The bottom right corner the video will be available immediately following the broadcast. Upcoming programs include los angeles and Edward Snowden and meanwhile so check out the media tab and town hall and the Nonprofit Community if we made a donation and hope you will consider supporting us during this time becoming a member through the website. And those that have been hit by the negative effects of the covert outbreak. And with those local independent bookstores. Please use the link on the live stream. The conversation will last around 35 minutes. Please submit your questions in the ask a question button. The town halls work is made possible with your support. We like to thank all of our members. The chicago author and essayist and comedy writer and the call writer of that comedy advice blog. And the gets in glory. And also based on her popular book and has appeared on jezebel and her vote we are never meeting in real life was on the New York Times bestseller less. Into a nonfiction writer a narrative Nonfiction Book talk about the cultural myth of pregnancy. And then the Washington State book award then has been featured on npr fresh air. And the book no thank you is the subject of tonights talk. Please join me to welcome our gas. Thank you magan and townhall. Is 10 00 oclock p. M. I will turn into pumpkin at some point. We appreciate your presence even more. I did a test run with the townhall staff and said 90 minutes i said i dont think we will be here for 91 90 minutes it seems like a lot of time. I cant do anything for more than an hour. Little keye even moments of joy and within a moment its all right with the world is falling apart and we have no plans i feel happiness and it doesnt feel complicated or what im just going to fall off. Then lets talk about this. The book has been, okay im going to keep going your book was an instant New York Times bestseller that is just one measure and the last six weeks have been a bookstore bestsell bestseller. Its kind of to say you are killing it during this pandemic. But when i was thinking about it that way its another reason ist it brought me true joy because if anyone should be telling it in the pandemic is that black queer lady doth not long ago was an hourly wage worker with multiple comorbidity, like you are the demographic our society has decided like its okay. Guest when i was trying to come up with a title im glad we didnt go with it but one of them on my list was dying is fine. Im glad they talked me out of it. Your success has been a joy to me because it feels like in this moment theres like some bit of justice that we might not otherwise have so i just want to say that. I dont know how to gracefully accept a compliment but i will just say thank you. I am making it weird. Most normal people, there is no normal but most people have a hard time with that. We can move on. I would much rather be hearing it over a loudspeaker and to be looking at my own pace. Guest this was a request. My favorite thing is for someone to tell me what they want to hear and angela wanted to hear a little bit from body negativity from this but i hope you all will purchase. It is essentially about all of the things we are told we have to do to have a body and have a good body and healthy body or good looking body and how i dont think any of those things is possible for any normal person. Whats happening on your back right now, do you even know how much hair is on it, is the skin soft, has years of spending every day in a straight jacket draw left marks, what i is up wh that weird scaly patch. Are you already so tired from the stuff you have to keep track of you cant be bothered to worry about the part of the body that you cant even speak a to fucking c. . I get that. The last time i thought about it is in 2002 i was sleeping with a guy and he would moan here shit like i love looking at your back. [inaudible] i am not such a asshole i would try to make it nicer, so i bought a loufa and then would try to slater it on because i was worried about how the hardest part of my body to reach was having dead cells off of it. I would rub up against a dry towel to get the ocean to absorb into my wounded skin. My freshly baby back didnt feet feel right for weeks, but the next time they knocked on the door late at night with nothing but with eyes and a throbbing erection heated up accidentally and say did you fall on your back, good old thermometer dick reminding me no good deed goes unpunished and you should never do anything nice ever for anyo anyone. Lets examine all the stuff you could do but wont because who could possibly keep track of all of this to have a nice chest. I dont mean your boobs because they should be addressed on your own but that piece between her neck and where they began. Heres how i take care of my chest. Sometimes when i wash my face but only after ive taken a shower i will accidentally gets too much moisturizer or too much or you were missed in the palm of my hand and as im frantically looking around the bathroom to find a way of disposing of it that doesnt include dribbling it over the floor, it will dawn on me that i could just rub it on my chest and have a shiny plate for the rest of the day. I know that back acne is the same but im pretty sure i also have chest ask me. I dont know if thats what it is that sometimes i get these little bumps and what did i survive puberty for it years later i would be squinting in the eye on the drugstore are trying to figure out which of the options available work best on a saggy thorax. Your breasts are supposed to stay under your chin from the moment they sprout until youre 99th birthday. You know what, i cannot do it. I do not have perky tits and thats okay. I think pinning them to my neck days are over. One of the things i keep telling myself over and over again like a mantra is people already know what your body looks like so you dont have to try anymore. I breasts are shaped like summer squash. Im unwilling to grasp with gravity, these large bags of sand hanging dolomite clavicle are no longer going into daily battle. Are they even, lifted, separated, does the band if it come is because right, does the underwire big come is it flat, does it create lumps under your sweater, is it breathable, is that scratchy, does it with moisture, i heard that is what you are supposed to want. Wait a minute, what were we talking about again . Theoretically, everyone loves a strong broad shoulder but no one tells you how to get one, so i guess you either have to be born with them or that is what those odd machines at the gym that make you look like a bird flapping with heavy wing are for. Michelle obama is the Gold Standard for arms and im sure there is an interview with her trainer on how they got that way, but life is fucking short. Invest in some cardigans, put vaseline on your elbows, where sweatshirts 365 days a year, get definition lifting a coffee cup. Armpit hair maintenance, you could just let it go like i do, occasionally spraying some deodorant and doesnt work into your dark arm cave to keep wild dogs off or you could wax or sugar or shave or laser the hair off, dab it with something to prevent and ingrowns. Everyday, every couple of days, weekly, i guess that depends on what kind you have and whether or not you are taking beauty vitamins. I definitely am, by the way, because i love an easy fix even if it isnt real. The number of available to you to choose from is staggering. I dont know how a person could make an informed decision without getting a bachelors degree in chemistry first. It used to just be like do you want to spell my baby powder or Cherry Blossom every time you waved your arm in class but now what would you rather be spidey 100 of the time or destroy your fucking brain. Was i supposed to keep reading, do you want me to keep reading . I cant hear you, you are muted. Im back. Sorry, everybody. I felt like this is the case i love hearing you. Nice told me that they thermometer dick joke out loud. [laughter] guest i forgot where you told me to stop and i was like this whole thing is really long. Me i privately have you sent me voice mail. Guest i will call you and give you a personal reading after this. And then just what else, i will do it. Host thank you for that. So many things your work touches on but what i love about it is fundamentally it is about being in your body and when you write about your body coming you are writing about every way that it interacts with every level of societies whether it is institutions, interpersonal, how you see your self. And i feel like that is probably why it resonates with so many people. What you are saying is the standards that we are supposed to hold our standards to our impossible and order you have to be rich to even come close to be able to do that. Every once body is a mess in a different way falling apart and failing us. There is no such thing as a good body is one that he is alive and here. So i think what you are saying is its enough to have a body and its okay t its okay to sore least with it. Guest to feel overwhelmed at the end of the chapter i kind of get into and this is the thing that has vexed me as a person dealing with Crohns Disease its like all of the things you are supposed to eat to keep your body going, and its like if you truly eight the 12th of tale or whatever and broccoli, you would never stop eating. In addition to all of the things you want to eat. So the things you are supposed to eat and then the things you want to eat, like i need 14 cow stomachs to eat all of that. Theres an idea someone some way or is doing it, getting all of the folic acid they need in the day and all of the vitamins. But it is no one ive ever met. The idea that it could ever be me is impossible. Its basically like a fulltime job, like you want some joy. Im not someone that could ever be full, although sometimes i do like a salad. Guest i had one for dinner and i felt very much like i loved myself for the five minutes. For the rest of the time i was eating the salad i was like this is a lot of work. I really wish this was something else. I just want us all to be free enough to say im not getting in all of the beans and thats fine. Like if i dont eat enough revolution, that will be good. Host i think theres also this idea in our culture that say if you were to do your ultimate tale situation and somehow it would be more healthy were perfectly healthy and that is a good life because theres this idea that if you are healthy you are morally superior to other people, whereas what about people that are disabled and People Living with these problematic inconvenience bodies and they are no less good. Guest right. I would much rather do whatever im going to do and have got shave a few years off. I was talking to my friends dad had watched a documentary and he was like you know how people watch a documentary and think they are a professor all of a sudden. I was like you watched one thing he came to me like youve got to cut out this and do that and i was like man, if you are 72 and counting your potatoes or whatever, what is the point, why even live to be that age if you cant eat ice cream all day if you want . So you can be around 90, no way. Im actively decomposing all the time. Im going to do whatever i can do to get to the next day. Sometimes its a salad but sometimes its cheese. [laughter] guest i want to ask you you write so much about your body and so openly. Where do you think that came from . It wasnt like im going to become a writer now and this is my thing. But i wondered where does that come from, because that has a lot of people a lot of people are uncomfortable with. Guest i definitely didnt grow up with smart progressive people. Nobody gave me a hard time because i was fat, but they were not like embrace your body. It was like you look like we were. So thats fine. I didnt grow up with any radicals or anything. I was definitely wallowing in selfhatred. But when i started writing, and started performing my work especially, it was like its still scares me. Like im fat but i love walking into that sort of thing. Its like writing about it even as uncomfortable as it makes me feel at least you know what you are getting when you get it. I know who i am and i cant hide from that. If you read something i pretend that you know im going to be in the bathroom for like 35 minutes and dont call an ambulance. I had an okay cupid profile and people know what they are getting because my screen name. [laughter] all of my pictures were honest so at least then youre not like i thought they were tiny and im like actually i would write a loan and then it takes a lot of people who dont talk to me about it to see it before it is published so it still feels like mine now everyone has read them and we are going to talk about it, but they feel less scary especially now because i just kind of write it in my little and then send it off and months later he comes back in a book. I dont read read it until they sent me the first batch of edi edits. Host the word that seems important to me how i was loose when i was writing about and in a place where im not selfconscious, like this is just what i need to say. There is something when you make yourself free because if youve are already saying the things you imagine people might make fun of you or give you a hard time about, if you have already said it guest i will say anything in service of a joke. Im always trying to get a laugh and i take a nap myself first. I dont know if its punching down but punching latterly, like no one is going to get hurt. But you learn how to deflect bullying or comments when you are young either you cry or youre like im going to make the joke before you make the joke and then it takes the teeth out of your jokes because i already said it. If i walk in the door like im poor and i have shoes from payless. What are you going to say thats going to be worse. So i learned that as a coping mechanism. And internalizing it guest there is some of that but in a moment i will say it before you say it and then later im like whoa they still said it but at least i said it first. Host theres this idea of embodiment. Speak to people who are embodied are somehow super healthy or have a certain kind of body that when i read your work i like this is a deeply embodied person. When you are dealing with all this stuff, like you become an expert. Youre not a scientist, but you acquire some terminology and knowledge of the lived experience. Like thats who you think about, i dont know, does that seem accurate to say i am a deeply embodied person . Guest thats more beautiful than the way that i ever put anything so i appreciate you for giving me that language because now im going to coopt it and say im a deeply embodied person. I think the way i think of myself, thats true like i often feel like my brain is a thing trapped inside this body and because its given me so many problems from so many areas, i am like deeply knowledgeable when you have a lot of problems and you are in a black body and to advocate for your self at the doctor a lot, you learn that you need to learn all the stuff they are saying so that when you see this other doctor that you dont know very well, you can tell them what they need to know. I think when i first started dealing with Crohns Disease, i learned all this stuff because you are seeing a this kind of dr. Into that kind of doctor and youve got to kno do with this e says and that one says. So i learned as a function of making things easier for me. Trying to make my life easier to move through. Then i think once i really started writing about it what is happening . Host we can still hear you, there you go. Guest we live in the country and our intranet is bullshit. Theres probably a raccoon outside shooting on whatever. [laughter] so if i disappear. So i got to know all of the terminology so that i could be more helpful to myself and then when i started writing about it, i think thats when i was like this is this thing i have i think i had a contentious relationship with my body, but ive learned it so well that im right about it and feel deeply in tune with the despite all the problems. Host but thats the thing i think having problems and being in tune with it i feel like im late to the game on this. A couple of years ago i was like you cant be in tune with your body unless it looks a certain way, but that is just bullshit. Guest it isnt a grass is greener situation because i havent had children, i feel like i cant be as in tune with what my body can do as a woman who has grown a child. I feel like youve got to be in tune with your body in a way that i could never understand. Ive grown some tumors. Host just because your body is thought to do something doesnt mean that you should or have to. I think it kind of goes both ways, to know that its not something you want, but being in tune with your body as well. So thats for sure. I was thinking i wanted to ask and i will just go into it now. Lets talk about your endometriosis situation to go back to that idea, it breaks my heart you kind of glossed over it but i am familiar with this feeling. Its not the same, but like when you go into a Doctors Office or Providers Office and are like i am prepared for you to not believe anything im saying and they prefer yoprepared for you. Im fully prepared to have to advocate for myself and maybe even get a little heated if necessary. So i still have a uterus now i will sound like a fucking idiot and those that just dont do anything anymore. I think i must make eggs i know what happens to them i am knocking on the door. You have to ask a real sentence on scientist because there is nothing for them to attach to any more because of the scorched earth. I havent had a period in two or three years. Something like that. And then eventually you just go into menopause. I dont know when you stop producing eggs. I think it is any day now. When you are a fetus you come out with all the eggs you will ever have. This is wild and then they mature so it is a limited numbe number. So i feel like i know i am on my last few eggs. I am 42 and my. It is weird and has changed. And i am curious because you write about this in the book that i just want to take it out. Im not having children. My. It is a source of shame and discomfort and it is terrible for me and i just want you to take it out. It was so unmanageable that i am a Health Hazard when i leave my home like the shining elevator seed all the time. But i felt that was enough and that when insurance gets involved. And then doing everything short of taking it out and then they burned it to a crisp. On that note i think i have on a file have to talk about the uterus and then the knowledge of your body whether you have children or not you talk about having a dnc which is a procedure i had done after losing a pregnancy that you have to do this to scrape out what is left in their. So i am on the flipside that i just want to vacate. And like female Reproductive Health and if you have the right to decide whats going on in your body. Mr. Blue cross and blue shield get to make the call on what happens to my uterus. But luckily for me, it took. Sometimes it doesnt. Whatever burned potato chips are left inside nothing sticks to them. [laughter] i know maybe i need to write a thank you note. So to turn to something lighter. So we need to talk about the days. I have a traveled the day bidet you can fill it with water and shoot at your butt hole and you can get one in your home. When i sit down i dont know what will happen. I dont know what will come out. And im not pregnant. It is very difficult to reach around and wipe and said that she ordered one for us. We absolutely do not need this. And then within 24 hours we are thinking how did we ever live without this . It is also replacing the whole seat of your toilet you can also control the temperature of the water that comes out and the seat warms up. At a dumb and useless person do this . It is remote control. Definitely attaching it makes somebody do it. A handyman. In the end its a clean wipe it is just drying off its not a smear campaign. If you spend this much time in the bathroom or like an extra toilet. So throughout asia to say it looks like a garden snake. But only in america we have decided to clean our asses but its not a substitution. Is not like we have a toilet paper or shortage. But i want to ask you a noun Time Magazine says do you want to do a profile . And i reread that and i was thinking why you or why now . She has been doing this for a long time. How do you answer that question . I think its the same thing ive been doing this for a long time. And those who are loyal to me i give a lot of my work away for free so people can try it. Ten years of blogging and i still do a newsletter and im constantly putting work out. Some of that straight up is the part i dont understand is marketing like my last book did okay so then they put your book in more places and send it to more people that has to be a part of it and i know youre asking the bigger question. Maybe its time for more Diverse Voices and people are more open to it. I love me some david ceder a sword nora efron i of thats a good example but those who do what i do or those who are more open the culture is changing. There is a shift in more opportunities and here is a meme. And i constantly keep were going and i have a masters very dedicated group. All those on instagram all the time ive been reading your blog since 2008 and honestly obviously the internet im not a sociologist obviously. Those that can so easily share and it just goes back to the giving it away for free. And then this time. And that i should write my blog more frankly but and putting things into the world and it pays off after a year. And then to say i dont have to give this away for free. And then you just hang out. Because it keeps you on peoples minds. Especially now if i dont have a day job i will keep writing shipped on the internet. But then on to write spend that money on what you wrote. And then reading my newsletter they know its worth the money. To slowly make a shift to open more doors for people. And the ability. And i encourage everyone to say her soul. But then and then to steal millions of copies. Thats not a great science. But okay i will take that. And also by the way to make sense from a business standpoint. And then to take our money. s so what books have you been enjoying . Currently i mostly read fiction because i like and escape and reading other peoples essays. I cant say i cant read that book is too good it is very good i also love a thriller and they were book. Also under the rainbow is fiction and it names the most homophobic town in america in kansas and the gay alliance is a task force that into the town and you get a lot of peoples perspectives and its really good. Im not good at selling a book with those are three of them. [laughter] someone says that they love your recipe on instagram. It slightly modified but were did you ever do that . Heres the thing when you pick this asher job i will turn down no opportunity. I would need to get a food person to do with me. But is somebody wanted to do one with me. You can pick your favorite top chef contestant. I love top chef. Lets do it. I have a dream maybe i can make this a reality where a real chef wrote instructions in a normal way than i write how i do it when you dont use the right amount. It can be aspirational. And then to join things. And then to go back as he will be like. It seems like fun. And i want to do just one thing. And then to take a risk. And mike sheldon. And gregory. And i think its melissa. And gregory could have one. And then to make it to the top three or four. Gregory or melissa. Heres a good question a little more serious. If youre healing from a eating disorder and any suggestions of how to start. So honestly this is tricky if you could do therapy that would probably help. But im not in therapy. So i have found one of the things that has been the most helpful consistently is to do it and i on instagram i follow as many different types of people who show their bodies as i can. I will scroll and scroll looking at pictures of fat people in underwear. Went to think she is so brave they are not brave taking pictures of the bodies they are in and posting them. And also specifically and with those hashtags i was just going through fat girl close earlier and carissa is amazing. There was one called the fuck it diet it was intuitive eating podcast is not the substitute for therapy but she is so knowledgeable and she makes things so plain and her advice is so good and she is the fuck it diet on all platforms. Looking at peoples bodies all day every day. The internet is a fucking scourge but if you feel like youre alone and the only person it is such a horrible feeling. Just as the People Living in their bodies they dont have to be doing anything revolutionary but just to say there is a person who looks like me doesnt have whatever hangups i have. I am in close all the time its not my a ministry to poke myself in my bra but looking at people and theres is helpful for me. But then it is remarkable to see yourself with them that it is an absurd amount in my initial feeling is not like i am worried from that person in those people who will say nasty things scroll and look it has taken and years of that and it helped. We would do if you were questions. Originally from southwestern michigan and is fascinated that you live in kalamazoo what about the more Middle America mindset . Leaving anywhere is hard i am from evanston north of chicago and thats the only place we ever lived where i could hug and touch and call my real life friend is there. And then just coming to a place that doesnt have a lot of Public Transportation and places to go and occupy yourself i moved here and did not have a job or an office to go to every day and no purpose and it was really hard because there was nothing here to distract me or a mall to go to every day. There is no thai food or Filipino Food i actually have to get on the amtrak and go home. [laughter] but on the flipside what we pay for this entire house is less in my studio apartment in chicago. That is an incredible feeling. We did a drive to the flower farm just to warm up the car and gas is 1. 44. I cannot go back to that traffic i dont know if i can go back things that i miss but they are convenience things. What about seeing black people every day i do see a fair amount of black people. I dont know what to call him but they take care of our whole lives and then to say okay there is a whole black lives town and a soul Food Restaurant that chicago is the most segregated city in america. [laughter] there are all kinds of people there. It is a little bit of an adjustment but not as bad as i thought and i found some good stuff to not anymore but before the pandemic back when there were restaurants in the before times that we went to. The last question tell us about your writing process. I always wait until the last possible minute. I have a couple of end of the week deadlines so before when i lived alone in my old apartment i would write during the day or on the weekends when they didnt have to work i have one daft during the week. But now that i live with other people i cannot write if things are happening a way to everybody goes to bed so i dont start writing until 10 00 p. M. And work until 3 00 oclock in the morning. But perimenopause thankfully so if you do something with that time i have the whole desk in the whole setup i never said there i sit there at the bead up armchair but as for the actual essay and in that essay that you want to write that as soon doctor appointment that i had. And always my main rule is how it will end before it starts. I dont write anything until i know how it ends. Is that while you do it do you change . Yes. I wont write a thing if i dont know where im going. That is my piece of advice. Know where you are going. It doesnt matter how you get there. Thank you. This is incredible. Thank you both for such an informative conversation. I want to encourage everyone to purchase from third place books. So please get a copy. Follow us on comcast. Such a wonderful event and thank you to the audience for joining us hi everyone. I am an adjunct fellow at the manhattan institute