Wanna write for ParentsConnect?

Here's the deal: I'm now in charge of gathering together literally hundreds of short (150-500 words) essays-that-aren't-really-essays for ParentsConnect*, which is a Nickelodeon/MTV/Viacom website for parents of children of all ages.

Here's what you need to know: You do NOT need to be a 'writer' to get in on this. We're currently calling these essays-that-aren't-really-essays Blabs, because that's really what they are: little blabby email-to-your-friend type things that talk about your feelings/emotions/reactions to some parenting topic, whether good or bad. We don't want stories with a narrative; we don't want things all tied up in a pretty little bow at the end. We want things that look at parenting as it really is--a work in progress. So, for instance, we have a blab from a parent who is, in the piece, literally standing in her child's doorway, trying to decide whether or not to go in and search her kid's room, because she thinks she smelled pot on his clothes yesterday, and what will it mean if she does go in and ransack the place? Or we have a blab from a parent who talks about how she really doesn't like kids other than her own. Or we have a blab from a parent who is exulting because he forced his daughter to get involved in a drama production at school, and now she loves it. In other words, it doesn't have to be all bad, sad, deep, dark stuff. It just has to be about *you* rather than about how cute or annoying your children are.

Here is more of what you need to know: There's a TON of paperwork to fill out to be paid the (yes, measly, very measly) $35 per accepted Blab that we pay. We have a 3-Blab limit right now per Blabber, so that means at best I'll be putting an extra $105 in your pocket. But, hey, why not, right? More than the money, you'll be able to say that you were 'published' by Nickelodeon. And you'll get some stuff of your chest.

So, if you're interested...and I hope you will be...drop me a line at tinycoconut@gmail.com, and I'll take it from there. No need to send writing samples or anything like that, though if you want to tell me what you'd like to write about for your first Blab, that would be great. At that point, if you want to see examples of what I'm looking for, I'll send you a couple, along with a document that explains a little bit more about all of this.

Feel free to pass this along to family, friends, other bloggers, email groups...you know the drill. I will literally need at least a hundred people even just to get this started! (Have I mentioned there's work stress in my life? And this is the FUN stuff for me!) Oh, and if you already said you were interested in something like this before now, chances are you're on my "people to respond to" list, and you'll be hearing from me or one of my colleagues VERY soon.

*Note: There's a reason there's no link here. That is because, while ParentsConnect does very much exist at the moment, the version of ParentsConnect that these Blabs will appear on doesn't resemble the one you can see if you click that link. The focus is different, the voice is different, the content is different, the architecture of the site is different...you get the point.

Here I am

We found out about my dad on Thursday; four days later (a week ago today), I found out that my boss at ParentsConnect had resigned. I'm going to be taking over for her for the interim, which is a lot of pressure at the same time as that of my dad's diagnosis. Worst of it is that the people in New York who run ParentsConnect want someone to replace her in New York. Which makes sense if you're not a person who lives in LA who was hoping to take over part of her job on a permanent basis and finally get a staff position (read: benefits). So that's more stress--the stress of who will come in to replace my boss, and will she want me to continue to work at this more managerial level to which I've become accustomed? Or will she want her entire staff to be in New York with her (it could be a him, but it's unlikely, given that this is a site aimed primarily at mommies) and thus will I find myself suddenly out of a job--out of the only job I have right now, the only job anyone in this whole family has right now?

Oh, and the kids are off for spring break this week. And I'm heading out to New York to see my dad and meet with the ParentsConnect folks a week from tomorrow.

There isn't enough Xanax in the world to keep me calm.

Physician, heal thyself

I was just sitting here, typing away, when I realized I was already 15 minutes late to get Em from school.

The kicker? I was writing a series of parenting tips for the not-so-soon-to-be-revamped ParentsConnect website.

Tip #1: Don't forget to pick up your child at school, you moron!

And what did my way-too-sarcastic-for-my-own-good 9-year-old have to say when I finally did arrive? "Oh, Mom. How nice of you to make the time to come and pick me up!"

You reap what you sow, I fear.

(It wasn't a huge catastrophe; she and her friend C were on a long line waiting for sno-cones...part of the Friday Treats fundraiser the school puts on. And C's grandma was there with them. No harm done, except to my reputation.)

Things

* Not so much on the ire. Or on the agreement. Or on anything, for that matter. I have a feeling you all think I'm turning into Crazy Religious Lady. Well, you definitely got the crazy part right.

* N got on the scale in my bathroom the other day, and then insisted that I get on after him. I outweigh him by exactly 100 pounds. Damn, that Lexapro is helping me to pack on the pounds.

* I've recently started doing some freelance work for a female essayist/comedian/radio personality who has, for many years now, been one of my heroes and among my absolute favorite writers out there. (I'm not naming names only because I'm never sure about whether or not it's 'kosher' to proclaim yourself as so-and-so's scriptwriter, or if you're supposed to help them keep up the fiction that they regularly produce a body of work so broad and so wide that it would require no sleep and several additional hours in the day for them to even attempt it.) So you can only imagine my elation when, after she went to edit one of the first of my pieces, she emailed my friend and editor and told her that "this writer is clever" and that there was "some quality prose here." Swoooooooooooon. Of course, she then went and added on a single phrase at the end of what I'd written that brought the entire thing together and left me sitting there, slack-jawed, thinking, "How does she DO that?" Still, as a result of her praise, I can now officially die happy.

* I've been given a bunch of new work and a whole new set of responsibilities over at ParentsConnect, which are keeping me engaged and busy and occasionally pulling my hair out. But in a good way. I guess. In any case, we're putting together lots of new content in preparation for some changes that are going to hit the site sometime in early spring. Stay tuned.

* My university job? What university job? Oh, the one which is still paying me until the end of the year, but which I wrote off as of the day that I had to begin arguing with them over vacation pay, and shut the door on as of the day that I filled out an application for medical insurance that will eventually bankrupt us--not with premiums, which are low, but with deductibles, which are almost as high as what I make in a year. Yay for healthcare in the U S of A!

Just the Facts, Ma'am

They've hired a teacher to replace Mrs. W, or so Mrs. W told me when she called me this evening. (She called because we didn't get to talk today during recess when I was volunteering and she wanted to catch up with me and how I think N is doing. Man, I'll miss her.)

The kids got the first of the year's three report cards today. Em got her usual: lots of 3s (at grade level) and even a few fours (above grade level). N got about half 3s and half 2s (approaching grade level). I think that's accurate in terms of the work he's brought home and that he does in class, but not accurate in terms of what I know he has inside him. Still, I was pleased, especially since he got all Es (Excellent) in the social/listening/cooperation category, with only one S (Satisfactory). They both got the traditional good-report-card presents (usually something vaguely educational), so everyone was happy.

I had lunch with two of my buddies/colleagues from ParentsConnect today. I love hanging with those guys. They're both brilliant and funny and interesting to talk to.

I had a session of my Reintroduction to Judaism class this evening, from 7:30 until 9:30, but I wound up hanging around and talking for another half hour. The time flies in that class. I'm not only learning boatloads of stuff, both trivial and substantive, but I leave there feeling almost physically full, what with all the food for thought it provides me.

I have more work and social commitments coming up in the next four or five days than any one person should even THINK about having.

NaBloPoMo is over. Let the slacking off begin.

The End Is Near

Tomorrow is the last day of the month, and it's sort of making me sad. Because, you know what? I've really enjoyed this whole NaBloPoMo thing. Like, a lot. As for NaNoWriMo? Not so much. Things got interesting at ParentsConnect for me this month (more work, more to my liking, changes a'comin'), and I just didn't have the time to churn out 50K worth of words on a piece that's pretty hard for me to focus on, what with it being about a topic that makes me either hyperventilate or want to hide in a cave.

In other words: I didn't get anywhere near 50K. I didn't even make 10K. But I did do some work on it this month, which is more than I can say for other months.

But back to the BloPo thing. I'm making no promises of continuing to blog daily forevermore. That's...unlikely. Highly. But I am going to try to blog more daily than not. Like, I'll take off the days like yesterday, where I realized at 11 pm that I hadn't put up a post and dashed one off, watching the clock, trying to get it in under the wire. Too much pressure, dude. It could have waited until this morning, you know? And I'll take off the days like today, where I'm in danger of boring you all to tears.

But otherwise, I want to consider this part of my daily to-do list. It helps me with the flow of ideas. It's nice to keep up with stuff, somewhat at least, for a change, rather than keeping a three-mile-long mental list of things I want to say and then never getting to them.

So, watch this space. I still have stuff to say.

-------
By the way, I'm closing in on 100,000 visitors. It'll take a few more weeks at my traffic's normal rate, but I'll get there, and maybe before the end of the year. So, how should I commemorate? Other authors send out copies of their books for things like this, but in my case, it seems sorta like a downer: "Hey, here's a book about mental illness for ya! Thanks for being my hundred thousandth visitor!"

In other words, suggestions will be much appreciated...especially by visitor number 100,000.

I Love My Job

As part of a project I'm working on for ParentsConnect, a PR firm I'd contacted sent me a pitch letter, a press release, and a...I kid you not...Know Your Mucus Fact Sheet, complete with a set of "Fun Facts About Mucus."

These are the perks of my job. Other people get jetted off to the Virgin Islands to attend 'conferences'; I get to become more intimately acquainted with the literal ins and outs of snot than any human being could want to be. But here's my secret: I love this sort of shit. (Though a conference in the Virgin Islands wouldn't be bad, either.)

I won't leave you in the dark any longer: here are the purported fun facts, unedited and unexpurgated. (I'll leave it up to you to decide whether they're actually fun or not.)

• Adults produce about four cups of mucus a day.
• A sneeze travels out of the body at about 100 miles per hour.
• The digestive system eliminates most of the mucus people swallow.
• Consuming dairy products will not thicken mucus. However, dairy products make mucus more white in color when people are not feeling well.

Go now and amaze your friends and family over your Thanksgiving turkeys with all you've learned about mucus today.

You don't have to thank me. It was my pleasure.

Can You Help? (#4)

I've explained this concept in the past. This week's edition, however, has only one request for help, and it's for me.

Can you help a mother who's at her wit's end with her adorable, irrascible, emotional, trouble-making kid? The one she's starting to think may actually be unsalvageable? The one she's starting to worry may be The Bad Seed?

For example, today alone we had the I'm-going-to-stand-here-and-eat-this-even-after-you-just-told-me-no defiance (a trip to his room after the forceable removal of said food item from his hand did little or nothing to help), as well as the moment where he walked right past Em and me and out the front door without saying anything--a no-no in its own right--and when we turned our heads to look out the window we saw him pull down his pants and pee against the tree. When asked if he thought that was OK, considering how often I've told him it's not, he replied, "Well, I did it twice already but you didn't see before." And then smirked.

The fact that he's still alive is a testament to my superior willpower, don't you think?

Am I Crazy, Or Has The World Gone Mad?

So there's this new video game coming out in time for the holidays, and...

Aw, hell. I already wrote about it over at ParentsConnect. Do me a favor, would ya? Click that link, read what I wrote, and be outraged on my behalf/your own behalf/the behalf of the still-rational persons in this world.

Oh, and just for the record...I'm not converting. So don't even ask.

Can You Help? (#3)

Having already explained this concept, I'm just going to get right to it.

Can you help a mom whose baby has his first ear infection?

Can you help this same mom with her concerns about giving her son antibiotics?

Can you help a parent who needs to find a flu shot for his or her child?

Can you help a mom who has a manic/bipolar son?

As always, anything you can add to these conversations will be hugely appreciated.