Jimmy Buffett is dead

Long live Latitude Margaritaville 55+ communities

You know that Margaritaville residents have medical marijuana prescriptions.

Our family has had a running joke about Jimmy Buffett retirement communities. I think they sound pleasant. I prefer to live in places with diverse people and a huge range of things to do, but I can see the charm of being somewhere with a nice pool and people who also look less than model-perfect in a bathing suit. I’m not a big Jimmy Buffett fan, but I totally appreciate his songwriting skills.

My husband, meanwhile, hates Jimmy Buffett’s music and thinks that living in a suburban Florida retirement community would be hell.

Naturally, our kid regularly tells my husband that if he is not careful, he’ll be sent to live in one.

Anyway, Jimmy Buffett’s recent death has me thinking about the very strange idea of a pop-star branded retirement community. There aren’t many musicians who have a brand that would fit. I’m trying to imagine a Taylor Swift or Jay-Z retirement community, and it doesn’t work.

Although most of my close friends are very much like me—over-educated middle-aged white women—not all of them. Good and interesting people come in all forms, and I want to hang out with good and interesting people. I go places and get involved in things where I get to hang out with all sorts of people and do all sorts of things, and I love it. It’s so cool! I think about a retirement community and imagine nothing but older middle-class white people from the Midwest. That seems so limiting.

But one thing about getting older is that you stop being seen. In some ways, it’s nice; I would never go to bars alone when I was younger, but now, no one bothers me if I sit with a notebook and a drink and do some work.  I notice that some younger people don’t know how to talk to me because they can’t quite figure out who a woman who is their mother’s age who is not their mother is. I have some friends who have moved to retirement communities in Florida, and they tell me that it is great. Fall is like New Student Week in college, with all the clubs having lots of prospective member mixers to greet all the newcomers. The stores have things they want to buy. Yoga teachers understand that they aren’t as flexible as they used to be. It’s apparently quite nice.

I can see the charm!

Anyway, it’s unlikely that I will move to a Latitude Margaritaville community. But never say never, right?

And there are a lot of great things to read this week.

• Margaritaville: Last year, Nick Paumgarten went to Margaritaville and reported on it. It seems nice, doesn’t it? 🍹 (The New Yorker)

• Grifters: I love Vanity Fair. I love their long and fascinating stories about people I’ve never heard of. In this case, someone who faked being a Rothschild heir. There’s a twist, and it’s a good one. 💰 (Vanity Fair)

• Adaptation: A man losing his vision learns how to be blind in a seeing world. It’s a fascinating story. 🕶 (The New Yorker)

• Money: Research shows that some people with ADHD also have financial issues. Fascinating, huh? 💲 (The New York Times)

• Data: Journalists have a lot of tools for telling stories. One is crochet. 🧶(Nieman Labs)

What else are you reading? Tell us in the comments.