When I moved out of my mom's house at 18 I was almost as sad to leave her sewing machine behind as anything else.

Growing up as a chubby kid with a ton of imaginary friends and a Cyndi Lauper obsession, I learned about rejection early on and was constantly trying to avoid it.

For years now I have run a kitchen-sink punk salon in my house, called Salon du Gay. In the early days, people would pay for a riot grrrl bob or a passable bleach job with a mixtape, $3 or a selection of baked goods - whichever they could afford. More recently though, with Gossip doing well, I've performed these punk hair transformations for free.

I'm like cheddar: Yes, other cheeses are more ooh la la, but I'm strong, mature, and oh so delicious.

There is no shame like poor shame. It can make you warm and charming, bitter and resentful, all at once.

We had so many milestones in America. We were on our way to universal healthcare. We had gay marriage. We were talking about gender fluidity and trans issues openly and discussing them with respect. It was almost to the point where educating people about transgender rights wasn't an issue. We were including trans people as a normal part of our conversations instead of seeing their presence as this shocking thing to the system. We forgot that those things can be taken away from you because there are people in the world that, for whatever f - king reason, can't live and let live.

I think from a major-label perspective, if you were on the flip side of things and that's the world you were used to working in, your interpretation could be, "Oh, they're having trouble writing songs," when really it's like, "No, I'm not ready to write songs, I don't want to write a song right now, if I did write a song, it would be forced."