Cover Girl

Cha cha, spla-shy bus!

Lights up on an office. Carrie nervously sits on a pink curved sofa, smiles tightly, and listens to a book-cover presentation by Lindsay and Courtney (Amy Sedaris and Molly Shannon, don't you know). Courtney says emphatically, "This cover is SO YOU." Lindsay urges Carrie to not "be thrown," since they just Photoshopped her head on someone else's body. Carrie says, "Oh!" Okay, with a bit of hyperbolic fanfare, the two show the maybe-future cover: Carrie, hailing a cab in the nude, with the words "sex and the city" emblazoned over her naughty bits. It looks a little like the Madonna hitchhiking-in-Miami photo in her Sex book, and very DIY. It's even pink and black and white, very punk rock. And of course, wrong, wrong, wrong. It's too downtown, too Avenue A. Carrie takes one look and gasps, "No!" The women are taken aback. Courtney says they want "a strong reaction," and Lindsay says they "don't want people's reactions to be 'no!'" Duh. Lindsay makes a grand pitch about how the cover is supposed to be Carrie "naked except for her ideas." Um, okay. Carrie says that while she goes out quite often, she still manages to get her clothes on before she goes outside. Yeah. And the cover is supposed to be a literal interpretation of how she lives her life. Why isn't there a cover of Carrie's head Photoshopped onto Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver's body, if they wanted to be literal? Courtney says helpfully that "sex seee-ells!" Yeah, we heard that, we know -- we have the freaking t-shirt. But Carrie, the author, isn't down with the cover, so you need to produce another image. One that won't make the author barf. Courtney says she can respect Carrie's feelings, then turns to Lindsay and says, "We're fucked." Oh, calm down. Carrie says affably that she'll look at the image again. Lindsay flashes it and Carrie says, "No no, absolutely not. I'd sooner die." Yeah, see, first instincts rule.

The four women glide up an escalator, shopping for books. Wow, Char is in jeans! Ragged jeans, even! I don't think I've ever seen her so casually dressed. I love to see her so relaxed, with tousled, "biggened" hair instead of her usual Kiehl's-smooth state. And she has on the breast-cancer-charity pink and black sweater by Ralph Lauren! She has really changed. Carrie looks at four book covers that feature the author and calls them "bad, bad, loser, and no." Samantha, carrying a great big cut-out leather bag (Michael Kors? I can't tell), asks what anyone could say about Carrie. "You're fabulous!" Carrie reminds her that "people are mean." Sam says, "People are not that mean." Then she opens the paper and busts on someone inside who looks "like shit" and possibly has a "stylist [who has] gone blind." Carrie says she's "entered panic." Well, you know, if this is your biggest problem, that's good. I guess Carrie's ego is too big to even entertain the idea of, say, an illustration on the cover? Or maybe, like, just words, with a smaller photo of herself, say, inside the book? Just a suggestion. Sam offers her help; how does Carrie want to look? Oh, you know -- "smart, sexy, and properly airbrushed." Sam thinks she can work with that. Carrie says she "can't afford" Sam's PR services. Sam says it'll cost her "two martinis and a lunch." Sweet! Carrie says she'll "talk to her people."

Mir and Char stroll over to the diet book section. Mir is looking for something like "How To Lose That Baby Fat By Sitting On Your Ass." Oh, I love the whole Sitting On Your Ass series -- there's the toning book, the beauty book, and my fave, Manage Your Entire Freelance Career While Sitting On Your Ass. I also like the title If I'm On The Couch, I'm Working. ["I wrote the foreword to that one." -- Sars] Anyway, Charlotte suggests "The Zone" for a diet. Mir looks a little scared and says, "How about no." She is serious about starting on a diet -- right after she finishes her "chocolate nougat pretzel devil thing." Oh, wow. Get me SOME. I could eat those all the livelong day. Char says she's heading off to find Starting Over, Yet Again. Mir offers her a bite of the chocolate nougat pretzel devil thing, and Char shakes her head "no." I hate people with willpower. But then again, it means more for me.

Char arrives at the "self-hell aisle." True to nasty stereotype, it's full of crazies. And some of them have the uglies, too. One woman sobs as she reads. Char scans the real titles, from Deepak Chopra to The Women's Comfort Book, before landing on Starting Over, Yet Again. Carrie VOs that she "loathes the fact that she needs to be there." Um, she needs to be there? Needing help is quite a different thing from needing to be in the self-help aisle of a freaking bookstore. Char fingers the book, and picks it up gingerly. The sobbing woman calls out, "That really helped me." Char puts it down and says, "Travel? Travel? Traa-vel?" Wow, that was mean. She could have just walked away. Instead, she deliberately negated that woman's experience! Char was a negator!

Mir steps up to the checkout counter and presents her two books. The clerk calls one "adorable," and the other, Fit or Fat, "psychotic." Mir says, "But the New York Times says --" The clerk interrupts, "is the New York Times gonna come over at 2 AM and pry the cookie dough out of your hands?" I don't think so either. The clerk leans in conspiratorially and says she isn't supposed to do this, but: Weight Watchers. It's the only thing that works, she says. And you know, WW has gotten quite a bit of good PR lately. There was a juicy article in Elle, and one in the New York Times. Which leads me to believe that WW hired a new PR firm, and that they are earning their money. So, good for them. The clerk wraps Mir's book and says, "Good luck with Weight Watchers!" Okay, with the product placement.

Char goes home, and uses the iBook on her desk to order Starting Over, Yet Again on Amazon. Because she didn't have the balls to buy it in the store. Great.

Sam signs the slip from her delivery guy and tells him, "Nice package." It's true; his pants do bulge quite admirably. She says she just got her nails done, and would he open this envelope for her? He rips it open like Popeye rips open a can of spinach. So, she offers to blow him. Yeah, my description may not be too elegant, but it's to the point and accurate -- kind of like Sam. She lowers herself to belt level.

Carrie wistfully winds her way down the hall to Sam's office. Wow, the eighties are back -- and Carrie shouldn't be re-living them. She has on a full pink skirt, black beret, and a baggy purple bat-wing off-the-shoulder long-sleeved top. The better to hide your pregnancy, my dear -- but never. Again. She glides in past the receptionist's desk and into Sam's office, where she gets a horrified eyeful of Sam kneeling in front of the delivery guy. Um, as tableaux go, this one is PG-13. Why is Carrie so shocked? Was it the context? Or did she see his wiener? She bangs her elbow on her mad rush out. Delivery guy is all, shall we continue? Sam thinks not -- and as she straightens up, her knee creaks. Wow, is Sam aging? That would make her human! And just like everyone else! Oh, my stars!

Mir weighs herself at guess where. She clocks in at 152.8, but the person writes down 158.2. Mir is not. Having. That. She calls for a re-weigh, arguing, "If [she's] gonna do this, [she's] gonna do it right." She gets re-weighed, and the new weigh-er yells out Mir's correct poundage to the woman that weighed her incorrectly. Mir is all, "Could you not yell out my weight?" Seriously. But good Lord, that is far from fat. And she looks fine all curvy like that. The re-weigh-er hands over Mir's name tag. Mir is all, "Whuh?" A big guy waiting to be weighed says yes, everyone in the program has to wear a tag. His reads, "Big Boned." Mir laughs and introduces herself as "baby weight." Ooh, sparky sparky!

Lights up on Carrie's apartment. The walls are a nice color, sort of lavender, sort of pink. Stanford smokes by the window as Carrie rifles through magazines to find a look to replicate for her book's cover. Something that looks now, that will last. You know. Stanford has a faraway, smiley look on his puss. Carrie says he looks "something." Stanford confirms that he is, in fact, "something." He's met someone, someone new, someone great. Carrie wants to hear all about it, including the ever-important "what does he do," but Stanny has one caveat: Don't judge. Carrie looks taken aback. Well, what the hell is wrong with that? It's all right to preface a statement with a request like that, once in a while. It's just asking someone to wait before they react. A mental pause. Carrie insists she doesn't judge, but Stanford says, "It's what we do." Snort. Shout-out? Could be. Stanford reveals that his new flame, Marcus, is a "Broadway-caliber dancer" who currently hoofs it at Radio City Music Hall, in the male chorus. That is so classic! And very sweet. No shame in that! My sweetie's mom was in the corps de ballet at Radio City, back in the day, and his dad was in the pit playing the horn. They met, fell in love, squeezed out some puppies, and though her dancing days are over, her memories live on. Stanford met his man while waiting on line at Starbucks. Oh, barf.