From my 9/19 posting “An eventful day”:
On one front, considerable unease about the long, all-consuming, and physically debilitating project of dispossession of things in my condo. So I sent out a request (reproduced below) for leads on people who have accomplished what I hope to get out of all of that.
From that request:
I need some information about assisted living facilities (NOT retirement communities). Specifically, I need to hear, in detail, about anyone who has gone into an alf while maintaining a professional, academic, or artistic career. What I really want is to talk to such a person about how they managed that.
And then from the 9/19 posting:
The short answer is that, yes, people like me have indeed carried on their careers in an alf. I have direct leads to several of these people. (Of course, everybody’s story is different, but this outcome is clearly possible.)
Now, being the person that I am, I would normally have undertaken to interview a number of people and to visit a number of alfs, and to report on these activities to you as I was doing them (since many of you are keenly interested in such places that might be in the future for them). But I am way overloaded with things to do, have no helpers to take the burdens off my shoulders, and am fairly often sick. So I have left a great many things undone, and I have instead relied on the advice and judgment of the Bay Area Geriatric Care Management, who steered me to what they consider the best fit for me, an alf in San Carlos.
I’m on a waiting list there, probably for months to come. They have no experience with residents carrying on a professional life in the alf, but the necessary arrangements seem to be straightforward. Together with my daughter Elizabeth and my grandchild Opal, I have exercised considerable ingenuity in fitting all the office equipment and core professional library into the available space (at least on paper).
Meanwhile, there was the question of standing out not only as the lone working professional / academic but also as possibly the only gay resident. On the latter point, in my original tour of the place I was careful to wear one of my less aggressive FAGGOT t-shirts to test the waters. Met quite a few people, staff and residents both, all of whom were friendly and unfazed . No pings on my gaydar, but that’s fine. And a staff member explained that I could have a friend stay with me overnight (unspoken: in my bed).
Now for the apology portion of the program. To the following list of people who offered me suggestions, including several prepared to arrange interviews that I was too overwhelmed to carry out. My thanks to you all.
in e-mail: Max Vasilatos, Claire Bowern
on Facebook: Emily Rizzo, Heidi Harley, Ben Hamilton, Kathryn Burlingham, Ann Carlson, Tara Narcross-Wyckoff, John Gintell, Livia Polanyi, Bill Stewart, Paula Stout
November 12, 2025 at 7:26 pm |
And now, in a late entry, Lise Menn offers another example of an academic / artist in an alf.