Then grow a brain. Get a good lawyer, unload this load, your codependent partner in crime, and show your daughter what it's like to be an adult so she'll have something to build on a few years down the road when she may otherwise be totally screwed up from YOU and your inability to focus on anything but you and your own drama. The house means nothing to the kid. Trust me, I've been on every side of that issue. It's not about the house, it's about you and your pathological need to creat art out of human waste. There may just be some greed involved too. (And it's no better in CoCal, real eastate wise, so don't cop a superiority plea with me). There is certainly neurosis involved, but you're not likely to find a hard-ass therapist in the Bay Area who will tell you what you need to hear, so waste that sucker and save the money for something useful, like legal advice.

The "man" you have described in your crazy-making letter is a distinct type; you, on the other hand, have a personality disorder. Your daughter scarcely has a chance unless you simply go into revolutionary mode and claim what is yours: your self. Oh, screw it. I feel like I'm talking into a fan.

When the late, sorely-missed friend of my childhood John Fahey, "Father of American Primitive Guitar" retitled one of his darker compositions "Revolt of the Dyke Brigade" he was talking about Stepp's heroines, those man-hating, downtrodden career victims who made out huge by battening on the blood and jism of clueless, unsuspecting men via verbal and literary castration, not the cute little 21st c. college chicks who just want a fuck-buddy. John was an honorable man, if somewhat deranged, and both those deplorable conditions rubbed off on me. I suspect very strongly if John were still with us he'd go looking for Stepps in much the way he went after Germaine Greer and the rest of that crowd, and it wouldn't be to get laid. This woman's eyes are brown, I know that much, because she is that fulla shit.

Now comes one poor schmuck who can't get it up for one such nubile young thang and behole! We got us a study! Woo hoo! Hey lady, it happens! Hey schmuck, it happens! If suggesting sex without committment is speaking one's mind, then somebody talk to me! Speak! My 3rd wife is OWO, I'm 61 years old, look 20 years younger, and have never in my life given it a second thought when little Calhoun down there failed to respond, which has almost always been when I had not yet had a chance to establish some sort of eye contact or crack the Glascow coma scale. The rest of the time, through beer, wine, whiskey, mescaline, goofballs, speed, pot, morphine, pain, broken limbs and lurking husbands, yes, even while laid up in the Caronary Care Unit following emergency bypass surgery, Little Head has been pointing the way and all too often having it. The bastard will give me no peace. Please Miz Sessions Stepp - mind if I call you Laura? Come slay this beast that travels with me everywhere I go, forcing me to wear Jockeys when I would much prefer boxers, this monster who has made a fool of me since I was 12 years old and just won't leave off, especially now that my soon-to-be-ex is still hot and still very casual about her dress code around our soon-to-be-ex house. For the love of God! Fahey, what did you do to me? What's with this honor crap? I have a problem and it wants to be fed! College girls? Are they over 18? Will they SAY they are at least? As long as they say SOMEthing, as long as they can talk without sounding like complete idiots, I will risk an arrhythmic episode to help one of them out.

No! I got a better idea! The Post will love this! Do a follow-up piece on old half-dead guys like me who can't get it down! Ones whose wives are leaving us for younger guys who aren't so sexually demanding, who are sufficiently weak and stupid enough to tell you their real names and then babble, like the Anti-Portnoy, all their business. Hey, I'll betcha Marion Barry would volunteer a story or two. One thing I'll say for ol' Marion - he still functions like a dowser's wand.

This was serious, right? Because I am. I'm relieved to see the Post still has nothing worthwhile to publish, what with the Death Dwarf in the Oval Office and the Nova Express idling in the White House driveway. Call me. We'll talk.