JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

One minute I’m ignoring my symptoms, the next minute I’m flattened by the flu. I’m now aware of how many muscles the human body has, because I could feel each one aching. The real danger of being confined to your room is death by boredom, so I kept myself entertained. I figured some dumb fun would hasten my cure so I turned on the television, but after half an hour I realized that it was not fun, just dumb. Our entertainers are now paid to look like they’re having way too much fun, and when you consider how moronic the material is, it’s hard work. Fortunately they are way past embarrassment, or they’d be hurling themselves under oncoming trucks for shame.

TV made my headache worse so I watched DVDs instead. I watched four Claude Chabrol movies in a row: Les Noces Rouges, La Femme Infidele (remade as Unfaithful), Le Boucher, and Les Biches (The Does, not The Bitches). They’re all very Hitchcock—psychological studies of murder, except that they’re French and not suspenseful. Stephane Audran in very mini skirts and false eyelashes stars in every one; turns out she was sleeping with the director (she married him). Then I saw Boudu Saved From Drowning (remade as Down and Out in Beverly Hills), which was funny. Not laugh out loud funny, but funny as in “Oh the bourgeoisie, such soft targets, and I’m so clever to get it.” The tramp Boudu tries to kill himself by jumping off the Pont des Arts, which is just not fair. Why must everything be more picturesque in Paris, even suicide? I remembered walking along the Seine with my friend Jeffrey on a gloomy afternoon, and it was so romantic that I tried to convince him to jump in so I would remember the moment forever. He wouldn’t, which just killed the mood.