Lindy West’s Memoir Adult Braces (with Guy Branum)

Summary

Glamorous Trash Podcast: Lindy West’s Memoir Adult Braces (with Guy Branum)

Host: Chelsea Devantez
Guest: Guy Branum
Date: March 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Chelsea Devantez is joined by writer, comedian, and memoirist Guy Branum to book-club Lindy West’s freshly released memoir, Adult Braces. The discussion delves into Lindy’s journey through a period of personal and professional upheaval, catalyzed by life transitions, marital challenges, and the radical pursuit of self-love and reinvention, all told with West’s signature wit and vulnerability. The episode thoughtfully explores themes of body image, polyamory, Hollywood’s treatment of outsiders, and the messy, ongoing process of personal growth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introducing the Book and Lindy West’s Context

• [00:39] Chelsea provides a comprehensive background on Lindy West:
  • Famed for her memoir Shrill, which became a Hulu series.
  • A prominent writer and body image advocate, especially known from her Jezebel days.
  • Her history as a public figure facing relentless online trolling.
  • Adult Braces is her latest memoir, structured as essays with a narrative arc.

2. Recap of Adult Braces: The Journey and Core Themes

• [02:30] Adult Braces begins with Lindy getting adult orthodontics (“Most heartbreaking to me is that they’re for health, not cosmetic.”), as her post-Shrill life unravels.
• Chelsea summarizes Lindy's struggles:
  • Loss of desire and energy, feeling stuck, and marital challenges as her husband, Aham, pursues another relationship—initially within their agreed polyamorous terms but fraught with secrecy and pain.
  • Lindy embarks on a solo van trip, a literal and metaphorical journey to “Kokomo, Florida”—a fantasy destination from a Beach Boys song that turns out not to exist—mirroring her internal search for something she can’t quite name.

3. Guy Branum on Friendship and Memoir Writing

• [06:30] Guy reflects on the strangeness of reading about private events in a close friend’s memoir:

  “It’s weird to read a book where you were like on the edges of it, like knowing that these things were going on... but not knowing what the internal experiences are.”

• Lindy asked Guy to read her “Hollywood chapter” for feedback. Guy didn’t, missing the chance to be in the acknowledgments.

4. Literary Merit and Thematic Depth

• [07:48] Guy’s overall takeaway:

  “This is a deceptively good book… taking a very specific story and turn[ing] it into something that allowed me to understand conceptually… the way that gender and bodies and desire interact.”

• Chelsea compares Adult Braces to a modern Eat, Pray, Love, but grounded, less “travel-as-salvation," more “dirty van, real feelings, and no spiritual tourism.”
• [14:10] Guy observes Lindy's memoir avoids the colonial/travel trope, instead placing meaning on relationships and internal growth.

5. Polyamory, Marriage, and Queer Love

• [16:02] Guy and Chelsea highlight the memoir’s structure:
  • Lindy’s marriage was polyamorous in theory, but she was unprepared for the reality.
  • The shock of discovering her husband kissing another woman, and the retroactive adjustment of their marital agreement.

    “[Aham] was never to say anything to her about [other partners]. She set up this situation where… it was going to look like her husband was cheating.” (Chelsea, [16:02])

• [17:38] Guy points out Lindy’s honest confrontation of relationship norms and personal expectations.

6. Body Image, Public Persona, and Vulnerability

• Chelsea explores how Lindy, a body positivity advocate, wrestles with seeking help for an eating disorder given her public role.

  “Am I betraying people if I go to a therapist… say I think I’m having a disordered relationship with food?” (Chelsea, [18:45])

• [19:41] Guy notes:

  “She’s this really beautiful image about realizing… the person you’re looking to for guidance has looked to you for guidance.”

7. The Hollywood/Showbiz Chapter: Insider Account

• Shrill’s adaptation is a recurring theme:
  • The challenges of being the source yet feeling erased and marginalized in Hollywood writers’ rooms.
  • [28:18] Lindy’s tension: achieving a dream, then being disrespected and sidelined.

    “Sitting in writers rooms listening to skinny white guys from Harvard debating, ‘So what season should we have the dad die? Your actual dad who’s actually dead…’” (Chelsea, [36:29])

  • Guy and Chelsea reflect on the endemic struggles for outsiders—women, queer people, fat people—in the entertainment industry.

8. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “There was so much pain and stress and humiliation… and you just don’t think of those things going hand in hand with the woman you look up to.” (Chelsea, [23:57])
• “Trying to keep going in the right direction when you’re always being shoved all the time is hard.” (Guy, [25:35])
• “A life isn’t a book. Change doesn’t make the past a lie.” (Chelsea reads Lindy, [58:52])
• “Was I actually attracted to Roya, or was I just relieved to find a loophole that let me stay in my fucked up marriage because I was too scared to be alone?” (Chelsea reads Lindy, [51:20])

9. Deconstructing Relationship Binaries & Ending Ambiguity

• [51:51] Guy appreciates Lindy’s recognition that “it can be somewhere in between. And that’s okay.”
• [53:26] The pair discuss the problem with perfection narratives—especially for women—and society’s expectation that “before anything else, show people that you’re fine.”
• [54:27] Lindy’s conclusion centers on embracing joy, even as instability or future regret loom:

  “A younger version of me might have held back on some of this love, some of this joy, for fear of losing it later and hearing the gallery say: We told you so. But I’m not afraid of hindsight anymore.” (Chelsea reads Lindy, [58:52])

10. Taking Inventory: The Book’s Impact

• The book is consistently praised for its rich humor, painful honesty, and transformative potential.
• Both Chelsea and Guy answer affirmatively to the “Booktool Test”:
  • Was the author vulnerable? "A hundred percent beyond." (Guy, [60:01])
  • Was it entertaining? "Yeah, it’s very funny." (Guy, [60:07])
  • Did it elevate your life? Both say yes; Guy especially notes Lindy’s reflections helped him reconsider embodiment and desire.

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:39 – Episode and Adult Braces introduction, West’s background
• 02:30 – Book recap: plot and themes
• 06:30 – Guy on reading memoirs of friends, “Hollywood chapter” context
• 07:48 – Big takeaways: memoir’s universal and specific resonance
• 14:10 – Travelogue tropes vs. Lindy’s grounded narrative
• 16:02 – Polyamory setup and the reality shock
• 19:41 – Therapist/nutritionist guidance; leadership in the body positivity sphere
• 28:18 – Shrill’s Hollywood chapter and misogyny in the industry
• 36:29 – Specifics of Lindy being erased from her own show's process
• 45:53 – Marital crisis: infidelity, agreements, and honesty
• 51:20 – Self-questioning about polyamory, desire, and self-worth
• 53:26 – The pressure to be publicly “fine”
• 54:27 – Book’s conclusion, embracing joy and imperfection
• 60:01 – “Booktool Test” on vulnerability, entertainment, and uplift

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps & Attribution)

• [06:30] Guy Branum:
  “It’s weird to read a book where you were like on the edges of it... but not knowing sort of what the internal experiences are.”

• [07:48] Guy Branum:
  “This is a deceptively good book… full of just like little, almost like Dave Barry-ish, sort of little adventures, but then just smack you in the face with one line that encapsulates a shift in her worldview.”

• [16:02] Chelsea Devantez:
  “She set up this situation where... if she was ever going to find out about it, it was going to look like her husband was cheating on her.”

• [19:41] Guy Branum:
  “She’s this really beautiful image about realizing that, like Wile E. Coyote, you aren’t rooted to anything. Cause the person you’re looking to for guidance has looked to you for guidance.”

• [25:35] Guy Branum:
  “Trying to keep going in the right direction when you’re always being shoved all the time is hard.”

• [36:29] Chelsea Devantez (reading Lindy):
  “It’s extremely corrosive to an already weak mind to be making a show about the most vulnerable and embarrassing parts of your own life, sitting in writers rooms listening to skinny white guys from Harvard debating…”

• [45:53] Lindy West (read by Chelsea):
  “There’s a part of my marriage story I haven’t talked about because it’s harder to forgive. I’m scared of what you’ll think of me. ... The second [woman my husband was seeing] was the exact woman your husband leaves you for when you look like me.”

• [51:20] Lindy West (read by Chelsea):
  “Was I actually attracted to Roya, or was I just relieved to find a loophole that let me stay in my fucked up marriage because I was too scared to be alone?”

• [58:52] Lindy West (read by Chelsea):
  “A life isn’t a book. Change doesn’t make the past a lie.”

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Tone & Final Thoughts

Chelsea and Guy approach the material with humor, candor, and empathy, openly sharing industry experiences and personal vulnerabilities mirrored in Lindy’s writing. The tone is alternately breezy, sharp, deeply reflective, and at moments, emotionally raw.

Both emphasize the importance of ongoing self-discovery, the fallacy of neat “happy endings,” and the radical act of imperfectly telling one’s true story.

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How To Engage Further

• Chelsea will interview Lindy West about Adult Braces exclusively for subscribers.
• Listeners are encouraged to submit questions via Patreon or Instagram.

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Follow-Up:

• Guy Branum announces an event at Symphony Space with Lindy West (March 10), and shares his live show dates.

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For listeners who haven’t read the book or heard the episode:

• Adult Braces is recommended for its vulnerable, funny, and insightful exploration of love, ambition, and identity.
• It’s a “deceptively good book” that will resonate with anyone navigating change, self-image, or unconventional relationships.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Welcome to Glamorous Trash. This is a podcast that book clubs, viral articles, celebrity memoirs and trashy discourse to elevate your life. I'm your host, Chelsea Devontes. I'm a TV writer, comedian, filmmaker, author and sometimes I'm in stuff too. And today we are book clubbing Lindy West's new memoir titled Adult Braces, which comes out the exact day this episode is dropping, March 10, 2026. It is very hot off the presses now. Lindy is famous for many things. Lindy is the author of the New York Times best selling memoir Shrill Notes From a Loud Woman, which then became the TV show Shrill on Hulu, which ran for three seasons starring A.D. bryant L. Written for so many publications, but wow, did I really know her from Jezebel. She was speaking political and comedic commentary about women for women in the early 2010s and I was hooked. I was up in those comments. I loved so much of her writing. She spoke out for abortion rights and went on the Daily show and she was just a mouthpiece for a lot of really important thoughts. And so Lindy also went through extreme trolling and I remember a phase when she would reply to them and dunk on every troll. Remember that phase on Twitter? There was this horrible, horrible thing where someone posed as Lindy's actual deceased father and trolled her on Twitter. And Lindy later did an episode on this American Life where they spoke to the man behind that account and and why he had done that. So she's taken so many risks in her career. She has a podcast out. She's been on this podcast. She covered our bad vegan episode about Sarma. So Lindy is a friend, but I could not stay away from this memoir. I had to cover it on this podcast. Also, we are going to chat with Lindy about this memoir. It's for subscribers only, so go sign up on Patreon or Apple podcast subscriptions to get that interview which is going to come out tomorrow. So if you're listening to this episode and you have a question and you're listening to it, immediately drop a question in the Patreon or on my Instagram, because there'll be a little gap before I interview her and I can ask her some questions. Now, before I bring my guest on, I want to do a thorough recap of this book because it is a memoir and it has a narrative arc, but it's also in essays, and my guest and I spoke about a ton of different topics. And so I just want to give the clear recap before we dive into all of it so that you can really enjoy it. So Adult Braces begins when Lindy gets adult braces. And most heartbreaking to me is that they're like for health, they're not cosmetic. So it's for no cosmetic reason. And she has to wear these adult braces just to fix her jaw tension. And so she's got these braces on and she's in a period in her life that's not going well. It's post shrill, which we talk about in the episode. It's this crazy Hollywood chapter in her life that kind of explodes or maybe just it deteriorates. We will get into it. But post that time in her life, she is feeling like she has lost her desire in life. And she talks about not wanting to shower and not having the energy and not wanting to go on hikes with her husband or not be as sexual. And one day she discovers that her husband, Aham, is kissing another woman and that woman is named Roya. And we will get into how Lindy had agreed to be in a polyamorous relationship with Aham. However, it all kind of took place behind the scenes as per what they discussed, which we'll get into later. So a lot of time goes by and this relationship continues with Aham and Roya. And Lindy decides one day she is going to get in a van. She's going to rent a van that she calls B.A. and she's going to drive it across the country by herself and take a solo trip to Kokomo, Florida, from the song, you know. And that's when she finds out Kokomo doesn't exist. It is not a real place, which is also a metaphor in this book, looking for something that maybe doesn't exist. So she road trips across the country to Florida and back. She stays with friends. She's going on this travel journey. But as she does, she's flashing us back to her relationship with Aham, other parts of her life, and how they got to this point where he is polyamorous. And she has to decide what she's going to do if she's going to stay in the marriage, if she's going to join or whatnot. And it's in the book. But it's also out there in life that Lindy ends up in a throuple in a polyamorous marriage with Aham and Roya. And that's where she is now. And that is the book she's written of how she gets there. And so that's the journey we're going to get into. The book is also about so much more. But let me bring on my guest so that we can discuss. My guest today is Guy Branham. Guy is an Emmy and Golden Globe Award winning writer and comedian. He's a writer and producer for Hacks and has written for the other two, the Mindy Project and A League of Their Own. As an actor, Guy has appeared on Platonic, on Apple TV and in the films Bros and no Strings Attached. His memoir, My Life as a Goddess was named one of the best books of the year by npr. Guy, hello. Welcome to the podcast. Now, Lindy requested you specifically to be the guest for for this book. Do you feel highly honored?

[A]

I do, I do. It's weird to read a book where you were like on the edges of it, like knowing that these things were going on in your friend's life but not knowing sort of what the internal experiences are. But more than that, Lyndy did ask me twice to read her Hollywood chapter and then I didn't. And there's nothing like looking at a book and being like, oh, you could be in those acknowledgments if you had just done the work.

[B]

Wait, that's amazing. The Hollywood chapter is my favorite chapter. Now you've read it since, I assume?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Okay. Was she asking you to read it? Cause it was like, probably pretty nerve wracking.

[A]

Well, yeah, I think there's always the question, which I went through when I wrote a book myself was like, what's the balance between being honest about your own experience and also not burning bridges with people that you have professional relationships with and not sounding whiny or self indulgent or whatever. And I think just because Lindy is somebody who has created a show and written on a show, but also lives in Seattle and isn't as just sort of like in the TV writing world as much as I am, was sort of looking to me as a friend to be like, tell me that this is okay.

[B]

And you said, no, bitch, as a

[A]

lazy person was like, I have other things to do.

[B]

You were like, I'm sure It's great. And it is great.

[A]

So it is.

[B]

Okay, so tell me, overall, just your overall takeaway. Having written a memoir yourself, you know, Hollywood inside and out, what is your big takeaway on Lindy's book?

[A]

Well, I mean, it's fun to be reminded that your friend is a good writer.

[B]

Yes. And always horrible if you get the opposite reminder and you read a friend's book.

[A]

Lindy is somebody who has written about gender and written about bodies and written about culture for such a long time that usually has done it through essays and analysis. And there's always been an element of autobiography in there. Like her own story has always been very present. But the way that this managed to take a very specific story and turn into something that allowed me to understand conceptually. The way that gender and bodies and desire, like, interact in our society and in our view of ourselves was so, like, specific and universal in a way that was really beautiful. And there's something so nice about the fact that, like, she writes this book that is so full of just like little, almost like Dave Barry ish, sort of like little adventures, but then just smack you in the face with one line that just sort of encapsulates a shift in her worldview that helps you shift your worldview. Was really, really great and really, really powerful. This is a deceptively good book, you know?

[B]

Yes. Okay, go with me on this. This book is the eat, pray, love of our generation. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break right now and we'll be right back. I have been wearing my three pairs of pants from Quince constantly on the rake. I've got black, navy and brown. I'm tall, so I love that I could get a long inseam. They also have short inseams available. Quince's goods are quality first. They make high quality wardrobe staples using premium fabrics like 100% European linen, 100% silk, and organic cotton poplin. I have quince duvet covers. I have three different quince blankets. I have Quint's pillows. I love quince. You can get so many quality pieces all at once. And my mom is a huge fan. I have been getting her high quality cashmere but on a budget every year for her birthday. Quint's clothing is consistently rated 4.5 to 5 stars stars by thousands of customers. Real people wearing these pieces every day and actually loving them, myself included. Stop waiting to build the wardrobe you actually want. Go to quince.com glamorous for free shipping and 365 day returns. That's a full year to wear it and love it and you will now available in Canada too. Don't keep settling for clothes that don't last. Go to Quince Q U I n c e.com quince/glamorous for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com glamorous I have not seen the sun a lot lately. Not great. I have been working inside film studios and podcast studios kind of every second of the day for a month. So my skin has been suffering except Ritual Hycera's skin supplement has been saving me. It is a clinically proven way to support skin hydration with science backed benefits like reduced reducing wrinkles and improving skin smoothness. It is very important to me that products like this contain high quality clean ingredients and all of Ritual's products are just that. All of their products are vegan, GMO free and tested for heavy metals and common allergens. Your skin always starts below the surface and Ritual's Hysera features clinically studied key ingredients to help support moisturized skin that glows. In a clinical study, Hysera led to a 2.9 increase in facial skin smoothness within 90 days as compared to a placebo and subjects also reported an improvement in skin elasticity, glow and radiance in 90 days. Start Hysera to support your glow without compromising on clean science. For a limited time, save 25% on your first month at ritual.com glamorous that's ritual.com glamorous for 25% off your first month. Things have been wild schedule wise over here and I've been starting my day by rolling pulling out of bed and then the one thing I do before I leave the house is I slick them brows back and then I use Thrive's brilliant eye brightener. I just kind of roll it all around my eyes. It's an eyeshadow but it's a highlighter and it's really been helping my daily look. I also love Thrive's mascara because it does not flake. It has a different quality to the texture of it than other mascaras. You'll notice it the moment you put it on. It's stays on all day and it is very lengthening so I love it. I also love this company because with every purchase they donate to causes that really make a difference and domestic violence is one of them. With over 150 million in product and cash donations to 600 plus giving partners, your purchase directly fuels real impact and that is beauty with purpose. So I love the causes that they support. So I love supporting Thrive. Amplify your spring look with Thrive Cosmetics. Go to thrive cosmetics.com glamorous for an exclusive offer of 20% off your first order. That's Thrive Cosmetics. C A U s E M E T-I C S.com glamorous okay, welcome back. Let's continue the conversation. I'm saying this in the positive way of, like, Elizabeth Gilbert should have written this. Given how Elizabeth Gilbert's life ended up in a queer relationship. I think she meant to write the book where instead of, like, like, going to India to do yoga, she got in, like, a dirty old van, drove across the country, as Lindy did, and, like, really looked herself in the face. Lindy really deconstructs how to feel love, if she feels loved, and how she wants to be loved, but is also just, like, in a van, like, camping versus, like, some. I don't know. Sometimes I feel like travel books really gross me out where they're like. Then I went to the steps of the bridge of the water near Perry, and I'm like, I don't care.

[A]

Well, and, like, it's interesting because there. There can be, particularly in Pray Love, this very strong element of, like, colonialism in this idea of, like, locations having meaning and, like, that. India is spirituality, Italy is pasta and

[B]

going up a jean size.

[A]

Yes. And Indonesia is only the good touristy parts. And that's for fucking.

[B]

And that's for fucking a hot man who's actually from Brazil.

[A]

Right. One of the things that was so interesting about this, again, it's that weird sort of like, I know Lindy. I, in a series of dinners over the course of several years, have heard about this journey. And so why was I surprised that I got two or three chapters into this book? And then I was like, oh, wait, this is a rom com. Oh, wait, this is an unexpected meet cute. This is the story of somebody finding a love that's gonna change her, but, like, in such, like, interesting, different terms with her off on this journey of her own. I really love the way she manages to both use Moby Dick as a reference and a set of images about going into the danger of the unknown while at the same time having the story feel rooted and real. And then I hung out with Samantha Irby. One of the things I think is, again, this is a deceptively good book is in her hanging out with Samantha's friend Jesse, in her having this really important spiritual moment with her cousin's friend Rainbow. There's this beautiful way that she builds this structure of the relationship on the other side of the relationship with these other people. To keep telling this story of who Roya is to her and how she is able to like find and understand this relationship.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, you're right. And also this could be a screenplay in a second. The way the book is structured of that road trip, the flashback to the relationships, how they got here, as that current story is progressing. Okay, I want to read some of page 16. I was an hour into recording the audiobook of the Witches Are Coming, my second collection of essays, when I got a message from a stranger, a fan. How humiliating. Informing me that they had seen my husband kissing a woman who was not me at a bar. I stepped outside, pressed my body against the hot car and called Aham. He was silent for a long time. Then he said, I think maybe we want different things. And then she tells the story about how when her and Aham were first together, they broke up and got back together. And he said, if we get back together, there is one thing that is a non negotiable, which is that I am polyamorous. And she was like, I thought of it as a hypothetical, like, maybe he'll be polyamorous one day, but not if I'm a good enough wife. And that they basically set up these rules that she would never know about it. He was never to say anything to her about it. And so she said she set up this situation where if she was ever going to find out about it, it was going to look like her husband was cheating on her. And a fan would tell her about it because they'd never been open about this agreement they made years ago. I imagine being her friend, knowing all of this, it was not a surprise. But even me, I knew how this story ended and I was still riveted by it. Like, I knew they were all in a polyamorous relationship. But the way the book is written, I feel like how they end up here and how Lindy ends up here is what makes the book so exciting.

[A]

Yeah, so much of it is this journey of pulling yourself out of your expectations for a relationship, your expectations of gender, her expectations of womanhood. She does such a good job of analyzing the ways that she has clung to some of this stuff because she doesn't feel like she fits into the world's expectations of a woman. And that makes a lot of sense for me as like a gay man with a body that we don't like normally associate with, like what normal or regular or lovable or whatever is supposed to look like one of the Things I think is really interesting about, particularly the first half of this book, is Lyndy kind of contemplating the weight on her shoulders of having written Shrill and having created the TV show Shrill and what she put out into the world about why her life was a success and who she was trying to be and then trying to live in, like, a journey with her body and a journey with her relationship that didn't necessarily fit into what people wanted or expected out of her.

[B]

Yeah, that was some of my favorite parts of the book is just as much about body image as it is about gender, as you said, as it is about this actual, just personal relationship she's going through. She was talking about how she is a body positivity activist, and she's known for, like, being successful and having love and loving her body. Therefore, she doesn't know how to seek help when she wants to seek help with her relationship with food. And she's writing about, like, am I betraying myself? Am I betraying people if I go to a therapist and say I think I'm having a disordered relationship with food? And she writes this therapist, like, a long email about how she's like, I think I need help, but also, like, I'm really known in this space for helping people, so I feel bad even asking you for help. And the therapist writes back, yes, your work has really inspired me and how I help people heal their relationships with their body. And Lindy was like, oh, no, I'm leading the charge here.

[A]

Right? She's this really beautiful image about realizing that, like Wile E. Coyote, you aren't rooted to anything. Cause the person you're looking to for guidance has looked to you for guidance. And I think in that moment gives us a sense of her sense of failure or powerlessness at that moment. But also, I think in the rest of the book really undercuts that and shows you that this was a beautiful relationship and that the mutual learning that went on between her and this nutritionist has been mutually beneficial. For me. One of the things that was, like, best about this book is towards the end where she really sort of acknowledges, like, having a body means having desire. And when you have been alienated from your body, when you've been told that your desires are all dangerous, your desires are all creating your failed body, you don't know how to have those things in balance. And it really is like a book about the relationship between self, body and desire. That is really fun because she, like. I mean, that's the thing about Lyndy is, like, she's not gonna stop having fun.

[B]

Yes. Oh, yeah. Which, I mean, yeah, this book is so fun. Which again, goes back to what we're gonna keep saying over and over again, which is like. It's so deep, though. This book is like, it has lines that put you on the floor. Even though I was also laughing out loud. I thought one of the interesting things that her nutritionist said to her is like, the. She had gone to people being like, hey, I think I'm having an unhealthy relationship with food. And they had been like, get wegovy. Like, get ozempic, get whatever. And she goes to this woman and, you know, is diagnosed with an eating disorder, and she says, the only way to heal an eating disorder is through eating. Yeah, I thought that was incredible. I feel like that's not put out there of, like, it's always told, like, stop desiring, stop eating, stop doing this, limit this, go smaller versus, like, that's the opposite of what you need.

[A]

Well, I mean, the answer to fatness is you shouldn't be. You shouldn't be. You shouldn't be occupying that much space. You shouldn't be eating if you just lessed. If you just stopped. And it doesn't acknowledge the fact that, like, you still have to lead a life, you still have to be a human being. You know, you want to characterize this thing as an addiction, but it's also something that we have to do to exist. Except for I did meet this one nutritionist outside of a two star Michelin restaurant in France who informed me that we do receive all the energy that we need from the sun and that we could. Like, I. Oh, wow. Yes. Like, it was like three people who had just met at, like, a holistic nutrition convention. And one of them was, I believe, a registered veterinarian. I think the man who was telling me that the sun could provide me with everything was a medical doctor, though.

[B]

That's just so soothing to hear. It's.

[A]

But like. And the thing that is, like, interesting is for somebody who's reading Lindy west books and stuff, you want to imagine that she's the person who has it figured out, who has the answer, and that she's not somebody who is still having to fist fight with a couple of doctors before she is able to get medical care. I think there's something like, I think everyone reading it is a little bit feeling like Lindy feeling like Wile E. Coyote, when you realize even these people who are supposed to have it figured out because this is uncharted territory, because this Is, you know, brown, murky seawater, and we don't know where we should be swimming.

[B]

Yeah, I agree. You know, it's. This is gonna be an odd comparison, but it reminded me a lot of reading Cher's first memoir, which is not the memoir that just came out years ago. Cher wrote a book, and in it, she talked about how humiliated she felt in Hollywood and how when she was in her very first movie that Mike Nichols directed, and Cher came up at the end with no last name, which was crazy for the time that people, like, laughed at her and that it was humiliating. Or when she did those hair commercials for her friends and everyone started making fun of her. And it was so odd to read because you just think of Cher as everything. The person who blew the doors open, and she suffered so much.

[A]

And that movie is Silkwood, for which she receives an Academy Award nomination 100%.

[B]

But that there was so much pain and stress and humiliation. She was embarrassed, and she felt bad about herself. And you just don't think of those things going hand in hand with the woman. You look up to the. And I think of that with Lindy. Like, I've. I mean, I can find emails I sent Lindy, like, in 2014. Cause I loved her writing on Jezebel. And I was like, will you check out my feminist web series? I think you're amazing. And the way she would go on the Daily show and break things down, I've just been so in awe of her.

[A]

You know, first of all, as yous like, it has a great line where Rosalind is complaining about how much something hurt. And her cousin Celia says, if you don't walk on the path, you're gonna get burrs in your skirts. And then Rosalind is like, I could deal with them being in my skirts, but these burrs are in my heart. And, you know, when you're doing the stuff that you're not supposed to do, pain comes with it. And the thing about Lindy and what she does is, you know, and I think we've all learned so much from the last 15 years of Internet discourse and how comfortable people are telling women that they are useless is that Lindy has to go through a lot of criticism. Like, a lot of women in public discourse have to go through a ridiculous amount of criticism. And I think, particularly because she is a fat woman, there is this expectation that she can just handle it. Like, she's humorless, feminist. And all of this is just supposed to bounce off of her. But, you know, you do hear and register all of these Criticisms, and I think, like, trying to keep going in the right direction when you're always being shoved all the time is hard.

[B]

Yeah. Oh, that was so beautifully said. Trying to go in the right direction when you're always being shoved, which has been because Lindy's been so ahead of her time. Her whole career, she's gone through so much. So I want to read this paragraph on page 77, and then I want to talk about the Hollywood chapter, because also working in Hollywood, I think I underlined every single line in that chapter. But she wrote this. She said, in the years of therapy since, I've come to understand that Aham resented how much I'd let myself deteriorate. Not how I looked, but my life force, as though participating in our marriage and our future was no priority for me at all. He wanted to live life with me, not just watch me sink into depression until I died. But at the time, the only framework I had to understand this dynamic was the one I'd been indoctrinated into. I had gotten fatter, and he hated me for it, which that part of the book was. I felt unbelievable, because she had to deconstruct that she'd been taught these things that make you bad in a way that she couldn't even look at her own relationship in the real ways it existed because she was so stuck in this thing society had forced upon you, which is like, you've gotten fatter, therefore, your husband is going to be polyamorous, which was not what he was presenting to her.

[A]

Right. And there's something really interesting about her also having to divorce herself from the counter. Hegemonic stories that also made it easy to dismiss Aham's perspective, like, about how easy it would be to be like, oh, look at this bad guy who has done a bad thing to you, and to not acknowledge the fact that, like, they had talked about this stuff, you know, and that she had not built the relationship that she had promised she was going to like. It's really brave and challenging. And I think we are at a point in time where a lot of people, especially people who are speaking from, like, outside the safe center of our culture, like, safe narratives, because being a woman, being a person of color, you're fighting your way back in, and being on unsteady ground makes you feel uncomfortable. And, like, Lindy spends a lot of this book on unsteady ground, or at least inside of a van. Yeah.

[B]

And, you know, aren't those two the same sometimes? Yeah, absolutely. Well, what I thought was an incredible part of the story is that the reason she or one, at least one of the reasons I read that she found herself in this place of, like, she wasn't showering, she wasn't having desire in life or with him or with a lot of things. She was just in a dark place within their relationship because she was in a dark place. And a lot of that came from this chapter where she had written shrill and gotten the TV show made.

[A]

I mean, it's so fascinating because it's two things. First of all, it's a TV show about your life. It is a TV show where your identity has been reprocessed through Hollywood corporations. And like, all of the mind fuckery that goes along with that. And then there's this other story of I got the job that I wanted and wanted to be able to prove myself and people did not treat me with an appropriate amount of respect. And that was scary and dangerous.

[B]

She starts the chapter talking about how if she had anything resembling a dream growing up, it was to be a standup comedian. And she talks about the fear of doing it because. Which also is tied with body image and, like, not seeing who people who she thought were like her up on stage. And then she referenced when Christopher Hitchens published his essay why Women Aren't Funny in vanity fair in 2007. The public response ranged from at last an intellectual ways in to a scallywag, to be sure, but he has a point. And, like, the way I can go back to the exact rooms I was in talking about this piece when it came out and the way it destroyed women's lives. I mean, it really that that piece, like, kicked us in the face.

[A]

And it is so, like, again, I can only see this from my own perspective. And what's so interesting is that at the point in time when Lindy was living in la, like Roommates with Aham and Solomon, Giorgio, the great standup comic, really was kind of a moment in LA comedy when the gender dynamic shifted and, like, this crew of really amazing comics like Barbara Gray and Brandy Posey and Tess Barker, like, came through and made respect for each other more important than trying to be the pick me. But it's easy now to be like, ah, yes, and then everything changed. But just to realize, like, it was a horrible world and a lot of people, like, had to tromp through a horrible world. And I think about all of the great comics I have known who didn't get the opportunities that they should have just because of a world being more hostile than it should been. And also having Directions that they could go in that were less hostile. That, like, Lyndy found a better place for herself in her comic voice at Jezebel, where she wasn't gonna have to deal with, you know, shitty comments from guys and having to figure out how to get to her car afterwards and all of this stuff like that. But also, like, the number of comics, female comics and queer comics, and female queer comics who got to that point of being on the Tonight show, got to that point of having seven minutes on Comedy Central, and then the industry just didn't know what to do with them. And there's something really cool about the fact that, like, so many of my heroes, the dudes are like grand superstars who the entire world acknowledges as kings of comedy. But, like, I can fucking text Carol Leifer, like, Elaine Boosler and Kathy Ladman are people I can talk to and reach out to. And also, because these people never got the laurels that they deserved, have been working really hard, still writing these amazing jokes. And it was a beautiful chapter to read Lindy write, because this person who has achieved so much and is respected by so many people, acknowledging this sense of loss and divorce, and it makes me feel satisfied about the things that I have wanted to do and haven't been able to do, but also so proud of her. She's so funny.

[B]

Oh, I know. I mean, I think it's an incredible chapter about having a dream and not pursuing it. Written in a way that feels so robust, because what she writes is that, like you said, she finds a way at Jezebel to write about comedy, to be in proximity to this world she loves. And she writes again, this piece for me heard around the world. I remember, like, leaving it up backstage comedy clubs. And it was how to make a rape joke.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And in it, she was like, hey, maybe let's not put the punchline on violently raping a woman and put the punchline on the rapist. And even in the piece she cited, I loved this part of it. She was like, I even gave a pre canceled Louis CK Props for having one of the good rape jokes.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And people still, they destroyed her on the Internet. She wrote this. She said at the time, people treated Internet trolling like the weather, a natural and inevitable byproduct of mass communication. I kept all the receipts of everyone who ever trolled me, especially famous people and comedians I'd previously admired. Parentheses, Some of you are very woke now. But I remember I screenshotted everything for years, thousands of images. I said it was for safety, and it partially was people were threatening to kill me, but mainly I wanted a witness. No one but me was going to read all these comments. And down below, at the end of that page, she said, I remember when Jay Johnston from Mr. Show literally storms the Capitol on January 6th and all the above pollinate each other with disinformation while the media that might once have fact checked them grows more frail, more corporate and less diverse. And so she's talking about this thing in her life, but she's also talking about how our comedic history has unfolded and our misinformation has unfolded, and how when she finally finds herself getting her book made into a TV show, she's like, maybe I can make my dream right again. Maybe I can prove to these comedy people who were mad that I said not to do terrible rape jokes, only do good rape jokes. I can prove to them I am a good comedian and I am worthy of being here. And so when Hollywood is horrific to her, that's what I think leads to this era of depression that then affects her marriage.

[A]

Yeah, the idea of being able to fix the past is, like, this really interesting, like, leitmotif throughout the book. And there's something really interesting about her, late in the book, getting a tattoo and sort of acknowledging that, like, rewriting things to a level of perfection isn't possible. But, like, acknowledging and owning where you are is like, there was something, I think anyone who has worked within the Hollywood machine, there is something, like, very traumatic about reading about her experience of,

[B]

you know, did any of this in here happen to you? There was so many things where I was like, yes, happens every day. Yes, happens every day. Covered boys arguing over, like, when what should happen in your life is, like, hilarious.

[A]

Being managed on your own show. Like, all of these things in some way or another connected. And then also there's the level of, like, so frequently I was the person she was calling when this stuff was going on to be like, should this be happening? How do I manage that? And also, at a point in time when, you know, still, people like me, I only get auditions for things that are gay or fat. And then I don't get the role because I don't look like what a gay guy is supposed to look like. And I don't sound like what a fat guy is supposed to sound like. So when there was a show that was about fatness, God, it would have been cool if I had been able to guest on it. And Lindy was like, I keep saying guys should be my friend on the show, but they won't Let me. And this experience of just like. Like, it's her show about her, but there's all of this, like, they won't let me. And there's no space for you. And this notion that, like, who she is is so unpalatable that it needs to be, you know, moderated and modified by these other people. And like, that can't not affect you. And even just going back to. Well, first of all, about the point you made about the rape joke piece that you wrote is like, she contributed greatly to our industry being a less shitty place that we now are at a point in time when you can't make one of those shitty jokes that we were just used to being part of the lay of the land. But with that came this attack and this damage. There's that way that you go and you read the horrible things about you and it's kind of like cutting yourself. But imagining that you can just ignore that is impossible. Imagining that you can just ignore that is not realistic. And imagining that that whole process doesn't change someone you know is unrealistic.

[B]

And I think that was something really beautiful to sit with in this book because again, she is so wonderful, so funny, so strong, so, so loud, so bold. She's writing again. It is easy for you to be like, she's fine. You know, none of that mattered. And it's like, it did matter. I think what was horrifying to me about Shrill is that she said it's extremely corrosive to an already weak mind to be making a show about the most vulnerable and embarrassing parts of your own life, sitting in writers rooms listening to skinny white guys from Harvard debating. So what season should we have the dad die? Your actual dad who's actually dead, only for it to be decided that he shouldn't die at all because it isn't funny when someone's dad dies. Yes, I know. And she said they would come to her with ideas. Like the marketing team said, okay, you'll go to Hulu and you'll find a picture of a refrigerator. And when you clicked on the refrigerator door, it would open and you'd find all the episodes inside. And they said, see, it's a play on binge watching and binge eating. And that they had finally had a show representing someone never seen on TV and didn't have any people who related to that life experience getting to write it. Except for Samantha Irby. Or like you said, she was like, guy should be on the show. And then by the second season, they wouldn't let anyone. Lindsay wanted Come back to write on the show. They wouldn't let anyone. Lindsay wanted be cast on the show, and she said she was the only writer of size in the entire writers room for seasons two and three, and she didn't get to write anything well.

[A]

And she's in this position of them being like, well, you wrote this book, but you're not a TV writer. Like, we know what's best. And, you know, it's interesting. Like, look, before 2020, there was a lot of experiences being written by people who hadn't had those experiences. Like, there was. You know, there were a lot of black sex.

[B]

I just thought of 10 shows.

[A]

Yes. Women's stories, people of color stories. But there is this way that, like, people still don't even know how they're supposed to think about fatness. There's this great moment on the Comeback. There's this great moment on the Comeback in the first season where Jimmy Burrow says to Valerie Cherish, don't let this turn into the hate show. And I've been on things that turned into the hate show. And, like, that thing of, you can push back, but if you push back too hard, it turns into the hate show. It turns into that dynamic. And Lindy knew better than that. The hard thing about it is, for all of the compromises and uncertainty and what feels like failure to Lyndy, there are thousands of people who will have watched that show and had it mean something to them and change the art that they're able to make and the participation that they're able to have in this society. And 20 years from now, we'll all be able to say, like, well, wasn't that a great thing? But, like, in the moment, you're just like, God, I wish I could have done this perfectly. I wish I could have gotten this thing out in a way that was less compromised. But it's, like, hard, you know, Like.

[B]

Yeah, but I mean, I think, like, I've. Have you sold a. Have you done a show based on your life before?

[A]

100 fucking sense. Okay? Like, I. No, I mean, one of the first things that happened was they want to buy it, but they don't want you to start. Like, they don't.

[B]

Always the first thing.

[A]

Always the first thing. Again, I was in the lovely situation. This was the height of the pandemic, and I called Mindy Kaling, who is good at these things, and was like, what should I do? And she broke it down in, like, crisp, analytical fashion and was just, like, based on your career and the money that you're making right now and everything like that, I would say, no, like you, you can survive. You don't need this for the writing check. Say that you're worth it. And I did and they bought it from me to write the script and then they ended up not making it. And you know, there's the whole thing of, could it have gone better if I hadn't insisted that I be the star of it or whatever. But it's also like, you only get one life, you only get one chance.

[B]

And like, I don't know, Little Dicky's the star of his show and the showrunner and he'd never showrun it. So it's like, I think you've got, like, come on, like this happens all the time.

[A]

Yes. But like, never underestimate the amount of, the amount of trust that they have for screwy boys or a two boy directing team. They'd fucking hand their eight month old child to a two boy directing team.

[B]

But that's why you made the call. It's like you've made the best call. Like it should be you and you have to make calls like that. I mean, I was not supposed to be in my thing, but I've sold a thing on my life a couple times and the note I always get is like, can they be less poor?

[A]

Okay, this is.

[B]

I might be like, well then, yeah, but that's not the show, man.

[A]

This is a huge issue that I have that this town does not know how to make stories about working class people anymore.

[B]

That's, oh my God, are we best friends? This is everything I ever scream about.

[A]

They're just like, well, how come the middle two time zones are only watching Taylor Sheridan shows? And it's like, baby, hello, you need to stop making shows where everyone's a

[B]

lawyer, but the money stuff actually breaks their brains. I understand your brain can't imagine it, but most brains live it every day.

[A]

I had a different thing that I sold and two of the characters had the careers that my mom and my dad had. The wife was a cafeteria lady and the dad was a construction worker. And they were worried that it was offensive to represent someone as a cafeteria lady. And there was one point when I exec said, I said something about how we need to be able to represent people who haven't gone to college. And she said, you know, I think they're happier. I think they're happier. They just don't have to worry about all of the things that we do. And it's like, you fucking come on.

[B]

I've heard that before they're like, oh, but isn't it nice to have a simpler life? And I was like, I'm actually gonna kill you. Okay, well, okay, so. Yes, yes, exactly. The reason I brought that up is that, like, having worked in TV writer rooms for years and years and years and navigating this is still so hard. And for Lindy, who this was her first time in the TV world, she ends the chapter with this paragraph. So Shrill goes for three seasons, which is incredible. Like, what an incredible feat. And it ends and she goes home and she says, a few months later, I received a package from the Shrill production offices with a few keepsakes from the show, including a hardcover book of photographs from our three years on set in which I literally do not appear.

[A]

Amazing, Stephanie.

[B]

The only cover was a post it that read Linda West. I said, yeah, Exactly. I said, 100%.

[A]

It's the best only Hollywood could. Only Hollywood could. The way that capitalism looms over this book. And also I really appreciate Lindy could have avoided some of the financial matters that she's very honest about. Like having to sort of say, like, I came to a point where I had to borrow money from Ijeoma, my sister in law, to check in on the van trip.

[B]

Yes. It's just real on the Eat Pray Love, which is why I want this to be Eat, Pray Love. Because the true Eat Pray Love is like, oh, I ran out of money and can't check into the hotel because

[A]

it's like, oh, you had your own TV show. If you don't have money now, you're bad at managing your money. And it's like, also, that was 18 checks. You know, like that was 18 checks and quarter of that goes to your representatives.

[B]

And yeah, 100%. Okay, we have to go back to this relationship so that we can tie up this episode. But I want to read this one part to you and my note is, ah, no. And so I want to see how you reacted when you read this, because this was the one moment in the book where I was like, oh my God, she's giving us everything. Okay, so she comes back from shrill. There's a lot of just like identity crisis life stuff going on. And this is also when the marriage stuff starts to break down a bit. And she said, there's a part of my marriage story that I haven't talked about because it's harder to forgive. I'm scared of what you'll think of me. I told you, Aham was secretly seeing one woman in 2019. He was actually seen too, the first one was Roya, who lived out of town, was queer and non monogamous, had good boundaries in her own busy life, and thus fell within our relationship parameters. The second one was younger. She lived in our neighborhood. She was tall and thin and blonde and fun and wild, and she knew people that we knew. She was the exact woman your husband leaves you for when you look like me. I always think about this thing Kim Gordon said after Thurston Moore cheated on her quote, it ended in kind of a normal way. Midlife crisis, starstruck woman. There is a normal way of things. I knew that I'd been bracing for it for years. A lot of bad stuff happened during the months they were entangled. They were certainly the worst months of my life. But all you need to know for the purposes of this story is that Aham violated my trust badly. There was a period of utter chaos, and I had every right and every reason to leave him. And this is that one twist in the story where they had set up their polyamorous boundaries and rules at the beginning of the relationship, and that this was something that she was taking part in. And then this is the twist where he did violate those rules. As they're going through this and she writes at the end of this chapter, you are predisposed to sympathize with me. This is my book and you're reading it. Presumably you like me. At the very least, you're stuck in my head and I control the aperture. In many ways, my side of the story is easier to understand than Ahams. Mine used to cultural norms about heterosexual love and relationships, while his challenges them. Also, he was a big asshole and put me through hell. Okay, so what was your reaction reading this? Because this part had me. I don't know, I was so, so tense for her of like, how are you gonna make it through again? I already know it's a happy ending, but.

[A]

Well, you know, I also think part of the book is saying, like, there aren't happy endings. There are processes. Like, human life is like processes and actions and sets of choices. And it was hard and it was harsh and it was real. But also, you and I have both had to write about people that we know and love, and you understand that there's a huge amount of power there. And, like, do you want to be right or do you want to be able to live in a world with other people? And I really appreciate both the courage of putting that out there and putting it on those terms. And also not overly forgiving or brushing aside what Aham had done. You know, just sort of like saying, this was the situation and people are imperfect and, like, that's like, that's what a marriage is, you know? And it's hard when we're trying to change the dynamics when we live in a world of men cheating on women and women being expected to take it and all of that. And you're trying to shift the script while at the same time accept and acknowledge two people in specific situations.

[B]

I was thinking to myself, like, anyone going through anything really tough in their marriage, regardless of, like, cheating sexuality, it could be anything. This is kind of the chapter speaking to that of, like, what do you do when something you should or could walk away from happens in your marriage and you decide to stay and should you and could you and would you? And she writes about how she's so happy they made it through that time, but at that time, she didn't know if she wanted them to make it.

[A]

Have you read Heartburn.

[B]

Oh. By Nora Ephron? Yes, yes. Yes, I have.

[A]

I mean, it's great. And it is just the story between finding out that a man cheated and stopping loving him. And it's a story that I really love. And also the, like, mid-90s Julia Roberts movie. Something to talk about.

[B]

Oh, I need. Oh, something to watch tonight.

[A]

Thank you. Yeah. It's the lady who wrote Thelma and Louise. It was her second film.

[B]

Oh, holy shit. She's also did Nashville, right?

[A]

Yes. And it's basically a story of a woman finding out that her husband is cheating and then going on a journey of falling back in love with him. But also, like, not unlike this book, it's very much a personal inventory of, like, where are you and what are you doing? And Kara Sedgwick plays her sister, who is calling her out on her shit and is magnificent. But, yeah, like, we're adults, and adults have to do bad things and acknowledge bad things and deal with realities. And being right is really good for one moment, and then what you gonna do, you know?

[B]

So, okay, so I am very much someone cheats on anyone, Even someone. I don't know. If a strange lady walked up to me and was like, my husband cheated on me today, I'd be like, well, time for me to go to jail for murder. I should kill him. I am Angela Bessett lighting the car on fire for whoever. And so what was so cool reading? This is like, I do come from the, like, kill him, you know, because I wanted to murder him. But also, she doesn't want me to murder him, you know?

[A]

Well, and As a gay man, I consider sexual fidelity to be the least important kind of fidelity. You know, so many of the people I know have relationships that don't center on sexual fidelity. But there's this way that you are so tempted when it is a man and a woman to be like, well, God damn him. And that's all of us participating in a heteronormative story. And Lindy is really good at acknowledging that.

[B]

Yeah. And I think the other layer that really makes it crazy is the body image stuff as she's talking about being like, oh, well, because he chose a woman who looked like X and X, and I represent X and X and X. What does that mean for our marriage? And now it lives in a construct where everyone's mad and it can't live in this other construct that I'm actually feeling about it.

[A]

Well, what's really interesting about it is she sort of simultaneously analyzing it from the sense of, how much do I need this monogamy to work for the world to see me the way that I project it in shrill. And then how much do I myself need this thing to acknowledge and validate it?

[B]

It's true to me.

[A]

Yes. And, like, this trip is so much about a journey of embodiment. One of the cool things about it is, like, this journey with Ahamen, Roya is so much about her getting to be alone and getting to be enough on her own and then return back to Aham and Royal.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Well. And that's what. Okay, so I love that you said sexual fidelity is the least interesting fidelity to me. Meanwhile, over here, me, I don't even like a group project. Okay. And so I'm reading this being, like, holy.

[A]

And.

[B]

And what happens is that she starts to feel an attraction to Roya and an attraction to having a bonus as she writes a bonus woman in her life and starts to wonder if she is pushing this thing away because of all of these constructs that have been forced upon her, and does she maybe actually want it and is it okay to try? But then she said it was probable, not just possible, that I was making Aham's polyamory feel safe by inserting myself into it rather than doing the real work of accepting that there were parts of him I was not entitled to know. But on the other hand, Roya, sweet, stable Roya with green eyes and long black hair, who thought I was beautiful, who made Aham happy and soft again, who was generous and silly and ethical, who had a giant brain and a pure heart, who I didn't even know yet, but who'd somehow brought peace into our lives just by breathing. And who seemed to need us too. Even me. Da, da, da. Was I actually attracted to Roya? Or was I just relieved to find a loophole that let me stay in my fucked up marriage because I was too scared to be alone? Was the situation healthy or sick? Real or fake? Progress or regress? Was I strong or pathetic? Straight or queer? A woman who could discern her own feelings? Or a baby who needed to be told when to get a divorce? My job was on the floor.

[A]

Yeah. What's great is, you know, in providing all of these binaries, she's also giving us so much space in between that it can be somewhere in between. And that's okay.

[B]

Which really is where this book ends. So she also talks about how she felt, like you said, so disconnected from her body and desire and not allowed to be a sexual person with sexual needs that she has trouble even writing about sex or talking about sex, which then becomes a part of the book because her sex life changes, her interests change. But she also can't write about it because she's like, I'm so divorced from that part of myself. So you'll read things like, we are in a throuple and I've had more threesomes than anyone I know. But you're also not reading about her own desire because she's like, I don't even know how to write about that. It feels so weird. And so then it does end up living in this gray area where it's not handed to you, the reader, even though you know the story.

[A]

Look, Oprah did a lot for us, but, you know, there are always the problems. There's Dr. Os, there's Dr. Phil, and there is this sense.

[B]

There's Martha Beck, there's Sarah Ferguson, there's Deepak Chopra. Sorry, go on.

[A]

The sense that you need to be fixed, the sense that you need to be correct. And also a comfort that we as a public have to be like, ah, she's not fully fixed. Fuck her. She can't know anything. And I think that there's like, in requiring people to be without fault before they can contribute their experience. That's a problem. And, you know, I think you just

[B]

explained the justice system for every female victim out there. But yes, go ahead.

[A]

But, you know, I think there is this issue of being able to acknowledge that you don't have the terms or the right intelligence to be able to approach. Like you're talking about her perceiving other fat women who have a Different relationship with their sexuality and trying to learn from them. And there are so many aspects of sex and sexuality that I don't know how to talk about. But I feel like I need to hide that because I'm a fat gay guy and I'm supposed to be showing you that I'm fine. You know, like for women, for queer people, for so many marginalized people, there's this need to, like, before anything else, show people that you're fine. And Lindy being able to present herself as happy, like, without emphasizing her fineness is very powerful.

[B]

Yeah, I totally agree. She ends the book. The last chapter's called Throuple. And they all live together and they, the three of them, her, Roya and aham are all in a relationship. And she wrote this. Some people say that I'm delusional, that I couldn't possibly be happy with two partners. They lose their minds when confronted with the idea of non monogamy. And I am sympathetic. I used to share that. Lost mine. I hated polyamorous people for giving my husband this stupid idea. My skin blistered when I imagined aham having sex with someone else. It felt like I was dying at just the thought of it. Now I hear aham having sex with someone at least once a week. And my reaction is, could you freaks keep it down? I said, you hear it?

[A]

Feel.

[B]

This is where I was like, ah. I can't be like, whoa. The other thing that blew my mind. And maybe you're gonna be like, Chelsea, this is awesome. And I get it. She said they fight like two of them sleep in the main room and one of them sleeps in the guest room every night. And she said getting to sleep in the guest room. Sometimes Roy and I fight over it. Keeping the window all the way open all night long with my audiobook playing while hugging my stuffed cat Esmeralda. Not waking up at 5:30am to AHAM Info dumping the history of the San Antonio spurs, consistently excellent number one draft pick. Embracing the pure pleasure of sleeping alone feels like a distillation of this whole journey. It's what I want. I like it. It doesn't have to mean anything more than that.

[A]

I mean, there can be very nice things about having other people take care of some of the work in your relationship.

[B]

You know, that's the part that my brain is struggling with because I have a polyamorous friend who also said part of the benefits of polyamory was getting to have alone time and getting to spend time with their friends because their partner's time was taken up with another partner. But my response is like, shouldn't you always be able to have alone time and spend time with your friends no matter what type of relationship you're in? Like, why specifically does your partner have to be busy with someone else in order for you to have the time you need? Like, can't your independence exist within the relationship with each other, just no matter what relationship you're in? But I think specifically for Lindy, in this book, that is what she was writing about. She talks about how she was so codependent with aham that this forced her to find an independence she wouldn't have found otherwise. Or this forced her to enjoy alone time. Or this made her realize she could spend endless time with her friends that she had missed and really enjoyed. And she said something like, polyamory is the antidote to codependency, which is what brought her back to herself, which is beautiful. And get in the comments. I would love to hear more about this, but to me it feels like a concept that's detached from sexuality or sexual choices. That's more of a concept of how you're spending your time. Or is that really all the same thing?

[A]

Well, there's also just something nice about having a partner who gets to feel as sexually satisfied as they want. I mean, sexual satisfaction comes in a number of ways. And like, if they're your partner, clearly you're satisfying them to some extent. But like, also to not have them project lack upon you as, like, this lack is a condition of what you're not bringing to the table. Let them go find what they want. And you know, it is to some extent uncharted territory. And so people have to build new structures and find new things and, you know, find the right terms. Also sometimes that can be more hard work than just sort of like settling into a heterosexual monogamy that we understand very well.

[B]

Yeah, especially if it wasn't meant for you. Like heterosexual monogamy definitely meant for people. But there are also people who, like, culture gave it to you and it's not what they actually want. And they have to break out of what culture's forcing upon you to get to the thing that actually makes you happy, which is what the core of this book is about. Like, what actually makes Lindy happy.

[A]

Yeah, and it's like one of the nice things about being gay is that the people around me are being gay also. Not at a time of plague. Very important.

[B]

But yes, yes.

[A]

But like, you know, I have friends who are very exclusively monogamous. I have friends who are In a play together couple. I have friends who are like, we mess around, but only with the other person not knowing about it. And then I have one friend who is in a polyamorous relationship, and he's livid about it.

[B]

All right, so this is how Lindy ends the book. She says, I know as well as anyone that life comes at you fast, that everything beautiful I've built in these pages could collapse in a blink, rendering this book an artifact, a husk, a humiliation. But that's okay. A younger version of me might have held back on some of this love, some of this joy, for fear of losing it later and hearing the gallery say, we told you so. But I'm not afraid of hindsight anymore. A life isn't a book. Change doesn't make the past a lie. This is where it's like, you're getting poetry in this book.

[A]

No, I mean, she's so many moments with so many great lines.

[B]

So many great lines. This is a book just so worth reading every. And listen, I don't like hearing about anyone's travel. Like, Beyonce could be like, I just went to Hawaii. You want to see my pictures? And I'd be like, no fucking thank you. And the fact that I loved this book, I think, is just such a testament to her writing. I loved every piece of every chapter. Okay, let's do the booktool test. It's how we end every episode. We're both gonna answer all three questions. Okay, first question. Was the author vulnerable in the sharing of her truth?

[A]

I mean, 100% beyond.

[B]

I'm in awe of her. I just. Yeah, she's incredible. Second question. Was this book entertaining to read?

[A]

Yeah, it's very funny.

[B]

I finished this in one sitting, and like I said, I knew how the story ended, and I was. Every page, I was like, oh, my God.

[A]

What?

[B]

I loved it. Final question. Did reading this book elevate your life in any way?

[A]

A hundred percent. Like, the realization that having a body means having desire and being able to accept that, like wrapping my head around the ways that I have been through my queerness and my fatness alienated from my body over the course of life is really big. And just having somebody as imperfectly and specifically and differently as Lindy does, like, catalog her own experience, really helped me understand my experience better.

[B]

That was so beautifully said. And I'm also a. Yes. I think, you know, one of the reasons celebrity memoirs are my favorite genre is I just. I love learning how people survive all this shit and do the thing I love most in the world, which is like, create art and be entertaining and be a part of this Hollywood world, which is so difficult. And Lindy has given us such a some of the greatest, like, political and comedic thinking in the past two decades. Jezebel changed my life and I'm not afraid to say it. Listen, I know people can come at Jezebel, but I didn't have anything else to read in 2010. It was so cool to read this side of her because you think of someone who is so accomplished and so confident and sure of themselves and they have a memoir like, shrill, like, oh, you figured out life. You're done. You figured it out. And to have her open up this side of herself that is just, just, it's just messy and in process and in pain and struggling and unsure of what to do. And starting at zero in many ways and working your way back up was just such a good reminder of like, we're all human and we're all in process. And there was more I wish was in this book. And I bet she will write about in the future. Like, you know, she talks about being a straight woman in this book and then it sounds like her first queer relationship ever was with Roya, which would be at that moment, her husband's girlfriend. There's just so much to say about that and I hope we get to read about it in the future. And also I'm, I want to talk to Lindy about it and ask her some questions on our subscriber only interview with her. So subscribe on Patreon or Apple Podcasts and if you have a question for her and you're listening to this episode, the moment it comes out, drop it on Patreon or in the Instagram comments so I can chat with her about it. But I'm excited to dive through even deeper into this book. So sign up to get that episode. Guy, will you tell everyone about you and Lindy's event, but then also all the places where they can find and follow you as if they already don't. But just tell us everything.

[A]

On March 10, I'm going to be at Symphony Space with Lindy west and we're going to be doing a conversation about this same book, Adult Braces. But also you can follow me Ibranim on all social media except for TikTok where I am Guy Branham Comedy. And I'm doing my solo show at L' Air Hyperion Theater on March 13th, 22nd, 25th and 31st.

[B]

Ah, yes, I love, I love. Thank you so much for being a guest today. This was just wonderful to talk with you.

[A]

Thank you so much. It was so good to get to talk with you.

[B]

A big thank you to our Senior Managing Producer Christina Lopez, our Executive Producer Jordan Moncada, our Sound Engineer Marcus Hobbs and our amazing Associate Producer Jaron Padre. I also want to give a huge thank you to our incredible partners over at Thrive Cosmetics and every plate. We will link to those brands in the show notes. Go check them out. Everything else we discussed is also linked in the show notes. And if you have questions, thoughts, comments, go to the Patreon sign up. There's a free tier you can join. Leave a comment chat with your fellow cookies. We will keep the book club continuing over there. Toogood Co Coffee Creamers are made with farm fresh cream, real milk and contain 3 grams of sugar per serving. That's 40% less than the 5 grams per serving in leading traditional coffee creamers for a rich, delicious experience. Whether you enjoy your coffee hot, cold, bold or frothy, two good coffee creamers make every sip a good one. Two good Coffee creamers Real goodness in every sip. Find them at your local Kroger in the creamer aisle.