A good day

It started auspiciously and kept that track the rest of the day. The kids were in a good mood from the start, joining each other in the bathroom for their daily "the train is leaving" ritual before assuming the position on the couch (Alexander on the right, Angelina on the left) to color. Carole and I snuggled in bed for another twenty minutes, then joined Alexander and Angelina, the theory being that the more time they get with us—both of us—in the morning, the better mood they'll be in at school and consequently all day. It seemed to pay off, as they were in a famously good state of mind all afternoon.

But first there was the interview. Earlier this week, after weeks of not getting any call backs at all on résumés I'd sent out, I got two in one day. On Monday I'd ditched the StreetDelivery.com job that had seemed so promising at first but had revealed itself to be a much more complicated and tedious affair than I'd expected. I was rather dejected about that, considering it was a salaried position at $2200/mo. I just knew if I was bored by it before I started, I'd never last, and I didn't want to waste their time or mine. So Tuesday I sent out a couple more résumés, responding to ads on the ever-fruitful Dallas Craigslist. The first was to Skyhook Wireless, the same company I'd hit up in January for their Plano/Dallas grid. This was a driving job, mapping wi-fi areas by driving every street in the assigned geographic area, and this round they were looking for Fort Worth. I knew the gas expense would be formidable, but thought the profit might be enough more to still make it worth it. I was wrong. Some number-crunching was making it not worth my while.

But there was that other call, the one from the real estate couple. It was an ad for an office assistant, and not much more than that. Turned out to be a couple—a young, Jewish couple—with a fledgling real estate business. What they needed was someone to organize their lives, run their errands—a Guy Friday. I'm not so hot on helping out fledgling businesses anymore, but I know the environment, and it's a lot more freedom, so when the wife called me yesterday, I thought even at only $1500/mo. to start, it was worth checking out. It would be a steady paycheck. (Hopefully.) So even if the wi-fi mapping was falling through, at least I had the possibility of the office assistant position.

Then the mapping folks called back. Twice. First they called to say, "Turns out we still have Dallas. Want that?" I said yes. Then they called to say, "Guess what? We still have Plano, too. Want that instead?" So suddenly I'm back on with them, planning to start Monday on what they were saying is a three-week-ish job. What do I with the office assistant folks?

What any self-respecting job interviewer would do: Offer up my significant other. Actually it was Carole's idea, and they seemed to go for it. Carole went with me to the interview and we sold ourselves as a team. While I’m driving for three weeks, she’ll handle what they’ll need. She can work in the mornings to get a head start on things, and then I can take over most of it, though we’d still be working on it together. Carole's enthusiasm slowly worked its magic, at least on the wife. The husband was a harder read, but lauged a number of times; I just chalked it up to his not speaking English as well as his wife. He seemed merely to be deliberating things as we talked. But we tried to sell them on the idea that they're getting us as a team, and not just that: They're getting the brain trust of which we're a part—the audio/design, the computer/networking, the labor. We find out Monday if they’re definitely going to go for it, but the wife especially seemed ready to try it out.

So that’s roughly where things stand, job-wise. The kids were great the rest of the afternoon. I wasn’t stressed about job stuff anymore, so I walked away from the computer and became the kids’ play toy for the rest of the afternoon. We tried to get Alexander to let Carole cut his hair—even had Carole finish trimming mine (she did most of it this morning) to coax him—but he wouldn’t go for it. Instead we played with toys and they colored and then baked peanut butter cookies when Carole got a wild hair. At the end they took a bath, I blow-dried their hair, and we put them to bed. It really is a neat feeling, and a swelling sense of reality and responsibility, to have the kids show their real affection for me these days. Alexander especially at this point is very open about how much he loves me, offering up plenty of kisses and hugs throughout the day, and it’s something else. Angelina shows it in her own way, which I’m understanding more as time goes by, but she’s definitely still Mommy’s girl, and that’s all right. That’s what time is for. The secret, I’ve found, isn’t much of a secret at all; it’s only a choice—a choice to lay your ego aside and simply put yourself out there for a child to see. They can sense like bloodhounds if you’re being yourself with them, and it does neither you nor them any good to pretend otherwise. It will be very interesting as these kids, and later mine and Carole’s own kids, get older to hear their memories of their childhood, and how they regarded me. Even with my lack of self-awareness so far as my general appearance is concerned—the main reason why my acne never did bother me as much as it could have—I’ve never thought of myself as having a clown personality. With them I do, and gosh darn it, it’s fun. And what shreds of self-consciousness I did have are now, thanks to them, falling completely away. In McDonald’s, at school, wherever, if they need the old man face, or the “doinking” face—where they pop my face lightly (or not) with their fists and I make all manner of screwed-up faces like they’d hit me hard, accompanied by a “doink”—they get it. It’s all about them. And they know it. Which is why I’ve got too little kids I didn’t even know six months ago telling me that they love me. And I love that.

Tonight Carole and I had our homemade barbecue chicken pizza, which somehow doesn’t taste quite like pizza but still tastes great, and watched Seabiscuit. (We also both had a little bit more than usual of her homemade wine cooler concoction, which is probably why I’m sleepier than usual at this time. Well, that and the four hours of sleep last night.) Seabiscuit really is a great show, and being the horse-lover and, as a kid and teenager, jockey-wannabe, Carole loved it as much as I figured she would. We’ll watch some extras this weekend.

Which has officially started, if one goes by the clock. We rarely do, at least when it comes to sleep, but here I am at the end of this, with Carole already asleep on the sofa, so it would seem a perfect stopping point. Good thing, considering the length. Daily entries would help with that. Something to think about . . . .

Hayes out.