In the seventh or eighth grade, my dad told me I should watch Girls. Obsessed with the lesbian criminal fantasy of Orange Is the New Black, I found the girls poster to be the least bit intriguing. I liked Adam Driver enough then from Star Wars, but not enough to watch four white girls serve the absolute least on TV. Now having seen almost the entire course of Girls, I cannot believe my dad was the one that had recommended the show to me in the first place. What was he thinking… is a grossly sex’d up TV show for a teenage girl appropriate? Just kidding, I think when he was first learning English, that was the TV show he stumbled upon to teach him everything he needed to know about America and its vernaculars.
During much of my college years and the now two years following, I would go on to consume mass amounts of television. My friends Jill and Roxxy loved watching TV and movies, so did I. My favorite past time was watching hours and days of TV with my girls.
Off the rip, the notable ones that shaped me as a person are:
– Grown-ish: I thought Luka Sabbat was so hot and I was just a freshman in college. That fantasy was dispelled when I saw him acting like a damn fool at Cha Cha Lounge. Never meet your idols.
– Insecure: I watched most of it during COVID. Now that I’ve come to know LA geography better, the south and west side in particular, the show is even more special to me. Eva and I went to Merkato last week, and it was fabulous.
– The Great British Bake-Off: A favorite past time of my roommates and I at 700 Levering. And if you weren’t there, you probably wouldn’t know. The cake roll of it all, the British facade of it all.
– South Park: I watched the South Park COVID special my first time doing acid. I would go on to watch South Park regularly ever since. I don’t engage with a lot of the earlier seasons for obvious reasons. My friends and I were some of the South Park characters for 2022 Halloween, and I was Towelie.
– Jersey Shore: When I first moved to the place I’m in now, my favorite thing was to watch this show and browse on Ebay. I was really into the guidette aesthetic then, so I was constantly on the lookout for the best Juicy Couture. Also, two people told me I had boobs like J-Wow, so I had to indulge.
– Ink Master: This is an obvious. Now that I’m better at tattooing, I can really clock when people went wrong in their compositions. I watched pretty much every single season before Oliver was kicked off, and liked about a total of 2.5 tattoos.
– Gossip Girl: Golly gee did I have a hyperfixation. For about 6 months, I would watch Gossip Girl almost every single day. I would set aside 4-10 hours for the pure consumption of Gossip Girl. It was pure perfect rot, and I loved how the girls dressed. I loved a world that looked so different from mine. I am ultimately a Blair and Jenny stan. I like Nate and Chuck the most.
– Sex in the City: I am tired so I don’t care to explain. Good fashion, women having sex, period.
The years 2023-2024 were partially blurry, for specific reasons. I was very tormented in romance and other struggles. I saw myself in every decrepit thing and was scared it was trying to tell me something about myself. I know already, so stop that.
I would watch Lena Dunham’s Girls incrementally from senior year of college until now. I couldn’t quite stomach the show in the same way I binged the others. The magic is that how could I feel myself so much to the most insufferable characters on earth.
Like Shoshana, I was in college. Like Marnie, I was a possibly failing self-indulged gallerina. It is a worser gig because I’m not white. Like Hannah, I dated guys that were like Adam and I think I come off with an annoying demeanor to some people. I, also, am writing, I suppose. Like Jessa, well, I am a recovering addict. I was nonchalant in all her ways, but also not.
In some ways, I’d like to think my dad learned how to parent me better because of Girls. The second my mom went back home on my 18th birthday, my dad was handed the baton of taking care of me. He had to deal with the lingering anguish from my teenage years. He picked me up after my COVID booster shot and my awful boyfriend then dumping me. I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea to double dose Lexapro in attempts of feeling better. You won’t. You are supposed to wean back onto SSRIs. We spent hours in the car, driving with no purpose, because I just wasn’t ready to go home.
Last summer, shit really hit the fan. I mean, I’ve never seen so little soul in my eyes. The days between my trip to China and then Barcelona were extremely difficult. I know I often reference this period of my life as absolutely nuts, but it really was. I would casually TLDR-explain-the-situation to friends and clients, and they would look at me with absolute shock. It did make me feel crazy sometimes when people perceived me to be the person to have so many stories. It is fun to have experienced the depths of the earth, but it is also hell-ish to bear the burden of everything wrong with life.
The day after I return from Barcelona, I call my dad bawling after my trip to the hospital. I said, “dad, something bad is happening”. He asked me if I was pregnant. I say, “no, I am an *****”. He says something funny like, wow that is so much worse. I would go on to complain to him damn near every day, wishing my life would look different. He tells me eventually things will get better if I build a life routine, I don’t believe him. He would pick me up occasionally for lunch, watching me eat two bites of a poorly cooked truffle pasta. We’re driving down Bastanchury again, and I still feel hopeless.
A gradual shift began to take place around February. I cannot pin point the exact moment I felt free because it was a culmination of many things. I saw desire again, and she was as beautiful as I last remembered her. I started watching Girls again, and I watch their lives unfold parallel to mine. It was uncannily similar to the point that I DM’d Lena Dunham. She will probably never see that message. I wonder if my dad understood their storylines in conjunction with his own life as a young adult. I like that every human experience is not singular, because millions of people have had to deal with the same for many millenniums before. You see this bitch roll in dirt and think, I think I rolled in dirt too. The bugs bit me in the same spots and yes, it is super annoying. I saw myself as a Girl (gender-neutral), somewhat clearly, accepting that it might just be absolutely deranged like this for the rest of my life. And I am positively okay with that.
shari wei 