And Just Like That...
A near-death experience, the demise of Sex and the City and The Writer's Daily Planner
I could have died a couple of weeks ago. I know that sounds dramatic, but I actually believe it could have been possible. And the things is, if I had died, it would have been such an embarrassing way to go.
I imagine people saying, ‘She lived a great life, but, wow, if only she hadn’t taken that last sip of water…’
Because that’s what I did. I picked up my cute new Frank Green drink bottle, took a sip and suddenly couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t like you imagine choking to be (and I’ve done that many times, because I’m pretty partial to choking on drinks, pepper, air, basically anything you can ingest), because, when you choke, you usually start to cough and splutter and try to take deep breaths so you can cough some more. And you imagine doing it only because maybe you laugh or get startled or you’re talking at the same time. Not literally just sipping and swallowing…
This was very different to all the other times I’ve choked. This time it was like my airway had been completely closed off. I was gasping immediately, trying to inhale deeply but with no air coming in. Without air getting in, I couldn’t cough. So there I stood at the end of my kitchen bench with my husband cooking or toasting something at the other end and I literally couldn’t breathe.
Google suggests the water went down my airway, rather than my oesophagus and, again, I have no idea how. It was such a nothing moment that it’s a mystery to me. Maybe I inhaled a little sharply without realising or maybe I started to talk before I had completely swallowed, I honestly don’t know!
My husband, Brent, looked at me and, at first, he smiled (probably thinking, here we go again!), then he looked at me a little more seriously as though waiting for me to cough or something. When I couldn’t breathe and I felt the panic rising quickly, he saw my face change and asked if I was okay. Unfortunately, I was definitely not okay and all I could do was point to my throat and gasp, ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe!’
In an instant, Brent rushed over to me telling me to ‘Lean forward, lean forward’. I did, and before I could think much about it, he was beside me pounding on my back vigorously with his palm.
It all happened so quickly and, thankfully, whatever he did worked just as quickly because suddenly I could breathe and cough again. And even though this whole incident was over in around a minute or two, I could not stop thinking about it over the next few days. Hell, it’s been a couple of weeks now and I’m still thinking about it.
After it happened, my son came out and asked if I was okay because he must’ve heard something happening from his room. I said I was, but I realised very quickly after I said that, that things could definitely NOT have been okay.
I said to Brent, ‘What if you hadn’t been here?’
And that question has stayed with me. Tragedies happen every day. And some are just as mundane and sudden as what happened to me. I didn’t know how to save myself when I wasn’t breathing. My son, who’s eight, wouldn’t know how to save me, although I’d like to think he’d know how to call 000.
So what might have happened? I shudder to even think about it. Because thinking about the alternative outcome is truly frightening.
It’s amazing how such a small moment can impact you. One, it really makes you aware of your own mortality. And, two, it makes you worry so much more about everything! I was scared to drink or eat alone with the kids in the week that followed. Even now, still, I am so aware of what I’m eating and how I’m chewing or breathing or sipping etc. It’s crazy!
The day after it happened, my son had footy and while we were driving there I reminded him to not scull his water and to drink slowly after what happened to me. He said, ‘Stop it, Mum,’ with a worried look and I had to check myself not to project my fears onto him.
But, anyway, as we know, our phones are always listening and I’m happy to report that Instagram has kindly decided to keep sending their choking device advertisements my way. So maybe that’s next on the shopping list.
I just finished watching season three of And Just Like That, and I know why the show was recently cancelled.
Because it’s not Sex and the City. Because, to the detriment of the show, it tried too hard to be something different and inclusive. Because the audience just couldn’t care about anyone in it anymore…
To be completely honest with you, I stopped watching this last season after only a couple of episodes, deciding it was no longer for me, but, once the cancellation was announced, I went back to keep watching just to see how they wrapped this thing up once and for all.
I’ve heard they’ll be coming back to do a two-part closer, but I have to say, I wasn’t impressed with how they finished the series, so I’m not sure I’m keen for more. I was never really impressed with any of it.
Here are my gripes in a nutshell (spoilers ahead!):
They ruined Aidan. I was always Team Aidan, but they did not write him in this series as they wrote him in Sex and the City. He used to be fun and goofy and all in for Carrie, and suddenly he was a sad dad not able to commit and sleeping with his ex-wife, which, as we know, went against everything Aidan used to stand for. Infuriating.
Miranda was nothing like she used to be in Sex and the City, either. She used to be a super successful hard-arsed heterosexual who took no shit and in the latest series her only character trait is that she is now a lesbian. A lesbian who dates awful characters like Che and has one night stands with nuns…
In recent years, Sex and the City was canned for not being diverse. Fair enough, but also… times were different twenty years ago, so maybe just write something different now instead of bagging out what was done before. Unfortunately, the writers of the new series thought they could write something different, but instead they tried to rectify the issue by pandering to every minority group under the sun. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for diversity and representation of all kinds of people across TV and in books etc., but this started to feel ridiculous. We had Nya Wallace, a black professor that Miranda kept being awkward around in relation to her race, Seema, an Indian-American real estate agent, Lisa, a black documentarian friend of Charlotte’s, and Che, a non-binary, ‘Latinx’ comedian Miranda dated. Then we have Charlotte’s daughter, who wants to go by they/them pronouns and be called ‘Rock’, while her other daughter is dating a polysexual boy who is also dating another boy, then there were the three or so men I noticed in the background dressed as women (perhaps trans, I don’t know), and finally the obnoxious Gen Z characters who were painfully awful in almost every way, from only eating seaweed and rice to the aggressive nature of their attitudes, their snarky remarks (Boy or girl? You’re so binary!), and the stereotypically ‘queer-coded’ characteristics, a term I had to look up, which means implying an LGBTQ+ identity without explicitly stating it. It was a lot. And, honestly, none of it felt authentically done. It felt tokenistic.
I really do feel like in Sex and the City, Carrie used to walk around her apartment in bare feet and socks. I don’t understand what this new thing was for her to have to wear high heels 24/7 around her apartment and be horrified that her neighbour who keeps hearing her thumping around might be confused as to why she wears them all day and night…
I’m okay with Carrie ending the series alone. I have no issue with that. I do have an issue with the fact in the final episode there was no time for Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda. They are supposed to be who this series was about. How could they not get them together for drinks one last time or have them get Chinese takeout while they gossip and catch up? Why did we spend most of the finale hanging out with Brady and his awful baby mama’s friends and some weird dude who overflows a poo-filled toilet thanks to the cheese-eating of a terrible Gen Z-er?? Such a weird place to take the show…
Anyway, I could keep going, but I’ll stop there. You can search the Internet for more views just like this if you’re so inclined.
RIP, And Just Like That. I think you’ve been put out of your misery.
“The pages are beautifully designed and include inspiring quotes, and the sections for jotting down goals for the day are exactly what I needed. It’s easy to use and makes creating a writing schedule simple enough to follow every day and also allows me to see what I’m doing with a quick glance. Highly recommended for writers who want a simple system to keep themselves on track without getting too overwhelmed.”
–K.M.Allan (photos courtesy of K.M. Allan also)
In other news, I have designed and published The Writer’s Daily Planner!
I’m really excited to share this one and, if you’re interested in a simple diary to help keep you on track with your writing goals and writing admin, then please consider grabbing a copy of one of these. It’s tax deductible, because everyone needs a diary for work!
Quite simply, the planner has everything you need when you don’t want a complicated writing journal you won’t end up using.
It has:
beautiful quotes from classic novels sure to inspire
cute writerly images on all the other pages
no dates so you can use it every day or just on the days you need to plan without leaving lots of blank, wasted pages
a place for your daily schedule, hour by hour
a section for your five top priorities of the day, writing or otherwise
a small box to note your water intake - I mark each time I fill my Frank Green
a place to note writer admin for the day: calls, emails, social media, and newsletter
a box to note your writing achievement for the day in big letters or word count numbers; and
a notes section down the bottom for anything else you need reminding of or character and plot points you think of on the run
It’s a planner that feels like a novel, with creamy pages and a matte cover, and I really do think it’s the perfect gift for yourself as a writer or for the writer in your life.
I designed it purely because I wanted something that was writer-specific, but that wasn’t all about plotting and planning the big things. I just needed something to keep me accountable for my writing tasks each day and to be able to see the progress on every page at a glance.
Happy writing, everyone!
Grab a copy of The Writer’s Daily Planner here.
Love the planner, Jodie! I use it at the start of my week to plan all my writing tasks and it works so well 😊.