Hey, Upgrade listeners, this is Alice of the past talking to you in the present about our plans for the future.

We're taking a few weeks to upgrade the upgrade.

We're retooling some bits, making some things better, something's bigger, something smaller.

While we're hard to work, we thought you'd enjoy this popular episode of the upgrade from the past.

Enjoy. Hello and welcome to the upgrade, the podcast from the team at Lifehacker.com, wherein we help you improve your life one week at a time.

I'm Melissa Kirsch, editor-in-chief of Lifehacker.

And I'm Alice Bradley, deputy editor of Lifehacker.

And today we're talking with Samantha Irby, comedian, writer, and the mastermind behind the

blog, Bitches Gotta Eat. She's the author of the new book of essays We Are Never Meeting in

Real Life, and the old book of essays, Meaty. And this book is so funny. I can't wait to talk

to her. I am so excited about this. This is a funny book.

It made my week.

There's something about a book like this that when somebody's so honest and hilarious at being honest,

you feel this kind of deep relief that somebody else is as messed up as you secretly believe that you are. Right.

It's one of those books in which you see yourself

on every page, and which is described in all the blurbs as like certain to make you laugh so hard,

you pee your pants and then make you cry so hard. You, I don't know, what, you also pee your pants.

And then it's just like, whoa, fluids, you know? No, but everybody who has reviewed

the book says that it'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry. Not that many books make me cry.

Did this book make you cry? I got a little teary. Yeah, there were parts that really, because I think

when you're laughing your guards down, too, so then suddenly when she kind of hits you, and there's

nothing sentimental about her writing at all. So when the sad parts came, they surprised me.

...