Meanwhile, being familiar with the size and layout of NYC hotel rooms, I asked if there were two beds in our room. No. Did they book two rooms for us? No. I love the kid but I am not sharing a bed with my 18-year-old son. Can we have a room with two beds? Sure, I’ll give you a complimentary upgrade. Great! Can we have a room as high up as possible? We were in Times Square and the street noise really carries. Sure! He gave us a room on the 16th floor with two twin beds overlooking the street. Gosh, this being a celebrity is pretty good!

We checked into the room, hung up our show clothes, and hit the street. We’ve been watching Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods on the Travel channel and he’s always claiming that the street food is the best so we decided to put his statement to the test. We had some great food including some things Paul had never tried before, but that’s a story I’ll tell another day.

We were back in the hotel room around 6. I love NYC  but it wears me out. We flopped on our beds and I closed my eyes while Paul channel-surfed. Finally, he reduced his choices to a basketball game and Shrek (the 1st and only one I’ve seen). I opened my eyes for Shrek, closed them for the game. By 8 o’clock, the street food had worn off for me but Paul still wasn’t hungry but agreed to go down the street to the deli with me to get something to eat. I brought a bowl of chicken noodle soup and a bottle of water (total $7) back to the room. Paul ate the crackers and teased me by pretending he was going to eat something from the mini-bar which made the deli look cheap in comparison.

I ironed our clothes so they’d be ready in the morning. We made a plan to get up at 6:30, I’d shower, Paul would shower and shave, we’d pack up our stuff, a limo was coming to pick us up at 7:45. We went to sleep around 10, woke up at 11:30 to loud noise on the street (it must have been really loud on the lower floors), and I woke at 4 full of nervousness and worry. I finally fell back asleep at 5, then, at 6:30, we put our plan in motion.

Surprisingly, once I started getting ready, I was no longer nervous. I can’t say the same for Paul. He tends to get very quiet when he’s nervous and he was uncharacteristically silent. He showered and dressed and he looked good. We had our bag packed and ready to go to the lobby to wait for the limo when the driver called to say she was waiting for us.

Another black SUV. We could get used to this (although I did feel guilty about all the gas the thing used to move us around). We arrived at the studio and a security guard escorted us to the stage door. We passed a line of people who I suspected was our audience. I admit it was kind of fun to have them stare at us to figure out who we were.

Here’s the first big scoop of the day: the green room isn’t green. It’s brown. Kind of a milk chocolate brown. Very calming. There was a little seating area with a TV screen so you could watch the show as it progressed. The seats were filled with women and when we came in, one of the producers asked me if I was there for the weight loss segment.

“No,” I replied, pointing to Paul ”I’m here because he’s not going to college.”

We hung up our coats and stashed our suitcase in storage. By the time we finished, our producer CJ appeared and introduced himself to us. Over the previous week, he and I had talked several times a day on the phone making the arrangements for the filming at the house and our appearance on the show. At one point, we had talked so many times that day, he announced himself as “Hi, it’s CJ, your new best friend” on one call. It was nice to finally meet my new BFF in person. He showed us where the food was: a fruit platter, a tray of pastries, juice, water, and coffee. Paul said he didn’t want anything but I helped myself to the fruit, a tiny roll, and a cup of coffee.

We waited and watched the goings-on: producers dashing around, the weight loss women being escorted one by one into hair and make-up, more show guests coming in, a lot of hustle and bustle. Just as I finished eating, Sabina, another producer I’d spoken to, arrived to prep us for the show. She went over what the procedure would be: we’d be on after the weight loss segment, we’d go onto the stage during the commercial break, Paul would sit closest to Juliet (he didn’t complain about that), then me, then Daniele Wood from Education.com. They’d show our taped piece, then interview us, break for a commercial, then return for more interview. She took us into the studio so we could see what it looked like. It’s so much smaller in person than it looks on the air. The studio audience is particularly small (maybe 30-40 people). The stage area was brightly lit and really, it didn’t look very intimidating. I knew we could do this.

Sabina prepped us on what questions Mike and Juliet might ask, then I got whisked away to hair and makeup. Wow. As soon as I sat down and took off my glasses, the hair stylist swooped a gown over my clothes, then squirted down my hair with a spray bottle. The makeup artist applied lip balm, then quickly studied my face and got to work. She issued instructions as she applied makeup to my eyes: open, close, open, look up, look down. The hair stylist worked at my hair with a blow dryer and brush, pulling it straight and smooth. The makeup artist told me to close my eyes and she spraypainted my face with foundation. Fast, cool, so glad she wasn’t a graffiti artist. She told me to smile and applied blush and anti-blush to my cheeks. Then she applied a lip balm that kind of stung.

“It puffs up your lips,” she explained.

I had an image of Goldie Hawn in The First Wives Club with her grossly swollen lips, and I feared all the make-up might make me look like Nora Desmond, but when I opened my eyes and put on my glasses, I was amazed to find myself looking 10 years younger.

“Oh, I’m so glad I still look like a PTA Mom and not a hootchie mama,” I said to the makeup artist and hair stylist as they ushered me out of the room.

Meanwhile, Paul and Daniele had had their hair done too and had met with Sabina about their parts in the show. The show had started so we settled on the couch to watch the ladies of the weight loss segment. Daniele and I talked about writing books and Paul just stared at the screen silently. Eventually, he and Daniele were called in for make-up, I dashed off to the restroom to pee, and then shortly after, we were wired for sound (the mikes clipped to our clothes and the wires ran to a wireless transmitter hooked on the back of our clothes).

“My lips burn,” Paul said.

“That’s the price of show biz,” I informed him.

We waited another minute and then it was our turn on the set. Sabina ushered us in, introduced us to Juliet and Mike, and settled us in our seats. She told Juliet that my last name was wrong on her note card but that it was correct on the teleprompter. She told Mike that I have an older son who is in Iraq. He made a note of it on his card.

And then, we were on. The music swelled, the audience applauded, and Mike and Juliet introduced the segment. We watched the edited video they had made of us at home. It was pretty good. Funny to see myself like that. I never see myself speak. Does my face really go like that when I talk?

After the piece, Mike and Juliet asked Paul a question or two, then asked me one, then Daniele, and then it was time for a commercial break. During the break, Mike pretended to spar with Paul. Juliet wiped her nose. I pointed our Juliet’s amazing shoes to Daniele and she said she had noticed them right off.

After the break, Mike and Juliet had more questions for Paul and more for Daniele but most of my job was to sit there and look motherly. Being a TV star really isn’t that hard.

Here’s what I was surprised/impressed by with Mike and Juliet: they are both so warm and easy to talk to. Juliet, in particular, feels like a very caring person. During the breaks, they’d chat with the audience, joking around. Although in the interview, Mike appeared to think Paul’s pursuit of fighting was a bad idea, he wasn’t like that at all during the breaks. Both were actually quite supportive. And they were both very professional, skillfully controlling the time and knowing exactly what was going to happen next. Their smoothness made it easier for those of us who were novices.

And then, it was over. We shook Mike and Juliet’s hands, they thanked us, and wished Paul the best of luck. We left the studio. Paul looked considerably more relaxed. We unhooked our mikes and Sabina said we had done well. Paul nodded and watched the monitor. Danity Kane was on. I had no idea who they were but he did and he thought they were pretty cool. And tiny. He remarked that they all looked so much smaller in person than they did on TV. He spoke to one or two of them and was thrilled.

Since we had time before our flight home, Sabina suggested we visit Nintendo World down the street. So we got in our limo and were chauffeured to Nintendo World in our show dress and makeup. Oh baby, we felt like da shiznit.

At the airport, we changed into our normal clothes and grabbed lunch. We waited for our flight home, and then we settled in our normal lives. We watched ourselves on the Tivo and talked about the adventure, so glad that we had this opportunity to, for just 24 hours, play star.

Just so you’ll know we didn’t develop big heads over this, I discovered the tags were still inside my skirt when I changed into my jeans. Yep, I Minnie-Pearled my new Ann Taylor skirt in my national television debut. And Paul? He served a detention the next morning for being late to school so many times. So much for our 15 minutes of fame.

Meanwhile, I tried on the pants I had planned on wearing and they didn’t look good. I decided I’d rather wear a black skirt with my pink sweater so I headed out shopping. I found a skirt I liked, picked up a pair of pantyhose, and a camisole to wear under the sweater. When I got home, I tried it on and showed Paul. Eh, he shrugged. I took that as approval.

On Sunday, I went to gym in the morning as usual. On the way home, I practiced the rant I was going to deliver to Paul when I got home, “Wake up! Pack your stuff. Don’t forget anything. Summon your inner adult and put him to work!” But when I got home, Paul was already up, showered, and working on putting his stuff together. I was impressed. I had to explain the 3 ounces or less in a one-quart bag several times, and then show him the difference between a one-gallon and a one-quart bag, but finally, we were packed up and ready to go. 

At the airport, we checked in and headed to security. For some reason, Paul always has trouble at security and, sure enough, he got the one nasty TSA agent. Before he went through the puffer, he asked if he should take his belt off. The agent impatiently waved him through and, sure enough, the alarm went off. He said he thought it was his belt and the agent said, “If you knew it, then why didn’t you take it off?” I swear, I thought Paul was going to practice his boxing skills on the guy. Instead, he removed his belt and went through the puffer again. Meanwhile, the agent near me shook her head and whispered, “I don’t know why he has to be so mean. He made a girl cry last week. He said she’s in college, she should know how to go through security.” There’s your problem: Paul’s not going to college. By the time we left the security area, the manager was having a word with the agent.

Paul and I boarded the plane and landed an hour later in NYC. We deplaned and headed toward the ground transportation. And we saw him, our driver. Oh yeah, baby, we had our own driver. He took us to a huge, black SUV with a silky leather interior. Gotta tell ya, it’s a whole lot better than a spew-inducing, sickeningly vanilla-scented taxi ride. He took us on a round-about way through Queens, over the Queensboro Bridge, and into Manhatten. We wound through the streets to Times Square and he delivered us to the Hotel Mela.

To be continued tomorrow  . . . (sorry, I have to go to bed!)

 http://www.mandjshow.com/videos/is-a-college-degree-necessary/

 We had a fantastic time. What a great adventure!

It all started with this post, Dreaming the Biggest Dream, that I wrote about Paul wanting to become a cage-fighter instead of a college student.

Which lead to this story on MSNBC.

And now is leading to an interview on The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet.   UPDATE: Our episode is going to be aired on Monday, March 24. Check your local schedule for station and time!

I got a call from one of the show’s producers on Monday as I was en route to Daytona Beach to work for the week. He called me again later in the afternoon and said they want to fly Paul and me to NYC to appear on the show on Monday. I said I’d ask Paul when he got out of school and call him back. Not surprisingly, Paul jumped at the chance. He doesn’t quite have a Plan A yet for becoming a fighter (he does have a Plan B) and he saw this as something that might open up opportunities for him. He’s a lot more savvy than I give him credit for. So I called the producer back and said, “We’re in!”

My plan was to return from Daytona on Friday night as scheduled, enjoy the weekend at home, then fly to NYC with Paul on Sunday, do the show on Monday morning, then fly home in the afternoon. But the next day, the producer said they’d like to do a taped piece to go along with the live interview and they’d like to do that on Thursday at my house. When I mentioned this to Paul, he freaked out. Although I had left the kitchen and living room tidy, the kitchen was no longer clean and his living area was, well, untidy. Very untidy. Organizing the events around the taping, including the cleaning of the house, plus school work, was way more than Paul could handle on his own. Besides, why would I want to miss out on all the fun?

I changed my plans and flew home on Wednesday morning. And commenced cleaning until the film crew arrived. I continually had to remind myself that they were not from HGTV but from Fox and were interested in filming us, not the deficits of the house.

Meanwhile, I kept in contact with several producers from the show as the things they needed continually changed. They wanted to show Paul working out so we worked on arranging several different locations (each of which fell through so they ended up shooting Paul working out at home which is what he does most of the time anyway). They wanted to shoot Paul at school which, to my surprise, the high school agreed to (thanks to a call from an alumna who works on the show). They wanted photographs of Paul growing up (he definitely suffers from “second child” syndrome — tons of photos of his older brother, not so many of him). We worked at getting everything together and then, it was time for filming to begin.

Paul came home for lunch and I updated him on the latest changes. As the last bit of advice I gave him as he returned to school and the impending film crew, “Remember, this is supposed to be fun. Even if you feel nervous or scared, act like you’re having fun. Smile, laugh, never show your nerves. As Dr. Phil says, “fake it til you make it,” and this is a great time to do that.”

He laughed. He loves it when I quote Dr. Phil.

I sat at the kitchen table going through photographs, knowing that the camera crew was filming Paul at school. I wasn’t worried about what he might say or do. I’ve coached him a lot over the last year; this is a time for me to stand back and trust in that coaching, to trust in Paul, and to let go because he really can do this on his own. I trust him, and I even trust him to recover from mistakes he might make; it’s doubts over my own abilities to parent him as well as he needs that sometimes surface. What may appear as protectiveness or even micro-managing are really doubts about my own abilities to have taught him everything he needs to know to do what he needs to do. This was a good opportunity to learn to trust myself a little bit more.

The film crew backed into the driveway and started to unload cameras and sound equipment. I felt instantly comfortable with Harvey and Dan from That Buffalo Crew as we laughed and joke while they set up. They really made it a lot easier.

I fetched Paul from school and when I returned home, everything was nearly set up and ready to go. A few minutes later, Mike, a producer from NYC, arrived and prepped me for the interview. And then, they hook the mike to my sweater, ran the cable so it would be hidden, and we were off.

The interview went well. Mike was easy to talk to, and I was able to maintain eye contact with him most of the time. Since his questions would be edited out, I had to incorporate his questions into my answers and we had to re-do one or two so that I got that right. I think I did all right. I got to say what I wanted to say. And I got to say that I’m proud of Paul, and that he is an inspiration to me. I hope that doesn’t end up on the cutting room floor but if it does, at least Paul heard it. That’s what really matters.

When my interview finished, they moved the cameras to Paul’s room for his interview. Yep, that’s the same room that just hours earlier looked like a tornado with a bad attitude had swept through. Just before they started shooting, I saw Paul on the monitor and he looked good. While Mike interviewed him, I sat on the floor outside his room, out of his line of vision and listened to his answers. I know Paul pretty well but some of his answers surprised me. And all of them impressed me. He’s a good kid.

Next, they moved the cameras and lights again and set up to shoot Paul hitting his heavy bag, then shadow-boxing with weights, and even doing sit-ups. They shot a lot but I know that they need to do that so they have plenty to work with. Meanwhile, Paul got a pretty good workout!

Then they wanted to shoot us together in the kitchen, making food or just doing stuff together. We had very little food in the house, but I found a head of broccoli and we cut that up, rinsed it, steamed it, then ate it. I sliced my favorite multigrain bread from Wegmans which Paul didn’t like, put a slice of cheese on it, and gave it to him to eat. It turns out that, now that he was forced to taste it for national television, he likes it. Isn’t television wonderful?

The final scenes that they filmed were Paul walking outside. It was a gray day, mid-30s but the wind was whipping and made it feel much colder. I took this picture and went back inside.

As the camera crew packed up, Paul and I asked Mike some questions about the show on Monday. He gave us some advice about what to wear and what would happen on Monday morning. It got us excited about the next part of this adventure.

After they left, Paul retreated to his room and I vegged out in the living room. For the first time, I noticed that my back was sore so I decided to go to yoga to try to stretch it out. It was good to have that time to myself and to relax and reflect.

I thought about something Paul had said to me. “Mom, did you ever think that something you wrote in your blog would lead to something like this?”  

Frankly, yes, I did think good things would come of writing the blog. I just didn’t know what. I’m just thrilled that it has given Paul a big opportunity, and that it has given me the chance to practice trusting in his upbringing. It’s given us this adventure to share and, whether or not anything comes of it, we’ll always be able to look back and laugh about when we were on national television all because it was big news that Paul was not going to college.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23344817/

 His mama sure is proud of him!

Here’s another post about Paul in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle:

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/blogs/fairportperinton/2008/03/pursuing-your-dreams.html 

More about Paul’s plan:

 http://www.gretchenstahlman.com/blog/2008/01/15/dreaming-the-biggest-dream/

Update:

Paul strutted into the kitchen this morning before school.

Paul: Celebrity in da house!

Me: Just think, all those kids at school are working so hard to be noticed by colleges and you just made the national news.

Paul: Yep, and for doing NOTHING!

The story of the Wii starts back in September when Paul’s TV broke. It was old, inexpensive to start with, and had been well used. He claimed he wanted to replace it and would save his money, plus use his Christmas money to buy a new one. In November, he was still talking about getting a new TV so I decided to give him a gift card to Best Buy for Christmas. Since I was having a terrible year, financially speaking, I used points I had accumulated at my bank so I didn’t have to lay out any cash to give him a $200 gift card. I was pretty excited about giving him such an extravagant gift, especially because it had been so painless to me.

By the time Christmas came, offers for used but workable free TVs had come Paul’s way so he changed his plan: he wanted a Wii instead. On Christmas Day, he was excited to receive his gift card and started checking the Best Buy site and calling to find out when they would get some in stock. It turns out that they hadn’t had any for weeks, maybe months, with none arriving any time soon. Paul started looking at other places to buy a Wii.

“If I find a Wii at Wal-Mart, can I sell you the Best Buy card for $200?” he asked.

Hmm, my beautiful thrifty plan was about to go out the window. If I did that, then I’d have to lay out the $200 in cash I had been avoiding, plus end up with a card I didn’t want.

“What would I want at Best Buy?” I asked. He knew this was the flaw in the plan suggested that I could buy games, like Guitar Hero, that I could play on his Wii. Uh huh.

Then a bit of luck came my way. One of my co-workers in Florida, Dexter, had bought several Wii units (at Wal-Mart in the middle of the night when the shipments came in) and had been selling them on eBay for a tidy profit. One Wii had been refused in shipping and returned to him. Through some high finance wheeling and dealing with Dexter, I managed to swap Paul’s Best Buy gift card for the Wii, and thus I toted home a brand new Wii, never letting it out of my sight, when I returned from Florida.

It was nearly midnight when I arrived home but Paul rushed to greet the Wii enthusiastically.

He pulled it out of the box and hooked it up to his TV (donated to him by his grandmother).

“Oh baby! Oh baby!” he kept calling out enraptured as he plugged in the cables.

When it powered on, he was ecstatic.

“I’m going to marry Dexter!” he hooted, then quickly added “No homo! No homo! Oh yeah, I’m gonna marry Dexter! (No homo! No homo!)”

On the setup screen he had to assign a name to the Wii. He was in such a hurry to try the boxing game, he just put in his first initial, and moved on.

“You named it P?” I asked. “The name of your Wii is P-Wii?”

I was starting to wonder if all this had been a good idea.

“Oh yeah,” he insisted, “I’m playing with my P-Wii!”

Paul started up the boxing game and enthusiastically punched at the screen. Of course, he was a natural.

“OK, my turn,” I said when he had been declared the winner. He showed me how to work the controllers, the remote in one hand and the nunchuk in the other. I jabbed at the screen with the intense fury, danced like (Laila) Ali, and trash-talked just like I’d heard him do so many times.

“My God, Mom,” he said incredulously, “you’re a maniac!”

Since that night, I have obtained my own controllers and three additional games. Paul and I have cleared the furniture from the living room and hooked up P-Wii to the big TV. We play every night: boxing (he has to remember to aim low because I’m short), bowling (we’ve discovered some moves that would never work with a real ball), tennis (I’m not the next Venus Williams), and a shooting game (he’s too fast on the draw for me). I have to admit he wins most of the time but some days I don’t suck as badly as others.

I really didn’t understand what all the Wii fuss was about, but now that I’ve played it, I get it. It’s the first game system I’ve been able to play in years, since they improved the other systems into a level of complication I can’t understand. This thing is so easy. And fun. Really fun.

I might be getting a Wii bit addicted.

“This is Staff Sergeant So-and-So from the United States Marine Corps.”

My stomach lurched into my throat.

“Is everything OK?”

He hesitated. “Yes, ma’am, I’m trying to reach Paul.”

My heart started to beat again.

“Oh,” I exhaled, “you’re a recruiter.” I explained that my older son is a Marine in Iraq and it’s scary when a Marine calls. Nick has told me that it’s very quiet over there, no gunfire at all, their biggest worry are the dogs that used to be domesticated but now run feral. Besides, when he first deployed, he promised me he would be fine, and a promise is a promise. Still, all young men feel invincible. What if he was wrong? What if the Iraqis were unaware of the promise he made me?

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“That’s OK,” I said, “I’m just glad you’re from the recruiter’s office.”

I gave him Paul’s cell phone number and told him he could call him there. Paul isn’t interested in enlisting, isn’t interested in making promises he might not be able to keep, but he is capable of making his own decision, of saying No Thank You to opportunities that aren’t right for him. At least for now.

Last week, Paul wanted to show me something on the computer, the website for a mixed martial arts school in Rochester. Frankly, I wasn’t much interested but I looked because he was so excited. He explained that this school teaches whatever form is the same one that the UFC fighters (my eyes were already starting to glaze over). He showed me the page on grappling classes, the one on striking classes, what it takes to get through the beginner and advanced levels until he could take the real MMA classes. He showed me the cost and when my eyes bugged out, he explained that it was pretty reasonable because it was unlimited and on and on and on. I didn’t really make the connection until he asked if we could go see it. Then I figured out that he wanted to enroll there. So he can learn to be a fighter. Like those tough Ultimate Championship Fighters who fight, often bloodied, in a cage.

Oh.

We drove down to the school on Wednesday night, taking the highway so Paul would see the way. I had already told him that he’d need to take his test and get his license because I was not going to drive into the city to pick him up at 9 o’clock every night. He said, yep, he’d do that.

We found the school, a brick, rectangular building with a large, fogged window in front. I parked on the street and, as we entered, my glasses steamed up. Although it was cold outside, inside was hot and wet with sweat, the men striking at each other fiercely, dripping and red-faced. Others stood around in gray clothes that clung to them in dark gray patches. It was the most testosterone-laden place I’d ever been in. I felt very middle-age Mom from the suburbs.

We watched the class land punches to their partners’ mitts, ducking when the mitt came back at them. The sound of their gloves made a solid thunk when it made a good connection, a popping of punches up and down the line of fighters. Paul tried not to grin but to look cool and unimpressed but I knew he was thrilled.

We watched a bit longer, then Paul said, “Ready?” He knew this wasn’t my thing but I wanted him to get his fill.

“Whenever you are,” I answered. He nodded and we slipped out the door and into the dark chill of the night.

“What did you think?” I asked.

“That’s how fighters start out,” he said. “They start out some place small, just basic, and then they work at it.”

I nodded. We settled into the car, taking the non-highway route home so he’d see that path too.

“I’m going to finish out boxing first,” he said. He had just returned to boxing twice a week after six months off. “Then I’ll wait until school gets out, then I’ll get a job and work during the day and go there every night.”

“That’s the way to do it,” I said.

I thought of a conversation I’d had with my Dad when Paul first started talking about wanting to be a fighter. Dad had started to form a plan, Paul should do this and Paul should do that. I remember telling Dad that Paul wasn’t ready to figure out the steps he needed to take to get there, he was still in the toying-with-the-idea stage, but he’d figure it out eventually. On that drive home, I realized that eventually had arrived. Paul had thought about what he wanted to do, what he needed to do to get there, how to get what he needed, a plan for making it so. He had watched the UFC fighters, learning how they trained, then used his computer to search out the available schools across the area, country, and world. He had done all of this on his own without any help from me and I wondered how he knew how to do all that.

It dawned on me that maybe he was listening more often than I gave him credit for. All those times when I told him to ignore what everyone else was doing, that he should pursue what he felt most passionate about, when he came up with ideas that were what others wanted him to do but he described in a lackluster way. I told him he wasn’t dreaming big enough, dream bigger, dream the biggest freaking dream you can. He’s 18 years old, six months away from the beginning of his real life, making his own decisions, and taking the first steps of living his dream.

I guess he was listening after all.

“Can’t tell you,” he laughed, “that’s over the 12 month limit.”

Funny how advice has a way of doubling back on you like that.

Still, I do prod him from time to time to think about what he will do after high school. That time is coming and cannot be held back.

“I’ve never really thought about it,” he confessed to me one day, “because I never thought I’d make it this far.”

It didn’t surprise me to hear that but what he said next did.

“I remember telling kids when we were in fifth grade, I’m not going to make it.”

I didn’t know he knew it then, but without support and perserverance, he was a kid in jeopardy. I had decided to keep the knowledge of his disabilities to myself, that maybe if he didn’t know he couldn’t do a thing, he’d do it anyway. And it worked. He tried everything that came before him. Frankly, there weren’t many things he was good at but every now and then he’d excel at something and surprise everyone, himself included. And for me, it never mattered whether he succeeded or failed; what mattered is that he tried. And he always tried.

After that talk, I’ve thought of some new advice to give Paul.

There are a lot of shows on TV that I would never watch, never even tried had it not been for Paul’s encouragement. Take Dirty Jobs, for instance. Each week, Mike Rowe plays apprentice for several jobs in which he gets really really filthy. He’s a pretty funny guy who can make light of the misery in any job. But the really great thing about the show is that we get to see jobs we never knew existed but somehow knew we never wanted.

I broke my new idea to Paul like this.

“You know how most people would really like to have just one job for their entire lives that they are really good at?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he sounded a bit worried about what I was going to say next.

“Well, I think you should take the complete opposite approach,” I suggested. “Try to have 100 jobs in your lifetime.”

“A hundred is kind of a lot, Mom,” he said but I could tell he was intrigued.

“I think it’s doable though,” I replied. “You’re going to get fired from a lot of them.” Paul laughed and nodded. “So you won’t be at some of them for very long. I’m sure you could squeeze in a hundred jobs in your lifetime. You could be an overachiever at underachieving.”

There’s only one reason why Paul could complete the 100 job challenge: he’s not afraid of failure.  He’s taken the one thing that so many people fear the most and turned it to his advantage. Failure is the key that unlocks the door to opportunity, to all the other possibilities that exist.

The irony is that if Paul does take on the adventure of 100 jobs, it would be a life so fascinating everyone would want to read about it. Only, he’d never write about it because he hates to read. I guess that just leaves me to write about it.

A mother’s work is never done.