I Wanna Be a Producer, My Fake Life and My Days Off

So I get a call on Friday from Adam – he’s got two season tickets to Wichita Music Theater that he gets from his parents for Christmas (why the hell do I get clothes still?  I’ll admit a little envy here.)  This of course, would have resulted in my calling him a fucking showoff, it it wasn’t for the fact that is wife wasn’t going to be able to go 🙂  And what’s showing?  The Producers!

Fucking-a yeah I’ll go 🙂  

So I got to see it.  Honestly, it’s the best production of anything I’ve seen theater wise, period.  Absolutely amazingly well done from sets to performances.  The only low point was towards the end – the actor playing Nathan Lang’s part (er, I’d try to spell the name, but I know I’d hash it too badly) was obviously pretty tired by the time you hit the scene where he’s in jail and does the recap.  But otherwise, wow… I was damned impressed!  

Someday, someday… I’ll get my season tickets to that an Crown Uptown.  But that’s not in the cards yet.

This, by the way, was on a day I was so dead broke I couldn’t afford to do anything.  Nice timing 🙂

A while back, Devi played my fake “significant other” for the reunion.  That’s a pretty one shot deal, of course.  Except… well, the face significant other routine is pretty common between us now.  One day she popped off with a comment about “We might as well be married” – I think it was something to do with me knowing where most of the stuff in her house is at.  (Marriage jokes about us is something I probably hear from her once a week these days, that just happened to be the second one.  The funniest one being when she spent about five minutes convincing me I should marry her for the tax benefits – I fake a proposal, and she turned me down 🙂  

This led to her referring to me as her “Fake Husband” one day, and the title has stuck – so I’ve got a Fake Wife.  

Somedays, my life gets just a little insane when I think about it.  I’m OK with that. 🙂

Oddly enough though, the Fake Husband / Fake Wife joke ends up having some sort of reality to it.  We do fill that role from time to time.  For, well, everything shy of sex.  Damned lesbians 🙂  

And of course this ends up being just another one of those temporary situations – eventually she’ll find someone, or I’ll find someone, and the whole fake significant other thing goes out the window.

Of course, she’s also got kids, which brings me to…

I don’t have a scheduled day off.  Haven’t for years really – I work 7 days a week, upteen hours a day, handling customer projects or my own projects.  And honestly, I never really think about it.  

Erin and I had discussed doing supper or lunch once a week, but so far it’s not really worked that way – when I was available, she wasn’t, and when she was available, I was BROKE. 🙂  This week I’m going to see what she’s doing after I drop off her cell phone, or possibly Friday before she goes out – that’s something I’d definitely like to get on track, so we’re seeing each other once a week.  

The relevance is that Erin is as close to having kids in my life as I get.  Another one of those anomalies that won’t end up being repeated – it’s not like I’m probably going to have kids (probably – it’s not impossible, biologically, just not realistic at the moment :-), and I really don’t get exposed to other people’s kids that much, and even if so, what mom in her right mind would have me around her kids on a consistent basis? 🙂

Well, the answer to that would be Devi.  A couple of weeks back we were chatting – life was starting to grind on her, and as a single parent she doesn’t get a lot in the way of days off to her self.  She’s got friends that she can take the kids with her to see, but that ends up with it’s own little stresses.

So I said “Well, hon, why not just drop them off at the house for a couple of hours.  I’ll hook up with PS2 and they can play Guitar Hero or something for a few hours while you relax.”  After about two rounds of “Are you sure?” type questions, we scheduled it.  Now, I had two sets of meetings that day, so she could only drop the kids off between 10 AM and 1 PM.  But at a few hours would be better than none.

She drops ’em off, and the kids and I proceed to have fun, and I actually got a hell of a lot of work done on some web dev stuff while I watched them (and played Guitar Hero between their turns.  I set my alarm for 30 minutes, so there is a fair division of time on the game.)  My first meeting cancels.  I drop her a text – she’s now got until 2:30 PM.

Then my second meeting canceled.  Now she’s got until about 7 PM at the latest 🙂

I wasn’t sure if there would be problems or not, but, the kids behaved great, and we got along great.

Next week rolls around, and she Tweeted a comment about being stressed again – not as bad as last time.  Later that night when we were talking on the phone “Well, would you like to do the day off again?”  So I treked out to Cheney and watched the kids for a day again.  And again, it went great – and when I’m in Cheney, I’m a bit more relaxed.  Less noise, less crap, less people.  Oh, and my phone conveniently only works if I have it in the right spots in the house 🙂

Leaving on Thursday (after the neighbor invited us over and stuffed us with porkchops and really good potatoes), I commented about how relaxed I was.  “We should just do this once a week.”  She didn’t hesitate “OK.”  I thought about it a moment.

I don’t take days off, but I’ll take a day off to watch Marc and Madi.  Why?  Because then I feel I’m “doing something”, rather than lounging around.  I get a day off, and Devi gets a day off.

Hm.

So fuck it, I now have a day off, once a week.  Wensday night I’ll trek out to Cheney, spend the night, then watch the kids on Thursday while Devi runs around doing errands and generally getting herself some “me time.”

A scheduled day off.  What has the world come to? 🙂

Marc and Madi and I get along great.  Marc is still a bit reserved at the moment, though he’s got some trust issues in general.  Madi is a lot less reserved – she starts fights (IE, mock fighting), listens fairly well (they BOTH tried to push it once, saying they didn’t have to do what I said essentially.  A well placed threat, of both myself and what their mom will do handled that nicely), etc.  

While NOT part of our scheduled things, Devi and I were chatting about events that we’d like to go to together, and the problem of a lack of babysitter for ’em.  She commented on hating that part – she wanted to go out, catch up with a friend from High School, and do a little drinking.  I was dead broke, so there’s no way I’m joining her anyway – “Heck, if you’ll drop off a $20, I’ll put gas in the car, head down to Cheney, and watch ’em.”  Deal.

She told me all the stories of her night out later – but Sunday morning, she stumbled in about 5 AM.  I could see the sun starting to come up when she opened the door 🙂  She off to bed she goes, and I get up with the kids around 8 AM.  I realized – good lord, she’s going to end up going to church tired and hung over as hell!  

So I basically just started the Sunday morning routine – I had seen it once or twice already the times I had stayed over at her house.  “Marc, is that what you’re going to wear to church?” “No.”  “Then go get changed, dude. Madi, have you…” etc.  Make sure kids have eaten, changed, shoes on, hair brushed, etc., etc., etc.  Madi and I made Devi a cup of coffee, and woke her up at the last possible minute that she’d have time to get dressed and get to church on time.

They managed to get out the door about 2 minutes before I did – I was shutting off the lights and grabbing my stuff, when I paused for a moment and thought back to how the morning had gone.  All these years I was certain I’d be a suck ass parent.  After watching her kids a couple of times, and managing to get everyone ready and out of the house on time, I finally have some doubts about that assessment of mine.  Maybe I wouldn’t suck at this as badly as I always thought I would (then again, I’m also a bit of a different person these days, than when I had originally come to that conclusion.)

I had mentioned watching Devi’s kids on Thursdays to Heather when I was visitin’ with Heather and Nick, and she commented “Oh, you and Devi are serious now?”, and I quipped “Devi and I are nothing.”

The truth is considerably more complex.  I’ve become her “Fake Husband”, right down to the point of “watching the kids”, part of the fundamental teamwork requirements for a successful marriage with kids involved.  So we’ve stepped into roles for each other, until someday, one of us eventually has to “fire” the other person.  She’s not real hopeful about her chances of finding someone to actually date, and well, you know my opinion of my chances these days.  But it will happen – I’ll lay odds that she finds someone first.  So it makes the situation a little sad really.

Just as sad is the realization I’m bonding with a pair of children (well, three actually – Alex is only in her custody twice a week at the moment, but not on the days I’m watching them) that in a year and a half or so will be moving away.  Once Devi gets Alex back full custody, she plans on hitting the road again, leaving Kansas.  So the fake wife, and fake kids?  Another temporary situation in my life. *SIGH*

Excuse me while a fake a smile.