(no subject)

[dr_pretentious]

17,820 / 50,000 (35.6%)

New words: 767

Current deficit: 3851

Working conditions: Composing directly to laptop at Barnes and Noble after late start, followed by composing directly to laptop in living room while languishing in front of The Fellowship of the Ring on DVD for approximtely the 500th time.

Distractions, diversions, digressions: Two hours biking on Delaware & Raritan Canal towpath with Dan in early afternoon--perfectly reasonable. Two hours, averaging 142 bpm. How weird is it that I'm now in the best cardiovascular condition of my life precisely because I can't walk?

Not reasonable: The Client Parent From Hell phoned me at 9:30pm to inform me that I was immediately going to edit his daughter's application essay to a high school she's trying to get into. I actually had to say, out loud, repeatedly, things like, "I am not a concierge service, nor am I a homework plagiarism service. I am a highly specialized consultant, and what you are asking me to do is unethical." After his daughter's efforts to translate between English and Mandarin, the family backpedaled and tried to pass off the original demand as a language barrier problem. Yeah, right. Poor kid. I felt so sorry for her, having been put in the position of having to translate requests she knew to be unreasonable, while she was audibly shaking apart from stress over the phone, I told them to email the essay, and I'd reply with feedback--feedback, not to be confused with corrections, which would be doing her homework for her. I gave a long, not exclusive list of things I would not do because doing them would violate my professional ethics, and then when I said I would bill by the minute in accordance with the hourly rate they pay me for tutoring sessions, they had the gall to ask me how they could trust me not to pad the time I charged them for. "Well," said I, "if I were willing to do unethical things for money, I could have just accepted your father's initial offer, couldn't I have?" We reached a mutually tolerable arrangement, but later they put me in the position of having to say, "In future, please do not call here after 10pm. My husband is asleep by 10pm." And then, "Never, under any circumstances, even if your house is on fire, are you to call here after 11pm."

Between the haggling and the actual labor, I lost most of my second writing shift. If my Thursday client hadn't gone on hiatus for the rest of the month of November, I could have afforded to tell the Client Dad From Hell to take a flying leap. I'm quite sure he will create a moment in which I have to tell him that, and it probably won't be long in coming.

Meanwhile, I have to be up at 6am for blood tests. So very weary of blood tests.

At least I have a writing date with Breva the Axe tomorrow. She's defending her dissertation on 12 December, so she's high-strung and flaky the way grad students are in the endgame, but you can't beat her for motivation. I had hoped to cut into the deficit today, and didn't even make quota. Tomorrow, though. Tomorrow.

Comments

[jeneralist.livejournal.com]

"If I were willing to do unethical things for money..."

Now, that's the dr_pretentious we know and love. Even under the extreme stress of being asked to do unethical things at a time when she'd rather be writing or studying for her blood test, she uses the subjunctive mood correctly.

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

Good gods. Some people are just incredible. In a not good way. What were they thinking??

Luck with the tests.

[reynaud.livejournal.com]

Absitively stunning. Calling you up at 9:30 to *tell* you (not ask you to) that you were going to edit. And by "edit," it sounds like "rewrite." And, let me guess, they needed it done *that night*?

Sorry about not meeting quota. And I hope you studied hard for your tests!!

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

You got it. Last time they called, it was 8am, and they wanted me to play taxi service right away and drive the kid to the post office in another town to get some application suitably postmarked. I had to explain that I was not a taxi driver, that if I had wanted to chauffeur people for a living I could have started a limo business rather than a tutoring practice, and that I was not insured to drive other people's children in my car as part of my business--all while still bleary-eyed in bed, having been up until 3am writing the night before. My refusal came as a genuine surprise to The Client Dad From Hell. When he catches on that his presumption has offended me, he pleads cultural differences. I am in some sympathy with the experience of being a stranger in a strange land, but there are limits to my patience. He seems to think that buying one hour of my time per week entitles him to demand anything, at any hour of the day or night. Three times is the charm. If he pushes the line once more, I'm firing him as my client, even though I really like teaching his daughter.

Pook kid.

Well, I'm ranty today, aren't I? Probably procrastination in the face of dwindling daily word count.

[newroticgirl.livejournal.com]

okay, firstly, I love the name.

secondly, I stalked my way over here from the NaNo boards. :)

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Thanks and welcome. It looks like you're a fellow New Jerseyan. Any chance I'll see you Thursday at my tiny little write-in?

[newroticgirl.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna try... I have a problem with inertia once I get home from work, but I do want to make it out at least once to meet other NaNoers. Yours has the advantage of being relatively easy to get to... a straight run up 18. I am very good at getting lost. ;)

[newroticgirl.livejournal.com]

heehee... have you heard about this?

http://ineradicablestain.com/skin.html

a short story on 2,000 different people... I'm tempted.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what I was thinking of.

[radiotelescope.livejournal.com]

The phrases "shaking apart from stress" and "application to get into high school" really shouldn't be causally related. In any human universe.

Is what I think.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

It is a cosmic wrongness, and the reason I couldn't bring myself to say no.