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Looking Your Age
Not me, obvs When I first moved back to Portland last year, I started documenting compliments from strangers because it was such a novel experience. Anything from “I love your hair,” to “Nice lipstick,” to “I like your dress,” because as basic as it sounds, I never heard any of these simple statements in my two decades in NYC.
Recently, though, I noticed they had dropped off. Maybe they are only good for one year? Maybe I’d lost my new resident glow? Maybe I was just one year older and one year fatter? It’s probably because when I run errands, I no longer wear dresses and makeup because I live in a far-flung neighborhood where no one needs impressing.
Four days after my 47th birthday, a late-50s receptionist at my doctor’s office referred to me as “young lady” to the person she was helping, then when it was my turn, she said, “You don’t look your age at all! I would’ve guessed mid-30s.”
Sure, that’s flattering and a nice little post-birthday boost, but I have become aware that “not looking your age” shouldn’t be the compliment it is intended as. I mean, what if I look 47? Or 52? Do I matter less?
I have entertained the idea of saying you’re four years older than you are so you can blow everyone away with your youthful good looks.
It’s funny, when I was doing my personal blog (which this is slowly morphing into) I would only post a photo of myself once a year on my birthday. This was the pre-selfie era when that felt more vulnerable. Now? I care much less and post photos in which I don’t love the way I look. I guess that’s progress.
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Jake’s
When: Thursday, 4:15pm. This happy hour jaunt before a dental appointment wouldn’t be notable enough to mention if it weren’t for a regular who had at some point stopped being a regular stopping in to chat with the bartender. They were discussing a long-time bartender who was no longer at Jake’s.
He was now plying his trade at Puff’s Pub. What?! I hadn’t heard that name in easily 30 years. Puff’s was the favorite hangout of the hostess I used to work with at my first job in 1989 at Hunan Garden in Gresham. This woman whose name slips my mind (though I do recall she had a baby named Nina because my sister babysat her when the hostess would go to Puff’s at night) confounded me because her style was stuck in the ’70s–curled hair, feathered away from her face, plaid midi-skirts, cowl-neck sweaters, chunky zip-up boots–but she didn’t appear old enough to be frozen in time. Though, on second thought, the math might work. I guess it would be the equivalent of still having my teenage ’80s look in the late ’90s (which I did not) when I was mid-20s.
I’m now very curious about the 2019 Puff’s Pub.
Age Appropriate? On the surface, Jake’s, now owned by McCormick & Schmick, would seem like a classic middle-aged hang, but I was the only woman sitting inside the bar area at all.
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Rogano
For self-governing ladies only. When: Wednesday, 4:20pm
I rarely do these bar surveying posts anymore because I go out and drink far less in Portland than when I was in NYC. I’m not sure if it’s age (I hope not) but I have nearly no urge to drink ever, which is both physical and mental. It’s not exactly a problem–I can still drink like used to; I just don’t want to–though it’s strange.
In Glasgow, I stopped into Rogano, a wonderfully old-school deco bar where the dining room is modeled after a luxury liner, all sweaty and harried having just wasted hours running around trying to find a correct US to UK power adapter (the first two I bought didn’t work with my laptop) so that I could work on “vacation,” the most un-vacation-like vacation I’ve ever had–I’m still bitter and exhausted.
When you write for a living, it’s often possible to build a backlog before you take off, but my current gig presents new challenges daily and multiple ad hoc duties, which required me to spend hours in my hotel room and Airbnb every day, waking up at 7am to six-plus messages with assignments and grinding out daily 800-word articles on dry, technical subjects. So far in life, I’ve managed to avoid this type of relentless micro-managed work. I thought that was what being middle-aged was all about.
So, I snuck out for a French 75 while waiting for more urgent emails. I sat on a stool next to a woman with a brown bob who might’ve been early-to-mid-30s, conservatively dressed in a trenchcoat, slacks, and flats, making her seem like she must work in finance. I don’t know what people do for work in Glasgow. She was sitting with an older man in a suit who I took to be a regular. She complimented my order because it was her favorite drink, She said that she made a lot of French 75s when she lived in Pakistan. Ok.
She started talking to the super young bartender who was on his first week of employment about complicated drinks. Singapore Slings are apparently the most complex–or at least contain a lot of ingredients. I took this as my cue to mention that the ones served at Raffles in Singapore aren’t that good. “At Raffles?!” “Really?” She then asked if I was in London much, so I guess my weird stranger lady neg worked, and recommended some good bars.
I’m pretty sure I lost her attention when I mentioned out loud that I had been receiving emails and had to get back to work. An adult woman with no agency is a turnoff, I get it. I also used to be the type that could ignore emails and blow off work. Now it’s come to this. Working on vacation to pay my mortgage with 65% of my salary.
Yes, I realize the privilege to be able to pay for plane tickets, hotels, and Airbnbs, which were not insignificant costs. (I was on unemployment when I decided to tag along with my sister on this trip. I had free time but dwindling savings and thought why not?)
Then a dark-haired 60-ish woman dolled up in sequins and wearing vibrant makeup sat between the already present woman and the older gentleman, a far more interesting subject, so she turned her attention accordingly.
I left and bought a bottle of white wine at Aldi, contradicting my above statement about drinking losing its appeal, and continued to work in my hotel room for the next three hours.
Age appropriate? Most definitely. Any business taking design cues from the Queen Mary can’t be for youngsters.
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Vintage Cocktail Lounge
When: Saturday, 4:47pm
A woman, even under 40, reading a book at the bar is usually a good sign. I also noticed a gray-hair at a picnic table outside and the female half of a couple sitting at the bar also had gray hair, which is definitely more of a common sight in Portland than in NYC.
Age Appropriate? Pretty much.
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Fleabag
What does someone 38-54 have to say about all this? The scene where Fleabag (I only just realized the character doesn’t have a proper name) was having martinis with the “Woman in Business” award-winner immediately caught my attention because I’m always attuned to older women drinking on-screen. Then it took a turn into a soliloquy about aging while female, which took a turn into menopause.
Belinda: I’ve been longing to say this out loud — women are born with pain built in, it’s our physical destiny — period pain, sore boobs, childbirth, you know. We carry it with ourselves throughout our lives. Men don’t. They have to invent things like gods and demons… they create wars so they can feel things and touch each other… and we have it all going on in here. Inside, we have pain on a cycle for years.
Just when you feel you’re making peace with it, what happens? The menopause comes, the fucking menopause comes, and it is the most wonderful fucking thing in the world. And yes, your entire pelvic floor crumbles and you get fucking hot and no one cares. But then you’re free, no longer a slave, no longer a machine with parts, you’re just a person, in business.
Fleabag: I was told it was horrendous.
Belinda: It is horrendous, but then it’s magnificent. Something to look forward to.
Wow, ok, though I wasn’t sure if I was meant to identify with the messy 33-year-old or the wise 58-year-old. Millennials are becoming curious about menopause because it’s a major life change still in the abstract future while Gen X might already be there, at the threshold, or just a few years off. It’s neither hypothetical nor lived experience, for the most part.
The two characters in Fleabag that are most likely Gen X are Claire (Sian Clifford, 42), one of those chilly, successful self-controlled sheath dress women that I’m in awe of because that type is so foreign to my core being (that everyone mistakenly thought she was a lawyer rather than in finance was fitting) and the godmother, and the former is trying to get pregnant and the latter in a no-so-distant flashback expressed that she still might like to have a child. So, that’s what we have.
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Turning Japanese
In my limited experience, I wouldn’t say that Japanese women are looks-obsessed but they are pretty rule-oriented. Like I was always pleasantly surprised to see any women who were larger and love Naomi Wantanabe obvs, and Azusa Babazono, kooky stylish, not young, not tiny, is clearly the best Terrace House host.
This is just a long-winded way of saying I was surprised to find an Instagram account called grayhair_tokyo. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a non-elderly Japanese woman in the US or Japan with gray hair.
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Orn Mor
When: Saturday, 4pm
Pubs are almost cheating, particularly pubs outside the U.S. This pub happened to be in Glasgow, where at least half the bar was over 40, many over 60, but also with a sprinkling of youngsters.
Age Appropriate? Always.
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Millennial-Style Ads For Middle-Aged Women
I still haven’t inadvertently come across any of the Glossier ads I was recently referring to, but I did spy one the gray-haired models in an ad for some new company called Rory that looks like millennial-bait but has a menopause focus. Of course!
Just like there seems to only be five go-to plus-size models every brand uses, the gray-haired model club also appears limited in number.
Speaking of menopausal Instagram ads, I saw one while scrolling that was so grotesque I thought I might’ve been having a stroke because it couldn’t possibly be real. If this is what passes for openness about once taboo subjects, I’d like to go back to the dark ages.
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Brutal
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Same As It Ever Was
