The Age of Aquarius
"You know we all have our sad times. And then again we all have our glad times."
Tomorrow May Not Be Your Day
Yesterday it was my birthday
I hung one more year on the line
I should be depressed
My life's a mess
But I'm having a good time
—Paul Simon, “Have a Good Time”
Actually, tomorrow is my birthday, but “Have a Good Time,” off of Paul Simon’s 1975 album, Still Crazy After All These Years, seems especially appropriate. As my loving though straight-shooting father, Herbert “Bert” Parsons, once told me over the phone on my birthday when I was living in Seattle and feeling especially blue: “Everybody’s got a birthday, Brad. It’s just another day on the calendar.” He had a point, and I always remember his wisdom when January 24 comes around.
I’ve never been a “Birthday Week” kind of guy. No matter the day of the week it comes around on, that’s the day you should celebrate, even if it’s a Tuesday. I have a nostalgia for the McDonald’s birthdays of my youth, when everyone got hopped up on lip-staining Orange Drink, ate cheeseburgers, and traded Happy Meal toys. And during my college years my mother always arranged to make sure I received a carrot cake (even if it was mailing me a check to pick one up myself). I’m not sure how that tradition started, but at some point in my life (likely on an occasion when I was raving about the merits of cream cheese frosting while tucking into a slice of carrot cake) my mother believed that her youngest son loved carrot cake and made sure he got a carrot cake on his birthday. I never had the heart to tell her that, yes, I like carrot cake, but not with the devotion she thought I held for it.
In my post-collegiate years I adopted a more solitary approach to celebrating another lap around the sun. I graduated with a double degree in English/Writing Arts and Theatre and I spent the first two years of college auditioning for plays before I focused full-time on writing. In that era before email and mobile phones, the final cast list would be posted on the bulletin board near the Theatre office. While most hopeful applicants would rush to crowd around the board to see if they landed a role as soon as the final cast was announced, I always left campus for the day, usually to see a movie or take a long drive, and then return to see the results in the empty hallway after hours for a hopefully silent and solo celebration. It seemed to work as I was cast in several plays, including the first one I auditioned for which only brought on two freshmen.
I tend to approach my birthday in the same manner. I like to leave my apartment for the day and start at a bakery or coffee shop with a cortado and a pastry; take a long walk around the city stopping by favorite bookstores (it’s nice to think of all those years I wanted to be a writer and now, when I’m lucky, my actual books are there on a shelf); watch the world go by from a park bench and nod at passersby; have a round of beers and a liverwurst sandwich at the John Lennon table at McSorleys; catch a matinee or go to a museum; grab a cocktail at a favorite bar; and have dinner sitting at the bar at a place I’m fond of.
Like my father, I’m a creature of habit, and I’ve accepted my single status in life and I feel bad when friends, especially those coupled up, have to entertain me or take me out. It’s not out of pity, they genuinely care for me, but I always feel guilty. As for milestone birthdays, turning 30 was fairly unremarkable as I had just moved to Seattle and aside from one dear friend I didn’t really know anyone. I’m sure I spent the day on one of my walkabouts. For my 40th I bought out the private room at the Palace Kitchen and hosted ten friends for a dinner composed of all my favorite Palace dishes. My girlfriend at the time even arranged a BTP trivia game with prizes for those who could answer questions such as “What is Louis’ middle name?” (correct answer: “Alva”). For my 50th, a group of dear friends celebrated the occasion with a Lancaster, Pennsylvania, getaway filled with pretzel factory tours, distillery visits, farmers’ markets and doughnuts, with a marathon dinner at LUCA followed by chicken wings and mystery beers at the Horse Inn, closing down the bar with jukebox picks, foosball, and late-night poker.
As for tomorrow, I’ve been wanting to check out “Edward Hopper's New York” at the Whitney but they’re closed on Tuesdays. There’s the Alex Katz exhibit at The Guggenheim. Or maybe I’ll wind up seeing a matinee of M3GAN or The Fabelmans. I’ll have a nice constitutional and I’m sure I’ll wind up at the bar of a favorite joint with a Negroni and an early dinner, and I’ll raise a glass to my family and friends and good fortune for the year ahead. Ideally there will be a hot fudge sundae or a slice of pie or cake at some point.
I’m at the age now where life feels like minutes ticking away in the fourth quarter of a Knicks game after they’ve squandered a 20-point lead in the first half. A have a good friend around the same age as me and we constantly text each other the latest celebrity obit and each one seems to be closer and closer to our own ages. That stings in an unsettling way.
And it doesn’t help that January is such a dreary month. We’ve had no snow in New York City and even when it’s sunny out it’s been cold and gray. January is an especially rough month, financially, for freelancers. Or at least it’s always been and continues to be the case for me as I scramble to land assignments with editors coming off of an extended holiday break. I have a big research and photography trip to Italy coming up and I should be terribly excited about it but honestly it’s so much work planning it on my own that it’s just overwhelmed me to a point of paralysis. I’m sure it will be great (at least I hope) and once I’ve touched down in Milan with Ed Anderson and the momentum takes over and amidst the huge amount of work ahead of us, I’m sure I will find some moments of joy and appreciation. But right now, it’s freaking me out big time. I think, for my next book, it might be time to focus on that long-considered novel, Dough Boy. Or at least a project that doesn’t involve extensive, expensive travel.
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