DEBBIE DOESN'T DO DALLAS

I've been married for thirty-five years. My wife and I met in college, dated for about four years and tied the knot when we were still in our early twenties.

Debbie Digby

We have a pretty decent relationship. We don't fight like my sister does with her husband. Hell, I really can't remember the last time we had an argument. We communicate pretty well though I wouldn't call my wife my best friend or anything like that. She's a woman and she's interested in things I don't really care much about.

Like celebrity magazines, nail polish, shoes, calories, George Cloony, classic rock, online shopping, offline shopping, her mom, her brother, snack foods, Netflix, cats, exercise, Downton Abbey, global warming, and re-upholstery.

And being a man, I'm interested in things that are totally off her radar like the Ayatollah Khamenei, the designated hitter rule, Japanese knives, liquor, the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle, biographies of former presidents, the Russian Mafia, Election Day, band-saws, golf and old Clifford Brown records.

Oh yeah ... and sex.

The wife will have nothing of it. It's been like that for years.

More years than I care to count.

Trying to have sex with her was like trying to talk my parents into raising my allowance. I remember my dad was always ready with a list of reasons why my allowance should stay the same: I had to learn the value of a dollar, I needed to develop a strong work ethic, I didn't need the extra money, I was a lazy son-of-a-gun etc. etc.

He always had a reason but the truth was he simply didn't want to do it.

Just like Debbie. 

She'd rather not.

I've always been a good husband so I never went too far off the reservation. When I had an itch, well ... let's just say, like Jimmy Carter I knew how to daydream.

And the wife, well, I never asked. Some things are better left alone.

Yeah ... alone.

Does anyone remember Ginger on Gilligan's Island?

CONFUCIUS CONFUSED

Down the block from me there's a guy named Fripp. That's not his real name but I never heard anyone call him anything else.

He's about 50 or so - it's hard to tell with fat guys who spent most of their lives smoking and doing crossword puzzles. 

He lost his job about a year and a half ago - I think he serviced valves or something like that - and he's been struggling ever since. His wife is a nurse and his kids are grown so I suppose he's luckier than most.

There are a lot of Fripps in my neck of the woods, proud, simple guys who found dignity in work and who needed no consolation in a life of low expectation.

I saw him the other day at Doris', the diner downtown that just started serving four-dollar lattes to go with their short-stack and bacon. When he saw me pass he looked up from his puzzle having pegged me with my horn rims as being the town's resident wise-ass.

"What in fuck's name is qi"?

There was real pain in his face as if his whole world was collapsing around the sudden realization that not every Q need be followed by a U. How do you explain to an out-of-work pipe fitter that "life's energy" can be corralled by positive thinking. That money and good fortune are within everyone's reach by the simple act of entering into the flow.

Visiting my daughter in Manhattan I've actually been witness to young, affluent professionals using the ancient Chinese concept of qi to justify the purchase of hundred-dollar bottles 1985 Canon-La Gaffelière.

I have no quarrel with consumption, I'm a lifelong Libertarian with nary a whit of compassion for slackers and near-do-wells. If some ambulance-chasing corporate lawyer wants to blow his wad on a pricey grape, God bless him.

But please spare me the New Age milquetoast, bleeding-heart justifications. Sometimes qi is just chance and the flow of life is upstream and always against the current.