WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.330 align:middle line:84% So this last one is my absolute latest publication. 00:00:03.330 --> 00:00:06.600 align:middle line:84% It came out in the Paris Review this month, so. 00:00:06.600 --> 00:00:09.300 align:middle line:90% Yeah, it's pretty swanky. 00:00:09.300 --> 00:00:11.160 align:middle line:90% It's pretty swanky. 00:00:11.160 --> 00:00:12.630 align:middle line:90% And it's kind of weird. 00:00:12.630 --> 00:00:15.510 align:middle line:84% I do steal a lot from life, from the lives 00:00:15.510 --> 00:00:16.650 align:middle line:90% of the people around me. 00:00:16.650 --> 00:00:19.140 align:middle line:84% And also, Manuel knows that I tell everybody everything, 00:00:19.140 --> 00:00:21.520 align:middle line:90% so that also applies to fiction. 00:00:21.520 --> 00:00:24.000 align:middle line:84% So it's always interesting for family 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:26.855 align:middle line:84% to read the things that I write, because they recognize things. 00:00:26.855 --> 00:00:28.230 align:middle line:84% And they don't enjoy the stories. 00:00:28.230 --> 00:00:29.820 align:middle line:90% They're just sort of-- 00:00:29.820 --> 00:00:30.660 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:00:30.660 --> 00:00:33.164 align:middle line:90% I have to write about that. 00:00:33.164 --> 00:00:34.680 align:middle line:90% That feeling they get. 00:00:34.680 --> 00:00:36.810 align:middle line:84% But this one is called "Fam," and there 00:00:36.810 --> 00:00:39.448 align:middle line:90% is this collective narrator. 00:00:39.448 --> 00:00:41.490 align:middle line:84% So I don't think there's any signals that I need, 00:00:41.490 --> 00:00:44.838 align:middle line:84% but I'll read it for you just as it is. 00:00:44.838 --> 00:00:47.820 align:middle line:84% "My little sister, niece, granddaughter, baby cousin 00:00:47.820 --> 00:00:51.120 align:middle line:84% doesn't know she's pretty, so she asks everybody one post 00:00:51.120 --> 00:00:52.350 align:middle line:90% at a time. 00:00:52.350 --> 00:00:54.870 align:middle line:84% Her mom showed up at her high school graduation. 00:00:54.870 --> 00:00:56.970 align:middle line:84% No one had seen her in eight years. 00:00:56.970 --> 00:00:59.040 align:middle line:84% Mothers like that never know how to dress. 00:00:59.040 --> 00:01:00.870 align:middle line:84% Too much fake jewelry, fake hair, 00:01:00.870 --> 00:01:03.780 align:middle line:84% and a big-ass fake leather purse, still too small 00:01:03.780 --> 00:01:07.055 align:middle line:84% for all her shame and addictions to everything else. 00:01:07.055 --> 00:01:09.180 align:middle line:84% My little sister, niece, granddaughter, baby cousin 00:01:09.180 --> 00:01:12.780 align:middle line:84% went to a costume party dressed as Selena or Madonna or Paula 00:01:12.780 --> 00:01:13.290 align:middle line:90% Abdul. 00:01:13.290 --> 00:01:17.430 align:middle line:84% Just a thin layer of 1985 draped over her tits. 00:01:17.430 --> 00:01:19.230 align:middle line:90% She works out a lot. 00:01:19.230 --> 00:01:21.570 align:middle line:84% A pic for the shoulder press, 78 likes. 00:01:21.570 --> 00:01:24.540 align:middle line:84% A pic for the deadlifts, 134 likes. 00:01:24.540 --> 00:01:26.550 align:middle line:84% Don't get me started on the squats. 00:01:26.550 --> 00:01:28.882 align:middle line:84% She doesn't like photos when she isn't ready. 00:01:28.882 --> 00:01:30.840 align:middle line:84% When her face is the one we see in the morning, 00:01:30.840 --> 00:01:32.382 align:middle line:84% when she can't find her keys, or when 00:01:32.382 --> 00:01:35.010 align:middle line:84% her phone is silent and black and asleep and dead, 00:01:35.010 --> 00:01:37.200 align:middle line:84% and she has to wait fidgeting in that space 00:01:37.200 --> 00:01:39.480 align:middle line:90% so close to oblivion. 00:01:39.480 --> 00:01:41.190 align:middle line:84% They put titanium rods in her back 00:01:41.190 --> 00:01:43.620 align:middle line:84% when she was 11 to correct the scoliosis. 00:01:43.620 --> 00:01:46.080 align:middle line:84% She used to walk around like a Black Quasimodo, 00:01:46.080 --> 00:01:47.760 align:middle line:90% loved and gorgeous. 00:01:47.760 --> 00:01:49.830 align:middle line:84% The metal worked to undo the snake spine. 00:01:49.830 --> 00:01:52.140 align:middle line:84% Only a little pain and constipation from the meds 00:01:52.140 --> 00:01:53.910 align:middle line:90% to whip her back straight. 00:01:53.910 --> 00:01:56.680 align:middle line:84% Afterward, there came new clothes, new friends, 00:01:56.680 --> 00:01:58.740 align:middle line:84% new hobbies, one after another on a conveyor 00:01:58.740 --> 00:02:01.740 align:middle line:84% belt, along with the chance to document it all. 00:02:01.740 --> 00:02:04.260 align:middle line:84% Her happiness was electric, blinking. 00:02:04.260 --> 00:02:06.840 align:middle line:90% A ding, ding, ding, ding. 00:02:06.840 --> 00:02:08.430 align:middle line:90% Disappointment is oily. 00:02:08.430 --> 00:02:11.490 align:middle line:84% It has hair and musk and cracked lipstick. 00:02:11.490 --> 00:02:13.860 align:middle line:84% Her mother never spoke at the graduation. 00:02:13.860 --> 00:02:17.160 align:middle line:84% Just faded into the crowd per the court order. 00:02:17.160 --> 00:02:19.800 align:middle line:84% They say scoliosis is common in obese girls. 00:02:19.800 --> 00:02:22.835 align:middle line:84% The weight on their birdlike skeletons is too much. 00:02:22.835 --> 00:02:24.960 align:middle line:84% My little sister, niece, granddaughter, baby cousin 00:02:24.960 --> 00:02:26.190 align:middle line:90% was popular. 00:02:26.190 --> 00:02:29.100 align:middle line:84% 117 hearts for feeding ice cream to a puppy. 00:02:29.100 --> 00:02:31.740 align:middle line:84% 64 LOLs for flipping off the president. 00:02:31.740 --> 00:02:35.700 align:middle line:84% 216 likes for a poolside bikini pose at sunset. 00:02:35.700 --> 00:02:37.380 align:middle line:90% There are never enough. 00:02:37.380 --> 00:02:38.850 align:middle line:90% Of course, the monsters came. 00:02:38.850 --> 00:02:40.380 align:middle line:84% The trolls with their emoji fangs 00:02:40.380 --> 00:02:42.840 align:middle line:84% shooting projectile venom of envy and disgust. 00:02:42.840 --> 00:02:44.520 align:middle line:84% We were afraid she would choke to death 00:02:44.520 --> 00:02:46.800 align:middle line:84% on the poison like the white girls on TV, 00:02:46.800 --> 00:02:49.148 align:middle line:84% hanging from closet doors, bleed out into tubs. 00:02:49.148 --> 00:02:50.940 align:middle line:84% But my little sister, niece, granddaughter, 00:02:50.940 --> 00:02:53.070 align:middle line:84% baby cousin never even said a 'fuck you.' 00:02:53.070 --> 00:02:54.627 align:middle line:90% Just kept on. 00:02:54.627 --> 00:02:57.210 align:middle line:84% When her mother punches you in the chest for reasons too small 00:02:57.210 --> 00:02:59.730 align:middle line:84% to see, the rest of the world has 00:02:59.730 --> 00:03:01.680 align:middle line:90% a hard time hurting you more. 00:03:01.680 --> 00:03:04.830 align:middle line:84% So she smiles into her phone, where the smiles are brightest. 00:03:04.830 --> 00:03:07.620 align:middle line:84% Into the light, the wires, the electricity of us 00:03:07.620 --> 00:03:09.480 align:middle line:84% who have become everything to her. 00:03:09.480 --> 00:03:14.500 align:middle line:84% Because in the machine, there is no blood, no bone, and no fat." 00:03:14.500 --> 00:03:15.000 align:middle line:90%