Cosmo Confession: I Hate Sex and the City

With a definitive lack of material to blog about, I thought I would reveal a secret that has burdened my frail shoulders for so long - I hate Sex and the City - from the characters to the horrific culture that it spawned. Now of course there is the obvious reason I hate the show - my prudish sensibilities deem it "sophisticated, Emmy-winning porn" for girls who like their adult entertainment to have more character and plot development than the average Girls Gone Wild by Joe Francis or Coed Confidential. But my hatred runs deeper.

Since every girl I know loved the show, I watched many episodes but found the characters really annoying. Samantha's cougar activities and affected staccato voice were grating on my nerves, and Charlotte's domesticated wholesomeness was really tiresome. Carrie's voice-overs that were supposed to reveal the secrets of relationships to the viewer were shallow, insipid, and nonsensical if you really sat there and listened to the content of her "column." If I were Samantha, Miranda, or Charlotte, I would have stopped sharing intimate secrets with my blabber mouth columnist friend a long ass time ago.

But beyond just the show, I hated the audience that were such fervent believers in the show - middle class girls who lived in the heartland and longed for a sexy, cool life in NYC, as they longed for Manolos with the religious fervor of a Catholic at the Vatican, and they bought the Steve Madden knock-offs in their desperate way to achieve the aspirational lifestyle of the characters. What was particularly sad was when girls compared themselves to the glamorous characters on the show - "I'm a Carrie!" their Facebook profiles would cheesily declare after they had taken a 4-quiz questionnaire.

Probably the saddest thing of all was when I read that a tourist could take a Sex and the City tour in NYC. Out-of-towners could get a glimpse at all the hot spots seen on the show, from Carrie's apartment to the sex shop where Charlotte got her rabbit vibrator. The tour then ended with pink Cosmos that were made infamous by the show. When I read this article in Radar, I realized how capitalist America suckered tourists into paying $50 during a recession to experience the life of the show in a third-hand way.

The bottom line was this: people didn't just gleam shitty relationship advice about becoming "romance intolerant," but they saw the fabulous wardrobe Patricia Field created for her characters as something that was attainable at the local H&M or Express. And the tragic truth of the world is this: Carrie's wardrobe in the movie or show were not attainable at a local Midwestern mall near you - as far as I can tell, the craft of Dries van Noten or Christian Dior couture are pretty hard to replicate decently even by the evil geniuses at Steve Madden and Forever 21 (both stores which have been slapped with lawsuits for their knock-offs).

And so, it's just so sad for young girls to aspire to supposedly "liberated" NYC life, filled with a stream of eligible men and a closet full of Jimmy Choo's and Giuseppe Zanotti's when the lives of the four characters are just shallow, superficial, and decidedly un-liberated. Because take this into account: these supposedly feminist women just sit around at lunch at a fancy chi-chi restaurant and define their identities around the men they date and their expensive "power" wardrobes rather than anything of real substance.

--By Mariam, who totally sounds like a pretentious, women's studies professor at some liberal arts college who hates fashion and looking cute. Sadly, that is really not the case as she has a shopping problem in reality.

The One Time I was Mean (Hard to Believe)!

Anyone who knows me thinks I am niceness personified. I am considered to be the epitome of nice. For instance, this is how I imagine conversations to be like when I'm not around:
Person X: I'm hanging out with Mariam today.
Person Y: OMG SHE IS SO NICE!
Now for those stranger blog readers out there, I'm sure the above hypothetical exchange just made you want to be my BFFF.*

Nevertheless, I recall a time when I was mean to someone, and when I think about it, I cringe inwardly from the memory. It was 10th grade, and I was still the hardcore conservative Jesus freak (or should I say Prophet Muhammad) that I am now. A boy, who we will call Chad Lowe, used to harass me in school all the time. He would make my life miserable - steal things from me, call me "DL, the dyslexic monkey," and generally harass me so that I could legitimately report him to HR had I been in an office-type setting.

I didn't think his sexual harassment was cute - I thought it was super annoying. I didn't find his attentions flattering, nor did I think of myself as super hot because I was the object of his continual attention. I just thought it was annoying as shit, and I wanted to get violent on his ass (the fact that I am a physically frail individual with fragility issues actually prevented me from unleashing my id throughout my time at Carlisle).

Anyway, one day, Chad Lowe stopped me in the hallway, and he said nervously, "Can I ask you something?"
He took me into a private classroom and asked me to the upcoming homecoming dance. I was merely annoyed that he had had the audacity to ask someone who was as religious as me. Didn't he know I was Muslim? I thought outraged. I didn't go to dances with boys (much less with a group of my single girls who were all going together...not because of religion but because it was fundamentally lame).
"NO!" I yelled meanly.
"Uhh..please?" he asked tentatively, his confidence faltering to subzero levels.
"Uh...NO!" And I stalked off, fuming.

In retrospect, I really feel bad for being mean to Chad Lowe. Ideally explaining the religious reasoning behind be defiant "no" would have been better, rather than just getting viscerally agitated. Who knows? Had I said yes, maybe today, I would be married to an infidel with 2.2 kids and a white picket fence living in in zina. So, I guess, things did work out because I just ended up having a reputation of being "stand-offish" at Carlisle (or at least according to Mr. Keefer). Did I learn a lesson about being mean? No, not really, because in the end, I didn't have reputation of ill repute, nor receive disapproving glances from Allah or my parents. Score: Mariam - 1, Chad Lowe - 0.

*Best f!*&ing friends forever - courtesy of Pineapple Express.

--By Mariam, who is so happy it is Pakistan Independence day! Happy PID!!!!! Pakistan zindabad!!!

The Most Romantic Day of My Life

I have to say one of my biggest regrets in life is how my husband proposed to me. Or rather, how I proposed to my husband.

All of it is a bit hazy, because at the time Adam was working for Anheuser Busch and through some miracle his free beer card had stayed active for the six months between his two internships leaving our dining room literally wallpapered with cases of beer. So I was enjoying one of America’s finest domestic beers and surfing the internet, looking for something to waste my waitressing money on. Somehow I got it into my head that I wanted to look at wedding dresses, but I wasn’t engaged to Adam yet and we all know looking at wedding dresses before you have any prospects is a little crazy. Or at least it’s crazy if the person you may have a prospect with is in the room. So rather than saying “Screw society, if I want to look at pretty white dresses, it’s my god damn right as an American with a fast internet connection,” I decided it was time to get engaged.

“So Adam,” I slurred, “we are gonna get married, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So we are engaged?”

“Well…”

“Can I call my mom?!?”

“No!”

“But we are gonna get married right? So we are engaged. I want to call my mom.”

“Don’t call your mom.”

“Pleeeeeeeeaaaaaaase can I call my mom? I want to call her!!!”

I imagine by this point my voice had gotten very loud and shrill. Anyone who has had the unfortunate task of sitting next to me in group discussions knows that when I get excited about something I lose all control of the volume of my voice. So by now, I must have been yelling about calling my mother to tell her we were engaged. And as with anything I really want, Adam caved.

“Fine, call your mom!”

And that is how I became engaged. Later on after we were married, Adam told me he had wanted to ask my dad’s permission for my hand and had begun planning exactly how he was going to propose and all this other romantic stuff. Instead I am left with a cautionary tale about the dangers of beer, internet shopping, and long term relationships.

--By Sarah, who thinks awesome, creative engagement stories are way overrated, right?

Difficult Communication

My first rotation had some minor problems with communication.  Many of the doctors in the internal medicine department were from India or Pakistan.  I had absolutely no problem with the people, they were friendly and open to teaching.  Occasionally, they would forget I was there and slip into Urdu.  I still actually understood a few words, like the numbers, which were similar to the numbers in Farsi.  Though, it was a little hard to understand a sentence where the only word you recognize is "five."  I would clear my throat, and they would realize I didn't understand and translate even if it was useless information, like "I had the eggs for breakfast" or "Mrs. Doe told me I was a gosh darn mother flubber when I didn't give her more percocet."  I had gotten completely used to my interns and residents a few weeks into my rotation, and the problems started when I was around them so much that I started to just barely develop an Indian accent of my own.  I wasn't trying to mock them, or even doing it consciously, but I noticed I was putting the emphasis on the wrong syllables while I was at the hospital.  I would tell my resident I was going down to the emerGENcy room to get an H&P, instead of my usual eMERgency room.  This just shows that I'm turning into Mariam circa kindergarten.  The subtle inflection left when this rotation was over, and hopefully I didn't offend anybody.  

Today, I had my first hostile patient.  I arrived at the outpatient clinic and this particular patient was too short of breath to explain their story to the medical student after she already explained it to the nurse.  She was not too short of breath to yell at me to get out of the room.  After this troublesome encounter, I overcompensated by being extra-friendly and asking permission to do anything.  Apparently, my compensation also involved developing a country accent for the small town patients at my AHEC rotation.  "What's that? Y'all try to get out on yer bicycle when ya can.  Well, that's downright healthy for yer heart, it sure will bring down yer cholesterol."  I can't help but annoy myself when I hear the country drawl coming out of my mouth.  I don't mind country accents - I just know I'm being  a total poseur and perpetuating the stereotype that country people are friendly.  One day I hope to find my own voice, my own self - just like Christina Aguilera sang in Mulan - when will my reflection show, who I am insi-aye-aye-ide.

--By Farrah, who's very happy to be back in Toledo from her AHEC, doesn't really know why she picked that picture of Dr. Nick, and realizes the video was probably overkill