Once, when my son was still living at home, he had a friend over. As the friend wandered from room to room, she took in the art on the walls, the photos, the eclectic assemblage of furniture and knickknacks. She asked what his father does for a living. His answer became a part of me almost instantly.
“He gets coffee for famous people,” he said.
At the time, my primary occupation was traveling the comic convention circuit and managing booths or tables for a small roster of celebrity clients. Most frequently, that meant traveling and working the booth of a celebrity painter. But once a year, the kids would join me on the road for DragonCon, where I did, in fact, spent the majority of my time getting coffee for famous people.
From 2002 until 2018, I was a professional journalist, writing for newspapers, magazines, television networks, Web sites, and more. I left the job. Or maybe the job left me. But since then, I’ve busied myself teaching college, marketing franchise systems, dealing in art, and building web sites. Along the way, I got married for the second time.
These days, I manage a select roster of artists — painters, mostly — and occasionally teach literature or writing at Austin Peay State University. The important things: family, joy, and hopefully finding my way to Machu Picchu.