Last night this was my wonderful bedtime reading.
By Paul Rudnick, New Yorker. I am Marie-Celine Dundelle, and I do not need a book contract to reveal that French women are superior in all matters. Our secret lies in an attitude toward life, a point of view that I can only call Frenchy. For example, let us discuss weight loss. The American woman obsesses over every calorie and sit-up, while in France we do not even have a word for fat. If a woman is obese, we simply call her American. Whenever my friend Jeanne-Helene has gained a few pounds, I will say to her, “Jeanne-Helene, you are hiding at least two Americans under your skirt, and your upper arms are looking, how you say, very Ohio.”
To maintain my figure, I eat only half portions of any food, always arranging it on my plate in the shape of a semicolon. For exercise, at least once a day I approach a total stranger and slap him. And late each afternoon I read a paragraph of any work of acclaimed American literary fiction, which makes me vomit.
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