Lately my trademark seems to be allowing ideas and reflections to float around in my mind without actually writing them down. Sometimes this is due simply to inconvenience, as most of these ideas and reflections seem to occur when I am furthest from my notebook- showering, walking the dog, falling asleep. Is my passive refusal to just sit down and write the mark of a young and uncertain new writer? Or is it simply the mark of a lazy person?
During these last few weeks, which have ushered in the end of my first semester as a Graduate Student, I have allowed my eyes to glaze over in Zoom meetings, opting instead to watch Sex and the City while I crochet. As problematic as the show is, one thing it romanticizes quite well (other than toxic relationships with condescending men) is the act of writing. Focused, inquisitive Carrie, leaning into her laptop late at night, lends a glamor and broodiness to writing in solitude that I can't help but try and emulate. When you've been binging the show as diligently as I have, this is surprisingly easy. Just dress me in a fitted tank (braless, obviously), sub the cigarette for red wine and dim the lights and you've got yourself a store-brand Bradshaw. I should pause here, though, and note the dangers of relaxing too much into character and the inner narration that comes along with it. I was thinking to myself a minute ago how lovely it was that I have a set of six pink wine glasses- unapologetically femme- when I shattered the very one I was about to fill. A healthy snap into reality.
Nineties television seems to be another theme in my life over the last few months. When I first brought my puppy home in July, we spent a lot of time watching Charmed on the couch (whenever he wasn't sleeping or peeing on my rug). Lately, I've pivoted towards Dawson's Creek, which despite its scoff-worthy dialogue brings me drama that I somehow want to keep up with. Although, I still can't quite get over how the costume department did Andy McPhee's character so dirty. High pigtails right after she got out of the mental institution? Paired with overalls, no less? Sure, dress the girl with mental illness like a five-year old, that will surely break the stigma.
As someone with only a preverbal relationship with the 1990s, I missed the show at its peak, so it's hard to know whether this travesty was a result of poor wardrobe taste on set or simply a product of the garbled, hyperactive fashion trends of the era. Now that I think about it, Jenn Lindley's cropped hair and short-sleeve button-up shirts from season two should have been enough indication towards the latter. I suppose they tried to warn me. I find it bizarre that such a look would have been received as lite-punk back then, whereas now, at best, it gives us suburban-managerial.
After combing through far too much nineties television, pitfalls and all, I have found my imagined post-pandemic reality reflecting what I see onscreen a little too much. True to form, I've hatched my own Carrie Bradshaw-esque cultural quandaries on the subject. I sit, late at night, with my laptop, wondering- has our deep affection for these shows and their now old-school lifestyles instilled in us unfair expectations for the present? Sure, the imagining going to high school with the characters from Dawson's Creek makes me feel ill, but how powerful to have such intimate and resilient, if challenging, friendships at such a young age. And as for Sex and the City, are my fantasies of New York City unfairly biased, thoughtlessly pursuing an experience that may not even exist anymore? The most basic but perhaps the most profound shift since Carrie and her troupe were drinking and gossiping their way across Manhattan seems to be this: nobody really needs to walk anywhere anymore. In our current state, nobody should be walking anywhere to procure services, if they can help it. But even beyond pandemia, we simply do not seem to need places as much as we (or at least you old people) used to.
I resist participating in the twisted and insincere claim made by many a Boomer that technology, or cell phones, or whatever is "ruining our social lives." There are many arguments elsewhere which gracefully refute this claim. But still... How many run-ins, brief flirtations, or bizarre confrontations have we missed because we took the easier route and stayed inside? Again, this is an argument beyond the pandemic-sphere- please stay inside. I'm just saying, most people you ask will say that they were happy to have gone dancing with their friends (for example) once they finally got out the door. The best things always seem to happen once you get out the door.
Maybe this is all just my way of picturing what "real life" might be like when we are able to emerge from our little home cocoons and see each other again. Maybe even without soft TV and its questionable fashion sense, I would still be romanticising the world Beyond. Because after spending such massive amounts of quality time with myself (and Carrie, Joey Potter, et al), I have become increasingly familiar with my own feelings and daily patterns. And all that predictability, predictably, makes me crave the complexity of what I hope is left of the world. Bad outfits or not, at least they are something to look at, as long as I get to see them on real people in real life again soon.
--Helen
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