Surfacing at last....

A note of mea culpa to my reader-subscribers and some personal stuff.

Ma vie en rose (et noir) - Birthday 2023

Dear subscribers and random readers.

Well, well. Mea culpa seems to be the word of the month. As in, aye, sorry sorry, sorry sorry, really, I didn’t mean for the days to slide by without a word to you. But somehow, February slid by all the same, and now nearly March. I wrote in early January to say that, if I go AWOL in these pages for a bit, you should know that it’s for a legit reason, because I love writing my ‘stack and I feel deeply appreciative to the dozen+ of you particularly who have paid to support my writing here.

Fact is, I’ve re-learned that I can’t easily shift to hours of creative writing when I have heavy paid gigs sitting on my brain and several tight deadlines. I’m an old school freelance journo and in November, I threw out a rope to see if I could snag some new good work for 2023. Well, I got lucky, and I ended up saying yes a bit too much, I suppose, and I’ve been paying the piper as they say, ever since. Working my tush off. I like doing that, but it’s been a lot. Anyway, my sincere apologies, subscriber-readers; I really didn’t anticipate it would take all my extra creative bandwidth, or nearly. But it did. I just couldn’t find that extra fizzy juice ‘round midnight that I like to bring to my SubStack writing.

So – without overstating my promises now – I’ll just say that I plan to get back to my irregular-regular column here before the month is out, and I have some wonderful pieces in the hopper. Action speaks louder than words, so look for them in your mailbox.

While I’m here, I may as well share a bit more about my past two months. After all, my column is titled, Tell Me Everything.

AC at 21, riding a train in Europe. Happily traveling.

One of the biggest things that happened is that I had to face the demon of that big number, 65, square on. I’m a Pisces, born 2.27.58. The Partridge family era, Donovan, the Monkees…that 70s generation. I’ve been around for a minute then, but it all feels like yesterday, or so much of it. Truth is, I was feeling a bit out of sorts about hitting that number in the fall of 2022. Like a lot of you, I think, especially my friends who are older than I am, it’s a friggin mind trip. We feel no older, but the mirror does not lie. And I don’t mind the mirror, either, truth be told. I’m happy being the age I am and in the life I’m in. But somehow, that number threw me off. I associated it with my grandparents and I’m not ready for that and maybe that’s where the disconnect came in. How could I be 65? Fuck! Honestly, it felt…well…disorienting. That’s really the best word.

I felt two impulses in response to my bday. One: run away to a tropical island and get a tan and eat healthy and try to do yoga and go offline and avoid the Facebook birthday greetings, or, two: embrace it. As in, truly embrace it. Find some way to really dig in and feel differently. Jettison the self-alienation.

I opted for no. 2. I decided the only intelligent thing to do was to go big and have a mad party and invite as many people as I could fit from different parts of my life to join me in a bit of life celebration. Not only could I then not publicly deny my bday, but I could invite them to share the journey. Because – deep truth -- I really do appreciate every bit of the journey. This feeling multiplies when I think of my mother and loved ones and friends who died before their time, and when I see others who struggle with hard illnesses or how to find and keep happiness. I feel so blessed, a thousand times over. That doesn’t change the fact that I can’t believe I actually belong to the AARP set now. But hell, I guess I do. Me and Madonna. She seems to be taking it all rather poorly, I’d add. Then again, the spotlight is megawatt hotter on a celeb.

I also wanted to embrace living my wellest glammest bestest healthiest fittest now and here on in, and that became my birthday wish and pledge to myself. No going gently into any fucking good night. Never have, never will. But going out, yes, and going strong, and going out with friends old and new, and going dancing, and going on weekend trips to fun places, and definitely going to places I’ve never been like Malta in 2024 (a friend invited me) and going to see Lizzo in May (a bday prez from a bestie – excited!) and definitely spending even more time with old friends than ever. I’m all about dinner parties and game nights and organized friends trips to wherever. I want even more quality time with my wonderful daughters. I want to spend time with my friends in their homes, get to know them better. I like sleepovers. And romance, of course. Gotta have that. Life passes us too fast. I want to go deeper, even in my more casual friendships. You have to make time for people. That’s what I started to do when I returned to NY last fall and plan to continue.

I’ve never been to China, Japan, Argentina, or the Maldives, just sayin. Never Bali, not Hawaii, either. Lots of adventure to be had. I’ve wanted to check out the Ouagadougou African film festival and sit with local African film audiences to hear what they think. I think I need to check out Buenos Aires tango bars since Wong Kar Wai made them look so sexy in one of my favorite moody movies, Happy Together. I still want to travel on the slow Trans-Siberian Express train from Russia to Mongolia and drink Cynar on ice while chatting with the old-school servers in their formal wear. Just to slow down time in that way. To watch the Mongolian countryside pass like a dream. While I do, maybe I’ll rewatch the wild epic film by Ulrike Ottinger, Joan of Arc of Mongolia, in which the director somehow convinced two Mongolian tribes and local actors to drag their yurts across the meadows one summer to act out a thinly-disguised lesbian Mongolian warrior-princess love story. I recall finding the politics of the film troublesome back in the 90s, but what I mostly retain is a memory of these amazing scenes of the Mongolian countryside as seen from the train, with people on horseback and a feeling of gorgeous beauty.

I also definitely plan on more consistently making time for the things that make me happiest, including writing. I’ve been wanting a writer’s group but I’ve done zero to make that happen, and I would really like a new, great lit agent, too, and I’ve also done zero about finding one (my last agent retired). So, if you happen to have leads for either of these, do share. I realize I can use this ‘stack to build more lit community, too. For some reason, it overwhelms me to look for an agent again. I want to slip away to the fantasy tropical island in my head when I think about it, avoid the slog of the search. I know what I’m supposed to do to find one, too. I’ve even taken a workshop to hone my search. I just keep not doing it. I just want an agent to ride in like a hero in a movie and scoop me up. So, if you are or know any hero-agents out there, please send them my way. Thank you. Same for great work gigs. I’m always open to that.

Anyway, all this was a long introduction to the fact that I had a big blowout birthday in early March and it was the best. The only bummer was that I had limit my guest list for space/security reasons and I couldn’t invite everyone I wanted to dance with and gossip and say, hey, hey, it’s so nice to see you. It was really fantastic to reconnect with many old friends, including childhood friends from my early Daytona Beach, Fl days, and then Rollins College serious tennis days that I hadn’t seen in, well, decades, and then Barnard College days and then ex-girlfriends, and then 80s Haiti pro-democracy reporting days and early activism and then 90s ACT UP and Lesbian Avengers and AIDS-science stuff then Rwanda WE-ACTx work and women’s health activism, well, all the important milestones of my life. A big mishmash. It was the biggest birthday gift I could have given myself. It felt amazing. I couldn’t stop smiling. I felt so free dancing, too. The soundtrack was my greatest hits. Lotsa 80s Brit punk pop bands. What a dream.

And at one point, I remember looking around the bar-resto I’d rented for the party and thinking, oh my god, I’m so happy. An inner-jesusandmary-divine moment. That’s when I realized I’d gotten actually gotten myself through what was obviously some form the classic Kubler stages of denial and loss and grief to acceptance I had about turning 65 and reached a new place of deep joy.

And that’s where I plan to stay, tyvm.

So, for all of you who are contemplating another year older, I say, come on in, the water’s warm. It’s Everything Everywhere All at Once and it’s your beautiful life and we carry every minute we’ve lived into the next, nothing gets lost, we embody all of it. If you feel like I did, disoriented, not thrilled at the prospect, maybe think about throwing a reunion party with all your friends. It’s the best fizzy tonic, let me tell you. I’m still feeling full of happy bubbles weeks later.

Feeling fizzy at the big fete. March 4, 2023.

Photo: GirlRay (aka Sue Schaffner).

Final note: I do have a big old slideshow of 500 photos, but I don’t want to put them on SubStack. DM if you want to see the carousel of my life and so many pals and events that I treasure. I’ll send you a link. I’m happy to keep the party going. Just keep it private, merci.

Oh, and happy birthday to all you fellow Pisces. Swim on….