(Still more advice from the internet.)

Dear Xander and Mariluisa,

Thanks to a recent promotion, my wife and I have moved from a completely ungated community where everyone was sad and angry because of the lack of gates to a fully gated community where the residents have been totally warmhearted and welcoming, inviting us to join in their many activities, including the Friday Afternoon Sex Club, an ironic title seeing that the club meets every afternoon except Friday. The trouble is that my wife suffers from Mandelbaum’s condition, which causes her to throw up when having sex, which, in the normal course of things, we “work around,” either by not having sex, or by having it but pretending that we’re not, or by wearing those plastic rain ponchos from Costco. My wife, who tends to trust people perhaps too easily, thinks we should tell everyone, or at least Mr. Lesseps de Lesseps, the Friday Afternoon Sex Club’s coördinator, about her situation. I am not so sure. When I was a youngster, I had bad experiences with rich people chasing us with trained ferrets.

—“Derek”

Dear Derek, Big hi from Mariluisa. Just askin’, but were the ferrets trained only to chase, or to do other stuff? Balance things on their noses? Could be cute. But, seriously, Mandelbaum’s condition is very well known. President Harding’s second wife had it. So did Mrs. James Joyce(!). And Mozart’s acrobat brother. Yes, it afflicts both genders, and, of course, all the genders in between both genders. Serious condition, not to be taken lightly or to be laughed at, although of course everyone does both. Way of the world.

Hey, “Derek,” Xander here. Ever think about upgrading from Costco to Nordstrom? Could make all the difference. I’m wearing mine right now.

Dear Xander & Mariluisa,

J and I have been in a relationship for two months, well, almost three, and we agree on most things—Grubhub over DoorDash, Hector Pinata over MK4, no eating condiments during sex. Now J wants us to adopt a child, he says, to deepen the relationship. J read somewhere that adopted children work out better than the other kind, because, when you adopt a child, it comes with all sorts of documents, like a warranty. Especially a kid from a war zone. J says kids from a war zone are also bound to be grateful, so even if you’re not “perfect” as a parent, if you miss a few tricks—say, you go out for stir-fry and end up on a container ship bound for Singapore—the adopted kid is not going to give you a hard time. So my question is: Do we adopt one? Or go for a whole set, so they can take care of one another? Did I say that J can make frog noises that sound like a real frog, something kids are bound to get a kick out of?

—Eulalie

Hey, Eulalie. Xander here. I wish more young people had a desire to deepen their relationships, instead of going off half cocked to an all-night grouting party and coming home with someone they think is partner material but is actually the cleaning lady or a blood relative. But let me ask a question. There are war zones, and there are war zones. I mean, there are places where bombs are still being dropped and flames being thrown. Horrible. But I keep hearing about drones and invisible robot warriors and computers fighting other computers, so I’m thinking that there must be plenty of war zones now where nothing much is going on, so a kid growing up there is maybe not going to be too grateful for being uprooted and sent to Cleveland. Know what I mean?

Dear Xander & Mariluisa,

My husband comes from a super-rich family. Big house on the lake. Speedboat. Every afternoon, all the other wives go waterskiing, sometimes on one ski, all in a row, with their other legs raised high like Rockettes, except on water. My parents came from Bosnia, where waterskiing was a punishable offense. Somebody would water-ski and never be heard from again. So naturally I don’t know how to do it and have to sit on the veranda in the afternoon with all the old aunties, watching the wives sweep up and down the lake, all in a row, smiling to beat the band. “Oh, so cute,” one of the aunties will exclaim. “Like in the newsreels.” “What’s a newsreel?” one of the younger aunties will ask. And so it goes. I have asked my husband, Tim, either to teach me how to water-ski or to take us somewhere else for vacation. “Like Bosnia?” he will say. Tim says we need to take our vacations in the big house, so Popsy can receive the love that keeps him young in spirit, though Popsy hasn’t talked in two years. How can I get Tim to make some changes? In Bosnia, they have a saying: “Where the tree grows, the magpies fly.” Maybe that’s where to begin?

—Larissa

Mariluisa writing: Hi, Larissa, I am bowled over by your free spirit, and also by your love of synchronous waterskiing, which looks a lot easier to do than it actually is. And try holding that smile over two miles of choppy water in Galveston Bay. “Where the tree grows, the magpies fly.” Seems to say it all. ♦