Back when I was in high school, I thought that being a writer was all about living in a fabulous single apartment, tittering away on a laptop while sprawled out on Calvin Klein sheets. Boy was I wrong. I’ve managed to acquire the laptop and the sheets. My single apartment has fabulous water damage and someone sitting next to me, chewing loudly and watching BET news as I write this. I can’t help but wonder: what is so “glamorous” about the life of a writer?

In the popular television program Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw is a syndicated columnist whose weekly articles appear in the New York Star. She somehow manages to pay for her lavish (albeit rent-controlled) Manhattan apartment and fine dining. Ms. Bradshaw is on a first name basis with the people at Prada, and she spends tens of thousands of dollars a year on Manolo Blahnik shoes. I know I work for a student-run paper, but man, I only make $9.50 an article. At this rate I won’t even be able to pay for my speeding ticket, let alone any designer fashions.

After I became a rhetoric major, my dreams were crushed with one fell swoop on the day that I was informed by my professor that most writers do not make a living solely from their art. Many of them have to *shudder* teach. As if teaching is so lucrative. Because I am now boycotting grad school on principle, it looks like I have two choices: strike it rich in the writing game or become manager of T.G.I. Friday’s. For instilling in me the elusive dream of becoming a glamorous writer, I blame Carrie Bradshaw.

I never see Carrie writing except when she is typing out the statement “I couldn’t help but wonder,” followed by a bad pun. The only time she claims to have a deadline is when she is trying to get herself out of an awkward situation. Meanwhile, it seems like I am always writing something. I have about a two-day break between when I finish my first article and when I need to be thinking of what to write for the next one.

Carrie doesn’t have any of the unnecessary distractions that I have. She usually wraps up an article in front of an open window, a light breeze blowing through her blonde locks as she stoically reflects on her last lines. Usually sporting a cute, somewhat mismatched outfit, Carrie is never distracted or at a loss of words except for the predictable “writer’s block” episode, in which that is the plot of the whole show: “will Carrie get laid so she can write an article?”

I am usually decked in a t-shirt with soda stains. My hair can’t be bothered to be blown by breezes, as it hasn’t been washed in two days and is therefore too greasy for such movement. Most evenings, my next-door neighbor is singing at the top of his lungs, so I am constantly having to throw books at the wall and beg him to shut up. Elijah Minelli usually prevails, and I am left to finish my article, somewhat dejected, with a pair of earplugs.

Carrie is courted by the likes of Chris Noth, John Corbett, Ron Livingston, Vince Vaughn and the very sexy Mikhail Baryshnikov (hey, I’m into hot 50-and-over men). I am accosted by a backward-Cubs-hat-wearing bro who asks me if I would like him to lift my skirt so he can f-me. Isn’t my boyfriend sweet! That’s right, we’re dating now!

Even with all the stark differences between my grim life and that of Carrie Bradshaw’s, I still like to think that someday I too will be wearing Dior and drinking gimlets in the big city, even if it is as the district manager of T.G.I. Friday’s.