Sunday Shit Talk: Rewatching SATC and the Lure of a Late 90s Sink Hole

Nothing can ease our collective existential agita like bathing in a simpler time.

If we’re lucky, the week between Xmas and New Year’s is a glorious week of rest and repose that ideally positions us to receive the cultural watershed of reflection that pours all over us. “Best of” listicles ping at us from all directions, telling us where people ate, what people did, what they watched, what they listened to, etc., etc., etc.

Generally, I’m not particularly nostalgic. My default setting is forward movement. But reflection can be a good thing. It helps you digest where you’ve been so you don’t keep ordering the same shitty dishes off of life’s metaphorical menu. And if you do it right you learn something about yourself, from yourself.

By flipping, I fell into a deep dive that is helping to provide me with a cultural compass alignment, gauging how far we’ve come and how far we’ve yet to go. We’re talking way back to when I first began the cis-hetero cocktail of mating and creating—a time when the news was mostly reliable, when we had weed dealers on speed dial, and when I could still pour red wine down my tenderized gullet—just before the Internet and all its glorious conveniences and complications had their way with us.

This one-way ticket back to such an oblivious paradise came via the 90s/early aughts sinkhole of a Sex And The City marathon. Its luminescent, blinding, privileged whiteness is, without doubt, the most cringey thing about it. But something about crawling back into my boob tube and revisiting the New York of that time was the veritable Linus blanket I needed to soothe my aching soul.

Before 9/11, New York was, in so many ways, a misfit paradise found. My old Brooklyn neighborhood was where I landed because it was affordable—there were but a sprinkling of great restaurants and cute shops that a real community of other creative types began to congeal around. People had flip phones that were only used to talk to each other. Niche clubs opened every second. A great Thai meal could be had for under $12. Dojo’s was still around, as were Yaffa Cafe and Republic. There was Barney’s and it’s famed Warehouse sale that you had to show up in person to pillage. We mauled our feet by doing laps around the city in stilettos, had CDs and lunch delivered from Kozmo.com, and got massages at work in Aeron chairs. Despite the gross Giulianity of it all, we were on the cusp of the future, and life felt as if it was tugging forward.

Sex and the City now seems antiquated in so many ways, but it was a snapshot of female friendship, New York City, and all its cultural caché of the time. Samantha was, is, and will always be the hero. She really was the future. Unapologetic about her success and sexuality, she spent many of those early episodes tasked with embodying and explaining some of the most rudimentary things we take for granted today. Strong in her skin, she always knew who she was: “Let me tell you a little bit about me,” she told who would be her final conquest, a hot-as-fire younger man she renamed Smith Jerrod. “I am harsh. I’m also demanding, stubborn, self-sufficient, and always right. In bed, at the office, and everywhere else.”

Her dick was bigger than anyone she FCKD. Remember “Friar FCK?”

In the meantime, you had a fiercely independent feminist like Miranda to deal with all those pesky working mother stereotypes while Charlotte, the former gallerina and aspiring trad wife, couldn’t figure out how to wrap her mind around the confines of marriage and children, and men who might identify as pan, bi, or non-binary.

Meanwhile, resident gay Stanford Blatch was an early purveyor of online dating. His chat room moniker was @BigTool4U.

Weed was still in prohibition but Carrie and Samantha managed to find some and smoke it on a street corner. The stoner stigma! Carrie got busted immediately but weaseled out of a trip to the hoosegow because she was dumped on a Post-It. The same thing happened to me after work in a park once, minus the Post-It.

Watching all this SATC at once reminded me that progress is a crab walk. It also reminded me how fast time goes by. It blows my mind that it’s been 25 whole years since that show first aired. Since then, I’ve switched gears from copywriter to journalist, birthed and hands-on raised two whole adults. One way or the other, important friends and family members have come and gone. I’ve lived in 8 different homes. Phone booths became obsolete. So did well-paying writing jobs, in-office chair massages, and Kozmo.com. Yellow cabs are dinosaur relics that cruise by once in a blue like ghosts.

But, during those 25 years, never did I ever once imagine our reproductive rights would go by way of the answering machine.

So, for the next few days, I’ll be nestled on the couch in front of the fire, reflecting upon the trials and tribulations of Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda during the bad old, good old days of societal ignorance. Blinded by the white, I remember how single women caught shit for buying themselves a co-op, smoking weed on the street might get you arrested, how the term “non-binary” had yet to ease into our mainstream vernacular, and we took it for granted that reproductive freedom was here to stay, to reflect on where we’re going next.

A lot has been adjusted in the show’s new iteration. It’ll be interesting to see what next season brings.

However you ring it in, I wish you the happiest New Year’s celebrations or lack thereof. At least, for now, you have the right to choose. I’ll be back next year with more Shit Talk, some exclusive Burning Q interviews for paid subscribers, some inventive new bullshit, and perhaps even a workshop offering or two. I hope you’ll stick with me despite my obvious humanity.

Thanks so much for your support—ILY!

Chin, chin!

NOTE: The original email version of this post has numerous typos. What can I say, this week is about doing the least and I succeeded. Apologies!

xx

MF