I had a really fun day today.  The first productive thing I did was to go look at a house.  Being a real estate agent can be a cool thing.  I can pretty much go look at any house on the market whenever I want.  I usually spend an hour a day going through new listings.  If something catches my eye, and I have time the next day, I’ll go look at a random house.  We call it “previewing” a house.  Yesterday I found this really cool pad out in the boonies for $400,000.  I don’t really have a client right now that is looking for a $400,000 house, but you never know what tomorrow might bring.  And also, I just like going to look at houses.  Gives me ideas for my future “dream home.”  So today, I go look at this house, it’s really secluded, by a pond, 4 bedroom, lots of light, lots of character, built in 1974.  I actually had a helluva time finding it.  Siri only got me so far.  But once I found it, it was fun walking though, and imagining myself and my family living there.

After that, I was off to Noce. Tuesday is usually my day off, but I got a last minute call from my boss about a private party in the back, and I thought, what the hell, I’ll bartend it.  Sometimes it’s just easier than trying to track down a bartender to do it, and hey, the money is usually good, and it’s easy.  Right now, I actually prefer bartending the private events in the back.  I take my time, I set up the bar, and it’s all me.  I’ve been kind of missing the interactions I get from customers in the main bar area.  When I bartend the front, most of my interactions are with the cocktail servers, and they’re just ordering me around.  I need a this, I need a that.  The music is going, and that’s kind of the focus, so I have few conversations with customers.  In the back, it’s chill, everybody’s in good spirits, and I end up having some good conversations, and make some connections.

Tonight, being election night, it was a party for a local politician that was running for Congress.  Super cool guy.  He came up to me, introduced himself to me, and during the course of the night, we had a lot of conversations.  African-American, tall, good-looking, intelligent, articulate, I was really impressed.  Through our conversations, I learned that he’d been working on his campaign well over a year.  Lots of hard work.  When he gave his speech at the end of the night, I learned that he was a high school dropout.  He started from the bottom, and worked his way up to the top.  It was very inspirational.  I wish I had met him before, because I would’ve voted for him.

Unfortunately, he didn’t win, but had a lot of grace, and showed good sportsmanship.  He approached me after his concession speech, and I said, congratulations, man!  You must feel accomplished!  He said, at the moment, I don’t.  As things were winding down, and I was packing up the bar, I went down to the walk-in cooler, and grabbed a bottle of champagne.  When he approached me to say good-bye, I handed him the bottle, and said, this is from me.  He smiled broadly, shook my hand, and gave me a big thank you.  I said, hey, man.

Victory is overrated.

And I meant it.