At eighty-one, health club-lusting is as close as I'll ever come to getting laid again.

My friends in prison were mostly women more like myself: not historical figures who I did not relate to as peers, but hookers and addicts.

The loss of a sexual life is one of the worst things about getting really old. The worst thing.

At eighty-one, health club-lusting is as close as I'll ever come to getting laid again.

There's a stone I had made for Luke at the top of the hill road, where the pasture opens wide and the setting sun highlights the words carved into its face. "That'll do, Luke, that'll do." The words are said to working dogs all over the world when the chores are done and the flock is settled: "That'll do dog, come home now, your work is done." Luke's work is done too. He took my heart and ran with it, and he's running still, fast and strong, a piece of my heart bound up with his, forever.

Prison experience puts distance between me and any person who hasn't been there, done that.

A crisis of confidence is so common that it should be considered a universal part of the adoption process.