Comedian Maria Bamford is one of my favorite people to interview.

I've done it twice before, and I'm excited to share a new conversation with you today.

When you talk to Maria, everything feels so close to the surface, and she lets us see it all.

And then as she's talking, she'll also offer these asides and quips to show you that she's totally aware of all the ways that what she's saying may be landing with you.

In her work, Maria has long chronicled the most intimate details of her life in comedy.

Her family in Duluth, Minnesota, trying to find her place in the LA comedy scene as a weird avant-garde stand-up, who's also obsessed with

tracking her finances on spreadsheets. She's described living with OCD and finding treatment and

community and 12-step groups, and also her mental breakdown, hospitalizations, the saga of

finding the right medication. A new documentary by Judd Apatow tracks all of that too,

plus the aftermath in Maria's life of the wildfires

that destroyed her community in Altadena in Southern California,

though her house still stands.

When I caught up with her earlier this month, she was sitting in her new apartment, where she

lives alone. After the fires, there was more upheaval last year for her when she separated from

her husband of 10 years. We talk about that and how she's still figuring out how she wants to

weave the last year into the stories,

she tells us in her comedy.

I actually haven't talked about divorce on stage because just a little bit,

just because I don't think I'm comfortable with it yet.

Or it's going to take practice for me saying it and not looking at people's sad faces,

what?

And not taking it in like, oh my God, I have to hug you all.

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