Look, I’m not calling these “culture diets” a sort of competition, but if we’re talking about Charlotte of Sex and the City vs. me (as in, Leandra), I feel it’s important to note that though we were both bred on the Upper East Side (granted, her apartment was considerably fancier and she really played into the stereotypes that comprise the lifestyle that comes with the geographic region, e.g. consistent tennis playing and pearls around her neck), I didn’t convert to become a Goldenblatt. I just am one.
Anyway, here is a laundry list of all the ways I endeavored to discharge my inner Charlotte:
I put diamond studs in my ears. When I walked into work on Monday, our managing editor, Elizabeth, told me she was shocked. I reminded her that for the subsequent week I would be wearing sweater sets (dutifully executed on both Tuesday and Thursday) and talking about the kind of shit all hopeless romantics get caught up in, like the power of eye contact and psychics who match you based on zodiac compatibility.
I wore my engagement ring on top of my wedding band all week. If I’m being honest, which as Leandra, I always am, I don’t like wearing my engagement ring for the simple reason that it makes me feel like every other girl in the world who wears the same piece of jewelry on the same finger to signify the same thing. This week, however, I am all about my “basic” jewelry and the significance it connotes. I was especially privy to wearing it while walking around my apartment alone à la Charlotte-mid-break-up-with-Trey.
I wore a blazer with pearl buttons un-ironically over a button down shirt and fitted jeans. I also changed into a navy t-shirt, mini skirt and silver boots. One point for Charlotte here. I just couldn’t handle how much I felt like a horseback rider who drinks lemonade when she’s feeling kind of funky! But again, I did execute on the twin set front.
Céline jacket, Everlane t-shirt, Topshop skirt, Camilla Elphick boots, Sarah’s Bag clutch
I didn’t get, but thought about forehead botox. End of sentence — it’s huge.
Moving on!
I drank exactly no more than one drink per evening, limiting the ilk of my consumption to white wine only. It just seemed like something the dedicated character of Carrie’s first book would do.
I adopted a baby and “prepared” Chinese food for my husband while we discussed the region from which we would adopt this baby. I didn’t actually do either of those things, which means that I lied, which if you remember correctly is perfectly in line with this diet given the time Charlotte lied to her friends and said her sex life with Trey was fantastic even though he couldn’t get it up until she barged into his bedroom while they were separated with shampoo in her hair and her silk blouse’s buttons wrongly done to tell him she’s not a Madonna and she’s not a whore and then, boom! Rocket fire.
I did not watch the first Democratic debate, which kind of pained me, but Charlotte was a member of College Republicans, you know, so instead I put up a poster of Jeb Bush. I’m lying again, which is still in line with acting like Charlotte because even though Carrie called her the Park Avenue Pollyanna, she had a ton of sex with unassuming men she kind of didn’t know. (I am thinking specifically of that tango with the handyman who fixed her VCR.) So that’s that.
Toward the end of the week, I started to feel really competitive, unusually competitive — like the mother of a dog named Elizabeth Taylor who had the potential to be a five-time dog show champion but got her period on a pair of light colored, satin shoes — or something. And thus began to compare our respective coups and losses. Things like:
I’ve been bribed with free shoes before, too, but when that happened, the stakes didn’t include appeasing a foot fetisher’s creepy proclivities.
Leandra: 1, Charlotte: 0.
I showed up at breakfast with two (as opposed to three) of my best friends on Tuesday (bonus point: one has red hair and may or may not have moonlit as Miranda last week) and yelled, “I’ve been dating since I was fifteen! I’m exhausted! Where is he?” They looked at me and reminded me that I’m married and it seemed the rigor I tried to espouse was lost.
Charlotte: 1, Leandra: 1.
I e-mailed an associate at Ralph Lauren to inquire about whether they were in pursuit of new models — Charlotte was a teen model when the new store opened in New Haven.
I have so far heard back from exactly no one.
Charlotte: 2, Leandra: 1.
I started keeping a vagina journal! It is unclear whether Charlotte actually ever kept one because beyond her explaining to Carrie and co. that she had to keep one, we never heard from it again.
I, on the other hand, can promise you that five entries exist within the journal. One says, “Why you gotta smell like that when I wear microfiber?” Another says, “Good job tonight procuring natural lube the minute Abie touched your non-Botoxed forehead.”
Leandra: 2, Charlotte: 2.
Heated moment. We’re tied. You might think there’s no way she’s not about to win — especially given the fact that even though I got a blow out, I only got one and proceeded not to wash my hair for five days, which Charlotte would never do — but you’re wrong. And why?
Because I made my relationship with Bunny work.
Collage by Krista Anna Lewis. Still via ABC News.
