i have a dream...

Six years ago, in a family lunch thing in Grandma's place, Mom's elder brother said to me (with a lecture-giving whatever-I-say-must-be-the-rule-because-I-am-the-male-in-the-family kind of attitude):
There is little point for a woman to pursue a PhD. When you finish the study, you will be an old virgin, and no one is going to marry (= take) you.
In Chinese, there are two verbs for "marry". When the verb "marry" 娶 is used by a male (or on a female), it also means "take", i.e., take her away from her family to his family.

I had been a good kid in the family. It means I had been quiet and not expressing my thoughts in front of traditional-conservative-minded relatives. However, that day which was the last family function before my departure to the States, I said something back:
It is ok. I will marry (= take) a husband.
My choice of the verb irritated not only my uncle but also Grandma, who shushed me and said I was talking nonsense.

Last weekend, Dr. Anna threw a party for Kim. Kim finished her fellowship program and is going to move onto an academic position. It was a family-friendly party. Co-workers brought their significant others. Children were running around.
I had met Dr. Anna's husband before. I knew he's a stay-at-home dad. When I first learned his job, I smiled and thought Dr. Anna's living my dream. This time, I learned actually she's not quite living my dream because her husband hates cooking.
"I am so glad about the opening of the Eden Gourmet Market. I don't cook anymore. Thank God." He said to me when I asked where he found the delicious fish salad for the party. I nodded and agreed with him. I love the Eden Gourmet Garden too. It is the best thing happened in South Orange. But I would prefer a husband who cooks well.

In the party, it was Kim and Chris's first time meeting Dr. Anna's significant other. Kim was not approving this man's job.
She didn't say so but I could hear it when she answered Chris's question "What does he do?" Yesterday, we three were in Kim's car, catching up the residual topics from a week before.
"He's a stay-at-home dad." Kim's voice is full of the opposite of excitement. I could feel her head was shaking and her eyes were rolling upwards.
"I wish my husband is a stay-at-home dad." I said.
"You do?" Kim was not approving again.
"Yes, why not. He will take care of kids, go grocery shopping, and cook. I will do the cleaning." This is my dream.
"We have a friend who's a stay-at-home dad. We are worried about him. He is totally dependent on his wife. He is doing nothing but taking care of kids. It is not healthy." Chris probably was trying to explain why Kim's upset.
"Yes, it is unhealthy too if it's the other way around." I said.
"But it's more acceptable." Kim said.
"So? I have seen so many wives who depend on their husbands for their entire lives. Once the children grow up, they got lost. They don't know what to do to their lives. They don't have any living skills. They can't defend themselves when their husbands are found having affairs. They are stuck in their marriages helplessly. Acceptable? What does that mean?" I went for a speech.
"That is sad." Kim said, and I figured she got my point.
"Dr. Anna's husband is not just taking care of the kids. He is a writer, working at home. His income may not be as high as Dr. Anna's. I believe he can survive without her. I believe both of them are happy about their roles in the family. No one is contributing less than the other. They build, share, and maintain the family together." I said in my head. Well.... I could not say it out loud because I was driving and trying not to miss the correct intersection to the highway so that I could drive Kim and Chris safely to the airport.

On today's New York Times, an article "The Wife's at Work, So..." made me smile and gave me hope that my dream can come true because there are already many women living my dream! Plus, these husbands seem happy. Some of them look neat and handsome.
So let me share my dream. My uncle doesn't read English. Even if I write in Chinese, he never visits my blog anyway. Even if he read my blog, I don't care his opinion about my life.
Here we go.

In my dream, my husband is an okay-looking guy with extremely beautiful eyes. He is about five inches taller than me. He is not skinny, bony or zero body fat. He is awesome for hugs. His belly is awesome for being my pillow. He smells nice. He doesn't have to dance tango, but he can't tell me that I can't dance tango. He makes me smile all the time. He knows how to make me laugh and do it quite often.

He drinks tea, coffee, wine, and beer. He doesn't smoke. He is not a vegetarian or pure meat eater. He reads newspapers. He enjoys going to a movie. He promotes a healthy life style but does not yell at people who don't care. He knows when to express his wittiness and when to be quiet. He is also good in bed.

He is the man in charge of our kitchen. He reads daytime and bedtime stories to our children. He plays with them. He doesn't dismiss them by saying "go to mom".
He plans vacation trips for us. He keeps in touch with his old friends and makes new friends. He is not shy in social events. He introduces me to his friends and himself to my friends.
He brings income too. He does a job that allows him to work home. This income can be more than I earn. We both put money into daily living and future planning. He can be the accountant of the family.

He has a mini cooper. I don't know why I have a thing for mini coopers and their male owners. I think female bug drivers are cute (such as myself) and male mini cooper drivers are sexy (probably not physically but sexy in a nerdy way).

Just let me dream. I will meet a guy who has a mini cooper. We will fall in love. And we marry (= take) each other.

when superheroes meet fashion..

I love superheros, but not all of them. After the fashion show in the Met, well... my mind has not changed.
Guess I am not sensitive to fashion in superheroes or ordinary potatoes. My biased impression of outfits appearing in a so-called fashion show is that those are unwearable. Ordinary potatoes normally will not wear them in any occasions. I believe superheroes would not, under all the typical world-saving situations, wear those flying in and out and between buildings.
But I got it. "Inspired by superheroes" does not mean that world-famous designers (who?) try to persuade heroes to wear those when saving the world. Just inspired.

I was in the wing of modern art. I got it. It is okay that not everyone approves something beautiful. I was just wondering what the designers wanted to express, like when I stood in front of an Andy Warhol soup can. What? What? And then I walked away. Very different reaction and different appreciation time comparing to when I stood in front of a Miro.
One model had three panties on. "She must feel very insecure." Liu said. It turns out this was the most memorable outfit of the entire exhibit. This three-pantie outfit was inspired by Wonder Woman. Hm... you don't question art.
Another remembered outfit was inspired by Iron Man. Why the most sensitive parts were purposefully uncovered by iron? It did not look sexy on a plastic model but it actually was ok on a real body:


Many female outfits reminded me of racy Halloween outfits, especially those inspired by Cat Woman. Female outfits inspired by Spider Man were just too... too many fish nets, which did not quite resemble spider webs. Fish net is hardly my taste anyway. However, I did not disagree too much with the section inspired by Mystique (the blue woman who can reshape her body into any person) from X-men.

I have started having a thing for super heroes when Spider Man was on the big screen. I watched Spider Man three times, Spider Man II two times, and Spider Man III one time. You can see how much I like this guy swinging in Manhattan, and see how much I liked different sequels. I collected postcards of Spider Man.

As a loyal fan of Pixar, I was so glad that they did The Incredibles. It was incredibly funny and good.
Batman had been okay, but the Batman of Batman Begins was just awesome. I couldn't help but liked that dark hero.
Iron Man, the movie, was great. Do I like this hero? I am not sure actually. See, I liked Transformers a lot. I liked Iron Man the movie in a similar way as I liked Transformers. I liked Robert Downey Jr's performance in the movie.. oh... he was gorgeously charming. However, I have not decided whether I like Iron Man this hero character.
"Like" or "love" is not logical. The more analysis, the less likeness. There is just no emotional connection of oh-i-want-to-be-spider-man, or of oh-i-want-to-be-rescued-by-bat-man. Iron man? I simply want to be friends with him.

Fashion? Heroes, you are already wearing something not normal and kinda outstanding. Please don't do something tooo over, and it is okay to be not fashionable. You are geeks anyway.

Questions for the fashion designers.
What about Hulk? Or the soon-to-hit-the-theatre Hancock? No fashion inspiration from them? They do need nice clothes sometimes.

no eye contact

"Ain't nobody give me no shit." Millie said.
Our lab is filled with strong personalities. That's why we get along so well. You respect me. I respect you.

When I was in Taipei, purposeful eye contact was not something I normally would do. Avoiding eye contact in a city is kinda a basic living skill.
In my case, because of my height, I could easily meet some random guy's visual path. But it was okay since Taiwanese guys were never so straight forward and too arrogantly confident.

Then I moved to a town in the middle of Pennsylvanian nowhere. It is a small town full of academia. People are mostly friendly. On campus or on a street, I would smile at people walking towards me. They usually would smile back. That's it. No purposefully eye contact. No avoiding either.

Now I am in NJ. A place I avoid eye contact or even any response to any thing from any random person. First of all, black men have a thing for Asian girls, and there are many of them in NJ. They simply like to talk to me or honk at me. I would pretend deafness. Eye contact? No way.
If I happen to see someone in the eye, I would immediately look away unless it's a she or a handsome non-black man. You want me to admit that I am racist? I am not. I would vote for Obama if I had the right. I got rubbed by a black man. The police officer who helped me a lot was a black man. I just don't like men who use lousy pick-up lines, and they are often black. Why? I have no idea.

Millie was in a line for drive-through. She was waiting and accidentally looked at another driver. This another driver came out of her car, ran to Millie, and put her arms into Millie's window, "What are you looking at?"
Millie of course was not afraid and said to her "What? You wanna call the police? Go ahead." And the woman walked back to her car, picking up her phone. Millie rolled up the window and parked the car. Millie and Millie's friend decided to have their hamburgers in the store.
The police never showed up, and the woman who was outrageous never reappeared.

Why are people so offended by random eye contact?
Why are they so worried that being looked means something wrong about them?
In Chinese, those people say "What the fart are you looking at? 你看個屁啊?"
My answer is always: "I never say you are a fart" or "Did I say that you're a fart?’

Oh, when eyes meet, just smile, move on and live happily on.

One more thing about eye contact.
I only purposeful make eye contact on a dance floor. That's important in tango. It's a social dance. People look at you. And your eyes meet. And your smile means yes I'd like to dance to you. When you look away, it means no.
Last weekend, a person looked at me. Martin. I had danced with him even before I started dancing in New York. He and I had participated in several University-based tango festivals. Even though he and I are never close friends, we know of each other.
After a dance, he asked whether I came from Yale or Princeton just for the milonga. He did not remember me at all. That was why his eye contact felt so hallow and uncertain.
You know, after a year of tango in New York, I find male tango geeks very unattractive. They are in a cloud of something. If they can dance, great! but they don't carry interesting-enough conversations. If they can't dance, I don't actually talk to them anyway... as a tango geek, I go to milonga for dances. Geeks are awesome when we are geeky in more than one field.
I like geeks who can dance as well, but not geeks who can only dance well.
Life is hard.

Anyway, try smiling when eyes hit you. I will try but don't start talking.

hbo offers the best

What have I done for the past year in Jersey?

I am learning Jersey from the Sopranos from the library.
I borrowed the DVDs from the public library.
Why isn't there any Sex and the City in the library?
Because it's about Manhattan, not Jersey?
I don't know.

For a year, I watched the whole thing -- 6 seasons.
Well... my favorite remains Sex and the City, because I'm a city girl, not a Jersey one :)
Nonetheless, I do like the Sopranos. You will like this video if you're a fan too.

說我想聽的

突然間，我接受了我是上班族的事實，朝九晚五。
身心的疲累，看著一些醜陋愚笨的事情在我面前攤開，似乎我也參了一腳還要裝做無辜與清白。

就回來吧。麻嗎說。
就這樣回去了，我會對不起我自己，如果我不試著去證明我真的當不了美國人的教授，我會一輩子後悔。至少我要試一試，這是我十五歲開始的夢，夢無論是成真還是破滅，夢要做完才行。

別找學術界的工作，做研究有什麼意思。Nat 說。
不做研究，我做什麼? 朝九晚五的領薪水上班族? 我正在體驗中啊，一點都沒有意思，唯一讓我撐得下去的動力是我在做研究，前景是在不遠的將來我有機會可以申請非朝九晚五的研究教職。

就是因為我的毅力。我老闆說。
我看著她，眼前浮現小學國中時，老師和同學給我寫的評語: 毅力。
毅力讓我嚐了很多苦，讓我漸漸覺得毅力是我唯一大愚若智的優點。如果我失去毅力，我將什麼都不是，我將什麼都沒有。

而唯一在乎的人，是我自己。

這個時候就覺得莫名的孤單。我在撐個什麼? 該去交的男朋友來分神一下。然後卻又懶散，即使相信愛情，但是沒有動力去尋找，被動的期盼它找到我。在乎我有沒有男朋友的人，多於我自己一人。少數幾個知己都遠在天邊，而我有時只是需要一個可以陪我看場電影的人。

"再撐個一年，你可以做到的! "
我只需要這句話。請不要再試著動搖的我想做完的夢，說我想聽的話，就這麼一次。
我需要知道我在這個紐約的腋下(紐澤西) 有來自全球的精神支持，我就會快樂，我就會有毅力的快樂下去，無論一年後我到哪裡去。

all about the weather

People say Milwaukee is a beautiful city.
I did not have a chance to prove that saying even though I was there for 5 days.
All I gained were great introductory knowledge of fMRI in the Medical College and highly improved sudoku skill in the airport.
All I could share here with you is about the weather.

When I left Newark on Wednesday, it was 80 degree. I was in summer clothing. When I arrived in Milwaukee, it was 40 degree. I could not wait outside for the shuttle.

I thought I would have a chance to tour around the town on Saturday since the course was over at 4pm. By the time as the bus dropped us back to the hotel, the sky was darkly covered with clouds, and the air was sweating. I gave up my tourist plan and stayed in my room.
Soon, the storm came. Luckily, I am not a TV person, and the internet was working fine. The TV was on all night, but the signal was not. When the TV was saying something, it meant the weather was better than a minute ago. When the TV was silent, it meant that a thunder just scared that particular radio frequency away.

I called the front desk to schedule a shuttle to drive me to the airport in the morning. I asked if 11am departure from the hotel could allow me to get on the plane by 1pm. The lady was like "It'll be fine, and who knows if your flight will not be delayed. The weather doesn't look good."
So I checked my flight status online on a hourly basis.

I checked in and went to the gate. One guy -- shaved head, glasses, yellow wrist band, striped polo shirt, physically fit -- came to another guy who sat beside me and asked if he borrowed the newspaper from him. "Can I borrow the paper? I will return it to you. Well... I may come to borrow it again because my flight to Newark was just canceled."
"Canceled?" I asked?
"You better go there and ask for a standby for the next flight."
I did. The next flight was scheduled to fly at 3-ish.
Around 3-ish, the announcement said the flight was delayed to 5-ish.
Around 5-ish, I felt lucky to get a seat. I looked around and did not find the paper-borrower who first told me about my canceled flight. I wanted to thank him. (If you happened to fly from Milwaukee to Newark last weekend and matched the description above, please let me thank you.)
Being afraid that my luggage was not going to get on the same plane, I asked the clerk "Are you sure my luggage will fly with me?" "Yes." "Are you sure?" "Yes, I am sure."
I did not believe her. She didn't key in anything to the computer. She assigned me a seat by hand writing on my stand-by ticket.
It was 10 minutes before the departure time. I shut up and swallowed my concern and boarded.
From my window, I could see all the luggage. I saw mine on the ground. The worker loaded every bag but mine. As I was about to knock the window and shout, he noticed my bag and uploaded it. Now I smiled. I felt the trip was going to be fine.

Around 7-ish, the captain made an executive decision: let's get back to the gate. That's right, we sat in the plane for two hours, and the control center of Newark just refused to send us a welcome message.
The weather in Milwaukee was cleared up, but the storm moved to the east. According to the captain, it was not safe to fly through Pennsylvania at that moment.
The stewardess was joking, "Welcome to Milwaukee, again. Please don't leave the concourse in case we get a green light and fly anytime. But I am going to leave. I am starving."
She left. The stores in the concourse were all closed by 8pm. We were starving and not leaving.
Finally, around 10-ish, the flight was officially canceled. All the airports near New York City were closed down because of the weather.
Not to make our lives worse, they rebooked everyone to a newly-created flight schedule leaving around 7-ish in the morning. Let me explain why this was not to make our lives worse. All flights to Newark on Monday were fully booked.

I decided to stay in the airport.
After the rough night full of internet chatting and sudoku solving, I passed out during the morning flight, which was on time.
Newark hadn't changed but it was 100 degree.

I sat in my room, sweating. It was like a typical summer day in Taipei.
After a quick nap, I went to work. Yeah... work is fantastic. At least it was cooler there than home.
Why don't I turn on AC home?
I don't like AC in general. I couldn't even if I wanted to. When driving back from work, (the same day I arrived home from Milwaukee after the funny cancel-delay-cancel waiting 24 hours), my favorite jazz radio was going on the hourly news report. It said that the power was out in all the Oranges at least for two hours.
It was right. No power. I was not afraid things would go bad in my fridge. Only air and a huge bottle of maple syrup were stored there.
I turned on my battery-powered radio, listening to jazz, reading WIRED by the window. It was hot.

Today I bought a small "breezing machine" aka fan for my computer. I can sweat and melt, but my computer can't.


Hello, summer.

color thought

Naomi loves everything pink.
One day she wore pink flip flops with pink shinny stuff on the strings. My eyes were unpleasantly caught by the scene. First, we (as told by people when I was interviewed for the job) are not supposed to wear in such a casual way. Second, you know, if I don't have a great fondness for you, please don't wear anything pink to increase my negative thoughts of you.
I can't explain this. I don't have conscious access to this fundamental trait of myself. It is like why I can't explain why I like the taste of taro. It is like why Liu can't explain why he can't endure the taste of carrots. It is like why Naomi can't explain why she likes pink so much (she would say this sentence in a particular NY/NJ accent on the word "so" while rolling her eyes upward).

Kerline is the new girl, whom I like a lot. She drove me back home yesterday. That's not the only reason I like her. She dislikes pink probably as much as I do.
On the way back to my place, she was complaining about her own obsession in organizing things to an extreme that she may complicate an easy task by parsing it into too many sub-steps. I half-joked that this may be why she is a graduate student.
The more I think about it, the more I am convinced.
Blue is Kerline's favorite color. Kerline is calm and good at trouble-shooting. Detail-oriented is the major reason I gave her a "welcome" sign to join the lab and to be my pal.

Naomi is going to a medical school. She likes pink.
Kim and Dr. Anna are medical doctors. They like pink.
Kerline and other female graduate students such as Ching, Rose, and Teresa like blue.
Zabeth and I were graduate students. We like blue.
Recently I like green more and more. Green is becoming my new blue. Krissy is going to graduate school. She likes green.
See? There are two types of girls. One likes pink. One dislikes pink and most likely likes blue. Pink girls tend to become medical doctors. Blue/green girls tend to become doctors.

"Why is the color pink the sign for feminine?" Kerline asked. I shrugged. Honestly, I didn't know.
I googled it. The answer made me smile. Long before our parents or grandparents, blue is a girl color while pink is for boys. Here are two paragraphs of the google answer.

"At one point pink was considered more of a boy's color, (as a watered-down red, which is a fierce color) and blue was more for girls. The associate of pink with bold, dramatic red clearly affected its use for boys. An American newspaper in 1914 advised mothers, "If you like the color note on the little one's garments, use pink for the boy and blue for the girl, if you are a follower of convention." [The Sunday Sentinal, March 29, 1914.]
"There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl." [Ladies Home Journal, June, 1918]
- Gender Specific Colors

It actually matches a Chinese saying by coincident. The saying is "red men and green women", meaning people in this mundane world as men in red and women in green.
That is, my innate fondness actually is consistent with the old social norm. But who decided that pink was more decided and blue was delicate and dainty?
Some people perceive sounds when they see color. It is an atypical cross-talk between two perception systems, called synesthesia. Did the people who made the social association between color and gender perceive something else than color when they saw color? Why can't I perceive delicacy or decisiveness in blue or pink? They must have had an extraordinary perception system.

"When a man wears a pink shirt, he would say it's because he feels secure with his masculinity." Kerline said.
"If they are so secure, why don't they wear skirts and heels?" I said.
Kerline laughed and said that I was funny. This was not the first time when she said I was funny. I began to wonder whether I was really funny or she didn't know how to respond.

Genderization is one of the many ways to organize a society. We humans like to categorize things so that things can be simplified so that things can be easier to understand. Labeling is to de-complicate a person into an "average" of a group. Well... if you have studied statistics, there is hardly an average person or a data point actually at the average. Labeling helps us to understand because our mind is organized in schemas. However, this often blinds us from a true data point or the fact that each person is unique, and we stereotype a person.
Therefore, because woman = pink, breast cancer = pink ribbon. Kerline declined to wear the breast cancer ribbon. I would do the same. To be fair, I don't wear any ribbons or wrist bands.

Kerline went to buy a wallet. She wanted to get a man wallet because a woman wallet tends to be big and fat. She couldn't find one man wallet meeting her need, however. She wanted a zipped pocket within a man wallet. Obviously, a man wallet does not include the function of carrying coins. She asked a man in the store. The man said only girls need a coin pocket with a wallet. Men put coins in their pant pockets.
She frowned and gave in and went to the woman department to get a smallest wallet, of course with a zipped pockets for coins.
"How annoying! We women wear more fitted and usually don't have pants pockets. We have to do our hair and makeup before going out. Sometimes I really feel it's so unfair."
I nodded and didn't know how to respond. Yeah.. it's annoying. But I prefer to have a wallet for coins instead of putting them in my pockets if I had pockets in all my pants and skirts. And I only spend 10 minutes at most for my hair and my face every morning. I believe many guys spend more than 10 minutes.

Kerline's new wallet is not pink. She is not less feminine than a girl with a pink purse.
If a guy carries a pink wallet, is he less masculine? I can't answer this question. But I know I won't be able to befriend with him because a pink wallet simply gives me goose bumps no matter the gender of its owner.

Metrosexual guys are my favorite (if they don't carry a pink wallet). They care about their appearance as an expression of showing respect to themselves and others around them (this is why I shower and dress up everyday). When they wear a pink T-shirt, I don't see them gay. Not all gay guys like pink. Metrosexuals are just happy with who they are and what color they like. Pink is a color, not a color for girls. They are masculine and confident and neat, which is very sexy. If they have long legs, short neat hair, long fingers with clean nails, .... wow.... sometimes I feel like a gay guy. But I don't like skinny men. Skinny men usually don't have butts that I like. Many women get expressively feminine as in tight dresses, high heels, or any accessories to emphasize their female body images. I think men should do the same: to emphasize how proud you are to have a male body.
This coming winter I hope to see more guys walking in Manhattan with long boots. Not just men like to see women with beautiful long legs. Women value long-legged men too.

As to the color pink, it's ok. It's not my birthday today. You're allowed to wear pink, men or women, to be around me.

SATC

In 2004, my collection of Sex and the City DVDs was done.
A lot of things were done.
I watched the finale twice, both on TV, but once with Chinese captions.
On my birthday in 2004, Ching invited gal friends to try dishes for her wedding. That was a great fun. Every time when we six gals are together is great fun. The six of us are like the four in SATC. After the dinner, my ex went to my place for the finale. Everyone around me liked SATC even after I had left Taipei. I consider myself a good influence. Boyfriends, gal friends, and gal friends' boyfriends all liked the show.

Ten years ago, SATC started playing on TV. I didn't watch it until 2000 or 2001. Somehow one day, I turned to HBO and since then I have become obsessed with it. I would be sitting in front of TV on time every week, smiling when the music of SATC was playing with the bus splashed water on Carrie's weird pink dress.
One night, HBO did a marathon of SATC for at least 10 hours. I watched (although I had watched all of them before) until the heartbreaking episode: Big's wife fell down stairs when chasing Carrie out of Big's apartment. I stopped there and turned off TV and went to bed with sadness and relief that Big's affair with Carrie ended.
My breath could stop every time (at least 3) I watched the episode when Carrie couldn't stop saying sorry to Aidan. My smile was so wide when Carrie, Aidan, and Big were all in the country house.
Tears of Miranda were the most effective. I don't know whether it was because I think Cynthia Nixon was the best actress in the show or because I feel the traits of the character overlapped most with mine. I think I am 30% Carrie and 50% Miranda and 20% something else (called uniqueness of me).
Charlotte basically represents girls that I don't befriend with. Samantha are great but can be too much, and she would be my party pal but not a friend for private quiet talks.

The movie was like a re-run of memory with new exciting episodes! I loved it!
In the theater, I laughed and sometimes laughed with tears. Being surrounded with an audience of loyal fans was a cool experience.
Javor said some of the plot were corny. Yang preferred Carrie and Big never got married, or married but divorced. I preferred the movie as the real finale than the last TV episode in 2004.
Love is corny. People fall in love. There are no new love stories. People fall out of love. There are no new love stories. But there are new ways to tell stories. SATC has successfully told love stories in a new way since 1998. It's a worldly social phenomenon. It's a revolution for women, especially intelligent women who were expected to be silent for keeping their intelligent social perception.

Liu asked me whether SATC was as funny as Friends.
Well.. if you want to make a comparison, you should compare Friends with Scrubs, not with SATC. I like Scrubs and Friends, but they don't make me think after watching an episode. Friends and Scrubs are simply funny and don't put me into a meditation mood.
SATC is different. I laughed hard. My mood could be changed up or down. I would wonder what I'd do if I were in situations shown in a given episode. I was engaged in the show with those characters, and with myself. SATC is different.
For one thing, the acting skills in SATC were much better than those in Friends. If you want to understand women better, watch SATC rather than Friends. If you want to learn how women describe relationships, friendships, and sex, watch SATC rather than Friends.
But I have to give Friends some credits. It was a great show too but at a different level of greatness and humor. It's like... comparing salsa and tango. For me, tango is more interesting than salsa because tango includes not just fun but also some particular pleasure that follows after a challenging dance. You smile even after the dance. You smile even after an episode of SATC and you don't forget why you smile, which is very different from a quick laughter.

Anyway, the SATC movie night was special for me. (Probably not for Javor or Yang)
The TV show marked several eras of my life.
The movie marked something, which I may realize in next ten years.