Back in 2000, "Sex and the City’s" Carrie Bradshaw and the gang came to stay at The Standard, Hollywood for the iconic season three episodes “Escape from New York” and "Sex and Another City." We sent one of our favorite Instagram personas, @dan_clay's Carrie Dragshaw, to recreate the magic, and boy, did she ever. Let's get carried away on her journey through LA...
Meanwhile, I was going loca in La La Land trying to stand out at The Standard. As I stepped back into LA in the same asymmetrical dress from 2000, I started thinking about change. You can change your clothes, you can change your hair, with the right doctor you can even change your face—but can you ever really change your self? And even if you can, do you then just discover something new that needs changing? Was my soul like a pair of mismatched Louboutins: colorful but confused, dazzling but always divided—one side where I am, one side where I want to be, a walking contradiction?
Even if I couldn’t change, LA certainly could. In 17 years, the trees got tall, downtown got cool, juice got expensive, gluten got evil, and reality got a lot of TV shows. Now, we text instead of talk, swipe instead of flirt, take Ubers, take SoulCycle, and have entire walls for taking selfies.
There’s an old saying: “Time waits
for no man.” Well, good for Time. But I certainly wasted a lot of time waiting
for one. As I took another puff of my contraband cigarette, I started thinking
about 17 years of standing still, waiting for a man to notice me, flatter me,
to love me deeper, or to hold me tighter.
I couldn’t help but wonder: In life,
do we just keep taking the same trips over and over again? Making a wrong turn
onto Memory Lane instead of merging onto the open road of the life we want? If
life is a highway, was I stuck in LA traffic?
But maybe happiness is less about
changing your life and more about changing how you look at it. It's less about
changing your city, your weight, your boyfriend, or even yourself—and more
about changing your perspective. To see the pool float as half full. To stop
comparing yourself to where you should be and start celebrating yourself for
where you are. To become the love you’re looking for. After all, the air in
LA might have smog and the air in NY might smell like pee, but you can
still stop and smell the roses.
Maybe life is like a Brazilian Wax: You're in for a lot of pain if you expect everything to be smooth. But if you can greet life's imperfections and hairy problems with a smile, you're destined for joy.
Maybe life is like a Brazilian Wax: You're in for a lot of pain if you expect everything to be smooth. But if you can greet life's imperfections and hairy problems with a smile, you're destined for joy.
It’s like when a New Yorker visits
LA. Some see only the differences: they’re Porsche and we’re Prada, they’re
Hollywood and we’re Broadway, Lunch at the Ivy vs. Breakfast at Tiffany’s. We
validate friends, they validate parking. They’re chill all year and we’re
freezing for half of it. Our trends are on the runway and theirs come with a
locker room. They hike up Runyon to get fresh air and we hike up our skirts to
get into 1 Oak. But some see the similarities: fabulous places full of fabulous
strivers who expect a lot from their cities and even more from themselves.
It turns out you can feel
Califortunate no matter what state you’re in. So maybe life’s greatest voyage
isn’t about going somewhere new, but seeing the same place—or person—with new
eyes. As I left Los Angeles, I realized: Whether it’s distance or time, no
matter how far you travel, you end up running into yourself. In a way, you’re
always living in your own head. And if you can make it there, you’ll make it
anywhere.
For more Carrie Dragshaw, follow @dan_clay on Instagram.
