When Sheri saw the “For Sale” sign in our front yard as we pulled into the driveway on Saturday afternoon, it choked her up. We’ve been working so hard to get ready for this, but preparation doesn’t dismiss the emotions when they come. I took a video of our house – this inanimate object, this material possession – when it was painted and staged and as clean as it has ever been, and I was surprised to have to fight back tears as I narrated the ways we used each room over the past twenty years.
I’m not quite the lunatic I used to be. And nothing used to bring out the crazy like the aptly named March Madness basketball tournament.
In four years at Indiana University, I never missed a home game, and knew exactly where to stand above the tunnel to touch Bobby Knight’s shoulder as the team came back out after halftime. Creepy much? Knight received technical fouls for throwing things on the court twice. I don’t know where the chair is, but the program he threw against Boston University on December 13, 1991 is framed in my basement. So when I attended a bachelor party weekend in Las Vegas half-a-dozen years later, confident that I knew more about college basketball than the odds makers, my lunacy kept me placing double-or-nothing bets, just trying to get back to even, until the only thing left on which to wager was a West Coast NBA game. I took the under and felt vindicated until I realized that the sufficiently low score was tied, and the game was going into overtime. Meanwhile, my fiance, Sheri, was perplexed as her debit card was declined when she tried to rent a movie at Blockbuster. I proceeded to get so drunk that I was kicked out of a dance club that night. Twice (I’m not sure how I got back in for round two of drunken belligerence). I woke up the next morning in the hotel room I shared with eight guys, lying in a puddle of my own puke. (Should that be lay or lie? Given the vulgarity of the rest of the sentence, I am not sure it matters.) Later that day, I told Sheri about the $1,200 I lost amidst a crowd at the O’Hare Airport. I thought it less likely that she’d kill me in front of all those people.
There is an incomparable purity in the relief I feel from her authentic touch.
I used to think the most relief available to me came from the euphoric feeling delivered by the second IPA. Alcohol provided relief, yes, but the emotional and cognitive sensations delivered by a toxin are anything but pure or authentic.
It’s true. I have changed, and I do remember how much fun it was.
I remember college, flooding the doorway of Bullfeathers with friends, my fake ID and phony confidence persuading the bouncer that my blue eyes really are brown, just for tonight.
We’d dance, laugh, maybe kiss a boy and then head home – well, those of us not going back with a boy. There’d be late-night pizza and late-morning snoozing before loading up the backpack to hit the stacks and study ourselves silly.
I remember the nights with you in Paul’s Club, the tree in that bar, the antique velvet couches and moody lighting. We’d share a pitcher seated criminally close, constantly in conversation with locked eyes and wandering hands that eventually led us back to my apartment. The drinks only added an element of magic, a surreal film over the evening. I loved those nights and those mornings.
While watching a movie about college basketball in the 1960s, I noticed most of the men in the crowd were wearing suits and ties. In 2025 can you even imagine dressing up to attend a sporting event? I hate the confined feeling of a suit jacket, and I’ve never understood the purpose of a piece of colorful silk dangling from my neck. If it was there for me to clean the spaghetti sauce from my mouth, at least there would be a plausible purpose. I’m certainly not proposing a return to wearing church clothes to basketball games. I like to say, “Once you find hoodie-town, you’ll never wear a button down.” (I’ve actually never said that, but maybe I’ll start now.) The point is that when the camera scanned the crowd at that cinematic basketball game, I was certain that every man in those stands held the door for someone else entering the arena. I’m equally certain that hands were shaken firmly, people stood graciously to let the people seated in the middle of the rows pass, and pleases and thank yous were abundant.
It is hard to argue but that we’ve devolved.
I opened the door and saw Javier, the sixteen-year-old son of one of our tenants, standing on my doorstep. His was not a face I expected to see, but I was fond of his family, and he looked distressed. I asked him if he wanted to come in and talk. He was breathing hard as he perched on the sofa. Javi told me, his face reddening, that his dad had started hitting his little sisters. “I could put up with it when it was just me. But them? No. I can’t stand it.” He knew I was a lawyer (though unbeknownst to this desperate kid, I hadn’t practiced in years, and never in family law). He’d come to me to understand his options for getting his dad out of the house. He even brought evidence in the form of cellphone videos of his dad’s violence he had bravely recorded inside the apartment. What would happen if he called CPS, he wondered.
A couple of hours later, I reluctantly sent Javi home, breathed a big sigh, and opened my laptop to do some research. This was my first (and hopefully last) time being the trusted adult a kid came to with a big problem, and I was determined not to let him, his mom and his sisters down.
After alcohol killed my husband, I looked through years of text messages from him, looking for clues. There was no mystery, and I’m not sure what I was trying to solve. Somehow, knowing the truth wasn’t enough. I compiled his messages to me – often repeated over and over again – in search of answers.
These are his words:
“I know that I am not what you want anymore. I know you are unhappy in our marriage. I know you are pulling away and preparing to leave me. I have never been enough for you. I know you are looking for someone new to replace me, if you have not already found him. You and the kids don’t want me around anyway. I’m best served to just stay quiet. It all seems so fragile sometimes. You guys were fine until me. Being quiet doesn’t work. Should I move further away?
“I will just work. That’s all I am good for.
When Harry Met Sally is an iconic movie with a star-studded cast, and is arguably the best flick from the classic era of late 20th century rom-coms. But it is not best known for the romance, or even the comedy.
It is best known for the orgasm scene.
Please ask about my cats. Elvis and Carson are my loyal little companions, but even more importantly, they are my family. They are my comfort, my unconditional loves and my best friends. Ask about them and enjoy my smile as I tell you all about their perfect little furry faces.
Please don’t ask about Louie. I’ve distanced myself, and I don’t know the everyday details of how he’s doing. You asking about him reminds me of the distance, the detachment and the walls I’ve had to build to protect myself. You don’t know all of this, and I know that no malice exists behind your innocent question.
When it comes to sex, my wife, Sheri, could dump a bucket of ice down my pants, and I’d still be ready to go.
I despise ambiguity and hidden meanings, and there is no room in this message for subtlety. So rather than bury the lead, let’s get right after it.
I experience spontaneous arousal. I can be changing the filter on our furnace while listening to a recording of a gospel choir singing “Amazing Grace,” and if the wind shifts out of the northwest in my basement, I am turned on. I don’t really listen to gospel music (I’m more of a Broadway show tunes kind of guy), and the last time I checked, our basement is almost entirely wind free. But that’s not the point. The point is that I don’t have to be doing something sexy to be ready for sexy time.