New York: It's Not All Sex and the City

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that women of a certain age, in possession of cable, or at least a DVD player, must be in want of a life like the ladies of HBO's Sex and the City.

Or at least that's how it seems to me.

I could not possibly count (or recount) the number of times my news of the imminent move to New York City was followed by one or the other of my girlfriends saying something along the lines of, "Oh, it'll be just like Sex and the City! I can so picture you there, Grace!"

My dear ladies, I am here to break some very bad news to you: there may be women in this city living like Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda, but I certainly am not one of them. And neither, I think, would most of you be. Upon signing my lease (including the writing of a check larger than any I had ever signed before in my life, except, perhaps for tuition payments at university) I was distressed and disappointed to realize the one (tiny) bedroom in Park Slope didn't include a wardrobe full of Prada bags, Laboutin pumps, or von Furstenburg wrap dresses! Hell, it didn't even include curtains! (I still don't have any.)

My husband recently told me about an article or essay he read in which New York was described something like this: In New York City the middle class feels as though it's barely hanging on (to comfort, stability, the dream of wealth) whereas the rich live like the middle class of basically every other major North American city. And then, of course, there are the Very, Very Rich: the movie stars, the media moguls, the CEOs, the top lawyers, the Old Money of the Upper East Side. Sound familiar?

Sex and the City, for all its charm, and all its sometimes frighteningly truthful and accurate depiction of relationships (who hasn't known a Mr. Big? or perhaps turned down an Aidan and always regretted it?) is about the Very, Very Rich. Carrie, as the token poor(er) friend still lives in a ridiculously large apartment, and owns a ridiculously large wardrobe.

The New York of Sex and the City is a dream, an ideal, a slice of reality made polished and pretty and perfect. The Real New York is a little (OK, sometimes a lot) dirty, noisy, frenetic, often rude. It is also the most inspiring, vibrant, culturally alive place I have ever been (except, perhaps, for Paris, but that is another story, another ideal.) When I sit in my coffee shops to work, I am surrounded, I know, by other artists--I can see them working away on their gorgeous Apple computers, designing clothes, studying scripts, or, like me, writing blogs and novels and screenplays and poetry.

My life may be nothing like Carrie's, except for the similarity of our work (I could never pull off those outfits anyway) and I, for one, will count myself lucky if I ever own but a single pair of Manolos. Until then? Payless really has some fabulous deals, and I am content knowing that I live and work in a city where a world of possibilities is out there waiting for me to find my niche!