Poured Over: Samantha Irby on Quietly Hostile

Jenna Seery

Few people are as funny as Samantha Irby, and her new collection of essays, Quietly Hostile, proves it. Irby joins us to talk about representation in media, the importance of paperback books, writing for television and more with Poured Over host, Miwa Messer. We end this episode with TBR Topoff book recommendations from Madyson and Jamie.    

This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Executive Producer Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang.      

New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.  

Featured Books (Episode):
Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby
Meaty by Samantha Irby
Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby

Featured Books (TBR Topoff):
Dear Girls by Ali Wong
Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come by Jessica Pan

Episode Transcript:

Miwa Messer
Let’s just riff.

Samantha Irby
Okay, I’m ready.

MM
I adore you. I’m so happy you’re doing this.

SI
When I saw it on the thing, I mean, I don’t remember weeks ago, months ago how I like screamed. I had mentioned to the publicist I was like Miwa has a podcast, can we do it because they were like, what are your dream podcasts? And I was like, I don’t know that I have a dream one. But I would like to the ones by people I know and love. And so I was like, we got to do Barnes and Nobles podcast. And so when I saw it on the thing, I was like…

Oh, I’m so happy to see you. And I’m Miwa Messer. I’m the producer and host of Poured Over and yeah, we’re starting the show a little differently today, because I have not seen Samantha Irby in more than a minute. And it sounds like the two of us are just dorking out. Well guess what we are, because I love you. And I’m so happy to see you.

I love you. I’m so happy to see you and I want to say before I say anything else. Well, I guess I already said some stuff. But I would not have this career, truly, without Miwa Messer. I won’t tell the whole long story. I don’t want to bore people. But long story short. I don’t even know how you found my first book; it was from a little indie press in Chicago. Like six people were gonna read it. You know, it was like the kind of thing where I got no advance. No, nothing. It was just like, if you write this thing, we will make it look like a book. Right? And I don’t know how you found it and picked it for Oh my God, what’s the program called?

At the time it was called Discover Great New Writers. Now it’s morphed into a different thing, but at the time, when I was running it, it was Discover Great New Writers and I squealed when I finished it. And we’re talking about Meatyand not Meaty has been re-released by Vintage. And lots of folks have seen it with the new material and everything else. But we’re talking about this tiny little essay collection with a giant chicken on the front cover. And that’s partially why I was like, what is going on here? What is the title and the chicken was like what, and then I start reading because I didn’t know about the blog at the time. And I was just reading. And there’s that piece you wrote about you and your mom, and how your mom became your child when you because your mom had MS and there were other complications. And we’re going to talk about some of that. And I just remember having my just feeling like I needed to know who you were, and what you were going to do next. And I just couldn’t believe how funny you were but also how dark some of the material was and it was a real arc to the book and it’s been a real arc to your career. So it’s been a delight to see all of these books come out afterwards, these awesome jackets and these great titles, and watching people connect with you in a way that I mean, and I read your book, the original one I read in what 2012 It must have been more than a decade ago.

Yes, you and I are connected for a decade. Oh, man. It’s so great. It’s so great. I mean, like knowing you, not my not like oh, my career is so great. Having you in my corner has been so great. So I’m so grateful to you. I have to say it in front of the world. I’ve never sent you flowers. I should and I will. I’ll say whatever you want a bouquet of hotdogs, whatever you like, because without you. There’s no this. There’s no mean…

This is really important. This is really important. You talk about a lot of stuff. And yeah, it helps that it’s funny, right? Like it helps, that you are hysterically funny because some of the stuff you’re talking about my friend, like having a body that doesn’t work properly. Like that’s something that a lot of us have been sort of working with the last few years and the pandemic and lockdown and everything else. And we’re learning stuff that we never knew before. And this has been your body and yeah, you’ve talked about being fat. Like let’s not dance around it right. Like the episode you wrote for Shrill “Pool” is kind of legendary, right? And I have to say I rewatched it before we sat down to do this and I was like, Yeah, this is a really great episode.

Like when I tell you like okay, so everything about the shoot was like perfect, right? It’s like what you it was my first time on a set and I mean I am definitely a person with, I generally keep my expectations low because it’s not that far to fall. When whatever the thing is like doesn’t live up to the expectation but we walked onto the set, Lindy West and I walked onto the set. And they showed us the pool area. And it was like, from my dreams. I was like, oh my god, this is so beautiful. It looks like Candyland. Like this is just gorgeous. But then there was like this little voice in the back of my head that was like, okay, they made it look good. But I bet all of the extras are like size eight, you know, like “Hollywood Fat” yeah, the crime that we all thought like, Not we but you know, America thought like Renee Zellweger. And Bridget Jones was fat. So I was like, expecting to see all of these like beautiful, like curvy, you know, but not fat women. And I walked into the ballroom, and everyone looked beautiful. They were making swimsuits for people. They were doing hair, makeup, and I looked at all of the bodies. And I was like, they really did it. They’re really gonna let us put actually fat people in bikinis on television. And it was like, I mean, now like now that I have been in this business for a few years, it still is shocking to me. Like what a coup that was, you know, like, it really felt like we were getting away with something. And now the further we get away from that time, but things haven’t progressed at least in fatness on screen. I’m like, Oh, we really did like literally get away with a Hollywood crime. By putting large people in bathing suits on TV. Like, I truly feel like, if that’s my only mark on the television world. That’s fine. That’s great.

Everyone was so beautiful. Everyone was like, not a hair out of place. Like the whole no one’s Foundation was melting. looked fabulous.

So it’s so important. I mean, like we didn’t, you didn’t have me here to talk about like fat stigma. But I mean, you know, the assumption that fat people are lazy or stinky, and always have the ham sandwich in their left hand or whatever it is, right? Like, I certainly felt the pressure to like, like, everyone must be beautiful. We must show people like having the most fun and not feeling bad about themselves in any way or self-conscious in any way. I mean, you know, what would have happened? Like if one person would have had runny mascara? Yeah. Someone would have said up sweaty fat people. Together. Yeah. And like, there wasn’t everybody looked amazing. And I think when trying to move the needle on someone who like, hates you, I don’t know, that feels like a waste of time. So I was never like, let’s do this. So we can convince people that we’re real, and we have feelings. It was like, No, our focus is just going to be people who look like us feeling seen by seeing their bodies represented on screen. And like, I got so much feedback from people who were like, what a relief to just see fat people on screen handled well. There were no slip and fall pratfalls. There were no, you know, the fat girl stuck in the beach chair. There was none of that. It was just like, look at us having a good time. And I feel really, really proud that we got to do that.

Yeah, but that’s exactly part of why I wanted to see you on the show. Because honestly, that representation is important. And that comes through all for the books, right? And you’re also showing up in ways for mental health and you’re showing up for ways with chronic disability. I mean, Crohn’s disease—

I just had an appointment with my G. I to go over. I had a colonoscopy a few weeks ago, and we went over that. And she was, I mean, this is truly like the encapsulation of having a disease. She’s like, colonoscopy looked great. There’s this, this, took out a polyp, all the biopsies came back perfect. And I’m like, Oh, great. Am I actually about to get good news from a medical professional. And then she was like, so I want to get some imaging on the small bowel and we’d love to get a stool sample and I was just like, I have all this good news. And yet, I gotta go have another CT scan, and then I gotta poop in a hat. scooping out, turn it in, man. And it’s like, you don’t talk about that all the time, right? Because people would be bored. And in my everyday life, it’s not. It’s not like, you know, I need a scooter to get around, or there’s no like, physical thing that indicates to people like, I’m having a bad day or I’m struggling or something in my body feels bad. But I feel like writing about it in as lurid detail as I do. It frees up something for me, it takes a weight off of me that honestly, I didn’t even know that I had because it was just my reality. But it’s like, you know, it is helpful to have everyone in the room know, before I walk in it, that if I go to the bathroom, it’s maybe going to be 20 minutes, and they should continue the party and they don’t have to pause the movie because I’m going miss it and it’s fine. I mean, it just so that made things easier for me. And then in the broader context. So many people, I can’t tell you how many people bring like rolls of toilet paper to my readings or bottles of Imodium. Right. And it I think, I think it has freed up, at least in people who speak to me directly. I don’t know if they’re telling their friends about their diarrhea. But they do tell me, and I love that, I’m like, there are others of us out here going through the same thing. And, like, you know, the shyness that I should have, there’s something about when like, I don’t know that I could go on the news. I mean, at this point, I could but in the beginning, I don’t know if I could like go on the news and be like, This is what it’s like when I go to the bathroom. But when it’s just like me in a computer screen, it feels like no one else. Like, I’m just like talking to myself, putting it out. It’s like, well, it’s already written, people read it, until like having the feedback from people that like, Oh, it is it’s useful to me, it’s helpful to know, I didn’t realize people were struggling with this thing. It has been a good like, pay off for my extreme candor.

Extreme candor, but you come out of this sort of boom in internet writing, right? Like the era of the blog as it were, which is quite clearly dead at this point. But a lot of people were experimenting with storytelling, and a lot of people who may not have heard or had the have the space to be heard is what I’m trying to say. We’re suddenly out in the world. And you were one of the people who got a book deal. And yes, it started smaller than it should have. But that’s a whole different conversation. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna get to money at some point, too. But the idea that you could sit down and say, hey, listen, this is my reality and create community out of it. I mean, we live in these bodies that are fallible, also aging.

A new part falls off every morning.

Oh, there is some stuff where I’m looking at the women who came before me and I’m just like, Hi. Someone could have warned us. But you know, and I’m not trying to make light of it. And you have, honestly, you’ve dedicated three books to it. Klonopin, Wellbutrin. Zoloft, you know, rock on I, we’re not living in a perfect world. And the idea also that, you know, there was this conversation a few years ago about whether or not women were funny. Which are you kidding me? Like we can be gross and we can be funny and we can be unladylike and really more of a should be unladylike.

Obviously that is my dream was just to kick that door open for more people to be raunchy and disgusting, right so I’m not alone out here.

Yeah, you’re not but also, I mean, these books are trade paperback originals, so they’re accessible. I mean, thank you for that.

Okay, can we talk about that for a second? That is so important to me. For two reasons. One, I feel like when you get a hardcover book, like it’s got to be about more than what I’m talking about, you know what I mean? It just feels like sort of rare. I know what you’re gonna say but these are not $30 books. That’s like, okay, okay, I will stop and say that these are, I don’t think they’re $30 books, but also, I really love just the idea that someone’s like throwing a paperback in their bag, getting on the train, or leaving in the bathroom next to the toilet. Like, my real dream is for my books to be all like waterlogged and smelling like farts, my bathroom books are sacred. I’m always like, Oh, hello, you time for another chapter. These books should be paperback books, I think, you know, my agent, you know, I mean, you know, your agent wants you to do like bigger and better and get more money. But I’m like, this is this is my lane right here. You know, like, I my little paperback lane. I think it works. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll write like something in a different genre and pop up with a hardcover. But I it’s so important to me that my books be like cheap, and easily portable. Because like, okay, perfect example, myself. Every time I had a new book, you know, because I’m insatiable for new things. Right? I am like, oh, no, but now I have to carry around a hardcover book. Am I going to read this? I have been known to order new books from like, international bookstores, because like they’re too thick to have in hardcover, but you can get it in paperback. I don’t want anybody not read my jokes, because the book was too heavy. I’m thinking about your shoulders. I’m thinking about your hands. Okay.

But I’m also thinking about all of the people who need to know that they have community, right. Like, yeah, that’s for me. I mean, yeah. Okay. I respect the whole portability. And trust me, you should see my backpack. It’s wild.

Oh, my God, you your spine must be concave.

No, I have a backpack and I look, six years old.

Is there a little buckle across your chest?

I don’t actually use the little buckle, but I do feel like I have a very heavy city messenger backpack because it’s the only way to carry I can’t carry the weight on one shoulder anymore.

I know. When I travel, I have a backpack to like an old school Jansport. We cannot be leaning to the side.

No. See, this goes back to the aging thing.

Yes, we are too old to not be fully upright,

But also, not ready for large print yet? Let’s be clear we aren’t there yet.

Correct. I looked at, my local bookstore has like a section of large print books. And it really is like no offense to anyone who needs one. But when you open it, it’s like, oh, wait, is this for kids? Truly is this a my first novel book?

Chapter books. I did love chapter books, man. We used to get the I can read books when I was little. And my brother and I would just race to them when we were like, at first. I mean and that’s the thing like you say this all the time I learned to write by being reader. I mean, you were reading Stephen King and the harlequin romances and Sweet Valley High and all of this and I mean, read whatever is gonna make your heart go pitter patter. That’s my thing. I just read whatever, like the worst thing for me is running out of stuff to read, which, you know, if you plan poorly, it has happened, it is less likely to happen now that you can, you know, pop up a book on your phone, but at the same time, like that was always the thing. Like I would go on vacation and half of my suitcases would but books but what if you run out of books to read?

The beach, very boring without a book by your side, especially if you’re not swimming, right? You need something and I say this like not even taking into account that like my own writing is I don’t want to call it low brow, but it’s not like purple prose. It’s not like fancy you know, blah blah blah. I am a huge advocate of like reading and watching what you want, rather than like what you think will impress people, because every time I try to read like, something that someone told me was important to read, I just, like, get bored. And then I get like, am I getting the meaning? Do I understand it? Why did they tell me to read this? I’m like, I get preoccupied with that. If you only want to read John Grisham novels, do that.

I just want people to read. I just really want people to read and I’ll just, however you come to it. I do think though, you know, I was also when I was a kid, YA wasn’t what YA is now so like, suddenly, I was punching above my weight, as it were, you know, reading stuff that, you know, you could argue was possibly not the most appropriate thing for 12 year olds to be reading. But, you know, when you’re a library kid, and one of your godfathers is like, literally the head of the library and just letting you you know, figure out what’s up? That’s right. You know, you end up being a bookseller.

Yeah, you have it in your blood.

Completely. And I have to say, you know, Quietly Hostile is coming and that’s the new essay collection, Quietly Hostileis coming into a world with a little bit of a different runway than say the earlier because Wow, No Thank You, when I was prepping for the show. And obviously, I follow what’s going on with you. And I know you don’t read your reviews. But like, not only were you reviewed in the New York Times, and I love Pearl Seagal. And this is great excuse to call her out, because her review was fun. But you also got reviewed in the New Republic, which I super was not expecting. And again, I know you don’t read your reviews, but it was a delight to see. Because suddenly, you know, and there you are an NPR and all this other stuff. And I’m like, okay, it only took two books. It only took two books, which is faster than some, there you were. And suddenly, everyone was talking about you. And everyone was talking about Wow, No Thank You. And it was just so great to see that things were going as I planned. It was lovely.

To me, I just am like, I love it. And I, like you know, all I want is for my work to be useful in some way. Like I’ve always said that. And so if people find it and like it, I think that’s great. The people talking about you, is like so stressful, like even to think about. That is the one thing like when another book comes out, I just think like, oh my god, more people are gonna know who I am, and have an opinion on how I am and what I say. I mean, the reason I don’t read reviews is purely because I will fixate even in a positive review, there’s always something I will just fixate on it and never let it go. Never forget it. And so it’s better for me just to pretend it all doesn’t exist, because I’m trying to do my brain a favor. And also like I’m such a, there’s no elegant way to say it, I’m such a people pleaser. When I hear criticism, I don’t think like, oh, this person is wrong, I think maybe they have a point. How can I fix it? I can’t fix. you know, like, what is there to fix? I would do nothing but fixing to make my work palatable for everyone. If I took everything into account, and I don’t want it to affect, I never sit down at the computer and think like, oh, no, what are people going to think about this? And I don’t want to start, right. I cannot read the reviews because I’m afraid to infect my brain.

And you talk about this too in Quietly Hostile, which might be my favorite of your titles. I don’t know that Wow No, Thank You. I say frequently, but Quietly Hostile. And like I recognize that feeling. But you got some icky, and I’m being polite, you got some icky mail when you started working on And Just Like That, and I do want to talk about this fandom thing. And because, honestly, you are one of the voices that came out of the internet. I know I said that earlier in the show. But I’m saying it again, because it’s true. I mean, you really like there was this moment in the early aughts where you know, yes, the Internet was still the wild west in a good way. And like suddenly were like, Oh, this is fresh. This is interesting literary magazines or literary magazines love those too, but they have their own place in the world and everything else. And suddenly it felt like the playing field was a different I don’t want to say level because it wasn’t level but it was different. And it was like oh click click I want to watch this or I want it or I want to read this excuse me because we hadn’t yet done the pivot to video which obviously we’ve done with this show too it’s like, oh, hi, did I brush my hair? I think I did. All of the stuff that we do to get stories out, right and to get voice out. And I just, you’ve always had this very distinct voice that I will follow anywhere, obviously. But you’re mellowing a little bit, and it’s nice to see. But you had to walk through some muck, we’re gonna get, right. But you had to walk through some muck. And I do like, this whole internet. I know you through the internet. I know who you are as a person. Actually, no, you don’t. Wow, the feeling that a lot of folks have about fictional characters, whether they’re on screen or on the page or whatnot. There’s this intense emotion that comes with it. And in some ways, that’s great. That’s what art is supposed to do. Right? You’re supposed to have feelings about art. But then sometimes it gets weird.

I will say that I the first season of Sex in the City came out when I was 19, 20, somewhere in there. I did not have HBO so I could wait for it to come out on VHS and keep like, watch it with my friends. I was as into this show. And in love with these characters as anyone, right? Like I have seen every episode, dozens of times, I can quote like the whole thing. And you know, I’m like passionate about a few like celebrities. I would never say anything to anyone else about that. Like it is just not me. I’m not saying that my way is the right way. But it just it didn’t occur to me. Okay. I did not understand how big this show was like. And when I started working on it, because I’d only written for small things that you know, seven people watch. So no one had ever, perfect example. I worked on the second season of Work in Progress, which was a show on Showtime, I wrote an episode with Lilly Wachowski, which I mean, I had to lie down just saying that, but it was called FTP, which was like for F*** the police. It’s not like a F*** the police kind of episode. But you should watch it and you can see what it’s about and I thought so, I didn’t get to pick the title, right? Like, it’s Lilly’s show. And I saw you have to sign this thing, like this is your episode, this is how we credit you all that and I saw the title and was like, Oh my god.

Right? What has just happened here?

Yeah, you know, like, I’m gonna get, somebody with the Thin Blue Line sticker on his truck is going to pull into my driveway and jump out and yell at me and nothing, I didn’t get a single anything. And it’s because it’s like a very small queer show on a smaller network, right? And that to me, I was like, Okay, maybe people are like, cool about this kind of stuff. And then And Just Like That came out and like, I have never worked on a thing where like, many articles are written about it, before it even comes out. There are recaps and there’s podcasts and on the one hand that is incredible, on the other hand, being a new person on the first season of a show that like used to be one thing, and now is a different thing. Everyone, not everyone but everyone who got in touch with me in a negative way, like essentially, like pinned their complaints on the new writers. There were three of us, two Black women, and an Indian woman.

Wait, only three. Wait, there are only three writers in the writing room. Okay, I just had a moment of what? That sounds physically impossible.

29:35

No, three new ones. And it was like, look at our new writers, we’re diverse, which is great. But then all of the fans were like, Oh, these are the people responsible for everything I hate about this show. And like when the show aired, just like I mean Rachna and I really got it. I don’t think Kelli had like much of an internet presence and thankfully was spared. And it’s like, I did not know what was gonna happen. I did not know people were going to be pissed. But also, I did not know how many people fundamentally do not understand how television writing works. Like, it’s like I was in charge of nothing, like, I contributed my ideas. I wrote my episode, but like, I don’t, I’m not the final boss. And so it was like fielding and I think, you know, because my profile is a little higher, fielding all of this criticism for all this work that I had a great time doing, I worked with incredible people, it was the most fun, everyone is so nice. And then getting like, why is that braids joke in there? That’s dumb. And it’s like, well, first of all, that joke is funny, you’re just being a hater. But second of all, I didn’t like sign off on every joke. You know, like, there’s a hierarchy here, and I’m at the bottom of it. So it was a crash course, in working on a cultural juggernaut that I was ill prepared. When I first started getting the lesson, I got it. Now I have done all you, meaning I got off Twitter. I changed my Instagram. So that people couldn’t like tag me in their critiques of the show. And it just, I don’t know, we’ll see, season two’s gonna come out in a month. I’ll call you and be like, girl, the same thing is happening, but it was just it was wild to not only like, witness the vitriol, but then to have like, a few people turn and point at me like, this is your fault. It’s like, well, first of all, if I had my way, a lot of things would have been different. Carrie would have been pooping in every single episode, that’s how you know I wasn’t in charge.

Okay, but here’s the thing you go from blogs where you’re, you know, you don’t have the profile that you have now. We’ve got four books with, hopefully more to come, whatever they may be, whether they’re essay collections, or you decide to do something else.

I mean, wait till I tell you what’s coming now.

Okay, well, we’ll get there. And then all of this television and so you’re working across medium, right? Like your media changes. The voice doesn’t change that which I love. I just I so appreciate the fact that I know what I’m going to get with you. Even if you’re talking about something like grief, or your body not working, or your anxiety and your depression or your I don’t really want to leave the house, like all of these things. And you left the city for the sticks. I mean, Kalamazoo is technically a city. I mean, yes.

Can I admit here, maybe for the first time in public — that I kind of like it here.

Yeah, of course you do. You have a nice life.

And I can’t, I could never live in a big city again.

I totally get it.

I mean, you know what I like it’s like, all the middle-aged creature comforts, like, the restaurant has a parking lot. You’re never fighting for space in the grocery store. You know, it’s like that kind of thing that I’m like, I go back. I went back to Chicago a couple of weeks ago, to be the moderator for Alison Roman’s like cookbook events, and just even driving into the city. I’m like, you know, coming down the Skyway from Indiana, part of me is like, I love it here. I miss home. This is my home. I feel the city inside my body. But a bigger part of me is like, ah, it’s traffic. It’s so dirty. The sky is brown. You know what I mean? Just like, you know, completely overwhelmed by the noise and the sounds and the sights.

Yeah, but you also have some pretty good strip malls in Kalamazoo. And as a person who spends a lot of time in Los Angeles, you love strip malls.

That is my favorite thing about LA. I love Los Angeles. It doesn’t seem like it would like work with my personality. But there is something about it. I could never go to New York again and be thrilled, but LA, I love so much.

There’s a lot to recommend this place. I mean, obviously I run back and forth between the two. I’m not here full time this place gets under your skin in the best possible way. I had an insane, insane dinner with friends on Sunday night and we were down in West Adams and it was sort of this new fusion Thai restaurant that I shouldn’t say new because it’s been around for a minute, but I mean, it just makes me happy to be able to just run around and eat a lot.

It’s crazy, people there are so nice. Like, maybe it’s fake because like the you know, they don’t know whether or not you like own a movie studio. They’re like, let me be nice to you. Just in case. I don’t care. I’ll take it. I love it there. It’s so easy, slow paced. It’s really, it’s really great.

The weather

When I lived out there while we were writing shrill, I was reminded that it’s a desert in the summer.

I was in Palm Springs on Saturday, and it was 102. Well, and we’re walking around looking at art outside.

Oh, no walking around.

This is why we have sunscreen and hats.

Did you have like a personal refrigerator because I would need that too.

Sunscreen and hats and like a nice lunch in the dark and everything worked out. But I knew this was going to happen. I knew we’re going to bump up but I want to switch gears for just a second because I want to go back to one of the earlier books because I did not know that you had a thing for Ben Affleck’s movie, The Accountant and I’ve now watched it because of you. And I have to say you’re right. It’s pretty great.

It’s so good.

It sent me down a rabbit hole and I rewatched The Town and I rewatched Argo, both of which are fantastic. Like those I knew were fantastic movies, except for all of the people who are not from Boston trying to do the accent. I’m like, you don’t have, you’re in the FBI. You don’t have to do the accent.

Jon Hamm. They should have just said like listen, you were imported to Boston from New Jersey, like you do not have to attempt the accent. Jeremy Renner in that movie is so good. But listen, people are so rude about Ben Affleck and I’m not sure why. Or what he’s done to get clowned on, but he seems like a nice person. I mean, JLo loves him. Do we need any other proof that he’s cool than that?

I was one of those people who was like, Well, this is interesting. I don’t have a lot of feelings about celebrity gossip. And I was like, Oh, I didn’t see this. Not that I would have anyway.

I loved them together the first time. I love them together now. It’s just like so funny, so cute. They seem to be into each other. But it’s also like, hilarious that they’re together.

You know, I’ll take what I can get. But hilarity also. I mean, we need the funny, we need to be able to laugh about the stuff that makes us profoundly uncomfortable. And you know, as an ex-Bostonian pretty much everything makes me profoundly uncomfortable. In my, in my dotage I’m getting a little less. But watching the evolution of you through these books has been really, you know, somehow, we got off and Tommy Lee Jones and we ended up with Ben Affleck, which I totally get but watching you learn how to be comfortable and safe and make a home. Right? Like there’s that hysterical piece in this. It’s in Quietly Hostile where you’re talking about being in long term temporary housing and you’re like, and then I went out and bought blankets and candles and it’s like if you spend any amount of time on the road, and I have in the past, I’ve traveled quite a lot for work. And it’s like, I can be in a hotel room and it’s not going to be glamorous, but I can make it home because for 48 hours, sometimes 36 hours, sometimes three days. It’s home, where wherever I am physically is home and watching you. You know, we remember the rooming house, do we call it a crack house? I guess we call it a crack at it. Let’s call it a clean you were homeless a couple of times you were taken in by friends like you have had a community of people catch you multiple times. So the idea that you have this wonderful loving life now makes me so happy for you. It’s so important this stuff is important.

Truly. Only one of the things that has helped me, like, I don’t, you know, I always like jokingly say, I don’t know anything, which is kind of true. But there are, you know, my parents died when I was a kid. And like, so I didn’t have anyone to observe, like, how to make a house, how to be an adult how to like pay your bills, how to make financial decisions, right. And I didn’t go to college. Well, I went to college for a year, but then left and I did some community college, right. I never had time or space to learn those things, definitely not money. And so I feel kind of like, I’m learning on the fly. But also, you know, I feel good. Like, I don’t feel as out of place as I used to in like, adult life. Right, you know, like, there are still and I can be funny about it, there are still many things I don’t know about a house like, person was like, I have to go get salts for the water softener. And like, what do those words even mean? Like? Where is the water softener? So like, I don’t know, and I did not investigate first. Like, okay, okay, girl, here’s, here’s the credit card, do what you got to do. But it has also been, like, interesting, fun to kind of do this growing up in front of people. And like talking to the world about it, if for no other reason, then like, it helps me feel less bad. And also, maybe there’s someone out there who like I don’t know how to work a lawn mower, you know, just basic things that I am learning at 43 years old. And I’m like, I refuse to feel bad about this. And also, maybe someone else has this going on too and will benefit from knowing that I too am like, you know, how do you work the dishwasher?

Yeah, I’ll tell you anything to do with water— hire someone, anything to do with electric— hire someone.

We have a plumber and the electrician. Now I am good at that. I am good. Oh, this broke?

Oh, finding a person, okay.

My person was like, oh, let me go find a wrench and I’m like you. Okay? I’ll be calling a guy who will be here after you break it further with your wrench.

I have helped assemble a bookcase, which is sitting behind me like I can do things like that. But thank you. But there are some things where you’re like, No, no, yeah, I’m a bookseller. I’m not going to know I’m going to call someone.

I don’t want to live in a house that I built. I want to know that someone who knew what they were doing put that together.

Yeah, and you know, it’s one thing to be radical on the page and create a new kind of representation. It’s another thing to put a wall up. And I have a cousin who’s a master carpenter, and he’s very good at what he does. And it’s amazing, but I’m like, Yeah, I can’t do that. I can’t do that.

I know. That’s not and I would like I can foresee, like, I’m this way about, like putting together a shelf. If it doesn’t look like the picture, then I’m like, snap, yell and scream. You can’t do that when it’s like your window. You’re so like, let’s call somebody. There are people who got trained to do this. Pay them.

Yes. Yes. Let’s do that. Do you hear the evolution in your voice? Do you see the evolution in your work? Are you just too close? I mean, obviously you mine your own life.

I’m a little too close to really see it. I have noticed that I am swearing less and shouting in all caps a little less in my work, on the phone. It’s an F bomb every other second. Yeah. And I have less to be kind of personally enraged about. I still feel like my voice is the exact same as it’s always been. Because it’s funny like no matter what success or what I work on are what I do, I still have like, an intense self-loathing. And I think as long as I have that my voice will still sound like a person who hates herself, which is like fine for the work. I should, I am in therapy. I wrote a whole thing about being in therapy, and forgot to turn it in.

So next book, it’s fine. Next book. There will be more.

Yes. So we’ll talk about that next time, we’ll get into how I tried to do a comedy act for my therapist every other week.

I can see you doing that. But at the same time, I just want you to be happy. So I just want you to have a nice life.

She was like, a couple of weeks ago, she was like, I don’t know what I was talking about. But she was like, Oh, you’re finally letting me in. And I was like, we’ve been talking for nine months, you’re in and she was like, No, you put like that joke wall up, not getting the real you. So I’m surely by the time I have to write another book, she will be all the way in my brain, she will have set up residence in my brain.

Do you worry at all though, that if you lose that sort of negative self-image, that shadow of the negative self-image that sits at the back of your brain, do you feel like you risk losing the funny?

Yes, yes. And, you know, it’s like, I don’t know how to, like, I’ve had no writer training. And, you know, people who, who like write beautiful sentences or like that whole thing? I do not have that in me. And that’s fine. Like, I don’t I don’t need to. But I’m, it’s also like, if somehow my mental illness miraculously cured, and I’m okay with everything. I just don’t see it happening. But if it did, the first thing to go, I think would be how funny I am. Because truly, like, I developed the sense of humor, trying to offset every horrible thing that was happening or, or my perspective on everything, which is terrible, slash like, when’s the other shoe gonna drop? Like, I’m always just ready for things to be bad. So unless I get lobotomized, I don’t think I’m at risk for being skewered. So I’ll still be funny. But no, for real, the minute the writing feels like it’s not good, or people don’t like it, I’ll just be done. I don’t need to hang on.

Let’s not say things like that, even if it’s true.

No, we’re saying that, like, if I don’t make you laugh, if you’re like, ah, no, I read an early copy and this isn’t it Chief, I would then be like and maybe we don’t do anymore.

Is that also partially an evolution, though, from being in writers’ rooms, because I mean, the work that you were doing before was incredibly solitary, then you get your age, and then you get your editor, obviously, and that changes that a tiny bit. But that’s still a very intimate sort of relationship. And a writer’s room, you know, you’ve got lots of inputs from lots of people and a shared sort of community. That’s a little different from the community you built in Chicago, as you were coming up kind of thing. So has that sort of changed you at all?

It’s I mean, writers’ room stuff, it feels so collaborative. Even when you write your script, everybody else’s notes, and jokes and pitches are all in there, right, like nothing is ever you. And on the one hand, I would not feel comfortable making anything for television that was just me, right? Because like, I miss things, either, you know, like, if I lose the thread of something that’s not interesting to me in the audience would be like, what happened to that other guy? You know what I mean? I feel like collaboration in TV stuff is key. I don’t think it’s changed how I feel about my own writing because I feel like my own writing is just me. Like, I only have to make myself laugh. The thing about TV, is that especially at my level, that I think I’m at the highest level on this show, on And Just Like That, that I’ve been, which is supervising producer, it’s not high level, right? I get to make suggestions, it’s a room where like, everything is encouraged, no one is ever like, you’re new at that shut up. But still so when you see a thing that has my name on it, it’s not just me, it’s like, Well, Julie thought of that storyline or Elisa, you know, put in this joke, which is great. But I still like having me and my computer, just the two of us me making myself last. And, and because I mean, Hollywood has rejected my personal ideas. More than one time, it remains the only place where I can do exactly what I want. Yeah, how I want, like, you know, I always like format my essays, like kind of weird. Sometimes there’s a list and my editor never pushes back on any of that they give me so much freedom. I truly, I mean, I’m not writing my own ticket, but it’s as close as you can get. I think, like, I don’t get to pick my titles, but I do. Just get to put whatever I like, I don’t have to turn in an outline. Can you believe they just they are like, do whatever you whatever you want. And I’m like, really? And they’re like, yeah, and then they put it all in. It’s truly amazing to me. But I’m never gonna have that on a TV show ever. And which is good, because I can have like the me that does TV stuff, but then the real meat that’s in the books. I feel like those voices like my voice is consistent throughout, but you’re getting more of me from my own work. And I will always choose like my own stuff over TV.

Well, there’s also more Dave Matthews in this book than I was expecting, but I’m leaving that for I am leaving that for readers. I was laughing I was just like, really Dave Matthews. Okay, I’m gonna read this whole piece on Dave Matthews. I know. I know. And I love that you love him. But I was laughing I was like, I’m gonna read a whole piece on Dave Matthews because Sam road.

Can I tell you something? Yeah, my friend Alex, Celebrity profiler. Um, he does a lot of stuff. He writes books. Oh, you probably know Alex.

I know his byline more than anything.

That dude is incredible. He texted me a few weeks ago and he’s like, hey, can I interview you about Dave Matthews? And I was like, yeah. Like, are you kidding? Like, no one ever wants to talk to me for more than one minute about him. So he calls, we do this interview and I was like, What’s this for and he’s like, well, I’m profiling him for Esquire, GQ, one of those. And I was like, Oh, great. That’s great. And you want an opinion from an idiot. Great. Love it. Can’t wait to read it. So then he texted me later. And he’s like, do you have copies of the book? Because I’m flying to North Carolina to hang out with Dave, and I would love to give him a copy. So I’m texting everybody at Vintage like, ship him a million copies, overnighted to Alex, and I’m hoping that Dave read it, or at least touched it or something. He knows it exists, which is enough for me.

You know, it works for me.

I mean a private concert would really like you know, for me and all my friends you would come.

You know what I would actually, for that I would, just to watch you watching Dave Matthews.

I would just weep. If I can get like a suggested playlist in there if I was like, Oh, sure. You make sure you do this one for me.

Poured Over