Three episodes

(Sitting in a motel room NW of Milwaukee. It's 7 a.m., I've slept enough, and I have some ideas I want to write).

Three episodes in my last couple days deal very indirectly and obliquely with sex. Some barely deal with the topic at all. As with most things, it's how you look at things, I guess.

Episode 1 was Wednesday. It was the last day before our trip, and I wanted to get a haircut--it was getting a little too shaggy. But when I entered the barber shop, the only person there was the barber, and he was looking to do more than look at magazines.

His place has plenty of magazines. Many of them are hunting/fishing oriented. Since I'm not into that, I usually grab Popular Science. That's a very interesting magazine. Lots of neat stuff in there. A few years ago, I saw a reference to Modblog ... and the world of self-expression hasn't been the same since.

I was in the mood for something different this time, though, and I finally reached for a magazine I used to read often but hadn't looked at very often for years: Playboy. The old joke about Playboy is, "I read it for the articles." Wink, wink.

Those articles, though, were a large part of the magazine's charm, along with practical advice to men about getting through life. Along with photos of pretty, naked girls. Lots of good fiction, too. Was that same kind of literary quality still present, decades after my last real look at its pages?

The magazine is a lot slimmer now--fewer advertisers than way back when--but the articles were still pretty good, and now I have to think about whether I want to look at Playboy more often. The article I enjoyed the most was an interview about how cities were homogenized by upscaling and renovation projects, removing the unique areas and shops and people who dwelt in the nittier, grittier areas. It removed crime, sure. But it also washed away their individuality, too.

A number of the cartoonists I remember from back when are still around, too. It's a pretty good gig, after all. One cartoon showed two guys inside a prison yard. One says to the other, "My return was based on the premise that the IRS was understaffed."

Episode 2 was yesterday evening, during our visit with S and her GF. She is a nice lady, about 50 or so (I didn't ask) with a thick Southern accent. Since she had lived in that region nearly all her life, that is hardly a surprise.

We met, helped S's husband figure out a problem with a DVD player and then headed off to Golden Corral for a big buffet supper. That's where S told me about what the situation was.

Things have been rough over there for some time. This is the third time she has left him. She left back in 2005, just after I met her--I visited her in Oshkosh and later Ontario. The first time was back before we met, when she left for Washington. Behind it was his addiction to porn and a long-time problem with alcohol. It apparently is getting worse. She said he drinks daily now and has even been having blackouts. The only way he can get better, she said, if he can acknowledge the problem. But he isn't there yet.

Her GF had to leave for about 10 days recently (getting her things in Alabama, etc.), and said that was very tense, and she had panic attacks several times a day. Now, she says, she is starting to feel better again, and she feels a healing process has started. She still wants to go to Starwood someday.

Episode 3 was last night. We had arrived at our motel, I watched the end of the Red Wings game and we drove off to a convenience store to pick up a snack. After we returning, we decided to go to the motel's pool. There were some guys around the hot tub when we arrived, but they soon left, and we were the only ones there.

So I decided to get playful. I pulled her shoulder straps down around and under her arms. A few minutes later, I moved my hand in front, hoping to lower her neckline a little. Maybe more than a little. But we were the only ones in the entire complex now. What's the harm? Who would know?

But she batted the hand away and said the hand just wanted to be naughty. Which is true enough. She said it in a funny way--she wasn't mean or angry--but I took her at her word. I didn't even attempt to play with her after that. That's the way she is, that's the way she is happiest, and I'm not going to change her. After 40 years of living with an uptight wife, I should have learned that by now.