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supple, more plump in the parts that are supposed to be plump and less plump in the parts that aren’t, with lots of swingy shiny hair up there and no hair down there, barely warrants mention, so old-school is that brainwashing.
    In recent years the wheel has turned a little. Women’s magazines have heard the criticism that every woman on the planet who reads them for any length of time winds up despising herself so thoroughly that her options have been narrowed to throwing either the magazine or herself off a bridge, and so now their focus is “spiritual.”
    Now, while effortlessly rocking our skinny jeans, we must also be working to live a life of abundance, and to recognize said abundance, and to learn how to feel properly grateful, and to become the hero of our own journey. Wait, your inner critic is somehow as resilient as a post-apocalyptic cockroach and keeps chiding you for failing to be the hero in your own journey? Notto worry; here are eighty-seven foolproof ways to silence that inner critic.
    On and on it goes. Julia wasn’t having any of it, and neither should you.
    Here’s an experiment: For one day, walk the earth in your fat pants and raggedy cuticles. Do whatever you do in the morning to get yourself together, beauty-wise, * then, forget about it. If you’re not feeling grateful, then don’t be grateful. Quit practicing whatever inner thing you’re practicing. Don’t take the stairs instead of the elevator. Don’t choose the banana instead of the bag of chips. Every time that chiding little voice inside says you should be working on changing yourself, silence it. Instead, play the emperor. The emperor doesn’t live on an endless self-improvement regime, and the emperor doesn’t apologize for who she is. And as for the inner critic, our
bête noire du jour
: If there’s nothing to criticize, she’s out of a job. Do this, for one day, and see what happens. Sometimes, simply accepting our imperfections serves to lay the groundwork for confidence. Who knew?
    I’m not saying you’re fine the way you are. Julia, certainly, for her time, was not “fine” the way she was. Instead, by embracing all that she was, she redefined fine.



R ULE No. 3:
L EARN TO B E A MUSED

One’s best evenings are composed of a good dinner, and nothing else is necessary.
    I T WAS NEVER OBVIOUS TO ANYONE THAT J ULIA M C W ILLIAMS would make anything of herself. Neither the most observant teacher nor an empathic, crystal ball–reading college career counselor predicted any kind of real career for Julia, much less a groundbreaking, world-changing one.
    When Julia entered Smith College, Caro’s alma mater, in 1930 at the age of eighteen, she was that wild roommate you love to death but can’t live with because you fear flunking out. * Then as now, there are no dormitories at Smith; rather, every student is assigned to a house with other students from all four grades. Gilley, the housemother at Hubbard House, where Julia lived, kept notes on her charges, and about Julia she wrote, “Agrand person generally but she does go berserk every once in a while, and is
down
on all ‘Suggestions and Regulations.’”
    Northampton, Massachusetts, with its refined culture that valued the arts and intellectual pursuits, was a world away from provincial Pasadena, and Julia felt acutely like the huge galumphing Westerner that she was. Once again she was the tallest in her class (of 634); once again she was faced with the stark choice of whether to be a wallflower or a myth. It was a difficult adjustment, but Caro came east over Thanksgiving and took Julia shopping in New York for the requisite preppy wardrobe—crew neck sweaters, tweed skirts, saddle shoes, and pearls—and once she looked the part of a proper Smithie, she was able to devote herself fully to what she loved most, causing trouble.
    For Julia, her first two years of college were an extension of high school, with the exception of an added bonus: The local speakeasy was