Ongoing of in los angeles. [inaudible]. As well as michael, our meet up and others. Meanwhile, you also find many of our boxes available in our childrens library. Check out the minitab our homepage. Youtube channel. Where we listen to podcasts. Town hall and Nonprofit Community at large. Wif you made the donation, we hope you will consider supporting us at this time by using the donate button at the bottom of the screen. It also become a member. You can also give at 4432 is somehow pretty and a partner bookstores have also been hit by the covid19 outbreak. They need your support as well. Independent source by purchasing a copy of the book. Theres a link on the page. Todays conversation is around 35 minutes. And we will take questions. Please submit your questions on the ask. Question button on the podcast. They may not be able to answer every question but we will try to get to as many as possible. Townhall, appreciates your support. Supported by arts and culture. Finally, townhall support organizations and we would like to thank all of her members watching. Theres a chicago office, memoir, the tents to blog. Shes a cowriter. The advice blog. In addition she has a cohost the show the sunday night special breed. [inaudible]. And also because the glory. And collaborate with another read in the work has appeared New York Times bestseller list. On the best nonfiction. In another nonfiction writer and author and narrative Nonfiction Book of the raging silence of pregnancy. The best book of 2018. And the Washington State book award. And by the New York Times. [background sounds]. And the work has appeared in the New York Times. Bon appetit. [inaudible]. This book, wow the subject, please join me in welcoming the author. Either. Thank you for thank you townhall. Support books where you could buy books. And thank you sam for being here. Thank you for having me. Im going to turn into a pumpkin. [laughter]. Fully appreciate even more in your presence here. I will definitely keep it to an hour. Okay. Youre talking earlier this week to dig a test run of the townhouse that. We have up to 90 minutes times like i dont think we will be here for 90 minutes. It seems like a lot of time. I can do anything for more than like an hour before really start dating braided and it was like before in the before times. Announce light, im withering. My life forces withering. Its like i need to take to be awake or something. [laughter]. Megan so for the audience, we are so happy that you are here. Im going to steal your energy. But useless you know, im graciously agreed term sam is a graciously agreed to read something in the book. But i want to give a little bit of an introduction talk about with the book is meant to be in this moment. In this light pandemic times, everything feels different and on some level. Like loki all of the time. Even like of joy. A moment like the world is falling apart. We have no plans to say people figure this out. So when i was reading your book, i was like what is this that i feel. I feel just happiness it doesnt feel complicated and it doesnt feel like i was going to fall off. In the second of this. The book has been sorry doing away presented to a component. This is big. Your book was an instance number one best seller with the New York Times. This is one measure. So for the last six weeks, it was in the bookstore bestseller. It is weird. Its kinda messed up to say that you are killing it during this pandemic. But you are. And the thing about it is for those thinking about it that way, its another reason probably likes pure joy. Because anyone during the pandemic, is a sad black clear lady who not long ago was a looker who has a number of chronicle illnesses. And morbidity. Youre like the demographic that our society has decided its okay. Seriously. Meanwhile, youre out here getting in life. Because originally when i was trying to go up with the title, the onestop of my list was dying is fine of the top of my list for the name of the title of my book. Is what we are doing every day. Angela im glad you talked me out of it. Megan like your success is been an actual like sense of real joy to me. Because it feels like in this moment, like some bit of justice. Like we might not otherwise have. So i dont know. I just wanted to say that thank you. Just being real. Angela i dont know how to gracefully accept a complement without deflecting it. But i will say thank you. And dont know if its just as to say thank you. It is good. I deserve it. No. I can making it weird because i dont know like to have people say nice things to me. Sam most normal people will not normal there is not normal but regular people have a hard time with that. Angela yet and that is fine. Angela i would much rather be hearing myself on the loudspeaker. [laughter]. Instead of looking at my actual face. Sam now you can hide behind the book and read. Sam so im going to read from this is a request, my favorite thing is for someone to tell me what they want to hear. And angela wanted to hear this little bit from negativity, body nativity. From this book, they hope you will purchase. The body nativity is essentially peace about all of the things that we are told that we have to do to have a body and how a good body and have a healthy body or a goodlooking body. And how i dont think any of those things are possible. After a normal person. Okay. So what is happening yourself right now pretty to even know. How much here is on your back. His skin soft. And years of spending everyday in a straitjacket type brought left weird marks on it. Are you molds doing. What is up with eddie weird scaly patch. Are you already so tired from all of the other things he has to keep track of that you cannot be bothered to worry about the part of your body that you cant even flipping see. I feel that. I think the last time that i actually thought to myself, wonder what is going on my back and i think it was in 2002 when i was sleeping with this dude who lived in the apartment who lived below five arbitrated he would say weird stuff during like you are so warm inside. I love looking at your back while we are making love to my rear end. I left the first time that he said the one thing because im sorry, what. What if you been with corpses. Do i have undiagnosed measles. Anyway, i wouldve tried to make my back nicer for somebody you enjoyed looking at us. So i bought a pack scrubbing lupus taken almost dislocated my arm trying to remove the dead layers of skin on my back with so much force that it bled braided and then i would support motion on the one end after my shower try to slather it on. Because i had anticipated have tried and roth the trick is part of body to reach was going to feel after having trimmed years off of dead still subscribe off of it. I ended up having to back of his hotel rock and gingerly rub myself up and down against the bright help try to get the lotion to absorb into my wounded skin. My freshly baby back ribs, didnt feel right for weeks. So they sent the homeboy knocked on my door inappropriately late at night, he did some accidentally living into my pain is long enough to ask, ouch made. Did you follow you back. Do you want me to put some bandages on this. Use reminding me for nobod and u should never do anything nice ever for anyone. So examine all of this that you could do but no who could possibly keep track of all of this to have a nice check. And when you move pretty they should be addressed in their own. Im talking about the piece of real estate between your neck and were groups began. Here is how i take care of my chest. Sometimes when i west my face but only after ive taken a shower, i will accidentally squeeze out too much moisturizer or put too much oil into the palm of my hand and frantically looking around the bathroom trying to find some way of disposing of it and doesnt include dribbling it all over the floor. It was donny to my morning fog linkages rubbing on my chest have a weirdly shiny just like for the first few hours of the day. I know the back acne is a thing but a pretty sure i also have chest acne, but sometimes i get these little bumps and why did i survive puberty, in a weird way that is going to be being clear so ill at the drugstore trying to figure out which of the options available were best o m. Your breasts are supposed to be set right up and region for the moment they unexpectedly sprout on her chest. Until your 99th birthday. But you know what, i cant do it. I do not have them and thats okay. I think turning my nipples to the nape of my neck days are over prayed i keep telling myself like a mantra is people already know which body looks like. So you dont have to try anymore. My breasts are shaped like summer squash. Just like im unwilling to fight with gravity of these large bags of what sand handing pension hanging below the articles are no longer going to be in a daily battle. Are they human. Are they lifted. They separated. Does the benefit pretty is the copyright. Is the underwear dig. Is the brought flat against her skin. It does accrete create weird bumps. Is a breathable. Scratchy. Does it wick moisture. I heard that something youre supposed to watch for braided wait a minute. What were we talking about again. Theoretically everyone loves the strong broad shoulder nobody tells you how to get one. So guess you have to be born with them are thats what the sub machines at the gym and make you look like a bird flapping in painfully heavy winds are for. Michelle obama the Gold Standard for arms. Im sure is about the interview with her trainer and how they got that way. But life is short invest in some nice cardigans. Vaseline on your elbows. Where sweatshirts 365 days a year. Thats our definition. Maintenance is a whole thing you can like i have, review all the possibilities and occasionally spring some herbal deodorant that doesnt work into your dark arms to keep wild dogs off of you. Or wax or sugar or shave or laser the hair off. Debbie was something to prevent and grounds. However it and deodorize it. Every day, every couple of days. Weekly. I guess it all depends on what kind of care you have and whether or not youre taking vitamins. I definitely and by the way. Because i love these effects even if its not real pretty sure number of available deodorants to choose from is staggering. I dont know how person make an informed decision without setting are getting a bachelors degree chemistry pretty is to just be like, do you want to smell my baby powder cherry blossom. Every time you raise your arm in class grade and now to say, would you rather be sweaty 100 percent of the time or destroy your brain. Was i supposed to keep writing. Samdo you wanted me to keep reading. Sam oh, i cannot hear you coming your mutant. Sam i am back pretty. Angela okay you are back. Sam sorry everybody. I felt like this was the case that the main. I want to hear you read. I needed to hear, a little bit. I needed to hear you out loud. Like this thing pretty. Angela i forgot when you told me to stop and i thought wait. This whole thing is pretty long. Sam is a privately heavy semi voice memo. The brazilian boxer pretty. Angela i will call you and give you a personal reading after this. Sam what else. Thank you for that. Theres so many things that your work touches on. But what i love about it is fundamentally its about being in your body. When you write about your body, your writing about every way that it interacts with every level of society with its institutions ready for interpersonal. This is the way you see yourself. Thats why it probably resonates with so many people. Because what you are saying is things like the standards that were supposed to hold her body still are impossible. And you have to be rich to even be able to come close to doing thats. So everyones body is a mess is falling apart and filling us. But theres no such thing as a good body. His life in your gear. And, i think like there is that what youre saying is is enough to have a body. And its okay to be okay with that. Angela at the end of the chapter, i cant get into this is the something that has actually person dealing with Crohns Disease is that all of the things that you are supposed to eat, to keep her body going and it is like if you truly eight the 12th cups of kale or whatever, you would never stop eating. Like all of the things that you are supposed to eat in addition to all of the things that you want to eat. And then the things that you want to eat and which supposed to eat. I would eat 14 cow stomachs to get through all of that. Theres this idea that someone somewhere is doing it right. Someone out there is getting all of the folic acids they need during the day and all the vitamins. But if no one i have ever met. [laughter]. Like the idea that they can never be me. Its impossible. Im must never going to like get all of the nutrients in need. But the fiber this and that. Sam bullet also takes out part of the things like eating like, for pleasure. Just your job. Its basically like a fulltime job but youre talking about. Like you want some joy in that. [laughter] i really wish that this was something else. I just want us all to be free enough to like say that i am not getting in. [inaudible] and thats fine that will be good for me theres also this idea in our culture that if you were going to dear optimal kale net situation. And somehow youd be more healthy or perfectly healthy and thats a good thing. Theres this idea that if you are healthy, you were superior to other people. What about people who are disabled. People living with these problematic inconvenient bodies, right . We are no less a good. Right. I would much rather do whatever i am going to do and have that shape a few years off. Talking to my sons dad who would watch some documentary and he was like, you know, you have people watch like old people watch a documentary im thinking they are a professor all the sudden. When im like you watch one movie. He came to me was like you know youve got a cut out and youve gotta do that. And i was like man if you are 72 and, you know counting your potatoes or whatever. What is the point . Why even lived to be that age if you cant eat ice cream all day if you want . So you can be live at 90 . No way. Im actively decomposing all the time. I am just going to do whatever i can do to get to the next day. Is dying is fine. Make yeah. Sometimes its a salad sometimes its cheese. [laughter] [laughter] host i want to ask you, you write so much about your body and so openly. Where you think that came from . Is it just i know when you started out it wasnt like i am going to be a writer now and this is going to be my thing. But i where does that come from . At stuff that a lot of people are uncomfortable with. Right . Guest i definitely did not grow up with like smart, progressive people, right . And it was like nobody ever gave me a hard time because i was fa fat. But they certainly were not like embrace your body. It you know it was like well, you know, were poor, you look like we look, youre fine. And so i didnt grow up with any kind of radical selfacceptance or anything. I was indefinitely wallowing in selfhatred. But when i started writing. And i started performing my work especially. It felt as scary as it is, and it still scares me, right . I think that people especially perform the good baddie thing bird were i love walking, that whole thing. And i did not ever want to be that. It is not real. It is like, like writing about it ease engine even as uncomfortable as it makes me feel. Well, at least you know what youre getting when you get it. Right . Like if you read something ive written that you know who i am. And i cant like hide from that. I think maybe i started with the crones first to be open about that. Because its like 12th and i dont have to explain what i am going through. I dont have to like tell you. If you read something i you know im going to be in the bathroom for 35 minutes break dont call an ambulance or whatever. When i think when writing about my body was kind of the same thing. I remember dating online. When i had a profile in my name obvious that people know what theyre getting because my name was far. [inaudible] [laughter] but i was like all my pictures were very honest. Kind of exposes that made me feel. I dont never wanted somebody to show up at a bards ao no. Yeah. The most people i saw online was live. Already self more free and my writing to talk about it. So then at least when we meet you are not like oh, i thought you were like a tiny little thing. And im like, actually. [laughter] i mean part of it. [laughter] and its scary. Its different because i write alone, and then i just send things to my editor. And im like write a book befor before. [inaudible] it takes a lot of people who dont talk to me about it, see it before it is published. So it still feel like mine, right . And then once its out to the world i cant take it back. I have said these things, i know everyone has read them. And so were just going to talk about it. It feels less scary, especially now because i just kind of righted in my little hovel, send it off. And months later comes back in a book. I dont. Reporter it until they send me like the first pass at it. And im like oh, i put that in here . Obviously i wrote it and. [laughter] host youre saying, the words i picked up on is free, i was loose when i was writing that. I was in that place were i felt selfconscious this is like what i need to say. When you make yourself free because if you are arty sort of saying the things that you imagine maybe people might think or make fun of you or give you a hard time about. If you already said it. Im glad you said that. Because that is a big thing for me too. One i will say anything in service of a joke, right . Like im always trying to get the laugh. And i take aim at myself first. I dont of its punching down comets punching laterally. Like no one is going to get hur hurt. But the thing about, i mean you learn how to deflect bullying when you are young, eager, and you are like a crier or like i am going to make the joke before you make the joke. And then it takes to tease out of your joke because i already said it. If i walked in the door like i am poor and ive shoes from, what are you going to say this going to be worse than that . So i learned that as a coping mechanism. Just to get through the day is punchline after punchline. Host and this not just absorbing and internalizing it which is what allowed people do. Guest there is some of that too. But in the moment i definitely im innocent before you can say. And then later they still said it and it stung but at least i said it first. Sequence of this idea of embodiment people who think are embodied in my mind it means like you are occupying your body and also connected to your brai brain. I finally made the mistake where i imagined that people who are embodied are somehow super healthy. Or have a certain kind of body. But now that i read your work this is a deeply embodied perso person. But you also say have these squad must valves in my ilium. [laughter] when you are dealing with all of this stuff, you acquire, you become an expert. Youre not a scientist but you acquire some terminology. You also acquire the knowledge of that lived experience. Is that what you think about does that seem accurate to say i am a de