Marisa Meltzer, THIS IS BIG
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[2:17]I'm here today with Marissa Meltzer, who's the author of This is Big, How the Founder of
[2:21]Weight Watchers, Change the World, and Me.
[2:23]She's the co-author of How Sassy Changed My Life, and also Girl Power.
[2:28]She is a contributor to New York magazine and The New York Times.
[2:31]Her work has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Slate, Elle, and Teen Vogue.
[2:35]She attended Evergreen State College, originally from Northern California.
[2:39]She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
[2:40]Welcome Marissa.
[2:41]Thank you for coming on, Marissa.
[2:42]I'm so happy.
[2:43]This is so fun.
[2:44]We've already been like chit chatting, and I feel like now the name is pronunciation.
[2:50]Yeah.
[2:51]Exactly.
[2:52]So can you please tell listeners what this is big is about, and I'll just read the
[2:56]this subtitle again, How the Founder of Weight Watchers, Change the World, and Me.
[3:01]So that's a hint as to what it's about.
[3:02]It is.
[3:03]It's a hint, but it doesn't, it's hard to sum up a book, and like one subtitle.
[3:09]It's about the woman who founded Weight Watchers, her name is Jean Knight-Hitch, and she
[3:15]has kind of a successful entrepreneurial story that's been a little bit lost to history.
[3:20]So it's about how she went from, like, fat, Brooklyn housewife to thin woman who lives
[3:27]in Brentwood, and there's a millionaire, and everything in between family weight watchers.
[3:31]But it's also a parallel story of, like, my basically lifetime of being a dieter and feeling
[3:40]like I'm a failure at it, and being sort of tortured about whether or not I should even
[3:46]be dieting, you know, the discourses change so much, and just kind of turning 40 and
[3:51]trying to reckon with it, and doing Weight Watchers in the current desk.
[3:55]So much material.
[3:56]This is so fun.
[3:57]Well, let's start with what inspired you to write this book, why this book, why a book
[4:03]at all.
[4:04]Well, I'm a New York Times reader and writer, but I was reading the obituaries, and
[4:10]I saw the one for Jean Knight-Hitch, and I admit I had never heard of her or had any
[4:15]idea of who she was.
[4:18]And I have the sense of, like, oh, I can't wait to read this because this is the woman
[4:23]who I can finally put kind of a face to all of my rage, and, you know, I can sort
[4:29]of blame her for messing up my life.
[4:32]And instead, I read it, and I saw this rags to riches story.
[4:37]I saw, you know, a woman who was about the same age that I was at the time, also kind
[4:44]of reckoning with her forties and changing her life, you know, a Jewish woman in Brooklyn
[4:50]and thought, we even look a little bit alike, and I thought, we have so much in common.
[4:56]I want to know so much more, and just had so many questions that I wanted answered about
[5:04]her life, about mine, and that's kind of the impetus, and then just couldn't get out
[5:11]of my head, and sort of finally decided to write about it.
[5:16]And what was your process like, did you just delve into the research like, where were you
[5:20]doing that?
[5:21]Yeah.
[5:22]And I was in New York, and I decided to just for my own sanity kind of bookend it with
[5:28]a year in my own life, looking back, of course, but just instead of, you know, reporting
[5:34]on and on.
[5:35]So it was the year that I turned 40.
[5:38]I started right around my 40th birthday, which was in July of 2017, and followed myself
[5:46]for a year.
[5:47]I did Weight Watchers for that year, and I also spent a lot of time at Weight Watchers headquarters
[5:53]reading the archives of their magazines, interviewing anyone I could find, you knew her going
[5:58]to, you know, the Library of Congress and other things, keeping a journal of all of my thoughts
[6:05]and feelings about the whole process, taking notes on Weight Watchers meetings, just kind
[6:10]of totally immersing myself in that world for a year.
[6:13]And it was so great, too, because you really took the reader through the whole story, as
[6:16]opposed to making it like a biography of, you know, June 9, it was really, you know, as
[6:21]you discovered it, and when you just, you know, you took us along for the rest.
[6:25]Yeah.
[6:26]I wanted people to have the whole story, which in my head, maybe narcissistically, always
[6:32]involved me, but I love a biography, but I also just felt like my life and sort of
[6:40]by proxy so many other women's lives are wrapped up in Jean's story, and the only way
[6:46]to understand where we are now in terms of the discourse about dieting and our bodies
[6:50]and feminism and health, the only way that we could really understand that would be to
[6:57]sort of look back at how it all began and also kind of assess where we are at the present.
[7:03]And I decided to be sort of that kind of stand in character, and it was, you know, it was
[7:10]hard to do.
[7:11]Oh, thank you for taking this on.
[7:14]Oh, thank you.
[7:15]Appreciate it.
[7:16]Oh, what surprises did you find about Jean, because when I was reading it, and I did,
[7:21]I did know a little about her going into it, as I mentioned to you before I used to work
[7:25]at Weight Watchers, and I was a receptionist, and then I was a leader, and I was on the program,
[7:30]and I was like, you know, I drank the Kool-Aid for many years consecutively before abandoning
[7:35]it all.
[7:36]But anyway, so I knew about her from that, but I did know that I would dedicate you and
[7:39]your training a little bit about her story.
[7:41]Okay.
[7:42]We were whisked off to like a holiday in a New Jersey for a weekend of training, and that was
[7:47]definitely part of the story.
[7:49]She's glamorous.
[7:50]She's a good, you know, also in this time when we are so interested in stories of female
[7:56]entrepreneurs and also sort of female pioneers who've been lost to history, she is that
[8:02]person.
[8:03]And then it didn't end very well for her, which I was so sort of crushed to read.
[8:07]Like, you feel like these people that start great companies or like make a mark or leave
[8:12]their creations to the rest of us end up somehow in like a satisfied, happy place, but it
[8:18]was unclear whether that really happened with her.
[8:21]Yeah, that's something I've really wrestled with in writing the book and researching it
[8:25]is this desire for a neat and happy ending.
[8:30]You know, I feel like I'm sort of a living spoiler alert for my own book because, you
[8:35]know, I didn't lose like 80 pounds, and then I don't know, getting gaged and be like,
[8:41]and I surprise, like, it's a new me, you know?
[8:45]I lost some weight.
[8:47]I did a lot of really hard work just on thinking about what I even cared about and what
[8:54]I talk about when I talk about dieting and transformation.
[8:58]And I think I changed a lot on the inside.
[9:01]And it was the same thing with Jean's story.
[9:03]I also wanted to be able to tell this kind of rags to riches story.
[9:09]And except, you know, real life isn't like Cinderella.
[9:12]Like it doesn't just end with her, you know, cashing out and moving to the west coast
[9:18]and just fading to the sunset.
[9:21]There are decades where she was around and she was, I think, wrestling with some of
[9:28]her own demons.
[9:30]You know, I think that if you are really tied to food and you lose weight and maybe
[9:35]you successfully, I don't know, negotiate that in your life, that sort of desire for oblivion
[9:44]or for cheating or for being bad comes out in other ways.
[9:48]I see it with myself with spending money or going on like a, like a last minute vacation
[9:55]or something like that.
[9:56]Other people have it and other parts of her life and she very much.
[10:00]You know, gave big amounts of charity and bought real estate and certainly gambled a lot.
[10:05]So, you know, I think that this is a book very much of our time though because as I was thinking
[10:12]about talking about her story in mind, I kept thinking, well, we're not really living in an era
[10:18]where neat endings are resonating with us anyway. We're in this world that feels really messy
[10:26]right now and really complicated. And I think if we even look to, you know, our political leaders
[10:33]or our corporate leaders, they don't seem like they have the answers and definitely don't always
[10:38]seem like they're, you know, making the best decisions themselves. So, I thought that's just,
[10:45]that's a reality of life right now, is that I didn't totally change everything about myself.
[10:53]And Jean also wasn't able to, you know, be perfectly happy for the rest of her life.
[11:00]I mean, my ending with Weight Watchers was also not pretty good. Yeah, will you tell me a little bit?
[11:04]Yeah, so I have been like dieting since age nine. Okay. Mother used to like measure out a half
[11:10]a cup of orange juice for me and I had a calorie counting on it. She barely used so much. Like,
[11:15]I still have it somewhere because I like couldn't bear to throw it out, but it was like,
[11:19]I'm turning 43. I'm turning 43. So yeah, but no, she was very much from the beginning like
[11:26]right down what you eat. And I remember like going in. I don't want this to be about me, but I
[11:30]know, but it's all of our stories right to be a woman. You know, is to deal with dieting and
[11:37]food restrictions and the expectations of your mother and your family. So much of why I want to
[11:43]write this book is because I want to hear other people's stories like yours just selfishly
[11:47]because it makes me feel a little less alone pathetic. And like, I've, you know, gotten sucked in
[11:52]or wasted my time. No, I mean, I could write, I could write this to you. I swear to God, maybe I should try.
[11:59]My, yeah, now I mean, from the beginning, it was like that and I hate to like sell my mother out,
[12:03]but I think she was trying to help me, but she would like hide all the food for me and give my
[12:07]brother all the good stuff to eat. And like, I was never really that overweight. I think she was
[12:12]just afraid that I might become overweight because of her own. Maybe bias is it sure. And
[12:18]you're a mother now. I'm not, but I certainly understand that feeling of, you know, my parents
[12:24]aren't terrible people. Some of their methods were a little weird in their obsession, but
[12:29]you know, they just wanted to protect me from the world essentially. And they certainly didn't
[12:33]want me to be teased or bullied or to be, you know, to have people make preconceived notions
[12:40]about me based on my body in a way they were right. You know, I did gain weight and I have
[12:45]dealt with a world that's not always very generous to people who aren't thin. And so I get it,
[12:53]but we've also come a long way, I think, in terms of what we know on how to talk about, you know,
[13:00]food and weight and health with our children. I feel like so much of my parenting about body
[13:04]image with my kids is reaction to my own like stuff. I think our generation is absolutely. I
[13:10]talk about it with all my girlfriends, even ones who have, you know, three-month-old babies and
[13:17]their weights are already being, you know, charted and discussed and, you know, not to compare it,
[13:23]but I have a dog and she, a friend of mine, dogs at her over the holidays. Well, I was out of town
[13:30]and several people were like, oh, wow, it looks like Joan, that's my dog. I had like a really
[13:35]good time in the holidays, like she really gained a lot of money. Oh my gosh. She's a bulldog.
[13:40]I said, well, dog, too. Did you remember? Yeah. I mean, part of her charm is her, like,
[13:46]you know, corpulent body. And so, you know, it's like, it extends to everything. It's true.
[13:52]Now I make such an effort though, like, last night even, I was having a, like, it was getting ready
[13:57]for bed and my daughter was sort of in the mirror. And I kind of moved my arm in a way that I
[14:01]realized I have, like, a whole new layer of, like, a big thing. It's like that way, like, this is
[14:06]your bat-wing hanging off my arm. And I literally was like, you know, like, I like gas to see it. I was
[14:11]like, oh my god, what happened to my arm? It must have been those, like, 10 pieces of cake I've had
[14:14]last two weeks. And she's like, what? And I was like, oh, nothing. I think I thought I saw something
[14:19]on my arm. And then, you know, I like went in the other room and I was like, oh my god, what happened to
[14:24]so I tried. But I don't know. It's like, anyway, but my weight watcher story just in a two
[14:28]sentence, I lost 25 pounds. I kept it off for like two years. And then I had kids. And now I'm like,
[14:35]heavier than I was when I originally started Weight Watchers. But I got so obsessed with it. And I
[14:40]don't know if you, it didn't sound like you've got, like, point, like, I got points on the brain.
[14:45]It was all I could think about. It should have been like a weight watcher's eating disorder. I
[14:48]sorta got it. I mean, it wasn't. But anyway, but now I'm like, whatever. But I think that's part,
[14:53]I think I would have been more successful. And I think you have to be sort of obsessed with points
[14:58]and sort of, you know, essentially counting calories in order to lose weight, which you have to
[15:04]kind of make this decision. Is it worth it? You know, my life and my job, I'm not an Instagram model,
[15:11]you know, like, there's no reason for me to look sort of beautiful and amazing. There is a certain
[15:18]health prerogative to be thin. But that's a, that's a really different discussion in a different
[15:24]weight range than just, you know, we're killing ourselves and it's just taking up so much of our
[15:30]headspace to sort of chase this ideal body. And it's like, what is it for? I mean, I again, like,
[15:37]look at my own mother who is still incredibly rigorous about what she eats and exercising. And,
[15:44]you know, looks amazing. My mother also looks amazing. Yeah, and is almost 70. And, but also,
[15:51]I wonder more and more why, you know, she's not, she's been married for a long time. You know,
[15:57]she is her job had nothing to do with what she looked like. You know, she wears, she's never been like
[16:03]a sexy dresser. Like, that's not her vibe. She wears a lot of like green and brown, earthy colors.
[16:10]You know, so it's like, it just becomes this kind of arithmetic that we all have to do of like,
[16:17]how much of ourselves are we really willing to devote to this? And why? Right. And, you know,
[16:24]I personally would much rather eat the cake that you've been eating in the past few weeks.
[16:28]It's great. I look really happy. It's then like, you know, counting every point. At the same time,
[16:34]you know, I just had the results of a physical yesterday. And my blood sugar is a little
[16:39]high and higher than my doctor would like. And, you know, I don't want to get onto that kind of
[16:46]obsessive diet roller coaster that takes over everything. But at the same time, I don't want to be
[16:51]pre-diabetic. And so that's, you know, that's again, like a whole. We have to make all these small
[16:56]decisions about how much we're willing to go and what changes we really want to make.
[17:02]The best thing I think about Weight Watchers was taking the emotion, like the value judgment,
[17:06]like this food is good. This food is bad because everything just came down to a number. So I did
[17:11]like that as an analytical exercise. Absolutely. Because it's just food. It's not good food or bad
[17:18]food. And I think one thing that Weight Watchers was trying to show you is that, you know,
[17:23]within reason, you can and should be able to eat anything. I think as Americans we take,
[17:30]we love a drastic diet. My father loves a, you know, fat diet. He's always keto or something like that,
[17:39]trying to lose and, you know, re-lose the same 20 pounds or so for his entire life. And,
[17:46]you know, I was just in Europe and everyone's eating their small but very filling pastry. And
[17:54]for lunch, they're having like soup that has butter in it and some good bread. And it's like,
[18:01]it sounds awesome. Yeah, like, but also, you know, no one's getting fat because they're eating like
[18:06]carrot soup and like a big good piece of like toasted bread and butter, you know, and like having like
[18:14]a tiny little, you know, a clair every other day or something. You know, I want to be,
[18:21]I want to be that person, but I, as an American, there's still very much attracted to the
[18:26]the quick fix. Yeah. I mean, I haven't even sat down for lunch in a couple days. Like, do you
[18:30]like, like, write down? Yeah. Right? You and I should go out to lunch. Absolutely. The answer to this.
[18:39]Let me read a few quotes from your book, which I feel like I've neglected here. So you wrote,
[18:44]I have tried for years to wear my heaviness with a certain hard one pride. I flirted with
[18:48]fat acceptance, tried to believe that weight should not define who I am and that beauty comes in
[18:52]different packages. But it's that even possible today unless you decide to live alone without
[18:57]Wi-Fi in a year to in Montana. Again, I love a dramatic fix. Yeah. I mean, with social media,
[19:06]I often just think, you know, before Instagram, I don't think I had any clue of how many like
[19:11]beautiful girls there were. There's just like beautiful girls being beautiful, often in beautiful
[19:16]places. And I have never gone through the world like that as sort of a, you know, gorgeous person
[19:23]living gorgeously. And so India, I still have this pressure on myself to kind of be better.
[19:29]I'm very much enamored with the idea of fat acceptance that I could just, you know, have someone
[19:36]suggest to me that dieting didn't have to be my life. But I think it's a lot more complicated than
[19:42]that. I mean, it's no different than a doctor being like, you know, you should go on a diet and
[19:47]lose 40 pounds and then you'd be healthier. It's like, oh, really? Like no one's told me that. Like,
[19:52]yeah, I know that like, I'm buying into this kind of patriarchal culture. But at the same time,
[19:58]I don't live in a vacuum.
[20:00]I'm a product of this society and it's so much easier to change yourself than to try to
[20:05]change society.
[20:07]And there's also so many other things wrong with the world that I'm not sure that, like,
[20:12]for me, body acceptance is going to be my number one thing to champion.
[20:16]I know everything is related, but so, you know, none of it is that easy.
[20:22]And I think that there is a real narrative that oversimplifies all of it for us.
[20:28]And I wanted to write this book partially because I felt like no one had shown how
[20:34]nuanced it was and how complicated.
[20:37]Like, yeah, we all know better about all of it that doesn't mean that it's easy.
[20:41]Right.
[20:42]You had this great quote.
[20:43]Also, you said, good feminists do not die it.
[20:47]So how should, I mean, I know this is what we're just talking about, but it's like, how
[20:51]should we think about it?
[20:52]I mean, I don't know.
[20:54]Gloria signed him and I've never met her, but I've always suspected that she eats like
[20:59]a 70s diner to this day.
[21:01]Like just eats like cottage cheese and further free plates and, like, every note.
[21:06]Right.
[21:07]Like whatever the diet plate is at the diner.
[21:10]So I don't actually know how some of this eat, but, but I, you know, but the, even the
[21:16]idea that to diet would be absolutely about our femininity, our view of gender relations
[21:24]and, you know, then what about men?
[21:25]I mean, they're plenty of men who are struggle with their weight just as much and have
[21:29]absolutely, you know.
[21:30]And in some ways, I don't want to say it's harder for men, but it's, there are added
[21:35]things to the conversation, you know, men don't have as much of a sort of societal urge
[21:41]to talk about feelings or how hard things are for them or their bodies.
[21:47]And, you know, even though women reflexively talk about diets to each other, sometimes
[21:53]probably to their detriment, kind of egging each other on, I don't know that men really
[21:59]talk about how they're feeling about their bodies or their food or anything like that.
[22:03]And so I do think they end up getting seduced by these, you know, hardcore fat diets
[22:08]or these exercise regimes or whatever.
[22:11]And a lot of what I see with that, I think, yeah, tell me about, you know, this is
[22:17]all old hat.
[22:18]Like, oh, you're doing what is it like incremental fasting or whatever.
[22:22]Like, yeah, I, there was a French diet book about that, about 10 years ago that I
[22:27]really get a job.
[22:29]But yeah, I mean, it's, again, the sense that we should all know better.
[22:33]I was raised as a devout feminist by, you know, the same mother who took me to protest
[22:39]against beauty pajins, also sent me to fuck him.
[22:44]And you know, I'm still to this day trying to kind of piece all of that out in my own
[22:50]psyche.
[22:51]So yeah, I'm a feminist, I believe in inequality for women.
[22:55]I believe that, you know, the world has been influenced by the men who rule it.
[23:00]I would like to undo a lot of that.
[23:02]I know the way that I feel about my body is bound up in that.
[23:06]But at the same time, you know, it's still just me and my body trying to just make it
[23:11]through the day.
[23:12]Like, figure out what to have for lunch, just to figure out what to have for lunch.
[23:18]And also if you do not share those views about being a woman that I do, guess what?
[23:22]You still have those same issues that you're dealing with.
[23:24]And so, you know, I think that there's this added guilt that I have that I should somehow
[23:31]have every single part of me reflect my political ideas or just my values as a person.
[23:38]And that's hard.
[23:40]And that that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to be the most honest.
[23:45]So for me, it was a little bit about dabbling in the idea of being a bad feminist and
[23:50]saying, you know, I am a feminist, but I also die.
[23:55]And I also wish I was thinner.
[23:56]And you know, if someone, I watched the, you know, flea bag, which was amazing series.
[24:02]And in the first episode, there's a scene where the two sisters are at this feminist
[24:07]talk.
[24:08]And the woman says, you know, raise your hand if you give five years off your life to have
[24:14]the perfect body and paraphrasing.
[24:16]And their hands shoot up.
[24:17]And I thought, I've never felt so seen and understood.
[24:21]Like, I still probably would give five years off of my life if I could just snap my fingers
[24:27]and not have to deal with gaining weight or any of those things again.
[24:31]I don't think I would give up your healthier than I am.
[24:35]I mean, your mental health is better than I am.
[24:38]But I guess the point is that, you know, what we think and what we feel don't always
[24:45]have to be the same thing.
[24:47]And I don't think that we're going to really make headway in all of this discussion about
[24:51]our lives and our bodies until we allow ourselves to be honest with ourselves and with
[24:57]each other and really nuanced in that discussion.
[24:59]So, Jim.
[25:00]You've said one other quote I wanted to read, please, you said I have days or sometimes
[25:05]just hours where I feel adequate, like someone could or should desire me for what I
[25:09]look like.
[25:10]But most of the time, I want to change it all.
[25:12]So, talk to me about like other people, your relationship with other people and how you feel
[25:16]about your body vis-a-vis, like love interests and whatever.
[25:20]I don't have a lot of love interests in my life right now.
[25:23]I was having lunch with a friend about a week ago, who I hadn't seen for a little while
[25:27]and she said, you know, give me the update, are you dating and I always feel really bad
[25:32]because, you know, the answer is always sort of no and I am so confident in most of
[25:38]my life, but I really have been sort of beaten down, not literally, but emotionally in
[25:44]terms of the way that men have been about my body and my weight.
[25:49]And so, you know, I keep thinking like, yeah, I'm going to get on those apps and do it
[25:55]and then I just kind of shy away, you know.
[26:00]So yeah, I, again, like I don't have what I would like to say as a good answer.
[26:07]It's something I'm still struggling with, but I'm hoping that by talking about it, it's
[26:13]something that other people will chime in about and say, you know, that they too struggle
[26:20]with it.
[26:21]I think that there is a lot of great stuff out there about just sort of visibility for
[26:26]more body sizes and shapes and, you know, shows where, you know, sad or larger women
[26:34]have love interests and it's great, and I know that can happen, but that's also not
[26:39]really been how it's been in my life.
[26:41]And so I am interested in kind of getting into that in terms of like, how do you feel
[26:48]good about yourself when so many people around you aren't?
[26:54]And that when your life would probably be easier if you were a little bit thinner.
[26:59]And so maybe, maybe not.
[27:02]Like, there's no guarantee.
[27:03]There's always something, yes, because I'd be obsessed about food and I'd be boring to
[27:06]hang out with.
[27:07]So yeah, I mean, it's, I'm always kind of in these parallel stories in my head where,
[27:14]you know, I can sit in front of you wearing, we're wearing actually fairly similar.
[27:17]All right.
[27:18]Feeling cute.
[27:19]Yeah.
[27:20]You know, I'm wearing like long skirts, yeah, boots and dark sweaters.
[27:25]Yeah, like, I love fashion, I dress myself, I feel good, I have a great life, I have
[27:30]good friends, I'm successful, blah, blah, blah, but at the same time, there is this
[27:36]kind of ever present narrative in my head that is like, well, if I lost weight, certain
[27:43]things might be easier for me.
[27:46]And I don't know if they'll ever kind of merger if I'll get rid of that nagging voice
[27:52]in my head or I don't know.
[27:55]We'll see.
[27:56]Did you have to ask Weight Watchers permission to write this book, by the way?
[27:59]I'm not, I'm not a big permission to ask her in general.
[28:03]No, but I did, I made sure very early on that they were aware of it.
[28:09]I started out, I thought it would be less intimidating, both for me and sort of for the
[28:15]project if I started out with an essay.
[28:17]So I wrote a piece a few years ago for the New York Times about my interest in G Night
[28:22]Edge.
[28:23]And at that time, I used that as an excuse to get in touch with Weight Watchers, just asking
[28:28]them for any info.
[28:31]And then I sold the book and kind of was like, I'm going to keep going with this project.
[28:36]So they opened up certain, you know, archival materials for me and they knew about it from
[28:43]day one, but it was never something of whether or not it would be endorsed or anything
[28:48]like that.
[28:49]And what's coming next for you?
[28:51]Do you want to do another book?
[28:52]Oh, absolutely.
[28:53]But none of them are any, I'm not being coy.
[28:56]I just don't even, the ideas aren't really formed enough to even say what they are.
[29:01]I want honestly to get this book out in the world and to have these conversations
[29:06]and to, you know, maybe change a little bit how we talk about dieting but really transformation
[29:13]in our lives.
[29:15]I think one of the biggest takeaways is sort of, it's almost just like you always want
[29:20]what you can't have type of narrative, right?
[29:23]Like you seem to think if I were thinner, then maybe this would be different in my life
[29:26]where somebody else might say like, you know, today I was saying to my daughter like, oh,
[29:30]I always wished I had blue eyes, you know, she's like, why?
[29:32]I'm like, I don't know why.
[29:33]I just would my life be any different.
[29:36]I mean, you just like, I'm a lateral blonde too, people always are like, oh, blonde
[29:42]and it's like, yeah, I don't, I don't know if I really did.
[29:46]It's just you always wonder if I had this, sure things be different or how would things
[29:50]be different?
[29:51]It does, obviously, it's different because it's within our control to some extent, right?
[29:55]Yeah.
[29:56]It's like our choice in a way.
[29:57]Which is what makes us so interesting because there's certain things.
[30:00]was like, the family you were born into,
[30:02]issues of class, race.
[30:04]It's a big control.
[30:05]Ability that you can't control,
[30:07]and that's a very different conversation,
[30:09]but there's this idea that you can control your weight,
[30:12]although the doctors would or wouldn't agree with that.
[30:16]But we're treated as if we can control our weight,
[30:19]and we can sort of.
[30:21]And so it just becomes this thing of like,
[30:24]well, here's one thing that I could change,
[30:27]enjoy decides to do it.
[30:29]Do you have any advice to aspiring others?
[30:31]My advice is to read.
[30:33]I don't think that you can be a good writer
[30:38]without being a good reader,
[30:40]and I think it's essential for just developing
[30:42]your own sense of what is good writing
[30:46]in your opinion and what isn't.
[30:49]I also think it's a really good exercise
[30:52]to learn how to write completely in your own voice
[30:57]before you try to, I don't know, tweak or change that voice.
[31:01]I feel like I read a lot of writing
[31:03]that seems like it's written
[31:05]how someone thinks that writing should sound,
[31:07]or how they think they should sound.
[31:09]And I think literally you can practice writing
[31:13]exactly the way that you speak.
[31:14]I think a lot of friends of mine like my writing,
[31:17]because they say it feels exactly the way it does
[31:22]to be with me and to talk to me.
[31:24]And I think that is actually a skill
[31:26]that we could each develop,
[31:28]and no one talks or thinks exactly like you do.
[31:32]And if you can learn to really get that on the page,
[31:35]then you can start playing with it.
[31:37]But I think that's a really good first step.
[31:39]That's great advice.
[31:40]Well, thank you so much for coming on
[31:41]Momsom's Home Tree books,
[31:42]and for sharing all of your thoughts
[31:44]and personal feelings and everything.
[31:46]It's really, really awesome.
[31:48]Pleasure with all mine.
[31:49]Okay, let's go to lunch.
[31:50]Let's go to lunch.
[31:52]You've been listening to Momsom
[31:53]have time to read books with Zibi Owens.
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