ALMOST CARRIE ~ Almost Done

Men as socks.

Some men are argyles.

Safe socks.

This column socks.

Thus begins Carrie’s brainstorming in the second episode of the fifth season, Unoriginal Sin. “I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel here, ladies,” she says. “Last week, I wrote about my search for the perfect French fry.”

I am both sorry and relieved to say that I feel the same way. You may have noticed my silence for the past 4 weeks. This was not some lackadaisical hiatus; this was a tortured month of Fridays, each one creeping up and then flying by, my psyche haunted by half-baked ideas and my husband’s ridiculous faith in everything I do (“But honey, think of your fans!”).

When I began Almost Carrie, my goal was to post once a week for three months. When three months rolled around, I wanted to keep going for six, and after six, I was jonesing for a year. That’s the thing about blogging—it’s addictive, especially when you start looking at the numbers. Back in August of 2011, eight people read the post Almost Carrie: The Pilot. Skip to July 19th of this year and the 1,500 hits I got for Almost Carrie: Carole Radziwill and the Future of Housewives. (Full disclosure: this is a totally inflated number and not at all indicative of a regular week. RHONY star Aviva Drescher, bless her heart, tweeted a link to that piece and things ended up getting K-RAY-ZEE!)

I was also nothing if not diligent. On a trip to Scotland last September, my husband spent the morning island-hopping and seal-watching while I stayed behind and wrote my blog in the lobby of the B & B. On Thanksgiving Day, with the family making merry downstairs, I locked myself in my four-year-old cousin’s room and penned sexual innuendo from inside the pile of stuffed animals that constitutes her bed. I took the week off between Christmas and New Year’s, but then I was right back on the horse. I would not stop until I hit 52 posts. This is number 43.

Now, however, despite this previous exuberance, I’m ready to stop. I am, for better or for worse, absolutely sick of trying to find ways to relate my life to Sex and the City each week. If I were Truly Carrie instead of Almost Carrie, I’d be getting paid for my work, and surely that would be enough to get me over the hump. But Almost Carrie’s payment is in the form of personal gratification, and so it seems silly to continue when I no longer feel personally gratified. Throw my father’s death into the mix and the inevitable overhaul of one’s priorities that comes with that kind of loss, and you start to see why I’m shying away from writing anything that doesn’t totally float my boat.

That said, I’ve come to love blogging. I’m greedy for the high of publishing something with one little click—it makes waiting for rejections from Ploughshares and Alaskan Quarterly that much more bearable.

So: I will put Almost Carrie to bed (Ha! Still got it!) but will continue to blog. As for a topic? Well, I considered doing a week-by-week, Joan Didion-style analysis of grief, but that seemed a bit cruel (I should consider my readers at least a little). Another idea, and one that is much more user-friendly, is to write about arts and culture. I have a decent knowledge of literature, television, film, and theatre; a basic working knowledge of visual arts and food; and no knowledge whatsoever of music, opera, or dance. I think the disparity could be fun. My plan is to couple cultural critiques with goofy stories and anecdotes from my life, so for those of you who only read Almost Carrie for the dirt on my marriage and my in-laws, don’t fret.

I want to make it clear one last time, in spite of my exhaustion with everything Carrie-related (December will mark my eighth year as a tour guide), that I have an enormous place in my heart for the Sex and the City. There is no need, at this point, to recap my argument for its substantial contribution to society—you’ve heard it before. Great shows, though, try to go out on a high note, and I want to do the same. So adieu, my loyal Almost Carrie readers. Thank-you for your time this past year. I hope that at least some of you will follow me down this road. Also: if I decide to resurface and make some bullshit “Almost Carrie: The Movie” in a few years, feel free to tear it to pieces.

P.S. My husband suggested the title “Almost Cultured” for my next column. I kind of love it. Thoughts?

Emily Sproch is a writer and a Sex and the City tour guide. Each Friday, she chronicles the fine line between reality and fiction in her column “Almost Carrie.”