Month: June 2021

Sonny Days

I’ve noticed recently that both Frasier and Niles have pulled back a bit in their communications with me; they would both immediately deny this, and yet it is true. For them, time is rushing past and they are totally absorbed in their partners, jobs and friends – and rightly so.

I understand this and well remember that the Starter Husband only communicated with his own parents at 3 pm every-few-dozen-Sundays when the flickering guilt refused to be tamped down any longer. (And to be fair, they made sure to call us weekly. But I do not envy the quality of those conversations either which basically involved asking: “How are you getting on at work?” in varying ways).

For Frasier and Niles, weekends are festive but necessarily marked by the stocking up of food, the cleaning of bathrooms and hopefully, spectacular afternoons spent in bed, followed by an ÜberEats delivery.  But, because I am now getting older, not only does this lack of contact make me feel irrelevant, the whole thing is such a tired, grasping cliché. I always felt certain that someone of my own extreme coolness might be spared from such things – unlike that poor wretch Harry Chapin.

Read More