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.