Read You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl for Free Online Page B

go to outlandish lengths to dance around unpleasant scenes. Except we don’t anymore. And I’m a little freaked out about that.
    So, yes, I will try to be more positive, just like Kathy Ireland said I should be. I don’t want to be the kind of person who only tells the clerk at the DMV that I’m an organ donor because everybody else is doing it. (Well, everybody else was saying “Yes!” with so much enthusiasm, I was afraid they were going to whip out their livers and lay ’em on the desk right then and there. I just said “Yes” so everybody else in line wouldn’t mutter “Selfish porkface. Can you believe she’s keeping her organs? Like they’re so freakin’ special … . Ooooh, like she thinks her spleen is all that.”)
    I want to be a better person like probable-organ-donor
Miss Kathy Ireland! Perhaps this will lead to greater success; it certainly seems to have worked for her. I still fly coach, after all.
    But, really, how does one define success?
    I’ll tell you how I don’t define it.
    I don’t define success by how much money someone makes. I don’t define success by how many trophies or plaques or awards someone has.
    I don’t define it by membership in exclusive clubs or the ability to name-drop about someone’s famous friends.
    I don’t define it by how many luxury cars or opulent homes someone might own or how many sumptuous vacations they might take in exotic locales all over the globe.
    I don’t define success … oh, hell, I’m just kidding. Actually, all that stuff is fantastic!
    But enough of all that chatter. It’s time to say “Nighty night” to all of my angels.
    Yeah, that felt weird.

7
    Bitter! Party of Me
    N ow that Oprah Winfrey has announced the end of her long-running talk show, who, pray tell, is going to scream the names of celebrities in that annoying fashion? You know what I’m talking about: “Ladies and gentlemen … JOHN TRAVOOOOOLLLLTTTTAAAA!”
    And who is going to give hour-long shout-outs to thick, thoughty novels that make my head hurt when I read them?
    No one? Oh, OK.
    As loyal readers know, I have sent my books to “Noprah” for many years now. Frankly, as native Southerners who share having grown up in towns so small they could best be described as “two stores, two whores, and a cotton gin,” Oprah and I should have a lot in common. I was expecting that at least she’d send me an autographed picture or something.
(“To Celia, from OOOOOPPPPPRRRRRAAAAAHH-HHH!”) But nada, bupkiss, zilch. So to Oprah, let me just say thanks for, uh, nothing.
    O has clearly forgotten that Southerners always send thank-you notes. There’s more than a grain of truth to the old joke that the only reason Southern Junior Leaguers don’t participate in orgies is that there would be too many thank-you notes to write.
    Oprah received a gift from me—several, actually—over the years and still no note. To put it in terms she can understand, there are “NOOOO EXCUUUUUUSES!” and that includes (but is not limited to) such afflictions as “Thoughtless Billionaire Syndrome,” “Yes I’m All That-osis,” or even “My Vah-jay-jay’s on the Fritz and I Can’t Be Bothered-itis.”
    Oh, I just hate sounding so bitter. But ten years of mailing books to my Southern sister has taken its psychic toll. How I dreamed of sitting across from O on one of those big, puffy yellow chairs she uses for the cry-interviews.
    How I’d envisioned in my fevered dreams of nonfiction stardom how our conversation would go:
    O: “So tell us about your books, Celia.”
    Me: “Well, I …”
    O: “But first, did you know that your daughter has the same name as my beloved late dog, Sophie? Did you name your daughter after my dog? Did you? I bet you did! ( turning toward audience ) “YOU get a dog and YOU get a dog and YOU get a dog!”

    Me: “Actually, Oprah, I’m more of a cat person.”
    O: “Ladies and gentlemen, MAYA ANGELOOO-OUUUU!”
    Me: “What?!?”
    O: “She’s going to be