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Samantha is a chicago author, men more of a writer, which is gotta eat, she is a cowriter of the blog in addition, she cohosts the sunday night sex show and of the life siri got to glories, their collaborating based on the popular book. In our words and jezebel, and her book we are never moving in real life the New York Times bestseller. Angela is a nonfiction writer and author of like a mother, a narrative Nonfiction Book acquiring the emerging science and pregnancy. Like a mother with a book of 2018 a founder of the Washington State book reward and nonfiction and excellent in the near times, her work has appeared in the New York Times, the cut, bon appetit and been featured on fresh air. And also on the changer. Wow, no thank you, sa is a subject of tonight talk, please join me in welcoming angela and samantha. Thank you megan and thank you townhall and thirdplace books where you could buy the book and thank you sam for being here. Thank you for having me, it is 9 00 p. M. So im going to turn into a pumpkin. At some point. We appreciate more of your presence here and we will definitely keep it to an hour. [laughter] okay. We are talking earlier this week, i did a little test, we have up to 90 minutes and i dont think we will be here for 90 minutes, that seems a a lot of time. I cannot do anything for more than an hour, that was in the before times. And we are withering. I have to take sudafed. For the audience who are so happy that you are here and we can interact, and feel your energy, just to let you know i have graciously agreed to read something from her book, she is indulging me and i wanted to give a little bit of an introduction to talk about what the book has meant to me and in this pandemic time, everything feels different on some level it feels lowkey bad in moments of joy, within a moment its like we have no plan to save people or figure this out. When i was reading your book, i was like what is this that i feel, i feel happiness and it does not feel complicated and it does not feel like its going to fall off and then lets talk about this, the book has been sorry you went away for second and not your back. Okay. This is big, your book was an instant your time bestseller, thats one major but for the last six weeks head has been in the New York Times in the bookstore of best sellers. That is weird. Its kinda bleeped up to say youre killing it during the pandemic. You are, the thing about it when i was thinking about it that way is another way that brought me true joy because anyone who should be killing it in the pandemic is a fat black queer lady who not that long ago was an hourly loop waged worker when multiple chronic illnesses, multiple core morbidities, and our society has decided its okay if you die. [laughter] but meanwhile youre out here getting your life. You know its funny when i originally was trying to come up with the title, im glad we did not go with it but one of the ones on my list was dying is fine. So i have accepted its what were doing every day. Im glad we did it and im glad they talked me out of it. I think your success has been an actual source of real joy because it feels that at some bit of justice, that we might not otherwise have. I just wanted to say that in thank you. And the complement but i would say thank you. Youre welcome. Thank you. It is good. I deserve it. Thank you. I may be weird because i dont know how people say nice things to me. Most normal people, there is no normal but regular people have a hard time without and that is fine. With my own faith. I would rather hear this looking at my actual faith. If you want it now, you can hide behind your book and read. 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 body negativity from this terrible book that i hope you all will purchase. So the body negativity that is essentially about all of the things that we are told that we have to do too have a body and have a good porta potty in a healthy body and a good looking body and i dont know how any of that is possible for a normal person. What is 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 straitjacket left weird marks on it . How are your moles doing, what is up with the weird scaly patch, are you already so tired from all the other shift that you have to keep track of that you cannot be bothered to worry about the part of your body that he cannot even [bleep] see, i feel that. I think the last time i actually thought to myself, i wonder what is going on on my back was in 2002 when i was sleeping with the dude who lived in the apartment downstairs from mine, he was weird should during sex life, you are so warm inside and i love looking at your back while making love to my rear in. I left the first time he said the warm things because im sorry have you been bleeping corpse, drive undiagnosed measles, anyway im not such a [bleep] that they would not make my back nicer for someone who enjoyed looking at it so i brought a back scrubbing loofah stick and almost dislocated my arm trying to scrape the dead layers of skin off my back with so much force that it will. That i would squirt lotion on the wand and after my shower and tried to slather it on because i had not anticipated how dry and wrong the trickiest part of my body to reach was going to feel after having 20 years worth of dead cells scrubbed off of it. I ended up having to back up to the towel rack and rub myself up and down like a dog against the dry towel to get the lotion to absorb into my wounded skin, my freshly baby back ribs did not feel right for weeks, the next time homeboy tapped on mind door, there is nothing but livid eyes and throbbing erection, he did stop looking into my a nest long enough to ask ouch babe, did you fall on your back, do you want me too put a liquid bandage on this. Good all thermometer dick that no good deed goes unpunished and you should never do anything nice, ever for anyone. Lets flip your body over and examine all the ship that you could do but wont because who could possibly keep track of all of this to have a nice check. I dont mean your boots, they should be erect on their own, im talking about the piece of real estate between your neck and where your booms begin. Heres how i take care of my chest, sometimes when i wash my face but only after ive taken a shower i will accidentally squeeze out too much moisturizer or put too much oil or serum into the palm of my hand and as an frantically looking around the bathroom trying to find some way of disposing it that does not include dribbling it all over the floor and it dawned on me through my morning, that i could rub it on my chest and have a weirdly shiny for the first few hours of the day. I know that back acne is the same but im pretty sure i also have chest backed me, i dont know if that is what it is but im get these little bumps and what the [bleep] did i survive puberty for its 30 years later i will be in the aisle at the drugstore trying to figure out which of the options available work best on a borax. Your breast since under your chin from the moment that they unexpectedly on your chest to your 99th birthday, you know what, i cannot do it. I do not have perky tips and thats okay. I think pitting my nipples to my neck days are over. One of the things i keep telling myself over and over again like a mantra is that people already know what your body looks like so you dont have to try anymore. My breast are shaped like summer squash just as im unwilling to fight with gravity as it ravages my face in the large bags of wet sand hanging below my clavicle are no longer going into daily battle against physics. Are they even, separated, does the band fit, is the cup right, is underwire digging, the brawl flat against your skin, does it create weird lumps, is it lacey, is a breathable, is a scratchy, does it lick moisture, i heard that the thing youre supposed to want. Wait a minute, what were we talking about again, theoretically, everyone loves a strong broad stroller but no one tells you how to get one. So i guess you either have to be born with them or thats what those odd machines at the gym that make you look like a bird flopping insane fully heavy wings are for. Michelle obama is the Gold Standard for arms and im sure theres above freezing interview with her trainer on how they got that way but life is bleeping short, invest in nice cardigans and put that on your elbows, where a sweatshirt 65 days a year, get on definition listing a coffee cup. Armpit care and maintenance of the whole thing, you could, like i have see all the possibilities and let it go and occasionally spraying deodorant that does not work into your dark armpits to keep wild dogs off of you or you could wax or sugar or shave or laser the hair off, dab it was something to prevent ingrowns, powder it and deodorize it. Every day, every couple of days, weekly, i guess that depends on what kind of hair you have and whether or not youre taking beauty vitamins. I definitely and by the way because i love and easy fix even if it is not real, the sheer number of available deodorants to choose from is staggering, i dont know how to person can make an informed decision without getting a bachelors degree in chemistry first, he used to be like do you want to smell my baby power or Cherry Blossom every time you raise your arm in class, now it is would you rather be sweaty 100 of the time or destroy your bleeping frame. In my supposed to keep reading . Do you want me too keep reading . I cannot hear you, you are muted. I am back sorry everybody. No its great. I might privately have you send me a voice memo of that brazilian wax or. I will call you and give you a personal reading after this and then what else, just text me and i will do it. Thank you for that. I think that there are so many things your work touches on but i want i love about it is fundamentally its about being in your body and when you write about your body youre writing about, you know, every way it interacts with every level of society whether institutions or interpersonal or how you see yourself. Feel like that is probably why it resonates for so many people because you are saying that yes, women, the standards that we are supposed to hold our bodies too are impossible and or you have to be rich to even come close to be able to do that but really like everyones body is a mess. In a different way everyones body is falling apart and failing us so as you said theres no such thing as a good body is one that is alive and you are here and so i think there is that what you are saying is, its enough to have a body and its okay to do the least with that. [laughter] i feel overwhelmed by the sheer at the end of the chapter i get into and this is the thing that has vexed me as a person dealing with Crohns Disease is that all of the things that you are supposed to eat to keep your body going and it is like if you truly eight to 12 cups of kale or whatever you would never stop eating and there is just no time or money to eat all of the like stuff you are supposed to eat and in addition to all the things you want to eat, not just the things youre supposed to eat but on the things you want to eat. Its like i need 14 cows stomach to to all of that and like there is this idea that someone somewhere is doing it right and that someone out there is getting all of the fully gas is a need during a day and all the vitamins but it is no one i have ever met ass the idea that it could ever be me is impossible if i just am never going to like get all of the nutrients i need so the fiber and this and that so but it takes out some of the things about eating for pleasure and its basically like a fulltime job when youre talking about you want some joy in their and im not someone who could ever be full either on 14 cups of kale even though i do like a salad. I had one for dinner and i felt very merry much like i loved myself for the five minutes but for the rest of the time i was eating the salad i was like this is a lot of work and kind of gross. [laughter] i really wish this was Something Else so just, i want us all to be free enough to say that i am not getting in all of the beans and that is fine. If i lead the i dont eat enough beans revolutions that will be good for me. I think there is also this idea in our culture that if you work to do your optimal kale, nuts situation and somehow you would be more healthy or perfectly healthy and there is this idea that if youre healthy you are morally superior to other people whereas what about people who are disabled people who are living with these problematic bodies and we are no less good. Rights. I would much rather do whatever im going to do and have that shave a few years off but i talked to my friends dad who watched some documentary and was like you know, you know how people like watch document trees and think they are a professor all of a sudden i was like you watched one movie so he came to me and was like you got to cut out this and do that and i was like man, if you are 72 and, you know, counting your potatoes or whatever, what is the point . Why would you live to be that age if you cant eat ice cream all day if you want . So you can be around at 90 in, no way. Im actively decomposing all the time and im just going to do whatever i can do to get to the next day. If im dying, its fine. And sometimes lettuce salads but sometimes its cheese. [laughter] i want to ask you, you write so much about your body and so openly so where do you think that came from . I know when you started out it wasnt like im going to become a writer now and this is my thing but i wonder where does that come from because people are uncomfortable with that. I mean, i definitely did not grow up with like smart, progressive people and there was no like sort of, i mean, it was like nobody gave me a hard time because i was fat because they currently werent like, embrace your body, except, you know, it was just like well, you know, wherefore you look and so your fine and i didnt grow up with any radical selfacceptance or anything. I was definitely wallowing in selfhatred but when i started writing when i started performing my work especially it was like it felt as scary as it is and it still scares me right, i think that people especially perform the good fatty thing where its like im fat but i love walking and there is that whole thing and i would never want to be that because thats not real but writing about it even as uncomfortable as it still makes me feel is just like well, at least you know what you are getting when you get it like if you read something i have written then know who i am and i can hide from that and maybe i started with the crones first because i could be open about that and i dont have to explain what im going through and i dont have to tell you that if you read something ive written then you know ill be in the bathroom for 35 minutes and dont call an ambulance or whatever and i think writing about my body was the same thing and i remember dating online and i had of okcupid profile and obviously people knew what they were getting because my screen name was heartthrob. [laughter] but i was like all my pictures were very honest and exposes that may be soy never wanted someone who would show up at a bar and be like oh no and the version of me that i saw online was alive so i always, i felt more free in my writing to talk about it so at least when we not meet your like oh, i thought you were like a tiny little wife and im like actually, actually [inaudible] [laughter] and its different because i write alone and then i just like some things to my editor and i am like put it in the book before i [inaudible] it takes a lot of people who dont talk to me about it and see it before its published so it feels like mine and then once it is out in the world, i cant take it back. I have said these things about my thigh folds and now everyone has read them so we will talk about it but it feels less scary especially now because i righted in my little hovel, send it off and then months later it comes back in a book. I dont really read it until they send me the first path of edits and im like i put that in there and i think i wrote it in if we will state then emily forgot it. What i picked up on his dad i was lucid when i was writing that and i must have been in that place where i felt conscious and this is what i needed to say but you make yourself free because if you are already saying the things that you imagine people might make fun of you or give you a hard time about, if you already cited then [inaudible] im glad you said that because that is a big thing for me to. One, i will say anything in service of a joke. Im always trying to get a laugh and i take aim and myself first because, you know, i dont know but its punching laterally so like no one will get hurt but the thing about, i mean, you learn how to deflect bullying or comments when youre young and these are your like a crier or your like i will make a joke before you make the joke and then it takes the teeth out of your joke because i already said it so if i walk in the door being like im poor and i have shoes from payless what will you say that will be worth so i learned that as a coping mechanism early just to get through the day of like you know, p