redbird | Entries tagged with work

As of yesterday, I am declaring myself retired, rather than semi-retired and doing a bit of freelance work while not seeking out new clients.

That remaining bit of freelance work stopped being valuable, mentally, and had started being more of a burden.

I sent my one on-going freelance client email telling him I'm retiring. I'm giving him lots of notice, because why not? I'm not planning any major changes in my lifestyle that proofreading one more issue of queue would interfere with.

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After a bit of yak shaving, I sat down at my computer, did a copyediting test, and sent it back.

The publisher puts out books on computing, and their test is a sample chapter from one of those. From 2013, which is a long time in that field. Nonetheless, I included a query as "AU:" because if this were a real project I would have sent that to the author to clarify. (The options for queries are AU, for the author, and PE, for the production editor.)

I also walked as far as the nearest mailbox, to drop in a postcard. (It was much prettier than the ones Canada Post is giving out free to everyone in Canada, because I selected these cards for appearance rather than, oh, maximizing the letter-writing area.

That felt like enough for one day. I'd originally been planning to cook diinner, but

cattitude kindly offered to make dinner instead. I had a fallback plan, which was "open package of fish, slice bread, and put bread, butter, and fish on the table," but this way we had a hot meal and a salad.

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I did quite a bit today, several different things rather than one large one:

I proofread an article for Queue, this issue's first.
I made dinner: lamb chops and rice, and the last of the cherry tomatoes from the garden , which I'd been ripening in a paper bag since the unseasonably early first snow a month ago. The tomatoes weren't very good; as cattitude said, they tasted like they'd been picked before they were ripe, because they had been. But I had a few left, and it was worth a try.
I went for two walks, one in the morning with Cattitude because it was 7=61F at 11 a.m. and forecast to drop steadily through the day. Then the sun came out mid-afternoon, so I went out again, to walk in the sunshine and look at blue sky. This time of year, sunset is early enough for long shadows and not much shade at ground level, but I did find some bits of sunny sidewalk, and enjoyed pausing to look at the blue sky, with trees and some white clouds.
We tried out our new (Olson) masks today; I liked it better than Catitutde did, either because I'm happier with this design or because the ribbons to fasten the masks with are short enough to not work well for him. I think these will be mine, and Cattitude may order some of this style from Etsy or somewhere.
I did several of my PT exercises, including one I hadn't done as recently as I'd like. [That's one of the exercises I would ideally do more than once a week.) And I did one that isn't part of my PT, and gets done every week or three, as convenient.
I did a little bit of text-banking, urging Georgians to register to vote by December 7th.

We also played two games of Scrabble, and I did some Duolingo French, and spent a while doing online jigsaw puzzles.

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I got quite enough done today, and I hope avoided overdoing things. I was balancing this with making sure

cattitude didn't strain himself, because he's feeling unwell.

I am slightly ahead of schedule on my proofreading job--I spent a couple of hours working on it this morning, sent back that tranche of the project, and did another chunk this afternoon.

Between the work, I went for enough of a walk to count as exercise: the outings that are "just" for light and air are also valuable, but it's good for me to walk more than moving around the apartment and taking the trash out.

I got in touch with my psychiatrist and told her I can't download Zoom and the MyChart app to the same device, and suggested doing our next appointment as a voice call, since that worked last month. She replied and said that's fine. There are kinds of medical appointment where being able to see each other would make a difference, even if it wasn't in person; this isn't one of them. (I may yet ask Carmen whether we should do that, or whether she'd need to actually hold and feel my wrist and arm to diagnose and give me something to take to a physical therapist. But PT is only available as telemedicine right now, and I think I'd want the first visit (for a given reason) to be in person.

Rather than defrost tuna steaks in the microwave, I had a frozen Indian meal for supper, and Cattitude had a peanut butter sandwich.

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I started the new proofreading job yesterday, and spent 3/4 of an hour, which didn't get me very far into the pages, but was enough to reassure me that yes, I can do this. (There was no factual reason to doubt I could, but that's not always enough.) I stopped when I did so as not to overdo things to days in a row, but am still a bit tired.

Today I proofread an article for ACM, which finishes this issue and means I should put "invoice" on my to-do list, and then went back to the book project. (I will write and send that nvoice after I post this, because it's pretty straightforward.)

I have finished my slow rereading of Le Guin's _Always Coming Home_, which I found comforting. I don't know what comes next, other than more of the New Decameron stories that I was reading along with the Le Guin.

(I'm posting more of these quotidian entries than in normal times, because it's easy to lose track of time during the pandemic and its associated precautions which, for me, are mostly about not doing things and not going places.)

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I have a proofreading job, for a new client.

In one of her emails she said "That's great news that you're available during this extraordinary time." It is an extraordinary time, but I'm not one of the people who now has twice as much to do as they did pre-pandemic.

If anything, this will give me something to think about that isn't related to the news, epidemiology, missing people, or wishing I could go places. Now that she has hired me, my client gave me her phone number, in case I need it, and asked me to call in the afternoon because she's home-schooling her daughter in the mornings.

I also have one more article to proofread for the magazine that keeps sending me bits. So, two things, neither of them essential, but I am doing my bit to contribute toward better communication, which is good.

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I saw my neurologist today, for a basic checkup and to have blood drawn for tests. (I could have gotten the blood drawn elsewhere, but it made sense to combine them.) We realized that *everyone* had forgotten that I was supposed to have another MRI in November or December. So he's contacting Mount Auburn to have them schedule one for me, in a process that looks something like:

Mt Auburn: We've scheduled you for March 5 at 4:00.
Patient: That doesn't work for me.
Mt Auburn: OK...March 3rd at 2:00.
Patient: All right.

I don't remember whether than save time by saying "Sorry, that doesn't work. How about a morning appointment?" But they insist on being the first party to suggest a time.

It was more difficult than I expected to get across to him how hard the current hand pain is. He kept asking things like "how bad is the pain?" and "is it all the time, is it?" That anything I do with that hand might hurt, even if it didn't the previous time, also didn't get through. When I started explaining the tings that are difficult or impossible right now, and the list included not only "typing" but "use a knife and fork," he compehended why this particular thing is for me. I don't appreciate a doctor whose response to being told that pain in one hand was making things difficult was something like "it sounds like the bit of arthritis that everyone gets when they get older."

It may be time to check again with my doctor or health plan, whether her "we only refer within the Mt Auburn system" would stop me from seeing a neurologist outside that system, if the neuro is in-network for my health plan.

After I saw the doctor,

cattitude and I met on the common and walked into Chinatown to try a random restaurant, to generally support the neighborhood economy while enjoying ourselves. Unfortunately, the place we tried wasn't very good. We clearly need to try again, soon.

I finished and sent back a copyedit for *acm queue*. Usually the material they send me isn't as close to the headlines as this month's has. This article mentions both the coronavirus and the US-China trade war; something I proofread a week or so ago referred to the recent 737 plane crashes. (All the references made sense, which doesn't exactly help.)

adrian_turtle came over for dinner tonight. She was away for a few days, and told us about her trip; I mostly told me about my day. It was good to see her, and

cattitude made us a very nice dinner.

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today, in brief:

told Matt I'd do some queue copyediting for $47/hour, and he said yes (mostly I proof for them, for a lower rate)
did some proofreading and a little copyediting for queue

cattitude and I

checked out the "Hollingsworth 5 and 10" near Cushing Sq, and bought a replacement tea kettle
tried Aram's Cafe, tiny place on the same block of Trapelo. I had mujadara, because I could--the mujadara itself was heavier than I wanted or expected, but it came with a nice-sized serving of cucumber pieces and yogurt. Not tzatziki, just the plain yogurt and cucumber. Cattitude had an omelette with Armenian sausage; I tasted a piece of sausage and liked it.

Meanwhile, I think the tennis elbow is healing, slowly -- I didn't need any tylenol today -- but I bruised the thumb of the other hand. icing both hands at once is a little odd.

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I let JM, the guy whose book I edited last summer, talk me into indexing it, even though I was fairly sure that a professional indexer would do a better job, and probably for less money. I asked why he wanted me to do this, and he said it was partly because I knew the book, after editing it (fair) and partly because he trusted me to do the job carefully and on time. (I accepted on the basis of an hourly rate, and that he understood he was paying me for the time I spent figuring out how to do this.)

I finished the index and sent it back to him yesterday afternoon, and am now going *thud*. That was on time--the deadline wound up being end-of-day today, defined as "it will be there by the time he wakes up Sunday morning." I am more drained than I expected, I think partly because I was doing this while dealing with significant hand pain.

I don't know whether I did a good job. I'm fairly sure that I don't want to add "indexing" to my set of editorial skills/work that I'm willing to do, both because I found it tedious and because if i did a good job on this index, that's significantly because I was already quite familiar with this book, in a way that indexers generally aren't before starting.

Today, I will stretch and exercise, and I'm not sure what else.

Current Mood: tired

Tags:

freelance,
work

This afternoon I finished editing the book I was working on and sent it back to the client (JM). He called a little while ago, and thanked me for finishing early, and generally for doing a good job. (This was a final polishing pass on the whole book, after he looked at the individual edited chapters and accepted most of the changes, so "good job" isn't based just on getting it in before the deadline.) JM volunteered that he'll recommend me to everyone he knows who needs an editor, and I might have more work than I could handle; this is a risk I am prepared to take.

I'm going to Montreal from the weekend; next week I can focus more on move-related things, like more unpacking and changing the address on my state ID card and registering to vote in Belmont. That's the last major thing on the COA/move list, since I called the oil company this morning and put that bill in my name.

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We now have a microwave, which was delivered this morning. We didn't have one in the Somerville apartment because there was no room for one; that kitchen was tiny, and significantly short of counter space.

This afternoon I finished editing the ninth and last chapter of the book I'm working on, and sent it back to the client. He's going to look at it, accept or reject my edits, and then send me all the edited chapters for a final pass, including the bits where I go back to chapter 2 to check consistency with something I spotted and fixed in chapter 5.

cattitude and I walked around a little bit this morning, exploring the neighborhood, and did some shopping at the CVS. Most of this exploring is going to be just looking at houses, gardens, and trees; the businesses in this bit of Belmont are either on or very near Trapelo Road, which is also this end of the 73 bus route.

I bought a bunch of zinnias at the farmers market yesterday. Kaja keeps jumping on the table and biting through the stems, and when we got back from our walk we found the vase on its side, a large puddle of water on the table, and another on the floor under it. I don't understand why she attacks flowers: this is not a cat who is otherwise interested in fruit or vegetables. Zinnias are cat-safe, though I didn't check before buying them. It's probably a good thing I didn't buy one of the mixed bouquets: even if nothing in them is poisonous to cats, we'd have had to identify all the plants in order to check that.

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I realized a few hours ago that it felt as though I had gotten a lot done today. Thinking about it, that's a combination of having spent most of the late morning and afternoon on those things, and I think that I did several things, in chunks large enough to feel like they count, yet small enough that none of them used the whole day, or even half of it.

Putting the electricity and natural gas for our new apartment into my name is two significant useful tasks done; it took maybe ten minutes, counting the time to write a reminder to take a photo ID to the Belmont Light office, and note their summer hours, closing early on Fridays. I like the idea of getting my electricity from a municipally owned utility, rather than Eversource or National Grid (or Puget Sound Energy, Consolidated Edison, or Northeast Utilities), even though this is also the first time I haven't been able to set up electrical service over the phone. (It's two tasks because having a gas stove means we will also be doing business with National Grid.)

Getting my hair cut didn't take very long, since I just told Taylor to do the same fairly simple thing as last time. Neither did going to the Davis Square farmers market after lunch, but I came home with strawberries, cucumbers, a Boston lettuce, and smoked fish pate, so that definitely feels like something accomplished.

Before all this, and after it, I finished editing and sent back another chapter of the book I'm working on.

And I did several of my PT-related exercises (and crunches, which aren't really part of my shoulder, hip, or knee physical therapy homework/maintenance, though the therapists I saw for the hip and knee were in favor of them).

Current Mood: tired

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This was a long day in that I did the first thing before breakfast, and the last was cooking dinner twelve hours later. But there was plenty of time to play with the cat, and at about 3:30 I put the editing aside, to save spoons enough to make dinner.

So, yesterday I emailed the landlord of our new place, asking about arrangements for getting the keys, etc. He wrote back asking for a phone number he could call me at, which I gave him.

I didn't expect the landlord to call at 8:30. I was assembling my breakfast (yogurt with strawberries) when the phone rang. For me, that means I'd been out of bed for about an hour and had a cup of tea, so I answered the phone (the number displayed made me pretty sure it was him, though it's not the number he'd put on the lease).

We confirmed each other's names, and then discussed arrangements for him to do a walk-through of the apartment (with video, as a record of its condition the day our lease starts), and give us the keys. (We have a date but not an exact time, just "during the day." I should follow up on that (I just realized this while typing this paragraph.) He also said he'll send me an email with information on a bunch of things like the name and phone number of the oil company.

After breakfast, we washed and dressed;

cattitude headed off to a library with his laptop; and I sat down to work here.

I finishing editing the appendix of the current book project and sent it back to the client, which took about half an hour. (For Reasons, the client finished and sent me the appendix between chapters 4 and 5.) I took a break before proofreading a short article for ACM, after which I headed out for lunch and a lemon cheesecake.

I did some more editing in the afternoon, but stopped after about an hour, to save energy (and, I hoped, focus) for dinnertime. Success: we had dinner, lamb patties and salad. I now know that yes, the lamb patties are better the way I usually make them, with steamed rice, and bell peppers and/or onions sauteed and served over the rice. But this was good too, and red leaf lettuce from the Central Square farmers market definitely counts as a vegetable. (I don't think the lamb patties would work well with neither rice nor salad, though.)

Current Mood: accomplished

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JM, the potential client I mentioned in a recent post, was delighted with the sample edit and eager to hire me. He said pleasant things about the quality of my work, and sent me the next chapter within a few hours. He has now PayPal'd me the 50% deposit so I could start work without waiting for his institution's accounts payable department to get me a check. They sent me a form to sign so they could pay me, which the client assumed was routine. I read it and told him that there were two unacceptable clauses--freelance editors get used to explaining that no, we don't have or need business liability insurance--so I crossed s couple of things out, wrote in half a sentence, and sent it back. Now someone at USC has to read and OK the slightly revised contract and process the payment, and the client wanted me to start right away. (I was grumbling to cattitude about that contract before I spoke to JM, specifically that if they had a standard contract, they should have sent it to me the form before JM and I agreed on a rate, he sent me the work, and I did it and sent it back; I was a little worried I might have to push for payment for the work already done.)

After we sorted out the basics of payment, we had a cheerful conversation about scheduling and deadlines, which included me assuring the client that I didn't think the office manager's email about payment and contracts was rude, just direct--"It's OK, I'm from New York" and he said oh, right, his father's side of the family was from Queens. So we have a schedule of when I'll be getting more chapters of the manuscript (3 and 4 probably by Monday) and when he'll have the book back (by July 5). Near the end of the conversation he asked if I edit articles as well as books. I said yes, and it sounds like he'll be sending me more work after this book.

This client prefers telephone to email, but hasn't been using up a lot of my time with the calls, so that's okay, just unusual. I have freelance clients, including the person who referred me to him, who I have literally never spoken to; it's all been by email.

Current Mood: tired

Tags:

freelance,
work

combined because I've already made three posts today

I sewed two buttons back onto my clothes yesterday, one on my all-purpose cardigan and one on the black silk shirt, and I think that's the last sewing until I get my new, improved eyes.

I finished editing a machine learning paper this afternoon, and sent it to the client, with an invoice. She has already paid it; the time stamp on the Paypal notification was *three minutes* after I sent her the email. I think that's the fastest a client has paid me, and will be a hard record to beat.

Having spent a couple of evenings unable to find anything on my kindle that I wanted to read, when the King County Library told me yesterday that the ebook of *Artificial Condition* (the second Murderbot story) was ready, I grabbed a half dozen other things, semi-randomly, to allow for a variety of moods. I have no idea if this will work, but couldn't think of a reason not to try it. So far, I am happily reading Murderbot, and just picked up two hardcover books I'd had on reserve at the Somerville library.

The neurologist's office called to say the insurance company has approved the Ocrevus. Next, the specialty pharmacy will call me, I will say that yes I want this medication, and they'll send it to the neurologist and we can schedule the infusion. (I think my OK is necessary because I do have a small copay for the drug.) a small fee for the drug.) I want the first half-dose is February 5 (which gives a few days slack between the second half-dose and the cataract surgery), and based on what they said today, I'll have more than enough time.

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I have talked to the Senior Technical Editor at the client I mentioned a few days ago, then looked at the various documents she sent me, and emailed to say that I'm interested and this looks like work I can do. The next step is that they have sent me, as a test, a previously published book chapter to proofread. I will be paid for this, though at a lower hourly rate than for live proofreading work. If I do well enough on this test, they will give me actual proofreading work, and possibly copyediting (which pays significantly better). My impression is that they are, if anything, in more need of copyeditors than of proofreaders.

The test is twelve pages and they want it back by the 18th of this month, which should be plenty of time (I have one other small proofreading job in hand right now).

Tags:

freelance,
work

I had email this morning from the client in my previous post, saying to use dropbox, and that they had noticed they don't have my bank information on file, which they need in order to pay me.

So I uploaded the file, told them I had done so, and gave them the information for my business checking account. This may be the third time I've used it, since opening it in early 2016, shortly before moving. I set it up at the advice of someone at my credit union, when I went in to give them a change of address and find out how to handle deposits when I no longer live anywhere near a BECU branch.

This is one reason I'm glad I'm using a credit union: it made sense to set up this account because it has no minimum balance and no fees. (I'm not doing a huge amount of freelance work, and my other recent clients have paid by either check or Paypal.)

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financial,
work

I just finished a copyedit for a new freelance client: they wanted someone who was comfortable with math, but didn't want me editing the math (good), beyond looking at end-of-line punctuation for display equations. So, at about 2:30 this afternoon I sent them the edited book, my invoice, and a cover letter.

The message bounced. First Panix said that was too large an outgoing message for their mail system. Then I tried gmail, which got me a bounce message from the client's mail system. So I sent another email, saying that the project is done but their mail system bounced it, and how do they handle receiving large files (likely dropbox, but I'm waiting to hear back). The odd thing is that their system will send messages that big.

This was a flat-rate job, for which the client offered $400. I looked at the manuscript and said I'd do it for $475, which they accepted. I didn't track hours on this one, but I think my price quote was reasonable from that angle. What I didn't take into account was that editing on PDFs (by writing comments) is physically harder for me than in Word. That doesn't mean I should charge more, so much as think more carefully about whether to take on such projects at all.

Meanwhile, my contact at ACM sent me the first few smaller files from that bimonthly batch about an hour before I finished working on this book. PDFs again, so I may not even look at them until Thursday.

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We filed our taxes on time, and turned out to owe Massachusetts enough that they assessed a penalty for not having made estimated tax payments. So, a first quarter estimated payment for 2017 also went out on the 18th. (Just Massachusetts; we're fine on the federal income tax.)

I'm working on a small proofreading job right now, and also just filled out some forms for a previous client, whose employer wants a W-9 and evidence that I am a freelancer rather than an employee. That evidence is me saying that I set my own hours, don't work on campus, and such, plus a list of other clients. (I'm not going to try to list all my past clients, back to whenever, so the attached sheet of paper says "Current and recent clients include" and has some names.) I was annoyed when the request came in, in part because I'd thought I was done with that project; my client sent the payment almost immediately after I finished copyediting his book.)

Spring is moving pretty quickly, with lots of violets and rhododendron right now; I saw an amusing cluster of daffodils near Mount Auburn Street today (and may post a photo separately). One of the lettuces I planted last week was pulled out and left on the ground; I don't know whether to blame rabbits, squirrels, or unspecified other mammals. I hope some of the lettuce seeds I started will be ready to plant moderately soon.

On the activism front, I was pleased to see that the state prosecutors (Attorney General Healey and the county DAs*) are setting aside almost all of the convictions tainted by fraudulent lab results. This is something I was making phone calls about in February and March, as well as something the ACLU sued over. A lot of those people are already out of prison, but having a felony conviction on record is still hurting them. Having done very little political/activist in the last few weeks, I am now trying to decide which of two protests to go to in Boston ~~on Saturday~~ this weekend. The March for Science sounds like more fun, but the emergency anti-deportation rally outside ICE headquarters likely needs me more. ETA: The anti-ICE protest has been moved to Sunday at 3 p.m., which means I could do both, energy allowing.

42itous's daughter wants to come back and play with our cats again; I told her I like the idea, but we need to figure out when will work.

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I turned in the copyediting job, and am now back to proofreading a math book. Here at the bottom of page 16, I find "By the axiom of choice, there exists a set B which consists of one element from each Aα."

Current Mood: pleased
Crossposts: http://redbird.livejournal.com/1505319.html

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Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

Don't mourn, organize

retired

copyediting test

productive day

A productive day

work work try to rest

freelance job

three (four?) things make a post

(no subject)

freelance indexing job, done

Freelance job finished

Four things make a post

feeling productive

a productive day

freelance: enthusiastic new client

4 (more) things make a post

Freelance: so far, so good

work: quick update

Work

Five things make a post

Nicely abstract

About Me

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