Waiting on a Friend

It's hard to tell which upcoming event is more anticipated, this Friday's opening of the Sex in the City movie or the return of the 17-year cicadas. I wish the locust would just show up already. I thought they were supposed to arrive in early May? Every week there are articles about them in the papers with the same quotes from the expert entomologist at Barnstable County Cooperative Extension. They're coming, but like bad house guests, no one knows when. I personally can't wait. What could be more exciting for 5-year old and 3-year old boys than a infestation of insects? Tonight at the Captain Kidd I overheard a man at the bar announcing that they were just starting to peek out of holes in North Falmouth. "They're a little sluggish," he told the bartender. Just pushing through to the surface after seventeen years underground? I'd be sluggish too. The guy at the bar said he could vividly remember when the cicadas last appeared. It was the year he got his first bb gun. Guess what he used for target practice? I suppose it beats the neighbor's cat.
At least the Sex in the City movie doesn't keep pushing back it's opening.
Considering I waited until the show started its replays on TBS to begin watching, I doubt I'll go see Sex in the City in the theater. Despite that late start, I count myself as a big fan, having recently compared Carrie's relationship with the Russian to the protagonist of Eat, Pray, Love's affair with the Brazilian.
Whenever I'm on the couch nursing at 11PM I always flip to channel 8. If I'm still on the couch at 11:30 I'll switch over to channel 6 to watch Seinfeld reruns.
Does Sex in the City really need a movie? They wrapped up the series quite neatly in my opinion. In some of the the articles I've read leading up to Friday's big event, the reason given for the movie is the fans need to know what happened to their four favorite New York women. I have to admit being befuddled by this need to know notion. Nothing happened to them - they're television characters. They haven't been living in another dimension somewhere for the past four years. I'm a Seinfeld fan and enthusiastic rerun watcher, but never once have I wondered what happened to the characters, ditto for Scully and Mulder even though there's a new X-files movie coming this July. I didn't wonder about Sam or Diane either, or give much thought to how the cast of MASH reacclimated to civilian life after returning home from Korea. Come to think of it though that would have made an interesting movie, but I guess that was the premise for "The Best Years of Our Lives."
I did wish that I had friends like the women of "Sex in the City." I wished the same thing after reading Bridget Jones' Dairy. I don't wonder about the afterlives of fictional book characters either. I didn't read the sequel to Bridget Jones - she got the guy - what more did I need to know?
To set the record straight though, I do have friends who are equally as fabulous as Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda, in fact they are even more fabulous because they really exist.
This isn't to say I won't rent the movie when it's available. I surely will. If the cicadas don't hurry up and get here their arrival might end up coinciding with, not the big screen release of Sex in the City, but instead it's arrival in a video store near you. That will be approximately three weeks from now - or when the ground warms up to 65 degrees. Whichever comes first.

song: Waiting on a Friend • artist: The Rolling Stones