Day 78: In the End

These are the Manolo Blahniks that Carrie famously accepted from Big in the first movie in lieu of an engagement ring. I'm not suggesting you wear them without clothes. I am suggesting you wear them (if only virtually) with whatever the hell you want. In the end, good fashion is about tweaking aesthetic "rules" to fit your own lifestyle and personality. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, "They think him the best dressed man, whose dress is so fit for his use that you cannot notice or remember to describe it."

"So, you have to try it five times to look like you're not trying." Hank, when he saw me trying to create the perfect cuff on my sweater, which has nothing to do with anything but I just thought was funny--and very true.

For a while there, you may have thought I wasn't coming back to write this final piece. Never fear. I'm back. It has been nearly a week since I saw the most recent SATC film. I think I have been avoiding this post, my reasoning being this: if I don't write it, the project won't officially be over. This kind of thinking is very characteristic to me in general. I hate finishing things and do much better working toward them. This is even more true when I'm doing something I really enjoy. Nevertheless, all good things must come to an end. So it goes, as Billy Joel would say.

Moving on to the film, I must say something right away. It was bad. It was even really bad. I could go on and on about why, but it comes down to one thing: it didn't have charm. And what, friends, is SATC without charm? Lines seemed scripted. Acting seemed forced. Plot was uber weak, even bordering on lame. Heck, the fashion even sucked (sorry, Patricia, but what's with Charlottes red, polka-dotted housedress in the middle of Abu Dhabi...er...Morocco...er where were they again?). The only saving grace was that it was SATC--the same girls (and guys) we have come to care so much about and the situations we can relate to (even if menopause is still, thankfully, a ways away for many of us). I would follow them to the moon, much less the Middle East.

Main event, which you've no doubt by now figured out or read about: The girls get lucky when Samantha lands a comp trip to Abu Dhabi and gets them added on. More about that later, but for now, some background.

Carrie and Big are married, not extremely happily. Not unhappily either. They're coexisting peacefully with each other (a first for the duo). Their biggest problem that takes up a good fifteen minutes of the two-hour movie? Big watches too much T.V. The couple has decided by movie's beginning to not have children, so their task is to figure out how to keep things exciting till death do they part. Big suggests taking two days off from each other during the week, staying at different apartments (Carrie still has her old one, and they have one together) and not talking. Carrie freaks out. Enter trip.

Charlotte loves her husband and their girls, Lily and Rose. She convinces herself she adores everything about motherhood, though she's clearly struggling to stay positive about Rose's constant fussiness. To help out, they've hired a full-time nanny from Ireland. After Samantha makes a comment about how gorgeous the caretaker is, Charlotte becomes paranoid that her husband will cheat. Enter trip.

Samantha is smack dab in the middle of menopause and not afraid to tell the world about it. (I thought only my mother gave monologues on the benefits of natural hormones.) She meets Smith for a screening of his new movie but makes sure everyone including him knows they're not a couple. Enter trip.

Miranda, Steve, and their son, Brady, are getting along just peachy. When Miranda faces a new boss from hell, she quits her job and decides to use the job-searching time to be more present for her family and herself. This includes planning an extensive itinerary for, you guessed it, the trip.

Okay, excursion events. Carrie meets Aidan in the Middle East, which has to be only slightly more likely than winning the lottery. Of course, there is romantic angst there. Of course, Carrie "innocently" goes out with Aidan, sitting too close, and not stopping their inevitable kiss. Of course, she'll feel compelled to confess everything to Big adnd be forgiven ASAP. Of course, Big will forgive her. And, because it's SATC and not the real world, Big will figure out that his T.V. habits are partly to blame for Carrie's straying and buy her the huge diamond she never had. In an unexpected role reversal, Big makes a speech about the importance of commitment. He also makes Carrie recite her vows again and promise to remember she's no longer single. Could this get any less believable?

Charlotte realizes how nice time apart from the kids is and decides to occasionally take some time off to stay at Carrie's old apartment by herself. She also learns that her kids' nanny is a lesbian, squelching any fears of infidelity on the part of her husband. Miranda comes back from the trip relaxed and ready to start work at a new, more low-key law firm that allows her more family time. Samantha, true to form, meets a hot guy in the desert and later rendez-vous with him in New York to screw, because they got arrested in backwards Arabia for making out, naturally. Mixed in between all of these main events, there was a camel ride, a karaoke performance, a chance encounter with Middle Eastern women who secretly read Suzanne Somers and dressed in haute couture (um, yeah), and a LOT of money being thrown around. And by that, I mean money was no object, which, surprisingly, got old.

Now, I have read every magazine article and listened to every radio tidbit about the SATC sequel. I knew that there were no women writers on the show and that it was going to be over-the-top. I knew the fashion was going to be "different." So, fortunately, my expectations were satisfied. And I still enjoyed dressing up in my most glamourous cocktail dress to watch the 4 pm screening. In its defense, the movie really didn't try to hard to be good. Sure, it had some dramatic moments, but they weren't developed much. They seemed sprinkled in just to give the girls some chance to act a little (unless you consider strutting around acting). No, I'm going to wager that above all, SATC 2 tried to be escapist, and it succeeded at that.

So, there isn't much for me to write about. But I will say too important things that came to mind after watching this movie. The first has to do with Carrie and Big. Initially, seeing Big portrayed as a regular family was shocking and absurd. Wasn't he always the commitment-phobe Carrie could barely get to walk down the isle? The one who the girls would make fun of for his womanizing ways? Then it hit me. It was rarely ever Big. I got to thinking about the couple's story, and I started to see the ways in which is was usually Carrie who pulled away.

Sure, in the beginning Big didn't know if he wanted to be exclusive with the quirky gal, but they had only been dating a few months. After that, there were many times he wanted to keep going and Carrie wanted out. When they were sleeping together and cheating on their partners, he was ready to commit to Carrie, and that was a good four years before they got married. After that, he kept trying to call her and reunite. He even bought her a one-way ticket to Napa in case she wanted to go out there to see (or stay?) with him. She never went, and yet she always blamed him for the fact that they weren't together.

Actually, I don't think Big ever said Carrie wasn't the one...just maybe that he wasn't sure yet. Carrie just always needed more than he was ready to give. I'm not blaming the long, tumultuous journey to marriage on the show's leading lady, but it's about time the writers recognized Carrie's insatiable need for drama and excitement--and gave some credit to the show's scapegoat, Big (supposedly standing in for the hard-to-catch man). It's as if everyone's finally recognizing that it may have been Carrie who was always afraid to be tied down.

The second thing that struck me was how true the show's central moral is: that every marriage/relationship is different, and each couple has to find out what works for the two people in it. In the end, Carrie and Big decide to take two days apart during the week, much to the chagrin of Charlotte with her traditional approach to marriage. Later, they figure out that they need fewer and fewer days apart. Stamford, Carrie's best gay friend, marries a man who openly cheats and fully accepts that that will be part of their union. Charlotte prefers the go-to-bed-together-every-night, two-kids-and-a-dog type marriage. Miranda acts as the breadwinner in her relationship, while Steve almost plays a stay-at-home dad, constantly there for Brady when Miranda can't be. He reminds Miranda that family time is important while still accepting her as the alpha figure. Samantha revolts against the whole marriage thing all together. These approaches to relationships couldn't be more varied.

And maybe that's what it all comes down to for everyone: make your relationship what you want. It doesn't matter what people think. It doesn't matter what's "normal." In the end, if it works for both people in the union, it works, period. If I had only learned that ten years ago, I probably would have been a lot less hard on myself about what I wanted and didn't. I spent so much time thinking about who I was going to disappoint if I took a certain action or how I was going to mess up my future. I said "I'm supposed to" to myself a lot. No one's supposed to do anything. There isn't a rule book, thank God. Or, there is, but each person gets to create her own.

Hank is leaving tomorrow for the summer. I don't think I've mentioned that. He'll be working full-time for his parents on a construction project to make some desperately-needed supplemental income. I don't want him to go, but he has to. I know I'm going to miss him every day. However, after watching this film, part of me wonders if the time apart will be healthy, good even. It will give us a chance to regroup with ourselves, give us some time to reflect on future personal goals. It may even have the same effect it did on Big and Carrie--make us realize how important we are to each other (not that we don't know that, but it's easy to not notice when you see the person daily) and make our reunion all the sweeter.

Well, this is goodbye for now. If I start up something new, you, faithful and few readers, will be the first to know. Until then, follow your passions and follow love. If there's anything this project has taught me, it's that.