Happy birthday! Woot woot!

I’m not sure why, but I thought you were a bit younger than that. Your vibe fooled me. :-) Which might have something to do with the point of your story! 55 just isn’t old anymore. It’s easier for guys, though. I’m 57, and I think people tend to dismiss me as irrelevant less often than they would a 57 year old woman.

Well … there is traditional gay male culture to consider, which can treat older men harshly unless they have a lot of money, but that’s another story, and perhaps a subset of patriarchal misogyny.

On a completely different note, by the way, the thought just struck me that Tamara was one of Robert Heinlein’s powerful women characters. He wrote science fiction in the 70s and 80s that pretty frankly celebrated polyamory.

Have you read any of his stuff?

Jim