How is Carrie doing in Corona times?

A look through the keyhole at Carrie and co.

„Where’s the glamor in the jungle?“ Glossy Gerda asked me yesterday. And how would Carrie be doing? Yes, what would our old heroines from Sex and the City do in the time of „Social Distancing“? My head cinema kept me awake hour by hour. Hence an imaginary, wistful description of the state of our „fabulous four“ in times of Covid-19.

Where is the sex and the city feeling, Carrie asks

Carrie is bored and misses her girls endlessly. She would sit alone in the spacious apartment that she and Mr. Big moved into three years ago. She catches herself mourning the fabulous penthouse on the Upper Eastside she and Big gave up after the first disastrous wedding attempt. It had this fantastic roof terrace, an incredible luxury in NYC. Not to forget this great, sublime view of Central Park. She shivers involuntarily when she realizes that there are currently field hospitals in Central Park for the numerous victims of the virus. Maybe not so bad after all, not to have misery in front of your nose while smoking in a deck chair. Of course, she still smokes, but she usually feels bad about it. Working on her column cannot comfort her at present because it´s on hold. The topic „Sex and the city“ would not really be appropriate at the moment and it would definitely not interest people with the current moments. Carrie should think of something „more substantial“ like a reputable journalist. A fatal misjudgment, Carrie reflects, especially now that there is little to laugh about. People need something easy-going, some amusing lines that remind them not everything in life has to be difficult and serious and that sex and the city are not dead. She shakes her curls. How ignorant to think that telling people about the tingling sides of life right now is pious!

Mr. Big is dreaming of California

Big is on road most of the time – sometimes in his office, sometimes in the stock exchange. He struggles because there were severe losses in the financial market when the stock market was greased. He lost a lot of money and has to make sure that it doesn’t get worse. He sold his winery in Nappa with a heavy heart and far below price. It´s impossible for him to fly to California and at the moment there are hardly any people who could take care of the vines, much less harvest the grapes. He swallows and feels a lump in his throat. He thinks of how he flew with Carrie for the vintage last fall. They had been so wonderfully silly and eagerly threw each other with the overripe grapes until they finally reconciled in their own special way in the old coach house. But nothing helps! Carry on and get the cow off the ice – or rather off the financial parquet. He straightens up. There’s no time for daydreaming!

Miranda is incredibly annoyed. Home office is just terrible

Brady hasn’t been to school for five weeks. At just eight years old, of course you can’t expect him to learn all by himself. Miranda exhorts herself to be patient. Digital learning is also far from mature. Steve has heroically announced that he will take care of his son completely on his own. So he can keep Mirandas back free to hold her numerous video conferences undisturbed. Steve is now at home too. The bar he runs with Aidan has had to close due to the virus. Poor Aidan had been hit at the very beginning. He had to be taken care of at Mount Sinai for 21 days. Thank God he was spared ventilation. The poor devils, who were worse off, rarely came out of hospital alive. Mirada shivers. That could also have been Steve. Nevertheless, the constant presence of her husband annoys her almost as much as the fact that he maintains his old sleep rhythm. Watching TV until three o’clock in the morning and turning night into day, he is of no use until noon next day. When he finally gets up, he won’t be able to wear anything other than his undertrouser the whole day long. Recently he had burst into her virtual partner meeting un-/dressed like that because he was looking for his glasses. Most embarrassing! She would hear it in two more years. Miranda sighs. Again everything sticks to her. She looks out of the window, thankful for the small piece of garden that belongs to their Brooklyn cottage. But wait a minute! Is that Brady hanging from the old oak tree at a dizzying height, ready to splash into the puddle below? Darn, where the hell is Steve again?

Samantha misses the chickens. Yes, the chicks, too

Samantha is terribly lonely. What a mistake to leave Smith Jarrod in Malibu and return to her apartment in the trendy meat district in Manhattan. So hip, trendy and popular! Well, that was once upon a time, she thinks bitterly. There she sits alone and not even the alley cats are strolling on the abandoned boardwalk in front of her window. She can’t remember ever spending an entire day in a worn out old pajamas. God, she didn’t even know she had that! Now that her marketing agency had closed until further notice, this had become her everyday outfit. Anger is rising inside her. She hadn’t conquered this hideous cancer to now rot alone with that sordid Corona virus. She had finally come back to town to live again! All these fantastic New York studs, these countless opportunities for sparkling one-night stands. If she finally got out of this cursed quarantine here, she’d probably be a sexually uninteresting old woman. Tears come to her eyes. To make matters even worse, her beloved vibrator had broken down this morning and there were massive delivery delays when ordering online.
To make everything abound yesterday evening the doorman found her embarrassingly on the floor of the elevator in the lobby, were she has been asleep obviously. She had been drunk and wanted to go up to the communal roof terrace. A few years ago there used to live the chickens of the animal practice. They had their stables there. How upset she was about that terrible rooster that started crowing at 4:30 in the morning. That old crap! Now, however, she would have been almost happy to watch the poultry pawing and pecking on the terrace with her bottle of wine in hand. At least a bit of unimpressed normality, a little security-imparting constancy. Coupled with the charming innocent ignorance of the stupid chickens. From up here, she could see as far as Richard Wright´s divine roof top. What a passionate hour it had been in his pool. And many of them. Richard was an unbearable liar, but chewing on her lower lip Samantha admits that she was desperate enough dragging him into her bed right now. Come on over, Richard, move your hot butt!

Charlotte regrets having staff in the crisis

Charlotte on the Upper East Side tries to arrange the just delivered and sinfully expensive freesia in a noble Murano glass vase, apparently unimpressed. She is firmly convinced that you still should pay attention to all the little things and not let yourself go for an inch. Otherwise you would lose control of your life in times like this. But not with Charlotte York. For heaven’s sake, the girls are already raging in the hallway, they almost knocked over the vase! Charlotte surpresses an ascending steaming cry. Where the hell is this useless nanny again? The young Filipina now had her own room in the exceptionally large apartment, which was Charlotte´s pride and all that was left of her marriage with Troy McDougal. Harry and she decided to not send back the nanny to the Philippines at the beginning of the crisis, but had let her move in for humanitarian and also selfish reasons, as Charlotte had to admit quietly. But the young thing had absolutely no grip on the children and always seemed to be hiding in some corner of the apartment, from where she was on the phone to Manila for hours. Charlotte sighed. Had it been a mistake to take the girl in after all, especially since Harry was very difficult to get away from his old habit of walking around the apartment naked. He rarely went to his office at the moment. He only held his meetings and discussions with clients online. Dressed top-class with shirt and tie, as you could expect from a lawyer with his hourly rate, he loved to walk around too freely below the belt line. To be honest, with less than one pair of pants. You wouldn’t see that on the monitor screen, he argued. Angry, Charlotte replies that something could be seen on the upholstery of the elegant off-white suede chair that Harry preferred for his video conferences. What an unsanitary bad habit! What it the nanny saw him like that? When would she finally be able to open her gallery again to escape this madness?

The city that never sleeps takes a nap

The light gradually becomes softer and more subdued outside. Strange, Carrie thinks, how quiet the city has become. As if it were bloodless and only a faint memory of herself. Carrie is feeling unreal herself and drills a fingernail in the palm of her right hand. Just to feel herself. Then she hears a key in the lock. Big is finally coming home. She quickly slips into her yellow Manolo Blank strappy sandals und jumps into the kitchen in order to open the white wine. Furtively, she draws a small cross on a barely visible piece of paper on the side of the fridge. Day 43. Again a day is over. She swiftly runs her fingers through her curls and tries to put on her brightest smile…..