My eldest stepped out of the car yesterday in a brand new lemon-yellow school shirt and khaki shorts, holding a bag full of pencils, gummy erasers, round-end scissors, Elmers glue, etc. Before I could even catch him for a kiss, Kai was up the stairs and gone to his first day of first grade. At least he was smiling, which is more than I can say for my wife and me. As we drove away, Jodi told me she felt nervous and out of sorts. About what exactly, she could not say. Today is

My wife does not hold onto anger or disappointment. It is one of the steel rods that form her character. Had she held grudges, our relationship would have ended within 6 months. We’d just flown to Nice from Paris, where Jodi joined me for an exhibition of my paintings arranged by my university. We’d been dating only since February, and the sea and Provençal sky stretched blue in both directions as we sped west to our destination through an orgy of summer sunflowers and lavend

Food is magic. We all have that special dish, the one that instantly activates the way-back machine and jumpstarts a potent emotion. What is yours? For me, it’s banana pudding. Whenever we visited my grandparents mobile home on the other side of Florida, my younger brother and I beelined it to the fridge the moment we arrived. There, bathed in cool light on the second shelf, stood neatly arranged cups and cups of pudding. Banana and chocolate. Smooth as velvet and dolloped in

“A Sneeze Between the Knees. That is an orgasm!” My college sex ed teacher opened her very first lecture with that jewel. Best description I’ve heard yet. Unfortunately, that opening moment proved to be the premature climax of the class. She droned on for months mostly about STDs and birth control and all the things you really don’t want to learn about at 19. Just make me a pornstar in bed, fercrissakes! I was recently approached by a renowned sexologist keen to know my thoug

Stuart Sheldon, Mother’s Day, Acrylic, Chinese funeral paper on panel, 24″x24″, 2004 I got divorced a long time ago. The short story is this – Good friends. Bad mates. Luckily, no kids were involved. Still, it was the second saddest event in my life next to later miscarriages that nearly robbed me of fatherhood. Recently, several friends with 4-yr-olds, the same age as my kids, announced divorces. I happened to be four when my parents divorced. So I have a clear opinion on th

It used to pain me to admit that I met my wife online. As if I was too pathetic to find someone in the real world. I needed algorithms. How romantic! That was 10 years ago, before online dating was as ubiquitous as belly button rings on 13-year-olds. Now, I feel like a pioneer in the brave new world. I no longer care that our relationship began via carefully picked photos and myth-building profiles (I hooked her with “I kill the Sunday NY Times crossword in one sitting). My f

Today is my birthday. But the more auspicious event was yesterday – my 7th anniversary. For a guy who didn’t get the marriage thing right until he was 40, this is a big deal. Wool and copper? Not the most obvious of symbols for a longstanding love affair. But, when I really thought about it, the meaning emerged. Wool is warm and safe, a haven from the menacing elements. Jodi and I have been and are each other’s haven in the eyes of our storms. It is soft and cozy, a place to

Gore Vidal died this week. Google him and 35,400 results appear. Because he was the greatest essayist of his age. Yet, he failed at the two greatest ambitions of his life: to hold high political office and be considered the  pre-eminent writer of his time. He lost 2 runs for office and was judged by most literary measures to fall behind rivals such as John Updike, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth. Was he a failure in his own mind? This all got me thinking about my own greatest asp