Eva Hagberg Fisher, HOW TO BE LOVED
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[0:59]So I'm super excited to be here today with Eva Haggberg Fisher, who's the New York-based
[1:03]author of How to Be Loved, a memoir of life-saving friendship.
[1:07]She's also written slash co-written for other books about architecture.
[1:10]Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Wired, Dwell, Guernica, and other publications.
[1:15]She has degrees in architecture from Princeton University and UC Berkeley and received
[1:19]a PhD in Visual and Narrative Culture from UC Berkeley.
[1:22]So welcome.
[1:23]See you then.
[1:24]Hi.
[1:25]Thanks for coming.
[1:26]Thanks for having me.
[1:27]So can you just start by telling listeners what How to Be Loved is about, please?
[1:29]Yes.
[1:30]So my pinned tweet says that it's actually a critique of capitalism dressed up as a narrative
[1:36]about friendship.
[1:37]I'm with a little bit of chronic illness and non-cronic illness to sort of move the plot
[1:41]along.
[1:42]So that's one answer.
[1:44]Another answer is that it is a memoir about how three friends in particular save my life
[1:50]when I needed it to be saved in various and extremely different ways.
[1:54]So there's a friend Layla, who I meet when I'm in my late teens, early 20s, and she saved
[1:58]my life in a specific way.
[2:00]And then my friend Allison, who when I was very, very, very sick and really convinced
[2:04]that I was going to die, sort of showed me how to live through that.
[2:08]And then my friend Lauren, who went on this pretty epic desert adventure with me.
[2:13]That's so funny.
[2:14]Yeah.
[2:15]Because when I read it, I thought that the life-saving friendship was just Allison's.
[2:18]I didn't realize you were referring to all the different ones at the different times.
[2:22]Yes.
[2:23]I was referring to the different ones.
[2:24]And also, my book editor said that I shouldn't name that many people.
[2:29]But there are a lot of sort of offstage unnamed friends who also save my life when I try
[2:33]to make observations about, there's a section in the book where I talk about going to
[2:37]see Robocop before heart surgery, because I might have ended up with a pacemaker and I
[2:41]wanted to sell it right after I started creating, oh, what is that actor's name?
[2:44]Like, I have played Robocop.
[2:46]And there's just like a group of people, right?
[2:48]And so there's this idea that like a group can be inexhaustible in the way that individual
[2:51]people cannot be by definition.
[2:55]So yeah, I wanted to be more generally about friendship, about the ways in which my friends
[3:01]have been.
[3:02]my truest love stories, for sure.
[3:05]And also a little bit of critique of the sort of like anti-capitalist, anti-progress part
[3:12]is in trying to articulate ways in which we can find comfort without looking to the
[3:16]future.
[3:17]So when I got sick, a lot of people were like, this will end, like this will get better.
[3:21]You will improve and you'll get back to where you were.
[3:24]And I kept being like, that actually might not happen for me, like I might just get worse.
[3:29]And so can I find comfort without looking at progress and improvement?
[3:33]And I think that was sort of the main argumentative thread throughout the book was like,
[3:38]can I find comfort in the present moment, even if things will never get better?
[3:43]And the answer eventually was yes.
[3:45]I can.
[3:46]When did you decide to write this book at what state?
[3:49]So I'd always wanted to write a book since I was like four.
[3:54]This book started coming to life when I was in the desert.
[3:58]I was living in a tent for various reasons that I go into.
[4:01]And I was like, I need to make sums.
[4:03]I mean, I need something to do.
[4:04]Like I need some sort of project.
[4:06]Maybe I'll write a book proposal about this.
[4:08]And so I open up my computer in the tent and I just wrote the phrase, how to be loved.
[4:13]Like I just knew that that was going to be, I didn't know that that would be the actual
[4:16]title, but I knew that it would be the sort of driving theme of the book.
[4:21]And then I wrote a sample chapter and then an agent emailed me because somebody had
[4:28]recommended that she get it was sort of like very perfect kids moment where I was working
[4:34]on this and an agent approached me and then I ended up signing with her and then we did
[4:37]six proposals and then I sold the sex.
[4:39]Wow.
[4:40]Yeah.
[4:41]That's so cool.
[4:42]So let's just go right into all of your great days.
[4:46]She shows them your whole life.
[4:48]Now that we're two minutes into the scenario.
[4:51]So when you went to boarding school, you talked about when you first started, first
[4:56]had your first drink basically and you joined the literary society, quote, because I thought
[5:01]I could finally find my tribe of book obsessed readers.
[5:04]I went for the books, but I became hooked by the alcohol.
[5:07]Once I started drinking, I was able to access some different Eva, some other Eva, one
[5:11]archer peach, snops, and lemonade in and suddenly I was funny and the world made sense
[5:15]to me.
[5:16]I knew I had arrived.
[5:18]So tell me about that first moment and then after that.
[5:23]So I went to boarding school in the UK, which was very culturally different from central
[5:29]Canada where I'd been living and that boarding school was the second school that I went
[5:33]to.
[5:34]I accidentally ended up at a reform school for my first three months and definitely got
[5:39]into all sorts of, quote, unquote, bad behavior.
[5:41]Like I started smoking, I started smoking pot.
[5:44]I mean, I was just this like very rebellious, 13, 14 year old.
[5:48]And then my parents were like, okay, we need to get to a better school.
[5:51]So I go to this better school.
[5:53]And I came in halfway through the first year.
[5:56]There were a lot of rumors around my arrival.
[5:58]One of the rumors was that I had been impregnated by a teacher at the other school, which
[6:03]was not had no basis in fact at all, right?
[6:06]But I sort of arrived in this weird cloud and also I had an American accent and I sort
[6:12]of got made fun of and so I was getting like low key, like ignored slash bullied and
[6:16]I was just truly pathologically shy, like so shy, I could not introduce myself to anybody.
[6:22]I would just like stay on there and just like stare at people until they talked to me,
[6:25]which they often would not because it was weird that I was just standing there and staring
[6:28]at them.
[6:30]And so this was sort of my vibe.
[6:31]And then.
[6:32]That's great.
[6:33]Yeah, it was amazing.
[6:34]I'm really selling it out here.
[6:35]I know.
[6:36]Totally Pete.
[6:37]Yeah, I was just like weird and like, I think I, the first thing that I said in class
[6:42]was like how much I loved Shakespeare, which is like not a thing you should say when
[6:46]you're 14 at your new school.
[6:48]And so that's the scene, right?
[6:50]Is like this is who I am.
[6:52]And then my friends, then my, my, my, like classmates, I sort of followed them out.
[6:58]You know, and the school had this weird thing where you could go out every Saturday night
[7:02]for two hours to like go to a restaurant, but they all knew that we would go to bars because
[7:07]you could drink at 16 in the UK.
[7:09]So into this bar, somebody gives me a drink.
[7:11]I drink the drink and the coolest kid in school sits next to me and is like, hi, like,
[7:19]I don't think that we've met.
[7:21]And I said, I'm Eva and he was like, you're not Eva.
[7:27]And like that moment solidified my alcoholism, like he was just like, you are not the
[7:32]person that I thought you were.
[7:33]You are not the person that I've been socially rejecting.
[7:35]And in my brain, I was like, when I'm drunk, I don't have to be Eva who is awkward, love
[7:41]Shakespeare stares at people is pathologically shy, all these things.
[7:45]And then that just like, I just wanted that feeling of belonging and security and who
[7:50]go to Shler being like, you're not Eva, you're somebody cool.
[7:53]I mean, that was the sort of like the second part of the implied second part of the sentence
[7:57]was like, you're cool.
[7:59]So you can't be.
[8:00]Right, right.
[8:01]And so I've sought for the rest of my life in various ways to continue to be like not
[8:05]Eva.
[8:06]And that's one of the things that Allison really, you know, I keep trying to like remember
[8:10]what what she would say right now and she kept being like, yeah, no, you are Eva.
[8:15]And you know, you're definitely not for everyone, but like you're very good at being
[8:19]Eva.
[8:20]So just keep being Eva.
[8:21]And I'm like, maybe I could recapture that like 15 year old magic moment and be like,
[8:27]oh, I don't have to be Eva right now.
[8:30]So one might argue that there are other people in that situation who felt equally sort
[8:36]of liberated by drinking, who maybe don't end up becoming alcoholic type.
[8:42]No.
[8:43]You think I know, I mean, I have, I don't know, I can't imagine this is like I talk to
[8:51]people who haven't decided to be sober.
[8:53]And I'm like, so you could drink all the time.
[8:59]If you wanted to, but you just don't want to, and they're like, yeah, we just don't feel
[9:04]like being drunk all the time.
[9:06]And I'm like, I, that doesn't make any sense to me.
[9:08]A friend of mine said once he's like, if I weren't in alcoholic, I'd be drunk all the
[9:11]time.
[9:12]And I just think that's the best description of alcoholic of like alcoholic logic.
[9:18]And because of that, though, you end up meeting Allison who becomes like the most one of
[9:22]the most important people in your life, basically.
[9:25]Yeah.
[9:26]And everything good in my life has ultimately stemmed from the fact that I have a lot of
[9:32]help not drinking.
[9:33]Okay.
[9:34]I never get to say for drinking and I was like, oh my gosh, I gotta tell my daughter, don't
[9:38]listen to this episode.
[9:40]I'm already traumatized by the fact that you're smoking a pot and I was down with 13 and
[9:44]like now that I have almost 12 year olds, I'm like quaking in my boots.
[9:47]So now like definitely turn it off.
[9:49]Right.
[9:50]No, I mean at all, you know, it was, it was terrible and difficult and pain.
[9:56]And I experienced a lot of wreckage, but now.
[10:00]I mean, I got so dark that I had to ask for so much help
[10:03]and I had to be willing to accept it.
[10:05]And so now my life is so wildly different.
[10:07]Yeah.
[10:08]And I'm grateful for that.
[10:09]But, you know, there are definitely times where I'm like,
[10:11]oh, I wish that I could just, actually, no,
[10:13]I don't wish that I could just have a glass of wine
[10:15]with dinner.
[10:16]I wish that I could just low-key do a lot of drugs
[10:19]for a week and then have no consequences.
[10:22]OK.
[10:24]Have you read this book, Drinking A Love Story by Carolyn?
[10:26]Yes.
[10:27]I want to make it so good.
[10:29]Anyway, let me take a look at that.
[10:31]So in addition to taking the wreckage and making it
[10:34]into this fantastic book, also in the book,
[10:37]you go through all this illness physically, which is insane.
[10:40]I emailed you after I was like, I literally got
[10:43]to certain chapters and I was like, not again.
[10:45]No!
[10:46]I can't believe it.
[10:47]It's like, I couldn't believe it.
[10:48]All this stuff that happened to you insane.
[10:51]And then I didn't see it coming.
[10:52]Like, you didn't, which was good.
[10:55]Like, you didn't, anyway.
[10:57]Yeah.
[10:58]In the end, there were some sort of resolution
[11:00]to some part of it.
[11:02]How did it feel like even writing the whole thing
[11:06]and then getting to a place at the end
[11:07]where you could see through the clouds?
[11:11]Like, did it feel like everything was tied up in a bow
[11:14]or did it feel like not at all?
[11:17]So that was one of the huge challenges of structuring the book.
[11:21]And I initially did not want to have any sort of resolve
[11:23]ending.
[11:24]And the first draft ended with me like walking around
[11:27]one of the rocks in Sedona and just being like, well,
[11:30]who knows what's going to happen?
[11:32]And I was like, no, it's like such a great argument
[11:34]to just like leave the reader totally hanging.
[11:36]You know, and thankfully I have like a really good editor
[11:39]who was like, this is not an ending.
[11:40]I'm laughing because I would have been like, what?
[11:43]Yeah.
[11:44]And that's one of the things that Brad Listi talked about
[11:47]was this idea of having like good manners as a writer,
[11:50]which I sort of love, right?
[11:51]And so I was once included in that.
[11:54]Having like being generous and gentle with the reader
[11:57]in a way.
[11:58]And so when I was first writing the book,
[12:00]I was still, I sold it in May 2016.
[12:04]I was still taking like 45 pills a day
[12:06]to try and like regulate my nervous system.
[12:08]I was still like, I was still pretty angry
[12:09]about what had happened.
[12:11]And so my approach to the reader was not,
[12:13]I did not have good manners.
[12:14]I wanted the reader to like feel the sort of displacement
[12:17]and confusion that I felt,
[12:19]which is why I didn't want there to be an ending.
[12:20]I was like, listen, I don't get an ending in real life.
[12:23]It doesn't have endings.
[12:24]You don't get an ending as a reader.
[12:25]I'm so glad that time exists.
[12:29]And so I got to just have more time
[12:30]to process all of that while I was writing earlier chapters.
[12:34]And then by the time I came to rewrite the last section,
[12:37]I was sort of okay giving some kind of ending,
[12:41]some sort of resolution.
[12:43]And it was also true, which is that I had gotten a lot better.
[12:46]I had stopped taking all my medication.
[12:48]I mean, now I still feel not great some days
[12:50]and I feel great other days and I don't really know why.
[12:52]and I still sort of do stuff.
[12:53]But I'm not as like obsessed with my health as I used to be.
[12:57]But I really, I mean, I wanted to end
[13:00]not on a note necessarily of like,
[13:03]and now we have a diagnosis and everything makes sense.
[13:05]But I wanted to end on like an emotionally hopeful note,
[13:08]which is just like, listen,
[13:09]like I don't know what's gonna happen.
[13:12]But I trust that friendship will be part of it.
[13:14]And that's been true.
[13:16]I mean, a couple of months before the book came out,
[13:18]I went to see a surgeon here
[13:19]and I had to get another surgery for endometriosis.
[13:21]And I called my editor and I was like,
[13:23]I am sort of mortified because, you know,
[13:26]the book has this sort of like slightly triumphant ending.
[13:29]And I'm like, well, I, you know, I don't have to go to that.
[13:30]But now I have to do this thing.
[13:32]And she was like, yeah, I have a really good book
[13:35]to recommend to you for feeling shame and needing friendship.
[13:38]It's called How to Be Loved.
[13:39]And you wrote it and I was like, great.
[13:42]The book keeps like teaching me how to resolve my life.
[13:45]I know why.
[13:46]That's so great.
[13:47]Yeah, it's like you created your own tool.
[13:49]Well, I wrote the book that I wanted to write when I was sick.
[13:51]I mean, that was so,
[13:52]because I was so starving to like do you wrote the book?
[13:55]You wanted to read when you were saying?
[13:56]Yeah.
[13:57]Yeah.
[13:57]Yeah.
[13:58]Well, so when you were asking about the complications
[14:02]of brain surgery, this was early in the book,
[14:04]you said what other complications could I have asked about
[14:06]that I would finally through the way in which I was loved
[14:09]for the next four years, the next lifetime even,
[14:11]find and build the self I had been so desperately searching
[14:14]for that it would be this, the sickness that would break me
[14:17]open, that it would take something so dramatic.
[14:19]So completely against my will to shake me out of the insecurity
[14:22]and crushing self-judgment I'd lived with for decades.
[14:25]Would you consider this some sort of an upside
[14:27]if you could say that there's any ups and any of it?
[14:30]I need to reread that section
[14:31]because I am full of crushing and security
[14:33]and self-doubt at the moment.
[14:35]I'm like, wait, I haven't read my book in a while.
[14:37]I need to reread it.
[14:38]You need to reread it.
[14:39]I need to reread it.
[14:41]That is definitely an upside.
[14:42]Yeah, I mean, it's funny because my friend Lauren and I talk
[14:46]a lot about sort of silver linings or the idea
[14:49]that things were worth it in a way.
[14:52]And I feel like it's a trick of my brain
[14:55]to be like everything ended up okay.
[14:57]So it was great, but I'm still really ambivalent on that.
[15:01]I mean, I have an extraordinary well of grief
[15:05]about what happened that I access very, very, very occasionally.
[15:10]And that I accessed recently.
[15:12]I used to go to this Quaker meeting house
[15:13]when I lived here 10 years ago.
[15:15]And I went for a different reason,
[15:17]but I like walked into this space.
[15:19]And I remembered everything that had happened
[15:23]in the 10 years since I had last been there,
[15:24]particularly just how sick I'd been
[15:27]and how scared I'd been
[15:28]and how much physical pain I'd experienced.
[15:30]And I just started sobbing.
[15:32]And I was just like, that was so hard.
[15:35]And I'm such like a fast, like I'm a fast mover,
[15:40]but a slow processor.
[15:41]And so it's like this stuff happened.
[15:43]And I was just like, great, metabolism,
[15:45]metabolism, like therapy, EMDR, yoga, write a book,
[15:48]go on book tour, do all this stuff.
[15:50]Like all of that was happening.
[15:51]And then my emotional body is just like,
[15:53]wait, what happened?
[15:55]Oh my, like that was terrible.
[15:58]And so I think that that well of grief,
[16:01]like I can access it occasionally
[16:02]and sort of save containers.
[16:05]But then I'll come back to being like, yeah, I don't know.
[16:07]I mean, like everything is great.
[16:08]Like it's definitely a mental trick
[16:11]that I do to find an upside.
[16:13]But also objectively, I am a different person now.
[16:17]I think that I'm a kinder person.
[16:18]I think that I have healthier relationships.
[16:20]Like a lot of things changed as a result of getting sick.
[16:24]But I also feel, you know, total resentment
[16:28]towards people that have never,
[16:30]I mean, I'm just like, you don't even know how good you have it.
[16:32]And I'm like, okay, that's a weird vibe.
[16:33]You're like, that's not a good, don't do that.
[16:36]But yeah, it's just enormous.
[16:38]It's just an enormous grief, you know?
[16:40]So I think in five years, I'll feel differently.
[16:43]And in 10 years and 20, assuming I live that long.
[16:46]Oh my gosh, don't say that.
[16:48]I'm gonna like pummel this death.
[16:51]You're gonna take like some sweat hammers and like...
[16:54]Oh my gosh.
[16:55]So Allison and your friendship just to touch on,
[16:58]you have this beautiful relationship.
[16:59]She's really sick in the beginning.
[17:01]You both take care of each other in lots of ways.
[17:03]I'm so sorry for this loss.
[17:04]I could like feel it like on the page.
[17:06]Oh my gosh.
[17:08]Is there something, I mean, you already referenced here today,
[17:10]like what would Allison say?
[17:11]What are some of the most Allison-y things
[17:14]that you carry around with you, daily?
[17:16]Just that like my constant self-excoriation
[17:20]is just so not necessary.
[17:22]So I'm separated from my husband
[17:25]and moving towards the divorce.
[17:27]And I feel like I'm just handling it so badly, you know?
[17:31]Like I'm like so sad.
[17:32]And then I'm like getting myself into situations
[17:36]and texting people just constantly, you know,
[17:39]and I just keep thinking like,
[17:41]like my first thought is like Eva,
[17:43]you're doing this wrong and this is bad
[17:44]and you should be, you know, lowkey ashamed of yourself
[17:47]and then I just feel Allison just being like,
[17:50]oh yeah, you've never done this before.
[17:51]You don't know how to do it.
[17:52]Like you're doing great, you're doing a great job.
[17:55]So I sort of hear that.
[17:56]I hear that just like her just sort of laughing at my,
[18:00]like intense, just like the intensity
[18:04]with which I try to change my personality all the time.
[18:07]I don't know why.
[18:07]I mean, I don't think you.
[18:09]I mean, not that you need this for me.
[18:10]We just met.
[18:11]I'll take it.
[18:12]But I love your personality.
[18:13]I think you can answer it.
[18:14]Like I consider your time to you all day.
[18:16]I just like you, you sound like you're like,
[18:18]like you're trying to hide some sort of monster.
[18:21]Oh yeah, I mean like a smart, funny, great person.
[18:24]Thank you.
[18:25]I don't know what the,
[18:26]this is the core wound.
[18:27]This is what my therapist says.
[18:29]Yeah.
[18:29]So right.
[18:30]So I have like the fundamental core wound is like,
[18:32]I am probably bad and everybody will find out,
[18:35]you know, imminently.
[18:36]And Allison was somebody who was just like,
[18:38]yeah, you're not, you're not like perfect quote unquote
[18:41]because literally nobody is.
[18:43]And I remember when I first met my husband,
[18:45]I said to her, I was like, he's perfect.
[18:47]I mean, he's like literally perfect.
[18:48]There's like nothing wrong with that.
[18:50]And she was like, you know,
[18:52]I really resist using that kind of language.
[18:56]She was like because he's not perfect
[18:58]because nobody is.
[19:00]And I do hold myself too.
[19:02]I mean, my family is extraordinarily accomplished
[19:04]and really smart.
[19:05]I do hold myself to an extraordinarily high standard
[19:08]of behavior and thought.
[19:10]And so when I think about Allison now,
[19:11]I just try and remember her being like,
[19:13]I mean, I remember that that moment
[19:15]and I write about this in the book
[19:17]where I've just had brain surgery
[19:19]and I'm like, listen, I should get on Tinder.
[19:21]That seems like a great thing to do right now.
[19:23]And I was like, but I should definitely like chill out,
[19:26]you know, a little bit.
[19:27]I should, I mean, we all know that Anna.
[19:29]And she like pulls the car over and she's just like,
[19:31]listen, you are not good at being different.
[19:34]But you're so good at being yourself,
[19:36]which is it already, but it's just like so,
[19:39]I just remember that moment so, so, so profoundly.
[19:42]And she also, yeah.
[19:44]I mean, she was just very, very, very compassionate
[19:48]and she laughed a lot at what people were doing
[19:51]in the most compassionate way.
[19:53]And also she was not like an abstracted saint, you know.
[19:56]I mean, she definitely had her own sort of moments.
[20:00]of humanity.
[20:01]You also said, I was trying to find the quote, there was something about, you said, well,
[20:04]basically that I can't find it, but I'll just use my terrible memory to quote it, but
[20:10]you were worried, like everybody was being so helpful to you, like friends and you couldn't
[20:14]really reciprocate.
[20:15]Yeah.
[20:16]The Allison was the one who told you, like, there's no parody in friendship, like it's
[20:18]not always, like sometimes people can just love you and that's okay.
[20:21]Yeah.
[20:22]Which I thought was so nice and so great and like, I feel like sometimes if someone sends
[20:28]me a gift that's like so nice and thoughtful, I'm like, I feel bad because like, oh my
[20:32]gosh, like I have not said them as nice and thoughtful gifts, so now I have to be extra
[20:36]nice and thoughtful and I can't even think of the pressure.
[20:41]Even though I want to, like, my intentions are also positive, right?
[20:44]Then I feel the pressure of like what they gave me couldn't possibly, I couldn't
[20:47]really give it back.
[20:48]Yeah.
[20:49]But then I remember and I was like, no, like often you give things because you drive joy
[20:55]away from giving and so the same people who gave to you, yeah, like that's good for them.
[21:00]Exactly.
[21:01]And it's not your job to like give it back.
[21:04]Right.
[21:05]It's just like absorb it and then I think them and yeah, but now I mean, I feel like
[21:10]if people give me presents, like it's so stressed out, like I just prefer never to receive
[21:14]presents ever because otherwise I'm like, oh god, now I'm in, it's like that's feeling
[21:18]of crushing debt.
[21:19]Yeah, that's such a good reminder that it's just not about that at all.
[21:24]So you wrote this article in the New York Times magazine, just the New York Times style
[21:28]section.
[21:29]New York Times style section.
[21:30]Yeah.
[21:31]Not the magazine.
[21:32]Oh, it's not yet cracked.
[21:33]The New York Times magazine, but that is okay.
[21:34]I mean, I hope any editors that are listening, please call me yeah, because the New York
[21:38]Times is not good enough for Eva.
[21:40]That was not, that was like slumming it so she's trying to get into the magazine.
[21:45]Like anyway, you have this article called How I Learned to Like Believable and it was really
[21:51]interesting because especially online, it kept flashing little pictures up and it's
[21:55]about what outfits you chose as you're going through the sexual harassment suit.
[22:00]Is that so you have accused your former grad school, that's even the right language,
[22:06]former grad school advisor, yeah, sexual harassment.
[22:09]And then you've gone through eight zillion meetings and lawyers situations and part of
[22:13]it is resolved and part of it is not resolved is that what it's all resolved now.
[22:17]It's all resolved now.
[22:18]Yeah.
[22:19]And so in the article, which was such a unique take on sexual harassment, yes, it's like
[22:23]me too with the scarf, I know she's thinking about like what outfits are right for different
[22:28]settings.
[22:29]So just like tell me a little about that and what is going, like how did that experience
[22:33]go down?
[22:34]Yeah, briefly.
[22:36]So I filed my complaint in March 2016 that I sold my book in May.
[22:40]So the entire time I was writing the book, I was also doing this case and people have
[22:45]been like literally how did you do both?
[22:47]The answer is I could not have done one without the other because I couldn't talk about
[22:51]the case at all.
[22:52]And so I felt this extraordinary weird secret pressure.
[22:56]And then I would be able to relieve that pressure by going and writing the book, which
[22:59]had nothing to do with harassment, but it was so intellectually absorbing that it was the
[23:03]only thing that could take my mind off of like this incredibly complicated sort of quasi
[23:08]legal.
[23:09]And I'm not a lawyer math that I kept doing where I was like, okay, if I do this and this
[23:11]will happen, if I did and you know, my whole intent, like I was very clear in my motives
[23:16]and I was very clear in my intent and that was really, really useful.
[23:21]But yeah, I went through the Title IX complaint and this investigation, which upheld my allegations
[23:26]and then the school just didn't really do anything.
[23:30]So then I hired a lawyer and then we threatened to sue based on indifference, which is a specific
[23:36]legal term and we sort of went back and forth with the school a lot.
[23:40]And then the school actually tried to get him dismissed and then I had to testify in this
[23:46]sort of like show trial where his defense attorney asked me about my sex life, which
[23:51]was obviously not relevant.
[23:54]But what I wanted to do with that piece was, I mean, it was such a high wire act because
[23:59]I was wanting to communicate things that I like wasn't supposed to communicate.
[24:04]And so there's so much adjacency and it's funny because I feel like 99% of readers
[24:11]like got the piece.
[24:13]And every so often I'd see a Facebook comment from somebody who was like, this poor woman,
[24:17]I don't understand why she didn't wear a simple suit and put her hair up and I was like,
[24:22]oh, no, no, this is a rhetorical, I'm doing a thing with this by talking about my clothes.
[24:27]But also it was true.
[24:29]I mean, I did think every single day about like how I looked.
[24:32]And I think that line of being this sort of heartbreaking line of having to be plausibly
[24:37]like, harassable versus like completely innocent.
[24:41]I mean, I was like, this is so what's happening.
[24:45]But he ended up, he was suspended for three years and he ended up resigning.
[24:50]And I just went to a professional conference and everybody said that the department is totally
[24:54]different now.
[24:55]And the students that are coming have no idea that it was ever a sort of toxic hellhole.
[25:00]And I was like, that's why I did it.
[25:01]So that's not me.
[25:02]So now, don't even know.
[25:04]They will never know my name.
[25:06]They will never hear about me, but they get to have a different experience.
[25:09]Like they get to have the experience that I and all my colleagues deserved.
[25:13]So well, totally worth it.
[25:16]That's amazing.
[25:17]I know I'm a set of time.
[25:18]But do you have any advice to aspiring writers, um, practice writing?
[25:23]It doesn't have to be every day.
[25:24]I don't write every day.
[25:26]But I think ask for help with writing and practice and know that it takes a really long
[25:30]time.
[25:31]Like this is my debut memoir, but I've been a professional writer for 15 years.
[25:34]And it took me that long to be able to write this book, know what your motivations are.
[25:40]So I talked to a lot of people who only see publication like they want to publish a book
[25:45]and be famous.
[25:46]And I can tell you that having published a book, I'm like, oh, that's actually not the
[25:51]high for me.
[25:52]Like the high for me is the writing.
[25:53]So if you don't like writing, then writing a book is sort of a weird idea, but a lot of
[25:58]people I think just want to have a book out.
[26:00]Whereas if you want to write to process your feelings, that's like a very different
[26:04]I think it's just like knowing what you want out of writing is really, really important.
[26:09]Like I wrote this book because of like sheer literary ambition and wanting to write another
[26:13]book and wanting to have a career as a writer.
[26:15]I had no compulsion to like share my story or process my emotions.
[26:19]Like I do that in therapy.
[26:21]So yeah, I would just be like very, very clear and take whatever classes are available.
[26:27]Like I know that there's a lot of different sort of economic barriers to access for taking
[26:31]classes.
[26:32]And I also think that there's a lot, if you just sort of look online, there's a lot
[26:35]of like short online workshops, there's a range of things.
[26:38]But I became such a better writer by taking five creative writing workshops while I was
[26:44]at UC Berkeley without which I would have had no understanding of like dialogue or scene
[26:49]or like how to get the plot to go from A to B.
[26:52]So I guess it's just like writing is a lot of work.
[26:55]And if you enjoy the work, it is amazing.
[26:57]And if you don't enjoy the work, you will probably just cover that.
[27:02]And are you working on anything else now or do you have another book in your?
[27:05]I just met with my agent.
[27:06]I was like, I was like, I was achieved literally my life goal, which was to publish a book.
[27:13]And now I see nothing before me but a wasteland and she was like, okay, cool.
[27:17]She was like, I think you will write another book.
[27:20]So I have some, I'm thinking about some things but a lot of them are pretty whiplashy
[27:24]with this book.
[27:25]Like I was like, I'm going to do a reported book about zoning codes and not even appear
[27:29]on the page once.
[27:30]And my therapist was like, this might be a reaction to the intense vulnerability of this
[27:35]book.
[27:36]Like maybe wait until the pendulum sort of settles down.
[27:38]So short answer, no, long answer, I will.
[27:41]Excellent.
[27:42]Yeah.
[27:43]Well, thank you.
[27:44]Oh my god, thank you.
[27:45]I love certain time to read books.
[27:46]Thank you so much.
[27:49]Thanks again to my sponsor, mermaid pillow co, mermaid pillow co dot com slash zibi and
[27:57]her code zibi for 10% off.
[27:59]Thanks so much.
[28:00]Check out those really awesome giftable pillows and blankets.
[28:02]Thanks for listening to moms.
[28:03]Don't have time to read books.
[28:05]You can follow me on Instagram at moms don't have time to read books and at zibi Owens
[28:10]and my new podcast at kids do have time to read.
[28:13]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at texture sound for the sound editing.
[28:17]And thank you to morning moon productions for providing this fantastic intro and now
[28:21]trim music.
[28:22]Thanks for listening.
[28:23]You can always email me at zibi at zibi Owens dot com.