Beachcomber Mike Turns 62

I thought I was done, but it seems I've still got a new frontier or two to explore.

Saturday, March 25, 10:16pm. I wanted to write this while it was still my birthday. Sixty-second birthday. Feeling blessed. Feeling grateful. Life has gotten a lot better since my husband moved out of the house on October 31, 2021. It got worse before it got better, because he sued me for divorce on August 2, 2022. He was seeking a court order to force the sale of our house—the house he moved out of, the house I was still living in, the house I intended to continue living in—the best option I saw for making a post-marital life for myself, especially as a a freelance writer over the age of 60 with no retirement savings and no one paying for my health insurance.

If the preceding paragraph sounds like the words of a man who was angry, bitter, and frightened—well, you get the idea. But now, 17 months after he moved out, it’s (cue music)

a whole new world…a new fantastic point of view…a dazzling place I never knew.

I mean, after all—I can smoke weed in the house! I can have men over at any time of day or night! I can drink as much wine and spirits as I want to! I can overdo it, and fall asleep at eight o’clock at night, and wake up at two o’clock in the morning, and drink some coffee, and work for a couple of hours until I get drowsy, and take a quick peek at the news apps on my phone before crawling back into bed, selecting a guided meditation on YouTube about self-love or letting go, and falling back to blissful sleep until seven or eight in the morning, when I get out of bed, pee, weigh myself, hop in the shower, get dressed, feed the kitties (who live outside the house), pour some coffee, and settle into a comfy chair with my New York Times crossword. Heaven!

Last night, as my birthday present to myself, I went to Carnegie Hall to attend a performance by Marilyn Maye, a cabaret artist and jazz singer who hit the scene in the 1960s and is turning 95 in April. I bought my ticket on kind of a lark—the email promotion hit my inbox, it was a chanteuse with whom I was not familiar singing selections from the American songbook with the New York Pops orchestra, ON THE EVE OF MY BIRTHDAY. Clearly, I had to go. And I did. And it was fabulous. Turns out Marilyn Maye is quite the gay icon, as I learned as soon as I sidled up to the ticket holders’ line last night on 57th Street and could not help but notice the sea of coupled gay male flesh in whose midst I found myself.

Maye’s 1966 recording of “Too Late Now,” a torchy ballad by Alan Lerner and Burton Lane, was selected by the Smithsonian Institution for its permanent collection of 20th-century recordings. She performed the song last night. It was new to me. Wikipedia informs me that the song was written for the Stanley Donen film Royal Wedding (1951), in which it was sung by the Jane Powell character as a declaration of love for the Peter Lawford character.

On one level, I am astounded that all of this is news to me; on another level, I am thrilled that all of this is news to me! I still have things to learn. Seriously. I was worried about that. I thought I was done. I’m not done. In fact, tonight, as I turn 62, I suspect I’m just getting started.

I was not intending to write chatty personal diaristic newsletters like this when I started this Substack. But, I don’t know—What do you think? Do you enjoy this kind of literary format from me? Cuz, like, I can spin this kind of thing out like Cotton Candy Annie spun, well, cotton candy, of course, behind the counter of her concession in Coney Island across the street from which I grew up in in the 1960s and 70s. For now, though, I’m gonna end this here…and finish listening to The Lamp Is Low, the Marilyn Maye album where her recording of “Too Late Now” lives.