Carrie on, and on

I remember my first trip to New York City.

I was thirteen and on my eighth-grade art class field trip. We visited the galleries and also managed to cram in a Yankees game, two Broadway shows ("Phantom" and "Stomp"), Ellis Island, and a tour of Columbia University. I remember going to sleep every night on my bunk in the Big Apple Hostel, happily filled with streetside hotdogs and bright new memories.

This was my first impression of the city: it was a place larger than its physical size, maybe a little rough around the edges, but nevertheless glowing with positive energy and endless possibilities. In New York City, there could be something for everyone, and no limits at all.

But the next time I stayed in the city, it felt different. You see, by then, I had discovered "Sex and the City."

People say that the four women of the HBO show obviously live in a fantasy world, a hyperreal New York. But that wasn't obvious to me. The fantasy was spliced with just enough reality to make it believable. Carrie Bradshaw buys $400-dollar heels but she also struggles to make ends meet when her building goes co-op -- that sort of thing. Besides, the show was based on true New Yorker Candace Bushnell and her jazzy social column, which I read.

Before moving, I subconsciously decided that my life in the city would be scripted by "Sex." For awhile, my footwear was five-inch heels that I couldn't walk in, my nourishment was sugary Magnolia cupcakes that I couldn't really stomach, and my transportation was a taxi cab that I couldn't afford. Being seen at flashy restaurants and sauntering around the Meatpacking District became not just the height of living, but the only way of living.

It seems pretty silly now, looking back. The funniest part of it all was that I had come to New York to explore, live without limits, and find myself. I wasn't doing very much of that while trying to live Carrie's life.

I actually feel a little sorry for Carrie and her friends. As it turns out, after six years on television and two movies, the "Sex" women are done exploring. They now live in a frozen Cosmopolitan. By the second movie, the women are settled in their ways and finished with the city. They are so finished, in fact, that the screenwriters keep them in Abu Dhabi for most of the movie to make it seem like they're still the adventuresses that we once knew.

How lucky the rest of us are, then, to have unscripted lives. No limits, rules, or absolutes can hem us in. Maybe New York really is the place that I thought it was when I was 13 after all.

- Miss Cottonwood