Who You Calling 'Granny', Punk?

"I can go all night long," he's saying. "And all I can think is, 'Please don't'."

                    

         

I turned 75 recently, a birthday which feels very landmark. Like the Empire State Building, although spiritually what I aspire to is vintage Airstream; a cute little  silver ‘50s trailer traveling adventurously about, although, now that I think about it, it has to be hauled.

Is that what lies ahead at seventy-five? Inability to travel under my own steam? In the last few months, I have found myself searching out the elevators in the subway rather than taking the stairs. I want to blame that on the lingering effects of COVID, which finally caught up with me last month, but stair avoidance was happening before. Maybe COVID has advance effects. I could float that story on Twitter and in two weeks it would be fact.

I was okay turning 60. I was even okay with 64, which has a skinny, older woman, leopard-skin vibe; someone with money who seduces young guys.  ‘Cougar’, which was never been my thing, but is preferable to ‘granny’, which is what I will be called in The New York Post if I get mugged.

“Granny pushed in front of Q train at rush hour at Union Square. Trains delayed one hour while workers retrieved flaccid body parts and severed head with noticeably thin hair. ‘Too bad nobody told her about Minoxidil”,  one said. ‘She could have died with dignity.’”

I never married, I have no grandchildren, but it doesn’t matter. If you are a woman in your 70s and tragedy strikes, you’re ‘granny’ or ‘elderly woman’.  I would prefer, ‘Woman of a certain age’, as in “A woman of a certain age was shoved in front of Q train.” Or , even better, “A woman who was at first believed to be in her 30s was shoved in front of the Q train at Union Square. Forensic specialists have been called in to determine age, because her butt,  reassembled in the medical examiner’s office, looked that good.”

But of course, that’s a dream. My butt looks nothing like it did in my 30s; it began flattening out years ago. My waist and midriff have thickened. In photos, my shoulders sometimes appear rounded and even bent. And the thing is, this lifelike outer casing, is a lie. I am as immature as I always have been. I’m still attracted to guys who are trouble. I still want something sweet when I’m depressed.  I still want sex. I just can’t do it spontaneously. Sex in your 70s is like giving a dinner for eight. It requires planning.

Here is another weird thing: I have lived in Greenwich Village for over 50 years. I paid $77 a month rent for an apartment over a gay leather bar on Christopher Street in 1970. I  had Sunday brunch at grubby hang-outs long defunct; Montana Eve, The Buffalo Roadhouse, The Riviera Cafe, where I exchanged explicit stories of the night before with my good friend, Heidi.

“…and he’s wearing leopard skin bikini underwear and he says, ‘I can go all night’ ”, I’m saying. “And all I can think is, ‘Please, don’t.’”                      

And we’re laughing. And all around us, other Village women who get nosebleeds above 14th street are exchanging their Saturday night stories; a three-way in Bermuda, because out of town doesn’t count; al fresco against a tree outside New Paltz; the age old question, dating back to when the Village streets were farmland, to swallow or spit?  

Now I walk around through the neighborhood and see women my age, trim, in cool sneakers and expensive Eileen Fisher tops, but with white hair and glasses, and think, “Don’t I know you?”, “Didn’t we sleep with the same guy and laugh about it at a party?”  “Just curious, are dilators and Astroglide part of your sexual prep? Have you found any guy in our age group who can maintain the sort of erection he did in his 30’s? What about Jack Aubrey, the book reviewer from the Voice, we all slept with Jack Aubrey?.. No kidding?... Dead.”

The Village women I know really are grannies, unavailable for brunch because they’re watching the kids. The Village men, once hot and cocky in their Frye boots and tight jeans, strutting down Bleecker Street leading with their crotch, have thick pink cardiac surgery scars zippering their chests or are whining about arthritis. I’m whining about arthritis. The other day, at “Leopoldstadt” – two hours without intermission, thank you so much, Tom Stoppard – my hip started to hurt.

 “Damn seats,” I thought.

Then I realized, it wasn’t the seats. It was the same sharp pain I have in my left hip when I have been driving three hours; the hip that a recent bone scan revealed to have osteoarthritis.  I,  ‘70s Greenwich Village girl reporter, have arthritis.

And driving, if I am perfectly honest, is not as much fun as it used to be. In the last few years, driving a tiny Miata convertible, I had become afraid that the trucks on I-95 weren’t seeing me. My peripheral vision was not as good; when I moved into the right lane cars suddenly appeared out of nowhere.  I had to concentrate at busy intersections. I was feeling something I had never felt on the road: Vulnerable.

I had driven Miatas for twenty five years, always stick shift, always red.  They reminded me of the cartoon cars that bounced from tire to tire. Just looking at my car made me grin, the thought of giving it up was unbearable. But I couldn’t kid myself about the changes in my vision. I had cataract surgery. I took an AARP driver refresher course. I traded in the Miata for a larger, sturdier Mustang, meeting the out of town dealer’s driver for a swap on the New Jersey turnpike, unable to watch when he drove my car away.  

Still, I have to say, if you’re making a concession to aging, a Mustang is not a bad way to go. My car is still red, it’s still a sports car, it’s still a convertible. I’m a careful driver, not a fast one; the sound system has always been more important to me than how fast a car gets from zero to sixty, but these new Mustangs are fierce.

And if I spot some clown, checking his texts on the Thruway, it gives me great satisfaction to hit the gas and roar away from him. Especially if the top is down and my white hair is flying.

“Eat my dirt, punk,” I think, because, really, I have no interest at all in being Granny

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