ALMOST CARRIE ~ Season 1, Episode 2 — Rockettes and Mortals

Last Saturday night I went to a get together at my friend’s apartment in Astoria.  The event was a clothing swap, a popular phenomenon of late.  You prepare for a clothing swap by going through your closet and removing all of the items you know you’ll never wear again.  You put your pile of discards in a bag which you bring to the swap and deposit next to everyone else’s discards.  Then, after a few glasses of wine, you make trades.  Everyone begins trying things on and, as the evening progresses and the alcohol flows, what little modesty you came with starts to wane.  Bras fly through the air, thongs are exposed, and pale midsections are put on display. The atmosphere is not unlike the communal makeshift dressing rooms at aggressive sample sales, but the merchandise is free and you get to drink.

I went to the party with my friend and college roommate Laura.  The party was hosted by another college friend and former roommate, Kate.  Here’s is a quick overview of Laura and me: We are roughly the same size, both short.  I would say we are the same height; she would point out that I am, in fact, two inches shorter.  Both of our bodies have gone through changes this year—hers because she just had a baby, mine because I sat in my sweat pants for eight months writing my master’s thesis and when I finally stumbled out of the library my real pants no longer fit.  Here is a quick overview of Kate: she is a Rockette.

The Radio City Rockettes in all their glory.

What makes that information palatable is that Laura and I have known Kate for 15 years.  We have seen her in her goofy glasses when she first wakes up in the morning, we have seen her in fleecy pajamas, we have seen her get good haircuts and bad haircuts, we’ve seen her sick and well and dressed up and dressed down.  After knowing her for so long in such an intimate way, her career becomes less intimidating.  Kate, however, has Rockette friends, friends I don’t know, two of whom rounded out our shindig on Saturday night.  Hanging out with clothed Rockettes is daunting enough, hanging out with naked Rockettes is surreal.  I mean the legs alone, my god!  And the abs, oh the abs!  Those abs are like woven baskets, thatched muscles overlapping in intricate cross-stitched patterns.  As I stood in my underwear looking at these professional bodies, the whole thing began to feel as absurd as a Beckett play.  Laura with her baby and me with my thesis swapping outfits with the Radio City Christmas Spectacular.

In the second episode of Sex and the City (“Models and Mortals”), Carrie devotes her column to observing models.  “Models” she writes, “[are] in most cities safely confined to billboards and magazines, but in Manhattan actually run wild in the streets…”  She was not, I assure you, exaggerating, though in this case we can swap “models” with “dancers.”  By the end of the episode, Carrie concludes that “Beauty is fleeting, but a rent controlled apartment overlooking the park is forever.”  Two comments:  1) The Rockettes I met on Saturday night were lovely and smart, so fleeting beauty or not they will be just fine.  2) My rent controlled apartment overlooking the park turned out to be this fabulous little flowered dress that (ahem) was too short on everyone else.

Samantha and Carrie scrutinize the models in "Models and Mortals." Season 1, Episode 2

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.”