But the-- and the -- oh, for the LOVE.

So I made the grave error of watching the "Sex and the City" movie Saturday night. Watching a modern-day fairy tale with the obligatory happy ending -- not the best idea I've had as of late. (Spoilers lay ahead)



I was an intermittent viewer of the show. It depended on whether or not I had HBO at any given time, basically. While I could find it entertaining, more often than not I found it baffling and irritating. But at the end of the day, I was never the target audience for a show about four single women navigating the wilds of single life in New York City because I was never a single woman navigating the wilds of single life. I never had anything resembling a "single life" (and one could quite easily argue, have never had anything resembling a "life"). If I went out with my fellow single girlfriends, I sat at the bar observing as they were talked up by the dudes. I never got very bent over whether or not I'd have a date on Friday or Saturday night because it simply wasn't something that ever happened to me. And I'm not boo-hoo-poor-me-ing, it's just the way things were. When I read advice columns (I READ WAAAY TOO MANY ADVICE COLUMNS), the agony aunts go-to advice is "OMG, ask yer friends to set you up!" Well...that wasn't something my friends did, either. Trust me, I am a tough fucking sell on a good day, I'm self-aware enough to realize that. So coming from the background that I have, watching "Sex and the City" (TV and movie) is like watching a foreign film without dubbing or subtitles or a twisted version of the "Planet Earth" mini-series. Imagine a breathless Sir David Attenborough narrating the wacky hi-jinks and heartbreaking moments of Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte. Wait, I think I may have just made it more entertaining for myself.

My mood swings with the SATC movie began within the first two minutes of the narration as Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) explained that women moved to New York City in search of "labels and love". Forget advancing your career, ladies. That's not sexy. Spending beyond your means so you can have Vivienne Westwood on your hiney: THAT IS SEXY. It's SEX-AY, even. Goddamned irritating. But I sucked it up, tabled it in my head, and soldiered on. I must be honest and say that I enjoyed it here and there. I always thought Cynthia Nixon was excellent on the show and I liked her relationship with Steve (David Eigenberg). I laughed out loud hither and yon. I was generally bored with Samantha (Kim Cattrall) as I was when I watched the series and love-and-hatey with Charlotte (Kristin Davis). I thought it was rather brave of SJP (not to be confused with Super Jackpot Party) to appear on film sans make-up and looking like a woman of age when Carrie is in her post-Big-wedding-bailage depression. And my personal jury will always, always be out on whether Big's a rang-dang-diggety-douche or swoon-worthy.

But I don't know if I have enough words available at the moment for the utter ridiculousness of actual screen time being devoted to Samantha's tragic, horrific...WEIGHT GAIN. I know, I know, hold onto your hats and tell the children to leave the room, A WOMAN GAINED WEIGHT AND SHE DIDN'T STAY INDOORS SO AS TO NOT SULLY THE WORLD. Of course, the requisite "what the hell is wrong with you" scolding went down with a weak-ass side of "but we'd still love you and you'd be beautiful at any weight" and Samantha was shown scarfing down food so as to further hammer home the message that she was being shameful and lacking control. But as I reflected upon the movie later on (and tried very hard not to be irritated with my mother for fucking up my red velvet cake that I had baked earlier in the day), SATC has always talked out of both sides of its mouth. Women should be independent individuals who should take pride in their achievements and are not defined by the men they are with, but...how awfully tragic it is to be without a man and certainly without pretty shoes. Why on earth would I expect that they would avoid the silly-ass trope of a woman eating her feelings and begging forgiveness for being "bad" and "out of control"?

And why in the name of all that is good and holy did I think I wasn't going to wind up in my well-decorated and cozy pit of despair after watching a movie that in my world should have been titled "Sex (Which You Don't Have) and the City (Which You No Longer Live In Because You Are Quite the Loser--Keep On Keepin' On, Failurebritches)". To make it even worse, TBS was showing "Shrek"--you know, the HI-larious fun cartoon movie about the anti-social ogre who manages to find someone to love him. OF COURSE I COULDN'T TURN THE CHANNEL. I had to blubber through John Cale's version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" and simper through Shrek coming to Fiona's rescue at the wedding and spew firehose-strength tears as they proclaimed their love for each other. The best thing - THE ONLY THING - I could do at that point? Grab my DVD of "Aliens" and revel in a movie that contained nary a whit of romance and an absolute fuckton of...well, "Aliens".

The lesson learned (yet one more for the "Life Lessons" folder)? Avoid movies that have "Sex", "Love", "Sweet", or "Heart" in the title; limit viewing to movies that contain many explosions, some car chases, and enormous amounts of martial arts; and just keep watching Discovery. Never turn away from Discovery if I can avoid it. "Mythbusters" will not break my heart.

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Pardon me if my party hat's not on.

When I think about achievements one could muster up in life, I can dream up many things: having a book published, passing a difficult test, getting a promotion at work. Losing weight through dieting will never be one of those things I will muster up praise for.

I can’t clap my hands and say “yay!!!!” for the kind of mental trauma people put themselves through, counting calories or points and berating themselves and kicking their own asses around the block and then some if they don’t do everything just so on any given day. I can’t say “bully for you” when you talk about how hideous you look and how terrible a person you are because your thighs don’t look like a supermodel’s. I won’t encourage self-hatred. I won’t congratulate self-abuse. I won’t lead a cheer for obsession.

If that makes me a bad person or if I'm overreacting or if I'm mean-spirited, so be it. My disinterest won’t stop you from beating yourself up for not being the “real you” you think is lurking somewhere underneath your skin since there are many, many more people in the world that are willing to fall over themselves to give you kudos for weight loss. You can mutter I’m jealous because I’ve obviously “failed” and “given up” and don’t have “control” (oh, that mystical “control”). You won’t be the first person to tag me with that, believe me. I’m jealous of assorted people for many reasons, but not of the mindset that is inevitable when it comes to dieting for the purposes of weight loss. I did my time angsting over the size of my ass and it’s not a place I ever care to go back to again. If I learned anything, it was that the ever-elusive happiness that I still seek isn’t going to appear if I whittle myself down to a socially acceptable size. Satisfaction with my life won’t come simply because I can shop at a straight store. The issues that I have creaking in my cranium aren’t going to go away if I boogie down to the local J. Craig and get my salt-laden crapfeast on.

There’s a scary percentage of people who would rather get hit by a truck than look anything like me. In a life where any number of things can go horribly, horribly, horribly wrong, where we can suffer so much loss and hurt and hate and misery...really? Being hit by a truck is preferable? But I’m the one with the problem. Hmm.

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