It seems to me that if ES was young, tall, dark, and handsome with a rakish bravado instead of being short, middle aged, and ostentatiously introspective, the female buzz would be enormously more supportive and forgiving. The oblivious, testosterone laced, and genetically desirable types are all but expected to have an ES attitude. However, since he isn’t ‘jalapeño hot’, his desirability to females would naturally be centered on his ability to be a nurturing friend perfectly selfless in his unwavering support for his mate’s/children’s needs. He seems to take care of himself so he may well have high testosterone levels consistent with the former archetype so the cries of ‘ewww’ are then just the typical female complaints of the alien nature of unbound masculinity. I rather admire the on-track assertiveness of a guy whose introspection has created a clear picture of his desires. However, I believe his ultimate goal, fulfilled happiness, will be elusive with nothing but the cold clinical crystallization of his overly justified material desires. Without a developed sense of compassion for others, I don’t think he will find family life the panacea he imagines.

If I was a female with an endless string of past memorables and forgetables, with nothing else going on, I would likely give him a shot, but only after a permitted cocktail of course.

My advice to ES would be to film a documentary of his transformation from a jerk to a god of compassion in a year long stint as a volunteer nursing home care giver. The resulting Oscar would only help his chances.

I think Mom has a valid fear, that a cold self-important and possibly corrupt institution prone to random, fervent, and draconian enforcement of minutia might put a serious hurting on her family's life. In Mom's context, parental nudity is simply a byproduct of actually spending a great deal of time in proximity with her children. The nudity itself, occasional exposure as the result of daily life is probably healthier than an obsessive or cultish, prudish modesty. Brittany is dealing with the same legal system that us ordinary people do. A frighteningly powerful institution that is required to justify it's own existence and maximize enforcement equally against the heinous atrocities of negligent parents and against good healthy supportive families circumstanced with an efficiency apartment, 1 small bathroom, and a natural human body.

"Oh, for the love of Doug!", should be our new catch phrase. Of course such a thing is a wonderful goal toward a grand and ideal future. However a sad difficulty remains, that to overcome the inertia of our current catch phrase, "Oh Jesus Christ, what the hell is wrong with you."

And yay to the 6 year olds who laugh in hilarity to their 9 year old siblings distress over the probability of heavier-than-water-farts lurking in the murky depths of the slightly used bubble bath. "I'm sorry Sam, I thought it was a fart but I didn't see the bubbles rise so it's probably that."

Still, your panels bring both great joy and mild trepidation into my life so I wish to close this letter with a link to a Mannix dude movie poster, "Swamp Women".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Swampwomen.jpg

My wife accuses me of being -abnormal- for collecting my daily urine output, diluting it, and using it to enrich our home's grounds and gardens. It really works. I feel great about it. With this new information on phosphorus, I feel even better. But I'm still far outside of the norm, abnormal if you will.

I also limit yard mowing to allow wild space for the innumerable bugs, birds, bees, lizards, and rodents that are drawn to our tiny 1/3 acre estate. The mowing is mainly limited to pathways which resemble crop circles to some, well, everyone really.

Ants used to parade with impunity throughout almost every room of the house, but then lizards arrived to mitigate that. However the damned 'outside' cats of the neighbors limited their numbers so I dealt with that problem by seeding the entire 'hood' with catnip. Now those darn cats are too 'stoned' to catch anything, the little tiny animals may recover and balance to the force may be achieved.