“But I just keep trying,” Bella said, “and every now and then, I hit on a beauty.”
7) Madonna and Me and the AARP
Everywhere, disco balls are being taken down, dismantled, sold at flea markets, their glittering little mirrors no longer reflecting: us. It is too triste. I am strangely nostalgic for bad relationships, flouncing about with huge hair on the dance floor, leg warmers and just a touch of cocaine. How can disco really be over? Is it now kitch? Retro? Golden Oldie material? In rest homes we’ll kick up our legs in our wheelchairs to Donna Summer, to Depeche Mode, to “Like a Virgin.”
That night I lay in bed thinking about Madonna, who also recently turned fifty, and wondered if her re-re-re-invention wings were getting tired. I wondered how she was doing; if she’d begun to study the obits like I do, to gasp at the comparative youth of most who die. I wondered if she inspected her body each morning for strange growths, if she vogued in the shower. Will she ever get that gap between her teeth fixed? Does she really like yoga, or is she full of sh-t? Do her hormones race and surge, then suddenly retreat and hide like mine? Does she have skin tags that she puts tiny little fishnet stockings on? Does bad lighting make her sad? What will she do when she turns sixty? Will she still try to be sizzling? I heard she sleeps in a full-body moisturizer-lined body suit. How long will that last? What does she do when her work day is over, after a long day of the bump and the grind? I imagined a secret stash of blueberries she made jam out of when no one was looking. A closetful of Clarks and Easy Spirits that she gazed at longingly as she soaked her feet in a hot bath.
I wanted to tell her about Bella in her Cozy Jam Shack, boiling and boiling whatever was around, tasting the results and laughing with joy.
8) Sleeping Late in Our Fancy Hotel Room, Fiftyness Came To Me, Unbidden.
