The French Girl™ Equivalent of Deli Meats

Welcome to your first subscribed spam of 2017, folks.

Here's to new beginnings, starting from below sea level, and clawing your way up — way up — to heights previously unimagined because 2016 was throwing a whole lotta bullshit in your face and calling it a new fangled skin rejuvenating treatment. It made me question what I really know, and even what I really like — do you know what you really like? Or are you the type of person who gets it "just to have, just in case?"

I recently watched this "documentary" on minimalism — and I put documentary in quotes because it was mostly sound clips from people with no occupations gesticulating wildly about how they previously filled the voids in their lives with stuff and how mindless consumerism is ruining everyone's happiness. And I can get behind all that, but I don't need to hear it from 15 dudes in a row, all wearing some variation of a golf hat and open-toed footwear, asking "yo, lemme grab a hug" from everyone they encounter.

Like many people, I like stuff. I also get overwhelmed by too much stuff. More so — I get overwhelmed by the stuff I'm supposed to have. I tell ya, if you're ever thinking that you need more stuff in your home, may you be subjected to assembling it bit by bit and you will start to reconsider that maybe that Besta Burs desk was just fine and the Alex desk just seemed so seductive because of its discreet built-in cable management compartment.

But how many things can really fit into those parameters? How many ways can something else be defined by an existing domain? How difficult is it to simplify everything?

The only (equally floofy) concept I can think of that's so haphazardly thrown together based on visual impressions of aspirational assumptions while doing the least amount of anything is the concept of French Girl Beauty. Effortless, easy, fast, "universal..." Just imagine if we sprinkled a little bit of this magic on all aspects of our lives!

The French Girl Beauty of Dental Hygiene
You've actually never gone to the dentist but you do floss and brush twice a day and one time when you had a cavity you just chewed on some parsley and it went away.

The French Girl Beauty of Outerwear
You own one coat. It's a really nice coat — simple, quality, probably a wool cashmere blend and navy or red but not black. You definitely bought it for yourself no matter how much it cost. If it's too cold out for this coat, you don't go outside.

The French Girl Beauty of Being Funemployed
Set your alarm for 10am and actually wake up at 10 but don't turn it off because your alarm is actually set to a radio station (!) and the radio station is playing Ethiopian jazz. Light an incense before you brush your teeth or even pee. You don't look at your phone because that's what the early evening hours are for. You don't read emails because bills are in there. You enjoy working but you hate jobs so you probably end up working for a friend who mostly pays in non-monetary perks.

The French Girl Beauty of Social Media
It's all sunsets, blurry selfies (the first one taken using with the app's camera) where your hair is in your face, and the cat you don't own but who always comes round your flat because you leave food out. All the captions are the peace sign emoji or the smiley face blowing a kiss emoji. Nothing and no one gets tagged or god forbid, hash-tagged.

The French Girl Beauty of Going to the DMV
It's the worst, it smells like piss, and the employees are just as mad at you for no reason as you are at them for making this experience as rotten as it could be. But somehow you meet a handsome wealthy stranger because of course you do.

​The French Girl Beauty of Book Clubs
The only books discussed are books about "how to be a French Girl," none of which are actually a guide to attaining French citizenship. No one's completed reading any of the books or even most of them, but you get to drink wine with friends and devise more ways to confuse Americans about what's chic while also strategizing ways to obscure the other contenders for euro-centric vantages of beauty — Swedish girls.

The French Girl Beauty of French Girl Beauty
You never put on on makeup because your makeup is already tattooed on. You're also a centuries-old demon cursed to consume the souls of men who fall prey to your seduction and betray their wives and girlfriends. The souls keep you alive but also give you wicked indigestion.

Just kidding — French Girl Beauty™ doesn't exist in France, just like vengeance demons don't exist (or do they)...