So let's not delay further shall we?
When we last saw Carrie, she was heavily hitting on her old flame, Aiden, outside Steve's new bar. Aiden was making it clear he was shutting this whole thing down, but rather than being put out, Carrie's desperation flames were fanned.
Carrie is anything if consistent at least. She wants what she can't have, see.
And currently is faux-calling Aiden. Over and over, calling his number and hanging up before he can pick up. She doesn't know what she wants to say in the first place, she's just trying to make contact.
Real mature.
Charlotte, during their African drumming dance class, tells her to stop being so immature. Then she betrays her and tells the other two about Carrie's crisis.
Miranda gives her good advice, that Aiden might not want to hear it after all she put him through.
Sam tells her that shouldn't try to get back with Aiden because of how granola he is.
That is such a random comment for her to make, but it actually makes sense, and plays out during Act II of their relationship. How important is background in making relationships work? I mean, you have to have *something* in common and Aiden and Carrie really don't have anything in common. Carrie is city girl, she's shallow and survives off of the lingering smell of curry and garbage day. Aiden would rather live in the woods with his squirrel.
They're doomed.
Charlotte thinks that Aiden is perfect since he stripped Carrie's floors.
They then circle the table criticizing Aiden for his turquoise jewelry and Carrie for her fish-like ability to latch on to shiny things. Maybe she's a squirrel and that's why Aiden likes her.
Moving on. Sam takes out her nipples!
rubber nipples.
I know. :sadface:
Apparently nipples are ice cream on top this year. Are they really ever out of fashion, really, though?
They decide to do an experiment to see if Miranda can pick up a dude while wearing Sam's rubber nipples.
Like that's a real experiment. ><
Surprise surprise, the fake nipples work. Miranda gets so much attention that Sam wants her fake nipples back.
And the last thing they talk about is how woefully behind the times Carrie is. She doesn't even have an e-mail account. Well I call shenanigans on that. I'm sure her newspaper job would have required it by 2001.
---
Miranda is training for the marathon, still. I like that they keep that as a character trait for her. A few episodes ago she was training on a treadmill, and it seems she's found a training group that runs in the park. Apparently it's all very organized too, since it's separated by mile time, I guess that makes sense if there's a lot of people running together. I hate when I run too fast for my body. it kills.
There's a cute guy in Miranda's group. She shame-flirts with him, since all the cute guys are in the 7 minute-mile group. He's had knee surgery though, so he's allowed to be slow.
After running together a few times, they continue the sweaty fun in the bedroom. fun! but also, gross!
I'll get into how gross in a minute.
--
Charlotte is getting on with redecorating their expansive apartment. It looks *so* much better, I tell you what. They walk through a few more doorways, till they reach a nook right off their bedroom that I guess with some added doors could actually be a room.
Charlotte looks nervous, cause she can't say what she wants to say-- that it'd be a great nursery for a baby. But she doesn't have to say it, cause Trey suggests it.
Yes, I know this is So Not a Good Idea. But it still makes me swoon with the cuteness. :)
--
Sam, meanwhile, has put her rubber nipples to good use. She's picked up a very bratty guy. He's just awful. I don't know where she finds them.
She finds out that not only is he bratty, but he likes to talk baby talk. :groan: It's just not pretty or good. And when she tells him not to, he throws a tantrum and leaves.
As Narrator Carrie says, "She wore the rubber nipples and attracted a big baby!"
--
Speaking of big babies, Carrie has written a very long e-mail to Aiden. This is actually the first time I've read it. It's not bad, but it's a bit much, a bit heavy handed. She immediately highlights the text and deletes it.
Probably for the best.
She then replaces the text with: "I miss you. Do you miss me?"
Direct and to the point. She hits Send and immediately regrets it.
Now this is an emotion I can relate to, and I think a lot of people can. Sending something off to the ether to be judged or ignored. I have a lot of social anxiety, leaving messages is the *worst.*
--
Charlotte tells her friends that she and Trey have decided to try for a baby.
They aren't the most supportive about it, since Trey and she did just get back together.
Charlotte is adamant since she is so old and doesn't have time to sit on it. All of her friends who want children have already started having children and she doesn't want to be a forty-year-old mom.
"No offense" She says to Sam.
"I don't want to be one of those either!" Sam responds.
Fair enough!
"And I promise I won't be one of those mothers who can only talk about diaper genies."
"Good!" Carrie responds emphatically.
"What the hell's a diaper genie?" Sam whispers to Carrie while Charlotte has run off looking at cute baby dresses.
"I dunno, someone you hire to change a kid's diaper?"
bahahaha. I love this exchange so much.
One of Charlotte's aforementioned mom friends walks up just then. Charlotte announces the impending impending baby and then invites her and her children to have dinner with them some evening.
---
Days have gone by since Carrie e-mailed Aiden and he hasn't responded. So, she goes back faux-calling him. Only this time he picks up. Hey remember the days when people didn't have caller ID?
Do you all think he *has* caller ID and is creeped the fuck out by all the calling she's been doing? I feel like this is another one of those episodes where I wish I were following a side character. I'm pretty sure people had caller ID back then.
And now that I'm actually watching this part of the episode, I notice that he has a cellphone, so he most certainly has noticed the number of calls and who they're from.
And to add further second-hand embarrassment, the first thing Carrie says is "Why haven't you responded to my e-mail?"
He admits that he likely deleted it without reading it, since he gets a lot of spam. Ah, the days of spam.
She's increasingly unimpressed by the whole e-mail thing. He asks what the e-mail said, and she changes the subject and asks him to go out with her, but as a double non-date with Miranda and Steve.
This'll go well.
--
Speaking of Miranda, she's just gone for a run with her new running buddy. They're enjoying some post-exercise sweaty bedroom fun. It's gross. Like, take a shower first dude.
He is way into that sweaty, salty flavor, and is licking his way down her back. ooo, not a good sign. He just goes right on licking.
"Are we talking tuckus-ligus?" Carrie asks when Miranda embarrassingly admits that her new running buddy licked her butt.
"I'm afraid so. And I thought it was weird. It's weird, right? Are we doing this now?"
"If the guy's willing, why not?" Sam says.
"Anyone other than Samantha?" Miranda responds.
Carrie is in the noooope category.
Charlotte shockingly admits: "Well, Trey likes to do it." Three sets of eyes slowly turn toward her. "We're married."
There is something to be said about being married, there's a certain amount of trust that it enables. And something the show *finally* gets right about marriage. Married people are having a lot of fun wacky sex that you can't necessarily have with a stranger.
The foursome wonder about men and the ass, "It's true the last few guys I've been with have been much more eager to attend to it. You know, digitally." Miranda says.
"How did this happen? How did they get the message that the ass is now on the menu?" Carrie wonders aloud.
:cough: porn. :cough:
"I bet there's one loud-mouthed guy who found some woman who loved it and told everybody 'women LOVE this!'" Miranda guesses.
"Who is this guy?" Carrie asks.
"Who's the woman who loved it?" Miranda responds.
"Don't knock it till you try it!" Sam adds.
"Bingo!" Carrie says.
And then the question of reciprocation. Sam, Carrie and Miranda are a firm, if slightly disgusted, NO.
"You wouldn't?" Charlotte innocently asks.
--
Next scene, Charlotte is serving a fancy dinner for her guests and their three children. It doesn't go well. The kids are, well, being kids, and the parents are snipping at each other. It isn't pretty, and the result is that Charlotte and Trey don't have sex for the next few days.
In one of the last scenes, Charlotte brings Trey a Tiffany box that was just delivered. Inside is one of those old-fashioned rattles that is inscribed. Trey had forgotten he ordered it before the dinner from hell.
Charlotte asks if Trey doesn't want a baby anymore. He still does, but he's been shell shocked by the reality of kids.
Charlotte complains that kids don't even want to sit by her.
Trey says that *he* wants to sit by her. d'aww. He then talks about the couple that he knew before they had kids and how in love they were. "And now, they're just..."
"...parents." Charlotte finishes his sentence.
"Maybe if we only had one child." She offers. He seems keen on that.
Then Narrator Carrie gets a little odd here. She says, "Then Trey told the lie that all parents-to-be have to tell themselves in order to procreate:"
"Besides, our kids'll be different."
I mean, it isn't Odd, per say, but it is really annoying.
Their kids, if they ever ended up having one, WOULD be different. They would want to sit next to Mommy, and they would be raised with different sensibilities. Trey and Char's guests had three children who weren't babies. They were kids.
And Charlotte's and Trey's complaints really had nothing to do with the kids themselves-- it was with the damaged relationship between the parents on display at the dinner.
Kids don't cause that kind of damage. That kind of damage might be exacerbated by the stress of children, but the lack of respect and poor communication was there from the beginning.
Ahem.
I have literally always hated that exchange in this episode. Maybe, well, Probably because I've always wanted to have children. I am a bit idealistic, but the having of the children was not far from my expectations of what they'd be like before I had them.
But like I said, they're talking about their relationship, not having children.
But. MY relationship wasn't ruined from children. anec-data, I know, but lots of people have children and then don't divorce.
Suffice to say, they do decide to keep trying for a child despite everything.
---
On their awkward double date, Carrie is prattling on and on, awkwardly telling a story about bugs in her apartment.
Steve announces he has to go to the bathroom, and Aiden decides to come with despite that being a faux-pas.
"So apparently Aiden needed an airbag in the bathroom." (Carrie had planned this whole thing so that everyone had someone to escape with in case things went sour.)
Carrie is oblivious and thinks things are going well between her and Aiden. She asks Miranda to leave with Steve so that she and Aiden can have some quality alone time.
Miranda is bemused and annoyed. She doesn't want Steve to get the idea that she's here with him, since she's still trying to make it work with her tuckus-lingus pal.
She is a good friend though, and escapes with Steve.
Carrie walks home with Aiden, and it is kind of awkward. At his door, she says plainly that she wants to get back together with him. He says that he was afraid she was going to say that and rejects her as politely as he can.
She is confused since he touched her hand in the restaurant.
He explains that he was just being friendly since she seemed so nervous.
She is horrified and embarrassed and says goodnight, trying to save face. He leans in to kiss her cheek or something while she's walking forward to leave, and ends up nearly kissing her on the mouth.
She heads home in a flurry and starts to write an e-mail to Miranda about the whole event.
Miranda calls her at that moment, and tells her to back away from the computer. That Carrie is reading too much into it and needs to give it a rest and send him an e-mail.
She suddenly gets an AIM message from Aiden and is terrified that he can see her or something.
lol. Old people.
Carrie decides that she should head back to his place, despite Miranda yelling at her that that is crazy.
"His words said 'no' but his kiss said 'yes.'"
"That's the defense invoked by date rapists."
"I know he still feels it." Carrie says and then hangs up and heads back to Aiden's place and starts throwing pebbles at his window.
Then Narrator Carrie defends her desperate and crazy behavior by playing the sexism card: "When men attempt bold gestures, it's generally considered romantic. When women do, It's often considered desperate or psycho."
Aiden is not amused. First he assumes that she never left, and when it is revealed that she left and came back he's less than not amused.
She's hoping she is coming across endearing, but he's really getting kind of pissed off by her antics.
He starts off nice, saying he had a nice time. And she presses that there's something between them, that she's SO different and smoking and old habits are totally gone and she misses him and he looks so good and she misses him--
"YOU BROKE MY HEART!" He shouts at her and she runs away.
And that is that. No more Aiden.
Just kidding.
A few scenes later he comes to her in the middle of the night and they look at each other and just start making out and doing it.
--
Miranda offers her tuckus-lingus pal a back massage after he finishes, uh, polishing her off. He starts sticking his butt out hoping for a good licking. She pretends he isn't pushing his ass closer and closer to her mouth until finally she shouts that she doesn't want to do that, and he's embarrassed and tells her off for not rejecting him sooner.
Real Mature.
This is one of many many times where Miranda ends up dating someone that goes to the same places as she does. Rather than go through the embarrassment of running near him and seeing him often, she avoids the situation and speeds up her running pace into the 9-minute group. Smart.
And in the last scene, Carrie is waiting at her computer for some kind of correspondence from Aiden. He pulls a Carrie and calls down from the street. She looks out the window and asks if he wants to come up, but he's brought his dog so he cant. Nice airbag, Aiden. He invites her to go on a walk and she goes.
The episode ends with a computer shut-off.
I like how this episode plays with technology-- things that are supposed to make communication easier often just get in the way of communication.
In the next episode, Charlotte deals with the consequences of choosing family over her career, firing one of the first shots of modern mommy wars. Miranda hurts her neck, and Carrie shows some new bad behaviors for me to judge her for.
Real Mature.
<3
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