I’m So Bored, I Could Die

This column is a reprint from Unwinnable Monthly #190. If you like what you see, grab the magazine for less than ten dollars, or subscribe and get all future magazines for half price.

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Elsewhere, here.

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Carrie Bradshaw would have an entire relationship in the space of an episode, and now the question of whether her friend should experiment with not wearing anti-perspirant is a two-episode arc. There is something to the deodorant story. I know women in their late 50s who were inspired by their daughters to stop shaving, to wear softer bras, and someone might have a lot to say about a woman of color that age questioning the standards she has been given for beauty and professionalism. Instead, this is tiring, more than anything. Two episodes on what would have once been a c-plot for Miranda.

It’s tiring, not in the way that watching a few seasons of torture porn on Game of Thrones was tiresome, but in the way that I begin to feel exhausted by mundane choices as I become depressed. In the way that I became sad recently seeing someone wear a colorful shirt that felt like an impossible choice for me. It feels harder to change than it used to, but Sex and the City gently chides me for feeling old. I am so young. I still have a best-selling essay collection and an affair with a difficult to read Russian ahead of me. It’s a fantasy world, but a fantasy of possibility through bravery and openness is a healthy one.

And Just Like That… is a show that often feels in my brain the same way scrolling on the internet does, perhaps because it so often seems like it was written with social media commentary in the back of its mind. Anything mildly controversial was presented with the many caveats of someone who doesn’t want to get yelled at on Twitter, when the original was – for better or for worse – swinging its dick around. Because this is a show at least in part about aging, this made aging feel timid and apologetic as well.

Everyone feels tired. Tired of their kids, tired of putting themselves out there, stuck in the same few sets. I thought we were going to get a good Miranda knock-em-out a few episodes ago, but she accedes to Carrie’s narrative of her shitty long-distance relationship almost immediately. I can’t blame her if she is also tired. As Heather Havrilesky wrote in her recent newsletter: “The main goal when you get past the age of 50 is to avoid starting any fights with your closest friends or your family. The second goal is to avoid injuring yourself.” If And Just Like That… had kept the voiceover we might have heard something like that before a quick cut to Charlotte slipping on a banana peel.

Aiden sleeps with his ex-wife and Carrie is disappointed, but understanding, in a moment so mature and grounded I felt genuine pride in her. The moments of slip-stream where the character’s less-calcified selves poked through and they felt like themselves again were genuine pleasures to find – like something funky and unknown amongst all the Zara piling up at Buffalo Exchange. I was always going to watch this show till the end, but I’m not upset that this end is happening now. I try not to feel tired, but it’s difficult. At the end of the day, it’s easier to watch And Just Like That… then it is to write for the hour I have between dinner and falling asleep.

If I am going to avoid becoming the most scared, placid version of myself I’m going to have to spend less time watching television that doesn’t deserve my close attention, and more time pretending to be fabulous until, just like that, I’m young again.

And Just Like That… plotlines that will now never happen 

• The girls date the DiBlasios. Miranda is dating Charlene and Seema is dating Bill.
• Samantha (who is back) is disgusted by Telfar bags being fake leather, but also wants to be hip, so she gets a bootleg Telfar made from leather.
• Justin Theroux as third entirely new love interest for Carrie. Plot irrelevant.
• Aiden dies doing cross-fit
• Miranda dates a woman exactly like Charlotte
• Charlotte’s daughter has an abortion.
• Samantha stalks Taylor Swift
• Samantha gets hired by Eric Adams to do PR. Carrie has no idea who is running for mayor.
• Bring back David Duchovny!
• Carrie realizes Steve is the love of her life.

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Natasha Ochshorn is a PhD Candidate in English at CUNY, writing on fantasy texts and environmental grief. She’s lived in Brooklyn her whole life and makes music as Bunny Petite. Follow her on Instagram and Bluesky.