This is 75: Joyce Wadler Responds to The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire

"When I was a kid, 75 was old — like housedresses and orthopedic shoes for the women and for the men, dead."

From the time I was 10, I’ve been obsessed with what it means to grow older. I’m curious about what it means to others, of all ages, and so I invite them to take “The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire.”

Here, journalist, former New York Times columnist, and humorist

Joyce Wadler

responds. -Sari Botton

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Joyce Wadler last fall, at 74.

Joyce Wadler

, who writes a humor column on Substack, is an award-winning New York City journalist who created and wrote the “I Was Misinformed” humor column for The New York Times, where she was a reporter for 15 years. Before going to the Times, Joyce was a feature writer and reporter for newspapers and magazines, as well as an author and screenwriter.             

Joyce was the New York correspondent for The Washington Post, a contributing editor for New York Magazine and Rolling Stone, a staff writer at People Magazine and The Daily News Magazine and a reporter at the New York Post, before it was owned by Rupert Murdoch.  

Her books include My Breast, her darkly funny breast cancer memoir, which she later adapted as a CBS television movie, and Liaison, the story of the French civil servant and the Chinese opera singer which inspired the play M. Butterfly.  The opera singer, Shi Pei Pu, sued to stop publication of the book in France. Some years later, Joyce wrote Shi’s obituary for The New York Times. It was one of her more satisfying assignments.

How old are you?

75

Is there another age you associate with yourself in your mind? If so, what is it? And why, do you think? 

I think of myself as 17 when I am driving during the day and as 86 when I am driving at night. The rest of the time I’m somewhere between 32 and 38. I think that’s because when I was a kid, 75 was old — like housedresses and orthopedic shoes for the women and for the men, dead. Also, my grandmother had been born in Russia, did not speak English well, and did not drive. She was not just another age, she was another universe.

Do you feel old for your age? Young for your age? Just right? Are you in step with your peers?

Young. I’m in step with my friends where it counts. We’re all complaining more about physical problems, but they aren’t getting in the way of life.

What do you like about being your age?

Medicare. And Senior discounts.

I think of myself as 17 when I am driving during the day and as 86 when I am driving at night. The rest of the time I’m somewhere between 32 and 38.

What is difficult about being your age?

My ass has disappeared. I first noticed this in the last week September 28, 2013. I’m certain of the date because I wrote a humor column for The New York Times called “Do These Pants Make My Rear-End Look Flat?” If I had the power, I’d make it a national day of mourning. I think there are still a few guys alive who remember it. (My ass, I mean, not the column.) I had tried on my favorite dress, which was a clingy 40’s number, and when I looked over my shoulder the back of my dress just sort of hung there. I imagine it was what it’s like for men when they see their first bald spot. I couldn’t believe it.

I went looking for a solution and the clerk in my favorite lingerie store told me about these things called butt pads. She said gay men valued a bubble butt as much as women and sent me across town to the West Village, where there are a lot of gay men’s stores, to find some — an insane idea which naturally, I followed. I eventually found some butt pads online, but I didn’t have the nerve to wear them. I was afraid they would be jumping around when I sat down, like two kids fighting under a blanket. But in the ten years since, my ass has gotten even flatter so I may be ready to try again.

Wadler at about 30, in 1978. “I had spent a weekend starving at a ‘fat farm,’ on assignment for The Daily News Magazine, and the photographer and I hit a country diner the minute we were out of there.” Photo by Roy Morsch.

What is surprising about being your age, or different from what you expected, based on what you were told?

What’s surprising is that stuff I saw on old people is happening to me. Once or twice I’ve seen a photo of myself in which my shoulders are bent and rounded like an old lady. It’s very upsetting — I can’t believe it! I do exercises to combat it, but I don’t know if they help. I’m also shedding hair all over the house. No one told me that would happen and it’s a major drag. My hair is white, my dress-up clothes are black. I’m leaving hair on the couch like a Persian cat.

What has aging given you? Taken away from you?

It’s given me Social Security, a pension, and a bad back.

It’s taken – have I mentioned this? – my ass. Also my nice firm neck, which I liked a lot. And my friends are starting to have serious health problems. On the other hand, one of my closest friends died fourteen years ago, from cancer. So it’s not strictly getting older that can kill you.  But as least, in your 50s, you can can leave the house in a black sweater once in a while.

My ass has disappeared. I first noticed this in the last week September 28, 2013. I’m certain of the date because I wrote a humor column for The New York Times called “Do These Pants Make My Rear-End Look Flat?” If I had the power, I’d make it a national day of mourning. I think there are still a few guys alive who remember it. (My ass, I mean, not the column.)

How has getting older affected your sense of yourself, or your identity?

Unless I’m driving at night I’m not sure it has.

That might be partly because when I look in the mirror, between the waist and the neck, I see an unnaturally young body.  That’s because I had breast cancer and reconstruction, so while my ass, which I don’t believe I’ve mentioned, is about 88 years old, my breasts are 17. If you were a guy, seeing me come into a room naked, then leave, you would think you’d been making love to two different women, although you’d only had to buy dinner for one. I should probably put that on the dating sites. I truly think that looking at this false front has given me a distorted sense of how old I am.

But the bigger part of it is that age is just not part of my identity.

If you woke me up in the middle of the night and said, “Quick, without thinking about it, who are you?”, I think I’d say, “Jewish, writer, female, New Yorker.” I don’t think my age would come into it. I identify as a writer. When I’m not writing, I’m depressed, when I’m writing and it’s going well, I’m happy. More than happy. It’s this I am-ness in the universe.

Wadler in front of the White House in the early ‘80s, in her early 30s. She was the New York correspondent for The Washington Post. Photo by Donal F. Holway.

I was lucky in work. I was able to work at The New York Times until I was 65. Nobody pushed me out, I left when I wanted to leave. And when I did, it was with a contract to do a humor column for them, which was what I had always wanted to do. That’s pretty wild, to have your dream job at 65.  At first my column, which was called, “I Was Misinformed”, was aimed at baby boomers, later I was able to make it general interest. I could write personal, funny things  I’d never been able to write at the paper before: Trying to decide if I could deliver an eye-rolling time in the sack that was equal to the cost of Viagara; wondering if my age-appropriate partner had had a great orgasm or a heart attack; feeling resentful as my inheritance went to my mother’s nursing home.

I wrote the column, on and off, for six years till 2018, when a new editor killed it. During COVID, I wrote the novel I had been thinking about writing for twenty years. It hasn’t been sold yet, but writing this thing that meant so much to me, I felt great.

I was lucky in work. I was able to work at The New York Times until I was 65. Nobody pushed me out, I left when I wanted to leave. And when I did, it was with a contract to do a humor column for them, which was what I had always wanted to do. That’s pretty wild, to have your dream job at 65.

The column I’m doing now, on Substack, did, interestingly, come out of turning 75, this past January. A friend had written to wish me Happy Birthday and I wrote back about how weird it was to be connected to that number. A piece, Who You Calling Granny, Punk?, came out of that and I decided the hell with trying to sell it and giving someone else the power to decide what gets published, I’m going to put it up on Substack and be my own boss.

I’m certain that’s one of the reasons I feel so happy these days. I’m doing what I want to do, I’m still in the game, I’m not in a job where somebody can fire me.

I am not defined by my age, I am defined by being a writer. Or whatever the me is that’s under the writer. Probably the same thing.

On assignment in 2011.

What are some age-related milestones you are looking forward to? Or ones you “missed,” and might try to reach later, off-schedule, according to our culture and its expectations?

I think I should tell you that in addition to breast cancer, I had ovarian cancer. It’s a genetic thing. I had it when I was 45 and it terrified me; it was an advanced cancer and I really thought I could die. I would have been very relieved to know I would get to be 75.

I missed certain things in life, but that was because of my own psychological mishigas. But on the other hand, that mishigas enabled me to do things other people didn’t get to do. So I think it all balanced out. I would like to have another serious romantic relationship before I check out. That’s very important to me.

I am not defined by my age, I am defined by being a writer. Or whatever the me is that’s under the writer. Probably the same thing.

What has been your favorite age so far, and why? Would you go back to this age if you could?

I tend to go by jean size, not age. So, I’d like to go back to 2016, when I was a size eight. On the other hand, there were things in my life which were not wonderful in 2016. My mother was in a nursing home, I had editors who might kill a column, I had a boyfriend who had a lot of problems, so I think I’ll stay where I am.

Is there someone who is older than you, who makes growing older inspiring to you? Who is your aging idol and why?

John Morris, a former photo editor for Life Magazine, The Washington Post and The New York Times, who died in Paris at 100. He was an editor for Life in Europe during World War II. He loved Paris and swore he would live there one day. And when he was in, I think, his mid-60s and became a widower for the second time, he left New York and moved to Paris with Tana Hoban, a children’s book photographer who would become his third wife. He was vital and creative and involved with friends and photography for as long as he was alive. He was a contributor for National Geographic, he wrote a memoir, he went to openings, and his apartment was always open to visiting journalists and photographers — including me when I went to Paris to work on a book. John didn’t sit in his apartment and whine that he was being sidelined because of his age. He stayed professionally active and socially engaged. I’m convinced that’s the secret to having a happy life. And he also must have had sensational genes. He had a gorgeous head of hair that guys in their 50s envied.

Wadler in Rhinebeck in the summer of ‘22, at 74.

What aging-related adjustments have you recently made, style-wise, beauty-wise, health-wise?

Five or ten years ago, I was diagnosed with reflux and I had to give up a lot of the foods I love: fried foods, tomatoes, caffeine, red wine, champagne, and sometimes even chocolate.

I’ve had to make a lot of adjustments around driving. I live in New York City and I don’t drive a lot, but I love convertibles and being in the country when the weather is great and I can put the top down. For years, I drove a Miata. But my night vision hasn’t been good for the last several years and a few years ago, I realized it was taking me longer to comprehend traffic directions. My brain was treating them like a foreign language. And when I switched lanes, cars popped up out of nowhere.  Miatas are very small and I was suddenly feeling vulnerable on the highway. I traded in my Miata for a much larger Mustang, I had cataract surgery, which has improved my night vision, and I took an AARP driver refresher course to learn how to compensate for these alleged age-related changes. You can see how much I hate to acknowledge physical changes with age.

I missed certain things in life, but that was because of my own psychological mishigas. But on the other hand, that mishigas enabled me to do things other people didn’t get to do. So I think it all balanced out.

I hated what was happening to my neck, so ten years ago I had a partial face-lift. I loved the result but neck lifts don’t last that long and it’s again wrinkly. I doubt I will have a face-lift again. Surgery is riskier as you get older and I think I look good for 75 — especially because, as I told you, I feel like I’m in my 20s.

My clothing style, which is casual — mostly Eileen Fisher — has not changed that much, except that I now avoid sleeveless tops because my upper arms are flabby. I’d like to believe that can be improved with exercise, but I would have to exercise to find out and I’m not sure it’s worth it. My neck, as I said, is wrinkled — some of my best friends are now scarves. I’ve worn NYDJ jeans, which give you an extra few inches in the waist, for years. Because of dry eye, I gave up contact lenses, but I think we babes of a certain age look better in glasses. My feet have gotten wider so it’s hard to find shoes I like. I love high heels, but I only wear them if I’m going somewhere I won’t have to walk.

Order Joyce Wadler’s books.

What’s an aging-related adjustment you refuse to make, and why?

The only aging-related adjustment I’m aware of is giving up driving when you can no longer drive safely and when it comes to that, I will. Maybe by then, I will have found some younger 70-year-old stud who can do the driving.

What’s your philosophy on celebrating birthdays as an adult? How do you celebrate yours?

I’m for celebrating everything you possibly can. But I don’t have a huge party — I live in New York, who has the space? I usually have dinner with my best friend, a guy who I’ve known for fifty years, who hung in with me through two cancers. We go out to a really nice place and maybe a show and even though I know it’s going to wreck my stomach, I have a glass of champagne. You’ve got to have champagne on your birthday.