"Everyone has a worst nightmare." "For some, it's bathing-suit season." "For others, it's that your birth certificate can never be legally destroyed." "For Miranda, it was family hour at her gym." "What the...." "Kiddy Jazzercise, Aerobics Room 1, five minutes." "On Sundays, her neighborhood became occupied territory under siege to children." "They were everywhere:" "Movie theaters, restaurants, bookstores, hair salons...." "Starbucks was basically a stroller parking lot." "Was it too much to hope for one small space to call her own?" "Don't touch it, please!" "Is there a problem?" "No, it's just that he really likes to push the button." "Fine, I'm in kind of a rush." "Push One." "Simon, this pretty lady said that you could push the button." "So sorry." "I'm sure it's just a phase." "Yeah, the guilty, overindulgent phase of a D-I-V-O-R-C-E." "Daddy." "Simon, we're not being very nice to...." "That sounds like a princess name." "Stop talking." "I'm going to bite you." "Do you want to go to the toy store later?" "Yes." "Then don't bite me." "I am in violation of every parenting book ever written." "Do you have kids?" "No." "Married?" "Here we are." "At last." "Any chance I could persuade you to take another ride?" "His name was Roger Cobb." "It only took him another floor and a half to ask Miranda for her phone number." "The whole thing might have been very romantic if Simon hadn 't peed in his pants." "I don't wear vintage clothes, I hate flea markets, I don't collect antiques." "Is it too much to ask that he not be, I don't know, used?" "Before it goes any further, just make sure his parts are still under warranty." "It's like chewing somebody else's gum." "Divorced men do come with baggage." "Baggage is one thing." "But when they come with kids...." "Especially kids with bladder control issues." "Here's what I think." "Round up all the divorced men and keep them in a pound." "That way, you get their whole history before you take one home." "If a man is divorced, it doesn't mean he has a problem." "Like my brother Wesley." "He just separated from his wife, Leslie" "Wesley and Leslie?" "I don't think so." "What is that, marriage by Mother Goose?" "Definitely a candidate for the pound." "I was going to ask you to meet him 'cause he's coming to visit, and now forget it." "We want to meet Wesley of Wesley and Leslie." "And p.s., does he work for Nestle?" "My brother's very important to me." "I won't have him subjected to scrutiny and ridicule." "I'II be Scrutiny." "You be Ridicule." "I always have to be Ridicule." "Why can't you be Ridicule for once?" "I know." "As for me, rather than sort through the half-off bin I was dating someone brand-spanking new." "I met Vaughn Weisel at a P.E.N. Iuncheon a month ago." "It's amazing how much better looking fiction writers have become." "Still up for a movie?" "I just gotta drop these books by my parent's place." "It's on the way." "GQ called." "They want you to write something?" "They want me to wear something." "It's so great to be a writer these days, there's so little writing involved." "Don't be photographed in anything sleeveless." "No one who went sleeveless ever won a Pulitzer." "It's just a Iittle tip from me to you." "Nice townhouse." "Come on in, this will only take a second." "I'm not dressed for family." "Can you just drop them through the mail slot?" "If I'm here and I don't say hello I'm looking at two months minimum hard family time." "AII right." "Yeah, okay." "Thank you." "Mother, I swear, you are the only person who can kill a cactus." "This is Carrie." "Tell your sister to stop bringing me plants." "They get suicidal around me." "I have to talk them down from the ledge." "Those books you asked me to sign...." "Duncan, Vaughn's here." "And he brought a girl!" "Hi." "Wallis Weisel..." "Hi." "Have we met?" "No, I don't think so." "Carrie Bradshaw." "My God." "Duncan, get your ass in here." "I just love your column." "I Iove to hear that." "Mom, we can't stay." "The hell you can't." "You know what you should write about?" "Re-virginization." "Did you know there are women who are actually having their vaginas re-stitched to make them like new again?" "Aren't they clever?" "If you're wondering, Mom just finished a documentary on genital mutilation." "Which I still haven't gotten your notes on." "I told you, I can't bring myself to look at that thing." "And I typed all his short stories for him when he was 12." "Duncan, look." "Do you know who this is?" "Carrie Bradshaw." "She writes that column we love." "What are you doing Thursday night?" "Laundry." "I teach a seminar at Columbia on Cultural Zeitgeist." "I'd love to have you come speak." "Mr. Self-Involved here didn't tell us he was dating an icon." "Icon?" "You are an icon." "You are." "Who brought a girl?" "This is my other sister." "Franny, this is Carrie." "What's up?" "What's up?" "Hey, mom." "Hi, sweetie." "Franny and Zooey?" "What can I say?" "J.D. Salinger used to get me high." "And then she'd call me at 3:00 a.m., "I Iove you."" "Good for you." "Beautiful and she thinks I'm funny." "You're hilarious." "Put your tongue back in your head and the lox on the table." "Come on, everybody, Iet's have something to eat." "We have to go." "Come on, please." "We'II stay." "I mean, really, within the space of five minutes I had next week's column, an invitation to speak at an Ivy League university and access to the entire Zabar's fish counter." "Leave now?" "Was he nuts?" "Have you ever gone out with someone who had a kid?" "No, but I've never gone out with someone I met on an elevator either." "That's a first for me, too." "I met a woman on an escalator once, but it didn't last long." "It was over by the time we got to Ladies Lingerie." "I dated a man once who wore ladies' lingerie." "That was kind of the problem there." "I'm kidding." "'Cause I'm wearing panties now." "You're kidding, right?" "Look what I found." "Can you say you're sorry?" "No!" "Are you okay?" "Fortunately, I mostly use the right side of my brain." "It must be hard, having a social life as a single parent." "It is, I got to buy protective helmets for all my dates." "Where's mine, by the way?" "The truth is, I didn't really have a great social life before Simon either." "I'm just one of those weird male aberrations who prefers to be married." "I Iike stability and routine." "I Iike knowing there's people waiting for me at home." "I guess that makes me sound pretty dull." "Are you kidding?" "You're the Heterosexual Holy Grail." "Miranda wondered how a vintage man might look on her modern couch." "Here." "Thank you." "Probably not the best time to ask you to dinner." "While Miranda was dealing with queasiness Charlotte was handling depression which she felt could be solved with a homemade muffin." "Here you go." "Just like Nana used to make." "Charlie, the muffins are great, but I'd much prefer a nice dry martini." "But Nana always made muffins to cheer you up." "That was pre-Leslie." "Post-Leslie, I need a cocktail." "Where's your vodka?" "I don't have any." "And you call yourself a Wasp." "I don't see why you two can't work it out, you had the most beautiful wedding." "We'II have an even lovelier divorce." "I can't believe you're willing to just throw it all away so easily." "Relationships take work." "You need patience and understanding." "When was your last Iong-term relationship?" "Just eat your muffin." "The afternoon had been like six hours of foreplay." "Some men seduce with dim lights and soft music." "Vaughn seduced with chocolate chip cookies and relatives." "It was inevitable this would happen." "I just didn't know it would happen so quickly." "I'II get a tissue." "Get out now, before he stains all your sheets." "Come on, that's harsh." "It could be he was just nervous." "First time is always weird." "He probably had something to drink." "We'd spent the day with his family." "The guy could not get his Cadillac into the garage." "I'm sorry, I hate being right about this." "Samantha was the General Patton of sex." "She didn't send her troops into battle if she thought they would lose." "I Iike him." "That's swell, but it doesn't get the cream in the cupcake." "But the thing I Iike best about him is his family." "Anyone there you can fuck?" "What?" "I'm trying to be helpful." "I'm telling you, this family is like...." "They got charisma." "Like Tom Cruise, they're the Tom Cruise of families." "I'm sure the family is supposed to be the obstacle to a relationship not the attraction." "I fucked a guy once because his family had a pool." "He was pretty much of a nerd, but I'd go over there and get all cocoa-buttered up." "His mom loved me." "She was always serving me Kool-Aid and chips." "Kool-Aid?" "Yeah, Kool-Aid, I was 13." "And honey, you should have seen my tan." "In my mind, the complications of making a relationship work had just expanded exponentially." "When you date someone, how many people become emotionally involved?" "When you sleep with someone, are you screwing the family?" "While I was still on the fence about Vaughn I had no doubt about my feeling for his mother." "I was in love with her." "Then we were in Nicaragua with the Peace Corps." "That's where Vaughn was born." "I can't get over it." "You've had five lives." "I can barely make one happen." "Don't pull that self-effacing shit with me." "I see you." "I know what you've got going." "What?" "What do I do?" "I write this little column." "It's a contribution." "You are putting it out there." "You're part of a dialogue." "If it wasn't for you we wouldn't know half the things we do about other people's sex lives." "Thanks a Iot." "I'm teasing." "No, it's wonderful to be frank and honest about sex." "That's how I raised my kids." "Sex was always a part of the discussion." "When they were 2 years old, they knew the proper names for their body parts." "None of this "pee-pee" and "wee-wee" crap." "And as a result, they can talk to me about anything." "When Franny told me she was a lesbian I said, "Great, just as long as you're not a Republican."" "May I just say I Iike you very much." "That's dear, thank you." "Did you talk to Leslie today?" "No." "I talked to her lawyer." "Do you want to know about that?" "I'm giving her the house and she's giving me an ulcer." "I'm sorry I brought it up." "Tonight we'II have fun." "You'II finally meet my friend Carrie." "We'II go out, have dinner, maybe go to a club...." "Shit." "This is my wonderful brother, Wesley." "Nice to meet you." "Good looks run in the family." "Can I get you ladies a drink?" "Cosmopolitan." "Ditto." "How are you enjoying New York?" "Excuse us." "Why is she here?" "That's our friend." "I believe you remember Samantha." "You know how she gets." "Look!" "She's doing it already." "They're talking." "Samantha says there's a great jazz bar that we should go to." "I just don't think I'm up for it tonight." "Then maybe we'II just go." "Talking and going to hear jazz." "I think I have your son's slinky embedded in my back." "I Iike to brand my women." "I'm going to use the bathroom, and then I really will go." "Daddy?" "No, Simon!" "Daddy!" "Shit." "I'm sorry." "I was peeing, and I didn't want him to see me." "I was afraid he'd see me and then he'd be drawing pictures for a child psychologist and nobody's happy." "I'II get a Band-Aid." "He's hurt." "He might need a stitch." "I'II go with you to the emergency room." "No!" "Just go." "please, just go." "One thing about families if no one's sorry to see you go, then you're probably not coming back." "The next morning, Charlotte was in for a rude awakening." "Where do you keep your coffee filters?" "Just tell me if I'm warm." "My brother?" "You slept with my brother?" "Honey, what a doll." "He really" "Is your vagina in the New York City guidebooks?" "It should be, it's the hottest spot in town!" "It's always open!" "What's going on?" "What did you say?" "She was in my kitchen, she was wearing your shirt, I snapped." "Who asked you to butt your nose into my...." "Samantha, wait!" "Don't go!" "I didn't know your mom was nominated for an Oscar." "Best Documentary Short." "I just love that she still has so many ambitions for herself." "I'm not really in the mood to talk about my mom." "I'm not really in the mood to talk at all." "Don't touch it!" "What was the documentary short about anyway?" "Good, you're back." "I swear to God, if you hand me a muffin, I'm out of here." "You don't know Samantha." "I do." "She has so many notches on her bedpost, it's almost whittled down to a toothpick." "It was fun." "I know." "You had your little fling, now you can go back to Leslie and work it out." "We're not working it out." "You think you know Wesley and Leslie?" "Let me tell you about Wesley and Leslie." "Leslie's frigid and before last night, Wesley hadn't gotten laid in two years." "My God." "I was going out of my mind." "I've seen a pastor." "I've seen a shrink." "But until I saw Samantha, I didn't realize what I really needed: sex." "So it was a good thing." "It was a frigging great thing." "That Samantha...." "You've really got a good friend there." "It's Charlotte." "That was a terrible thing I said." "Yes, it was." "If you'II excuse me I have another tour group coming through my vagina in 10 minutes." "I'm so sorry." "You said what you came to say?" "Wait!" "I wanted to give you this." "Samantha was touched." "She realized this was Charlotte's way of saying..." ""..." "Thank you for fucking my brother. "" "Get in there." "Hey, kids!" "Funtastics on Three." "Miranda decided she had ceded enough territory to the invading troops." "Do you mind?" "He really loves to push the button." "Yeah?" "So do I." "That is so sexy." "You in bed with my book." "It's really great." "Do that again." "What, turn the page?" "Baby." "Again." "Wait, stop." "Let's just take this nice and slow." "You tell me if you're feeling too excited and we'II take a Iittle break." "Why?" "Because I think we both really want this to work." "I Iove that you get so turned on by me and I am very turned on by you." "Maybe we've just been in too much of a rush." "Forget it." "No, I don't want to forget it." "Come here." "Let's talk about it." "No!" "I don't want to talk about it." "I think we have to." "Why does everything have to be about sex!" "I am so sick of talking about sex." "I've been talking about it since I was 2." "So let's go." "My parents are expecting us." "Duncan and I went down to the Neil Simon Theater and spent $65" "$75." "To see a British movie star simulate a blowjob." "I wonder if that's what Neil had in mind." "Did she show her tits?" "No." "How's the pickled herring?" "It's very good." "Franny tells me that you two are going camping this weekend." "Where's the scallion cream cheese?" "It's out there on the table." "I don't see it." "Then check the refrigerator." "Why is he so edgy?" "I have no idea." "Don't let him pull that moody shit on you." "I know." "It's such a pose." "Since he got published, he's suddenly this tortured artist." "Where's the cream cheese?" "It's out there." "Why buy this shit if you can't remember the one thing that holds it all together?" "Let's deal with what's really upsetting you." "Shall we?" "If everything's on the table, why don't we start with some scallion cream cheese?" "Jenna and I looked at each other like two foreigners without visas." "You know what, I think I'd better go." "I've got a deadline." "I'II go." "Thank you for lunch, for everything." "What happened?" "Everything was going so well." "It really wasn't." "I know what it is." "His last girlfriend wasn't as discreet." "I don't want to get in the irony." "He writes short stories." "This has officially become too weird." "Really, in a situation like this, you gotta laugh." "AII right, it's a problem." "But you'II work it out." "He won't even talk about it." "You want me to talk to him?" "No." "I can't discuss this with you." "You can!" "You and I can discuss anything." "So your sex life isn't so great." "So what?" "Seventy-seven percent of all marriages are sexless." "Other things are so much more important, Iike family." "Then I saw that the person I really had to break up with wasn't Vaughn." "It was his mother." "I would still like us to be friends." "No, I mean that." "And what happens when you meet somebody else?" "I can tell you now, they won't have a mother like me." "You know that." "You know that we have something." "What we have is very special." "AII right, well." "Call me sometime." "I will." "Sweetie." "Wallis was right." "The most important thing in life is your family." "There are days you love them, and others you don't." "But in the end, they're the people you always come home to." "Sometimes it's the family you're born into." "And sometimes it's the one you make for yourself." "What are you doing here?" "Come here."