Day in My Life

Early morning in a heavy rain.

Phone call; you're suddenly alert. Nope, the baby is not coming, not yet. But, after a couple of sick days, one kid would like to get a ride to school.

Sure.

On the way to my car, I see a woman from behind in a black coat and black tights with a girl, probably 9, in a pink coat and pink tights, hurrying through the rain, no doubt also on their way to school.

As I drive up to and around Bernal Hill, a flood of brown water is flowing south.

Back home, later, the phone rings again. I don't hear it; I'm deep into preparing to deliver a speech tonight on behalf of a program I care about.

When I catch up to the message, it is the third time in three days that one of my kids' schools is calling; this is the third of the three. Now it's my daughter who is sick.

Back home, with her wrapped in a comforter and sipping tea, I start wondering what would happen if I actually got a real job?

A friend calls --"It's getting better out there," he says, "I'm seeing more jobs for people like us."

My cellphone company sends an urgent message -- apparently my bill is overdue again, a monthly occurrence. I have a family plan, which includes me, my three youngest kids, and someone we used to know. Weird how that happens.

The rains continue. A tree goes down nearby. I post to my weekly blog about the tech industry in San Francisco. I put on a white shirt, nice slacks, and a sports coat (I don't wear ties.)

Checking how I look in the mirror, I ask my daughter, who's observing me from bed. "What do you think, jeans or the nice pants?"

"I like those ones (the nice ones)," she says. That's it, a decision is made. She is not only my chief fashion consultant, at the age of twelve she is the main woman in my daily life, the only one whose judgment I trust implicitly.

Soon enough it is time to take her back to her Mom's, back over Bernal Hill, where an even bigger brown river now heads south and an even bigger tree nearby has gone down, blocking Folsom Street.

As we get there, her brothers show up, home via buses from their high schools, with backpacks and wet sweatshirts.

She hugs and kisses me as I drop her off.

"'Bye, Dad. Good luck with the speech. You'll be great."

As I drive away, downtown to a hotel ballroom where a room full of adults will decide whether what I have to say matters at all or is pure BS, a song comes on the radio. It's "Creep," by Radiohead.

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