Our theme song could be written by Pat Benetar

Yesterday I was so excruciatingly tired all day that I actually fantasized about snuggling up in one of the hotel room beds at the inn below our offices (preferably one of the ones that Andy Roddick or James Blake slept in, since in fantasies one can be choosy).

Then bedtime rolled around. Ethan went to bed like a gentleman: little fuss, before 10 p.m. So I was all set for an early tuck-in. But NO-O.

Upon assessing the scene, I now identify two problems. First, Noah was working and wouldn't be home until 1 a.m. Second, I was reading The Kite Runner and was rather engrossed. You know how you're reading in bed and you're tired, but you keep setting cut-off points for yourself? Like, OK this chapter is just three more pages, that's where I'll stop. Or I'll get to the break; that's just four more paragraphs. Well I gave myself a cut-off about five different times.

When I finally turned the light out because I knew it had to be getting ridiculously late, I naturally had just read The Pivotal Moment in the book, a scene that is both disturbing and haunting. So I was disturbed and haunted.

I was still awake when Noah got home, and he sweetly offered to set up a pallet on the couch so we could snuggle up and put on a movie. We used to watch movies on a VCR in our bedroom when we couldn't sleep. But we gave the little TV and VCR to Goodwill, thinking we'd buy a small flat-panel TV for my birthday and our anniversary. Instead, we bought our way out of medical debt.

It gets to be about 1:15 and Noah's chatting away, eating Cheez-Its, and generally rustling around annoyingly. In other words, he was doing the OPPOSITE of helping me relax. Also, we chose to put on a movie that we've seen so many times it's turned into a comfort movie — one of those movies that you pick when you're tired and you know it so well you won't be tempted to fight drifting off into dreamland. I had to teach Noah about bedtime movies, because whenever I've offered to let him pick one, he goes for things like Courage Under Fire.

Of course last night I was the tired one, so rather than lay back and relax Noah proceeded to analyze how certain lines and scenes could have been made better. When I threatened to shove the Cheez-Its up his nose, he headed to the kitchen, dancing the whole way to the movie's theme music in nothing but his boxer briefs.

Noah doing things in his underwear has become a daily staple of my marital diet since he became a police officer. Noah is warm-natured, so spending ten-hour shifts encased in body armor and polyester causes him to shrivel as though he'd spent the time in a pool instead. Needless to say, he needs to air out a bit before putting anything else back on. And take a shower, if we're being frank, and I think we are.

Just last week I was party to a nearly nude baseball-swing clinic in our living room.

To date, his best performance was back in Academy. Other than suffering through helping him practice his take-down and arrest moves, I once had to hold a straight face for more than 20 minutes while Noah re-enacted an entire handgun-training obstacle course in his underpants. He leaped between the couch and the pantry, took up a prone position under the dining-room table, and Army-crawled from there to around the hall corner. He finished with a triumphant flourish of air-gunfire at the front door.

That I actually felt a swell of pride at the end proves one thing: Apparently, Noah married the right girl.