status quo
According to U.S. Census data, fifty years ago almost everyone married——regardless of their race. The rates of marriage for blacks and whites were roughly the same. But by 2002, 48 percent of black families were headed by a married couple compared with 82 percent of white families.

Alice has slipped lose of the looking glass. We live in a postmodern world filled with alienated SUVs driving 80 mph down rain-slick highways peeping (http://www.stier.net/teaching/ih52/notes/marx/alien.htm> desperately into the windows of the car next too them ... human beings starved for connection with others——yet too filled with arrogant false pride to actually talk to that same person should the meet together in a normal office building.

Bardos
"The only constant is change", or so said Siddhartha.

The Friday before a ski trip with Aki, her daughter, and her daughter's boyfriend. I am not the domestic type. I gave up on such things as stepfathering in my late 30s.

So how does a man who has made a sketchy peace with bachelorhood, sexuality, moral decay, sobriety and what may be the beginning of America's Rule do relationships?