id="u42a6099d-d04e-5fa7-a8bd-a57afeab1e43">
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in the US by G.P. Putnam’s Sons
an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC 375 Hudson Street, New York 10014
This edition published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
FIRST EDITION
Text and illustrations © Mara Altman 2018
Internal design © Ashley Tucker
Cover design © HarpercollinsPublishers 2018
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
Mara Altman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at www.harpercollins.co.uk/green
Source ISBN: 9780008292706
Ebook Edition © August 2018 ISBN: 9780008292713
Version 2018-10-29
For my mom
Contents
10. PIlEup on the “Inner” State
To become a master at any one thing, it is said that one must practice it for 10,000 hours. I have been living in my body for 306,600 hours, yet I still feel like a novice at operating this bag of meat. As soon as I feel like I’ve got everything figured out, something changes—boobs spring out of my chest, I sprout a mustache, floaters homestead in my eyeballs—and I’m left shocked, bewildered, and yet ultimately quite curious. I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve wondered, especially after a spicy meal, why evolution wasn’t smart enough to build us with buttholes made out of something more durable. Lead piping, perhaps?
I’d like to say that I spend my time trying to cure cancer, eradicate hunger, and put an end to global warming, but my brain is naturally inclined toward questions about the human female body. I spend most days wondering about the potential aerodynamic
