Carrie Bradshaw ruined everything. She ruined cosmopolitans, New York City, and Saturday night with your girlfriends. She ruined brunch and fashion. She ruined high heeled shoes and careers in journalism. She ruined casual sex, she ruined committed sex, she ruined every pun known to man. She ruined newspaper and magazines. She ruined the experience of ever dating a banker, a carpenter, a bartender, a painter, a addict, a writer, a lawyer, a actor, a musician, a doctor, a politician and a man. Carrie Bradshaw ruined fun.
I know this is not a real person.
I also know that somehow this show seeped into our brains, our hearts, our very landscape. I believe that even the water and the soil were not spared. Nothing we can ever do has novelty left. She has already done it.
Do you know how many times a day a thought like the following occurs to me? :
"Is it true that men are really looking for carbon copies of their mother? Could we be suffering from a epidemic of Copy-Me-Mommies?"
Or some lazy shit thought like that. Then, I think: Fuck Me. That sounds like her. Again. There is no escape.
The show has been dead for almost four years. But, it plays on and on. An endless reel of witticisms, criticisms and name-plate necklaces play out behind our experience, coloring every thing we see.
Cavemen used to sit around the fire and tell each other stories. Who was the bravest hunter? Who ran from the gazelle and found water in the ground? They acted it out again and again until the tales became truth, until everyone knew how to kill, how to drink or how run away. They informed, they entertained, they re-lived the stories of their lives to bring each other together.
So what is this pink sequined monstrosity telling us?
Being part of this particular (mostly urban, white, educated) tribe is no comfort to me. I have to think that my experiences "looking for love" (what a phrase!) is and will be as idiosyncratic and weird and unexpected as love itself. People are too strange to have it otherwise.
On that note, I'm have to have a cosmopolitan.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
8:05 am
Early morning auditions are treacherous. I swear, they only have them this early in the morning to weed out the lazy or the weak of heart... or the people that actually need more than a couple of hours a sleep a night. I mean, I hate to sound pretentious and proud but... we actors are like modern day Gladiators. Right? Same thing? No?
However, these early morning time slots do allow us to understand how the other half lives! Since auditions are usually held in Midtown, we too can push through morning rush hour clutching our $4 lattes, dressed in our pressed pencil skirts, forcing our way into crowded intersections, "Excuse me! I have somewhere very important to be! Hey lady, you may be making a living for your children back in New Milford, Conn... but take a look at my flawless, stress-free figure!" Right? Am I right here?
8:05 am, arrive at fancy office building and check in with fancy doorman. 9:05 am, arrive back on 8th avenue smack down in front of Burger King. Dejected, rejected, and still jobless.
(Pause)
Thank God I accomplished another audition. Maybe he'll give me a call. I have to get in a nap before lunch. It's been a long day already... and I still have my GD laundry to do.
However, these early morning time slots do allow us to understand how the other half lives! Since auditions are usually held in Midtown, we too can push through morning rush hour clutching our $4 lattes, dressed in our pressed pencil skirts, forcing our way into crowded intersections, "Excuse me! I have somewhere very important to be! Hey lady, you may be making a living for your children back in New Milford, Conn... but take a look at my flawless, stress-free figure!" Right? Am I right here?
8:05 am, arrive at fancy office building and check in with fancy doorman. 9:05 am, arrive back on 8th avenue smack down in front of Burger King. Dejected, rejected, and still jobless.
(Pause)
Thank God I accomplished another audition. Maybe he'll give me a call. I have to get in a nap before lunch. It's been a long day already... and I still have my GD laundry to do.
If there is an Eternity, I am Damned in it
This is exactly what Ted Hughes said when he found his wife, Sylvia Path, with her head in the oven.
I was crossing the street this morning and coming towards me was a woman in a wheelchair-not an automatic-she was slowly, struggling to get to the sidewalk. Of course, my impulse was to run behind her, grab the handles and push her to safety. But I didn't. I didn't do a thing. I let the poor crippled lady wheel right pass me and I kept on walking. I did turn around to see another 20-something grab the wheelchair and push her all the way to the sidewalk. Good for her.
I only had a split second to Do The Right Thing. And I didn't do it. On purpose.
I wanted coffee, I was late, I was wearing heels, my nose was running and..... what if the Nazi's caught me?
See? The stakes didn't even have to be that high. You get the idea.
Sometimes, when I hate my pointless job so much, I think about doing something rash. Like selling everything I own and going to a country to hold AIDS babies and wipe the mouths of the poor and the destitute. Then, I remember. I am not a particularly good person.
Perhaps somewhere between Dick Cheney and Jenna Bush. Not overtly wicked, but more of a passive bystander or silent witness..... with some awfully nice clothes.
There was an insane man on the subway. I haven't seen one like him in awhile. Paraphrasing, he said something like this:
"White women look so beautiful! But you are all steak asses! You all sit on the toilet and shit. All of you. White or black. You all shit on the toilet. That's what God says. I'll probably outlive all of your steak asses. Do you think you can bring your clothes with you when you die? Do you think they will come? White women with your steak asses. Why don't you all be lesbians?"
So the whole ride I'm dying of curiosity. Just what is a steak ass?
Think about it.
In the meantime, THIS steak ass will get back to work.
I was crossing the street this morning and coming towards me was a woman in a wheelchair-not an automatic-she was slowly, struggling to get to the sidewalk. Of course, my impulse was to run behind her, grab the handles and push her to safety. But I didn't. I didn't do a thing. I let the poor crippled lady wheel right pass me and I kept on walking. I did turn around to see another 20-something grab the wheelchair and push her all the way to the sidewalk. Good for her.
I only had a split second to Do The Right Thing. And I didn't do it. On purpose.
I wanted coffee, I was late, I was wearing heels, my nose was running and..... what if the Nazi's caught me?
See? The stakes didn't even have to be that high. You get the idea.
Sometimes, when I hate my pointless job so much, I think about doing something rash. Like selling everything I own and going to a country to hold AIDS babies and wipe the mouths of the poor and the destitute. Then, I remember. I am not a particularly good person.
Perhaps somewhere between Dick Cheney and Jenna Bush. Not overtly wicked, but more of a passive bystander or silent witness..... with some awfully nice clothes.
There was an insane man on the subway. I haven't seen one like him in awhile. Paraphrasing, he said something like this:
"White women look so beautiful! But you are all steak asses! You all sit on the toilet and shit. All of you. White or black. You all shit on the toilet. That's what God says. I'll probably outlive all of your steak asses. Do you think you can bring your clothes with you when you die? Do you think they will come? White women with your steak asses. Why don't you all be lesbians?"
So the whole ride I'm dying of curiosity. Just what is a steak ass?
Think about it.
In the meantime, THIS steak ass will get back to work.
Monday, January 14, 2008
A Star is Born
Jean Marie Walters was born on January 14th, 1981. I think this happened somewhere in Texas. I am sure her mother was in a lot of pain, because Jean is very tall. She probably thought "Good God! Will this baby ever END?"
I like to think that the world breathed a collective sigh of relief when her toes were finally cleared. Finally, it sighed to itself, Jean was here.
Over the years, Jean learned how to tie her shoes, ride a bike , kiss a boy and find bras that fit. A year and a half ago she packed all of her stuff into an Enterprise Rent-A-Van and moved to Brooklyn, New York where we now share a few small symmetrical squares of space. Most of this space is covered in hair because we both lose a lot of hair. A LOT! I vacuumed this weekend and the vacuum choked and sputtered until I pulled out something that look like a dead cat. (it wasn't).
In April, we blew up an air mattress, plopped onto our living room floor and said "Stephanie! Why don't you sleep here?" Stephanie is blond and makes creepy things like linoleum, tinfoil and plastic mattresses somehow pretty and not so bad after all.
After a few months, God or Fate or that book THE SECRET decided that Stephanie should live downstairs, one floor below us.
The three of us have known each other since we were 14. We have pictures to prove it. Our eyebrows were massive back then. I , for one, was a little afraid of tweezers.
Sure, we're best friends. BFFs, as popular culture might deem. But really, words fail us when pressed to describe. I think it may fall somewhere between "sister" and "lover." Only because sisters hate each other more and Stephanie once had that dream about Jean in the shower.
Several times, we've made the highly conceited statement that the three of us have ruined men for other women. The combination of our humor, our hair or just the alchemy of our dynamic is staggering to men who may have thought that women are boring, or stupid, or think bowel movements aren't interesting. But I think we may have also ruined other women for ourselves. So, we're stuck.
I use this instance of a birthday to usher in a new project. Being who we are, grasping at our upper twenties, kicking off the remnants of girlhood, our brains rattle madly inside our heads. We are itchy and twitchy and we wait something to begin.
In the midst of this, though, things do happen. They happen slowly, or suddenly. All at once , or bit by bit. The world changes, people come and go, what was once true turns out to be false. Thoughts, opinions, experiences, fly out our mouths, into our ears and then fall away. At Apartment 3R we can capture them, right before we forget, before we move on yet again.
Here, the personal can meet the political! Exterior lives can meet interior lives! Ambition comes face to face with lethargy. Sentimentality meets irony. Immeasurable love meets untended disgust. Cynicism. Defeat. Joy. Songs. Menstruation. Jesus. Anger. Babies. Death. Burritos.
Lightning in a bottle.
A record of our time.
In the words of Walt Whitman "Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes."
And, so do we.
Jean, Happy Birthday sweet girl.
Start now.
I like to think that the world breathed a collective sigh of relief when her toes were finally cleared. Finally, it sighed to itself, Jean was here.
Over the years, Jean learned how to tie her shoes, ride a bike , kiss a boy and find bras that fit. A year and a half ago she packed all of her stuff into an Enterprise Rent-A-Van and moved to Brooklyn, New York where we now share a few small symmetrical squares of space. Most of this space is covered in hair because we both lose a lot of hair. A LOT! I vacuumed this weekend and the vacuum choked and sputtered until I pulled out something that look like a dead cat. (it wasn't).
In April, we blew up an air mattress, plopped onto our living room floor and said "Stephanie! Why don't you sleep here?" Stephanie is blond and makes creepy things like linoleum, tinfoil and plastic mattresses somehow pretty and not so bad after all.
After a few months, God or Fate or that book THE SECRET decided that Stephanie should live downstairs, one floor below us.
The three of us have known each other since we were 14. We have pictures to prove it. Our eyebrows were massive back then. I , for one, was a little afraid of tweezers.
Sure, we're best friends. BFFs, as popular culture might deem. But really, words fail us when pressed to describe. I think it may fall somewhere between "sister" and "lover." Only because sisters hate each other more and Stephanie once had that dream about Jean in the shower.
Several times, we've made the highly conceited statement that the three of us have ruined men for other women. The combination of our humor, our hair or just the alchemy of our dynamic is staggering to men who may have thought that women are boring, or stupid, or think bowel movements aren't interesting. But I think we may have also ruined other women for ourselves. So, we're stuck.
I use this instance of a birthday to usher in a new project. Being who we are, grasping at our upper twenties, kicking off the remnants of girlhood, our brains rattle madly inside our heads. We are itchy and twitchy and we wait something to begin.
In the midst of this, though, things do happen. They happen slowly, or suddenly. All at once , or bit by bit. The world changes, people come and go, what was once true turns out to be false. Thoughts, opinions, experiences, fly out our mouths, into our ears and then fall away. At Apartment 3R we can capture them, right before we forget, before we move on yet again.
Here, the personal can meet the political! Exterior lives can meet interior lives! Ambition comes face to face with lethargy. Sentimentality meets irony. Immeasurable love meets untended disgust. Cynicism. Defeat. Joy. Songs. Menstruation. Jesus. Anger. Babies. Death. Burritos.
Lightning in a bottle.
A record of our time.
In the words of Walt Whitman "Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes."
And, so do we.
Jean, Happy Birthday sweet girl.
Start now.
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