Happy Menopause Awareness Day to All Who Celebrate...

Plus links to other Oldster-ish content.

Paintings by Georgia O’Keefe

I tend to read, watch, and listen to an awful lot of Oldster-ish content (or which at least has Oldster-ish elements to it). Now and then I’ll pass some of it along to you.

What makes something qualify as Oldster-ish? It either highlights or calls into question what it means to be a particular age. Or, it’s nostalgic for any age group’s heyday.

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1. Happy Menopause Awareness Day! In her newsletter, Feminist Giant, Mona Eltahawy helpfully reminds you to moisturize your vagina.

2. Dear Polly (aka Heather Havrilesky) responds to a woman who, at 50, is tired of “jittery men.” Although, come to think of it, is there any age at which one appreciates jitteriness in a partner?

3. “After weathering two crushing recessions throughout their careers yet still finding ways to break countless cultural barriers, Gen X women have absolutely no intention of heading into middle age quietly.” Damn straight. (Amy Schoenthal in Forbes)

4. “In health care settings, ageism can be explicit. An example: plans for rationing medical care ("crisis standards of care") that specify treating younger adults before older adults. Embedded in these standards, now being implemented by hospitals in Idaho and parts of Alaska and Montana, is a value judgment: Young peoples' lives are worth more because they presumably have more years left to live.” Seniors are mad as hell about age discrimination in health care, and they’re not gonna take it anymore. (CNN)

5. Paul Simon is 80. That’s EIGHTY. (Stereogum)

6. William Shatner is 90 (NINETY), and also now the oldest person to have traveled to space. Even though his trip was funded by a problematic billionaire (is there any other kind?), and couldn’t have been less environmentally sound, Shatner insists he cares about the earth. (New York Times, CNN)

7. Diane Keaton never stops being relevant, and not just to her own generation of Baby Boomers. The lastest evidence: She’s starring in Gen Z-er Justin Beiber’s video for his new single, “Ghost.”

8. “The first time I understood humiliation as world-destroying was the morning I watched the World Trade Center evaporate from a street corner in Greenwich Village and found myself thinking, This is payback for a century of humiliation.” 86-year-old essayist Vivian Gornick’s still got it—for my money, one of the best essayists around. (Harpers)

9. “I truly believe in the power of never giving up, and I like to think it took just as long as it was supposed to.” In a piece from the LitHub archive, Janet Clare writes about publishing her debut novel later in life.

10. Rickie Lee Jones talks to Debbie Millman about five decades of making music. (Print Mag)

11. "The average life expectancy after a glioblastoma multi diagnosis is about a year. Brenda was transferred to the palliative care unit of our local hospital. I spent time with her every day. I was, I thought, preparing myself for the inevitable. Wrong." - Richard Toth on what losing his wife of 51 years has taught him about grief. (Huffington Post)