, Zoe brought me over some books and curled up in my lap and we read together. I helped her sound out words. I sounded out some on my own. Zoe did a puzzle. We picked out some books for her, checked out, and left.

Although she’d been quiet for a while, I could tell Zoe was shaken by the experience. I told her I was really sorry that had happened and I asked her what she had said when the girl was talking to her. She said that when the girl said “you’re ugly,” Zoe said, “No.” And when the girl continued, “you’re not pretty,” Zoe said, “No.” Zoe explained that she wasn’t at all jealous of the girl’s movies, which the girl had bragged were scary movies, because, Zoe said “I don’t even like scary movies. I didn’t want her dvds.”

We talked about what she might say to someone who was talking to her like that in the future. We took turns coming up with responses, like “I don’t like the way you’re talking to me,” (mine), and,”I’m not going to pay attention to you,” (Zoe’s). I told Zoe that it wasn’t acceptable for anyone to treat her like that, and she didn’t ever need to take it, and that she should say so, and if the person persisted, just ignore the antagonist or walk away. Zoe said, “I’ve never met a mean stranger like that before.” I felt my heart breaking a little, knowing all the mean strangers she will encounter throughout the rest of her life. She didn’t understand why the girl would talk to her like that. I explained that often, when someone is mean to a stranger, it’s because someone has treated that person badly and they think it’s ok to treat someone else badly. Zoe said, “I guess she never learned her manners.”

Zoe said she was disappointed and sad that the girl had treated her that way. She reiterated that she had had no interest in the girl’s movies. “I’m not even brave enough to watch scary movies yet.” For some reason, I continued in the vein of coming up with alternate responses to the situation. “You could say to her, I don’t want your dvds. I have my own dvds at home.”

“Yeah,” Zoe agreed. “Or I could say, ‘I don’t want your dvds. I have Netflix!'”

Zoe’s Story About Bad Guys

Once upon a time there was a bad guy. The bad guy went into a house one day. The house had a baby right in the room next to the doorway. The bad guy could get in the baby’s room because the door was open. The bad guy took the baby and then went the bad guy went to sleep the baby quietly crawled back home. The end.

What Bad Guys Are Like

Grown-up bad guys are like this. They have black and blue clothes on. They have gray shoes. They have black hats. They also have light blue wings. They really like babies so they take them a lot, but just in made up stories. Kid bad guys can fly beside your car and they can also fly in your windows because their wings are shorter. Kid bad guys are naked but with wings.

How to Deal with the Bad Guys

Get your car washed but only when no kid is inside. Bad guys don’t like touching wet things. Even when your car dries, the bad guys will still think it’s wet because it looks clean, so they’ll stay away.

When I picked Zoe up tonight and we were getting in the car, I accidentally pressed the panic button on my car keys. It was loud, but brief. I quickly turned it off. Zoe said “Whew! It’s good that you turned that off. Someone might have thought you were getting attacked by aliens. They might have come out of their houses to rescue you.” I asked what if the aliens were friendly and not scary. She said “they might look scary even if they’re really friendly.” I asked how we could tell if they were scary or friendly, or how we could make friends with them. “Just ask them if they want a hug or a handshake,” she said.

Today I interviewed someone who is an executive coach, worked with the Navy, has a PhD in clinical psychology, is a part-time actor, and sings the National Anthem at public events. He also lives a block away from where a horrible crime was committed involving two people I know.

I counseled one of my clients, who wondered why all her consultants are not more like me.

I wrote what was supposed to be my last newsletter for PBS Teachers because of budget cuts. Boo. But then they said the wanted one more. Yay.

I posted some cool job opportunities on the Black Philanthropic Alliance blog.

I am never, ever bored.

Here’s your college essay application, even if you’re long past applying to college.

Do you believe in the idea that “there are no accidents,” also known as “things happen for a reason?”

Why or why not?

Do you think such a belief requires faith in God?

Explain.

Take all the time you need to answer. But please post your thoughts.

Thank you.

On the way to camp the other day Zoe said “do you wish you could go to mommy camp?” I asked her what kind of activities there are at mommy camp. She said “you work on the computer and you clean.” I asked if there was anything else. She said no. “What do we do for fun?” I asked.  “You play with your kids!”

Sounds more like real life to me.

For the past month or so since we’ve been aggressively treating Zoe with laxatives, per the recommendation of our urologist and GI doc, we’ve seen noticeable progress. And exasperating setbacks. She will go three or four days with no accidents. Hallelujah! Then she’ll have an accident because she didn’t want to interrupt the teacher to say she had to use the bathroom, or she sees another camper going into the bathroom in her class and doesn’t realize she can go to another bathroom elsewhere in the building. Or, she doesn’t feel like going to the bathroom. This is rare, but it still happens. Or, what’s happened most often most recently and is driving me berserk, is that because she has had so much success listening to her body and her improving bladder and colon health have enabled her to clearly get the signal that she needs to pee, she has decided she’s all better so she no longer needs to listen to her vibrating alarm watch or reminders from her parents, teachers, or counselors.

I get it. I understand why she would think that now that she can listen to her body, she doesn’t need to listen to anything else. But although her body is doing better, it is still not a reliable source of information all the time.

We have had so many talks about this. I fear that if we have another talk, she will completely stop listening.

Tomorrow she has the first of three schedule appointments with a physical therapist for pelvic floor rehabilitation. She will also begin taking medication for overactive bladder that her urologist believes will put a stop to the accidents. A possible side effect of the drug is constipation, which would of course counteract its benefit for Zoe, so if that happens we can’t use it. But it may not happen.

Yesterday we went to the pool so she could show off her newly learned swimming skills to her dad, and we could enjoy the hot afternoon in the cooler water. And there was a cookout at the pool. When we arrived, she went the bathroom since she knows that’s the rule. It was break so she played in the baby pool for 15 minutes. Then they blew the whistle and she jumped in the big pool with her dad. Then they blew the whistle again because Zoe pooped. They had to clear the pool, clean it, and close it for an hour. I grabbed Zoe and ran to the bathroom to clean her off. We rushed to the car and sped home. Zoe was hysterical because she hated to miss swimming and the party. I was mortified because we had caused the pool to empty and interrupted the afternoon plans of dozens of families. I was so angry at Zoe, although it probably wasn’t her fault. I let Randy take care of her so I didn’t unleash my emotions at her. It’s likely that too much laxative was causing the loose poop. We’ve reduced her dosage. Every day last week when we went to the pool, she got out on her own initiative to use the bathroom. I didn’t have to remind her, and she didn’t have any accidents there. So yesterday was a surprise, but an unfortunate and upsetting one.

Our urologist says this happens at this pool all the time. And last week at our pool some poor little kid threw up in the pool, and the same thing happened. Life is messy. And frustrating and embarrassing. Here’s hoping things get better this week.