I better get back on my 30 activities: Hudson Valley project, because there seem to be some misconceptions about the place I now call home. After seeing Sex And the City with the gals at the Poughkeepsie Galleria last night, I was a bit horrified and amused that the town name got used as a verb, and in a not altogether pleasant way. It’s always fun being in a cinema when the location of the place is mentioned or seen in the movie. So when we heard “Poughkeepsie” mentioned twice last night, it got a huge reaction from the 75 women, 3 men and 1 boyfriend in the joint.
I’ve got nothing new to say about the movie that hasn’t already been said. I enjoyed it, although it did make me cry, not so much for what was happening on screen, but for how I related it to my life. Back in the day when I was living with in Manhattan, I all the DVD’s of the show. Seeing the film version made me miss living in the city. Not to compare myself or my actions to those four extremely unrealistic women, but even with all the flittiness of the movie, the emotions about broken relationships, friendships, and the happiness that love brings rang true.
I probably shouldn’t have seen the movie at a time when I’m sad about being single. This is also known as “PMS,” the three days of the month when any single thing suddenly becomes the saddest thing in the world. I hate that it happens that way, I do not like ceding control of my thoughts to my hormones, feeling that somehow my emotions aren’t real because they’re being controlled by an external force. And I get sad about the most ridiculous things. For instance:
Being sad that I have to drop $7.50 for 40 tampons? Acceptable. Being sad to the point of tears that the first security question on Flickr is “Where did you meet your spouse?” Unacceptable. Irrational.
But this too will pass. Beyond the hormonal roller-coaster, I often feel torn in two by loving living up here in the Hudson Valley, and the love I had for living in the city. It’s only 90 miles away, but when I can’t be both places at once, it might as well be 900 miles away. The city of the movie is a place that no one’s ever really inhabited, but underneath those pretty pictures, you can see the real place poke through, the lover I rejected, the relationship that I just can’t quit.
