Laura Belgray, TOUGH TITTIES: On Living Your Best Life When You're the F-Ing Worst
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[1:03]Laura Belgrade is the author of Tough Titties on Living Your Best Life when you're the
[1:07]Effing Worst.
[1:08]Laura is the founder of Talking Shrimp and co-creator of The Copy Cure with Marie Furlayum.
[1:13]She has been featured in Fast Company, Money Magazine Forbes, Fox and Business Insider,
[1:17]and is written for Bravo, Fandango, FX, NBC, HBO, USA, Nicket Knight, Nickelodeon, TV
[1:23]Land, VH1, and more.
[1:25]Belgrade lives with her husband in New York and except for college has never lived anywhere
[1:28]else.
[1:29]Not coincidentally, she doesn't drive.
[1:31]Welcome, Laura.
[1:32]Thank you so much for coming on Moms.
[1:33]Don't have time to read books to discuss Tough Titties on Living Your Best Life when
[1:37]you're the Effing Worst.
[1:39]Zippy, thank you.
[1:41]I'm so excited to be here.
[1:43]Oh my gosh.
[1:44]I think we have to start with the beavers.
[1:48]Beavers come first.
[1:49]Let's do it.
[1:50]Beaver talk.
[1:51]And you're back.
[1:53]We both grew up in New York and went to similar school and had a similar mascot and all
[2:00]of that very similar.
[2:03]And you're so funny in the book when you talk about it, as you are with literally everything
[2:07]you talk about in the book when you're like, okay, guys, like literally my mascot was
[2:11]a beaver.
[2:12]We had like 100 centennial of beaver days at all.
[2:16]All girl school, and they chose the beaver and celebrated with 100 years of eager beavers,
[2:22]pants.
[2:23]Okay, so tell me about why you decided to take that memory.
[2:30]Tell your memories of school and growing up in ninth grade and it's going to studio and
[2:35]just all the retrospective stuff and packaging it up in this way, which is both humorous
[2:42]and sort of a spinoff of self-help and away.
[2:46]Just talk to me about starting the book and where this all came from.
[2:50]Thank you.
[2:51]Well, I would say nostalgia is kind of my style.
[2:53]I mean, the book does go up to present day, but I love those memories of the 70s
[3:00]80s, 90s in New York.
[3:02]It was just such a different time and I have very specific memories of it.
[3:08]And whenever I share them with people, like, oh my gosh, that has to go in your book.
[3:13]And I talk about all girl school with the mascot of the beaver, that's in the book, right?
[3:19]Going to studio 54 and having a disastrous night there because I was 14 and with two people
[3:25]who one of whom didn't have permission to be there.
[3:28]That was always the story.
[3:29]I love to tell.
[3:30]There were a lot of stories that I kind of dined out on for a long time and like these
[3:34]have to go in the book.
[3:36]So that's where those came from.
[3:37]We also have a whole section on, you call it something about the potato chips that you
[3:41]talked about.
[3:42]Weight watchers and how that went and tell me all about that section of life and all
[3:47]that Steve's ice cream, Steve's ice cream, yes, I scooped at Steve's ice cream.
[3:55]We had an elective senior year of high school where we could take a job instead of taking
[4:00]classes.
[4:01]And so I chose to scoop ice cream at Steve's, that was like my dream job, but because
[4:06]I was in the throes of like, I would say moderate, modified eating disorder.
[4:12]I didn't have one lick of real ice cream all spring or summer while I was working there.
[4:18]I would stop at baronets, a place on the Upper West Side or Z bars on my way to work
[4:25]and pick up frozen yogurt and bring it and save it in the ice cream freezer for my ice
[4:32]cream break and everybody else would have there like, you know, they're cookie monster
[4:36]or they're scoop of whatever it was, vanilla with Reese's pieces mixed in and I would
[4:41]pull that smugly pull out my, my little cup of frozen yogurt and nibble at it.
[4:49]Yeah, the chapter called Watch the Potato Chips is all about my, I'd say very early
[4:55]indoctrination into diet culture, like being a self conscious of and ashamed of my weight
[5:02]from age five.
[5:03]I wasn't even looking back and like, I wasn't even a fat kid.
[5:07]I just had like a little chub around me as kids should, but I felt like everybody else had
[5:13]a flat stomach.
[5:15]Like even at five, I was getting out of the pool and covering my stomach and my mom,
[5:22]I know you relate to this.
[5:24]My mom was always watching her wait.
[5:26]She was not, she didn't push, she really tried not to push that on me.
[5:30]She didn't want me to feel bad about myself the way she did.
[5:35]She always had tab in the fridge and wait, wait, watch your scale on the counter and
[5:40]she would measure out everything and calories of everything.
[5:44]And obviously I picked up on that, like, God, that imperative to be skinny.
[5:51]And it informed so much of my life and still does really.
[5:55]Like I still, even though I've become normal about normal ish about food, so I'm still
[6:02]weird and controlling about it, I do still, I count my steps every day.
[6:09]I'm always kind of assessing in the mirror, even though I don't weigh myself anymore.
[6:14]Like did I put on weight, did I lose weight, am I at my finished, am I not at my finished?
[6:20]And it has, it's dictated a lot of my life, like couldn't handle a job that started in
[6:27]the morning.
[6:28]That started, that was nine to five or 10 to six because that would mean I had to get
[6:34]a way too early to work out and I couldn't handle that life.
[6:38]I was like, I'm not, if I can't work out, then I can't take the job.
[6:41]Yeah, I feel like these entrenched parent led or culture led weight things do not go away.
[6:51]Like ever, it's really sad.
[6:53]I feel like I do the same thing a lot with pictures, you know, every picture.
[6:56]I'm like, it doesn't matter what I was doing, you know, I could be like doing something
[7:01]really from a career perspective, like great, but I'm not looking at that ever in the picture.
[7:06]I'm like, okay, look at that, okay, see my chair, look at my cheek, you know, that's
[7:11]bad.
[7:12]I'm going to look back on this and regret this whole thing.
[7:14]And I, it's so stupid, you know, I know it's stupid, but it's also like, but I always do
[7:20]that.
[7:21]I was thinner there.
[7:22]What was I doing then?
[7:23]And sometimes, oh gosh, I was so trained in that, like in that picture, I'm so fan, but
[7:28]I know that was one of the most stressful miserable times of my life, but still I like
[7:32]the way I missed.
[7:35]Yeah, I can't believe I fit in those pants.
[7:37]I know, you know, someone was like, yeah, you looked a lot thinner than, but you didn't
[7:41]look better, like you look better now, but you look thinner than like, are they so different?
[7:46]That's like, it's very hard for us to separate that, having grown up with what we did
[7:52]and like, things are changing now and although not entirely, I mean, there is body positivity,
[7:58]but then also on Instagram, they're still thigh gap and probably TikTok, you know, how to
[8:03]have thigh gap.
[8:04]But my, I have a good friend whose daughter is 11 and she heard her saying, and she's
[8:10]a little pudgy and adorable and she heard her daughter saying, you know what, I'm fat,
[8:17]but it's okay because I look really good and I like my body and I was like, gosh, can
[8:22]you imagine that?
[8:24]Like having that attitude just knit, neutral about thinking you're fat.
[8:29]Like it's not a, it's not a disc.
[8:31]It's not a criticism.
[8:32]It's not something you have to say.
[8:33]What do you even mean by this?
[8:34]I know.
[8:35]It's so foreign.
[8:37]It's like saying, I have brown hair to her, like I'm fat.
[8:42]It's not a bad thing.
[8:43]I do not mean in this conversation, I don't in any way mean to put any sort of negative
[8:48]judgment on it.
[8:49]This is my own neuroses from, you know, my mom not to blame my mom because that was like
[8:54]the life she was living, but, you know, scooping out the same amount of cottage cheese,
[9:00]you know, she would put like two saccharin in her coffee and then like cottage cheese and
[9:04]fruit every day and going to gild us for a workout and, you know, blah, blah, everything
[9:09]was the same.
[9:10]Yeah, tab.
[9:11]Like all the same stuff.
[9:12]Yeah.
[9:13]Like constant focus.
[9:14]Although, you know, whatever.
[9:15]Now she's like almost 75 and like super thin and fit.
[9:17]So I don't know.
[9:18]No.
[9:19]Yeah.
[9:20]Exactly.
[9:21]And that's, that's one of the things that like I don't, I mean, it is, I would love to be
[9:28]so neutral about my body and to not be imprisoned by any of that.
[9:33]But on the same, like on the other hand, I have stayed fit for my life and have habits
[9:41]that other people had struggled to develop because they never had to worry about it.
[9:46]And then they hit their 40s and they're like, oh, I have to work out.
[9:49]And like, oh, I feel gross unless I have worked out.
[9:53]Like I, it's so ingrained in me that it's both a negative and a positive.
[9:57]Like now I, I have that habit.
[9:59]So.
[10:00]I'll probably stay healthy and live longer, last longer.
[10:04]Yeah.
[10:05]Well, that's the other thing, too.
[10:05]I feel like it's so much about health.
[10:09]Like, whatever.
[10:11]I don't mean to get us.
[10:12]I mean, I mean, it's not, there is no on or out track
[10:14]when you like spill your guts in this book.
[10:16]You know, I mean, like, how in a million directions.
[10:19]You also have this whole section on what you did with boys.
[10:22]I can't even like say it.
[10:23]I'm like such, you know, you have this whole chapter nine.
[10:27]Yes.
[10:28]And, you know, even like the boy calling you on Yom Kippur
[10:31]and all of that, like tell me about that
[10:34]and writing about your experiences with guys early on.
[10:37]And as you were getting older and all of that.
[10:40]Yeah, well, I've, I mean, I have a few chapters
[10:43]that deal with that with getting into ill-advised
[10:47]entanglements or one-nighters with guys
[10:50]which start with the chapter boys don't like me.
[10:54]And I was convinced that boys didn't like me.
[10:57]And they didn't.
[10:58]I mean, the same in the book I have receipts.
[11:00]Like the spin-the-bottle party where the guy
[11:04]whose bottle landed on me was like, oh, do over
[11:08]and the one who had to go in the closet with me
[11:10]was like, okay, we're not doing this, right?
[11:12]And it was like, oh, yeah, totally not.
[11:15]So between that and then switching to an all-girl school,
[11:19]the aforementioned beaver school.
[11:22]And between those two things, really boys
[11:25]came such a prize, this object to seek out
[11:29]and any attention from a boy with this
[11:32]was like a blue ribbon to me.
[11:34]Permission to live, like to take up space in the world.
[11:38]Like I'm worthy, I'm worthy of love
[11:41]because a boy likes me.
[11:42]And so, you know, starting with,
[11:46]I guess starting in high school,
[11:48]I would do things like if I had the opportunity
[11:52]to steal somebody's boyfriend.
[11:54]Because he, you know, someone's boyfriend liked me.
[11:57]Well, then I had to go for it and steal him.
[12:00]And then when I graduated from college
[12:04]and was living back in the city in my childhood bedroom
[12:09]in my parents' house, I went out like it was my job
[12:12]because I felt like I had never had that phase
[12:15]of well being slutty.
[12:18]Like I never, I never sowed
[12:21]my wild oats.
[12:22]I never had the chance to have, you know,
[12:25]to experiment and have all these guys like me
[12:28]because I hadn't.
[12:30]And so now that I was, I guess I felt like,
[12:34]oh, I'm hot now.
[12:35]And so I started going at, but not hot enough.
[12:39]So I started going out, really like it was my job.
[12:41]And my goal every night was to make out with somebody
[12:45]by 4 a.m.
[12:47]Like by the time the bar closed.
[12:49]If I hadn't made that with anyone
[12:51]or if nobody had expressed interest in me,
[12:53]then it was a lost evening.
[12:54]And so in that chapter that we won't mention the name
[12:58]of on the, you can buy the book and you'll see what,
[13:02]which one it is, most people count to chapter nine
[13:05]because I, in the dedication.
[13:06]I say to my, I say mom, please don't read this or not.
[13:10]And she did.
[13:11]So that details, this string of guys that I went through
[13:17]or maybe they went through me.
[13:19]That year after college and the Yom Kippur reference
[13:23]that you make this about, I think that's the final guy
[13:26]in that chapter who was this hot, very sexy,
[13:31]general manager of a restaurant that I used to go
[13:34]and hang out with downtown.
[13:36]And he like would make jokes about he'd introduce me
[13:40]to people and make the joke like this is Laura
[13:43]will sleep together, but then, you know,
[13:46]and it'll be fun then we'll be really good friends.
[13:48]And I was like, oh, he, he must mean that we're gonna
[13:51]be boyfriend and girlfriend, actually.
[13:52]He doesn't mean that we're just gonna sleep together.
[13:55]So he called me, he asked for my number
[13:57]and I was very excited.
[13:58]And then he left me a message on Yom Kippur
[14:02]and is saying, I think he has said something like,
[14:07]this is the day you a tone and at the sound of the tone.
[14:11]I, well, I don't even know what joke I was making.
[14:13]I think it was comedian.
[14:14]And he was inviting me to come down and stay over
[14:18]at his place.
[14:18]He was like, bring stuff to stay over.
[14:21]And of course, I, you know, Yom Kippur, bad Joe,
[14:24]I went down to his place on Rivington Street
[14:26]and had my one night with him, which was exactly
[14:30]as he intended and to my dismay,
[14:35]he never called me again or wanted to hook up again.
[14:38]But yeah, that was, that was my question at the time.
[14:41]And that was like, you know, I call it,
[14:43]I call it my journey and say what kind of journey
[14:46]because we're being PG.
[14:49]But really just getting as many notches
[14:53]on my proverbial bed post or belt as I could
[14:56]because I thought that that made me an accomplished person.
[15:00]Like again, a worthy person.
[15:03]And how do you, how did you get over that?
[15:05]I think I just moved into a new phase.
[15:08]Like, you know what, I got a job.
[15:11]That was part of it.
[15:13]I got a job.
[15:14]Like for a while, that was my job.
[15:16]Was being liked by boys.
[15:18]And then I got an actual job.
[15:22]And I didn't have time.
[15:23]Like I had to get up in the morning.
[15:24]I really prized, since even when I was, you know, 22,
[15:29]I've always prized my eight hours
[15:31]and can't function very well without them.
[15:33]So I couldn't afford to stay out late, you know,
[15:37]dude hunting.
[15:38]And so once I got a job, I just became more obsessed
[15:43]with career than with guys.
[15:45]Interesting.
[15:46]So all these things, the eating, the guys,
[15:51]like there was the friendship,
[15:52]there's all this stuff that you've sort of worked through.
[15:55]And you do it all in a very funny way.
[15:57]But you know, sometimes the humor covers up the pain
[16:00]and, you know, and some of the stuff.
[16:02]Like where do you feel like you are now with all of it?
[16:05]I feel like I am an adult and somewhat self actualized.
[16:12]I, you know, writing this book,
[16:14]one reason I took so long to write it
[16:16]because I always wanted to write a book
[16:17]and I had so many different iterations of starts,
[16:21]stops and starts.
[16:22]And never felt like I knew how the book would end.
[16:27]Like where does it go?
[16:29]Because I have so many stories of screwing up
[16:32]and measuring myself worth in strange, stupid ways,
[16:36]arbitrary ways and making a lot of mistakes
[16:39]and not fulfilling my potential, et cetera.
[16:42]And it's like, where does it end?
[16:44]And I finally, at age 50,
[16:47]which is when I started really writing the book and sold it.
[16:51]I finally felt like I had an arc to my life,
[16:55]to these stories where not that I got over everything
[17:00]and became this brand new person.
[17:03]But I do feel like I'd started to fulfill my potential,
[17:09]found work that really tapped my talent
[17:13]and felt like something I would do.
[17:15]This was something I was searching for the whole time.
[17:18]Like work that I felt like I would happily keep doing,
[17:22]even if I had so much money,
[17:23]I didn't have to work another day.
[17:26]And I'm also in a very happy, fulfilling relationship
[17:33]with my husband.
[17:34]I am in love with him and I found the one.
[17:38]And initially he probably wasn't the one
[17:41]that I should be going after.
[17:43]He wasn't ready for a real relationship
[17:45]and maybe neither was I.
[17:46]Like the people I was choosing were probably,
[17:49]is probably self-consciously too sabotaged
[17:52]in the relationship because they wouldn't live up
[17:55]to what I thought I wanted.
[17:58]But I was patient with him and,
[18:01]and I'm very glad that I was.
[18:03]And so being in a happy relationship as part of that arc,
[18:08]like for sure, a happily ever after.
[18:11]And work wise also, I think I've found my thing.
[18:16]But in many ways, I'm still the same person.
[18:18]But I still feel like a hot mess.
[18:20]I'm still like only half the time
[18:23]and I'm pathologically resistant to paperwork
[18:27]and do a lot of things with where somebody is basically
[18:32]saying, oh, Belgrade, you're killing me.
[18:35]So I'm still the worst.
[18:36]I highly doubt that.
[18:38]When you say you found your thing, tell me about that.
[18:41]Yeah.
[18:42]So I mean, I had found my thing for a while before.
[18:47]Like I found my way into writing TV promos,
[18:50]which was a dream job.
[18:52]And for anyone who doesn't know what TV promos are,
[18:54]they're the commercial that the network runs
[18:57]for their own shows.
[18:59]Like during the commercials, you see something
[19:00]for coming up on the new season of succession.
[19:05]You're like, that's a promo.
[19:06]And when I discovered that was a job,
[19:09]I was like, holy crap, I can't believe that's a job.
[19:12]How do I get that job?
[19:13]And I got that job.
[19:15]It was a good time to get in.
[19:17]My friend introduced me to the editorial director at the H1
[19:21]and she assigned me my first promo.
[19:23]And I did that for years and years.
[19:26]It was truly the dream.
[19:27]I get paid to watch a ton of TV
[19:30]and write these short little things.
[19:32]And then at a certain point, I kind of felt like I'm complacent.
[19:36]I should be writing something bigger,
[19:39]something more permanent, something memorable,
[19:41]something that's in my voice, not the voice of the network.
[19:44]I want to write about me.
[19:45]I want to write about my life.
[19:47]And my way in for that, before writing this book,
[19:51]was writing blog posts.
[19:54]And then emails.
[19:56]Emails became my main content platform.
[20:00]emails to a list of people that were they were in my voice they were
[20:03]whatever I wanted to write them about and when I figured out how to use them to
[20:08]make money to make a living rather than before that I was starting to make a
[20:13]living from copywriting from copywriting services like one on one services
[20:18]that I offered to people who had their own businesses I helped them with their
[20:22]websites etc etc and I pivoted from that I found out how I kind of
[20:28]discovered oh the way to make money from just from writing my emails it's
[20:32]to sell something in my emails besides my services and so I created courses
[20:36]on copywriting and email marketing and co-created a course called the
[20:41]copy cure with my friend Murray for Leo and that was huge for me because it
[20:46]allowed me to really feel like in this roundabout way I'm making a
[20:51]living writing whatever the f I want to and that felt so great and
[20:57]still feel so great and so whenever whenever I play that thought game of
[21:03]what would I do if someone handed me you know 200 million dollars
[21:08]it's like you don't have to work anymore you're done I would still write
[21:14]emails to my list that's one thing that I know I would keep doing
[21:18]and maybe write another book though as you know when you're in this phase of
[21:22]launching a book and everyone's asking what's your next book
[21:25]are you kidding me like I did not imagine doing this again
[21:30]and I think that I've been told that it's and I can imagine this even though I
[21:34]haven't had kids I can imagine that it is like childbirth in that you
[21:38]forget the pain of it and are like ready to go again
[21:41]at a certain point we'll say so funny when I was first starting the podcast I
[21:46]had this really emotional interview with somebody and she just lost her
[21:49]dad and I said well you should really write about that you should write a
[21:52]whole book about that like you have so much decided and she was like oh I
[21:56]don't think I could like deal with having to go around and talk about it all
[21:58]the time and I was like what what does she mean now you know
[22:03]yeah because you have to repeat the same stuff like a thousand times or just
[22:06]fine you know if you're ready to talk about it or you want to talk about it
[22:09]but if you want to just sort of put something out there once
[22:12]it should probably just be an essay honestly right yeah although I know
[22:17]somebody who I mean I know her because she published a book
[22:20]with my same publisher with her chef it was a memoir and it's great
[22:24]and she just kind of put it out there like put
[22:27]one post up like I wrote a book yeah and that was it
[22:31]and she's thrilled she's thrilled she's like oh yeah I love writing a book
[22:35]and she loves having a book she doesn't care I don't think she just was like
[22:39]did that have been there done that got the t-shirt like oh good for you
[22:44]so not be attached at all to go out yeah
[22:48]so there was to the sales that all the results yes okay
[22:52]I mean maybe that's a much more actual factualized place I don't know I think maybe
[22:59]that person is probably not like analyzing every flaw in her pictures either
[23:02]I'm gonna guess right right I was just gonna say that's also someone who's like
[23:06]oh I'm fat but I don't care yeah it's like fine it says far into me as someone saying that
[23:12]yeah wow people who are confident or something I don't know
[23:16]yeah
[23:18]it's what's with that what's with that so what advice do you have for aspiring authors oh wow
[23:24]I think my advice for you is right like don't wait to figure out
[23:32]what you are writing before you write it because I think that that can really that can
[23:38]stall you for years and years so it don't think about that don't think about
[23:44]like will this sell unless your number one goal is to sell a book is to have written a book that
[23:51]gets published but if your goal is to write something that you love the thing that you've always
[23:56]wanted to write write it without stopping yourself because you know oh publishers don't want that
[24:02]and nobody's gonna buy that I mean I was told that a lot about the kind of book I was writing
[24:07]and I know you've been told that too about writing memoir book of essays and you know especially
[24:13]if you have a business or something you will be told you should write something that goes with your
[24:17]business that is a out to a business book and if that's not the book you want to write
[24:23]write the book you want to write that's my that is my advice it's not necessarily the most
[24:29]lucrative easiest path to publishing advice but it's the path to creative fulfillment
[24:36]well it's like if you're dialing it in because you think this is what somebody else wants
[24:39]chances are it's you're not gonna have the same spirit and joy so what you're saying is
[24:45]is mixed a lot of sense right like when you try to just fit okay I guess I'll write this book
[24:50]like that is not going to go into writing a book you should not be probably running a book
[24:53]if you're the thing you know it should be like oh my gosh wouldn't it be so fun or wouldn't it be
[24:57]so interesting or wouldn't I learn so much if did it and then you do yes exactly yeah I agree amazing
[25:04]well I'm certainly not gonna ask you what you're writing next because God forbid yeah because I
[25:10]have no clue I will say that when I finished writing the book like the moment I finished it
[25:16]I was I felt in the groove and I was like oh well I have other ideas for books I want to keep
[25:22]writing this I felt like I'm I'm in a spot and I want to keep now I'm past that and like no clue
[25:28]no idea what what was I thinking yeah you have to like you know it's like working out you have
[25:33]just like keep going every time otherwise you fall so off and you're like wait how was I running
[25:37]every day and now yeah I didn't even like walk around the block with my dog but anyway
[25:42]well Laura thank you so much your book was so funny and you know just totally enjoyable and awesome
[25:49]so anyway thanks for coming out thank you survey and that means a lot this was fun okay
[25:54]you too for me too okay bye bye thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read
[26:01]books don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books
[26:07]also sign up for my newsletter at zibi Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book club
[26:11]and meet lots of authors on zoom every other week thanks so much to Steve and Ryan
[26:15]at texture sound for the sound editing and thank you to morning moon productions for providing
[26:20]this fantastic intro and out trim music