It does feel great to be writing, but the process is sometimes excruciating.

[I hate] the ways that people want their special needs to be met, whether it's their food allergies or their special lotions or shoes. Or the ways that people want their neighborhoods and restaurants curated in a way that's really tailored to them. Growing up with someone who was living by these very strict, repressive rules for themselves - it made me very allergic to the idea of denial.

I have no problem spending money on a great meal with friends or a flight to see somebody that I love, versus something like a fancy car. I don't need a fancy car. I don't need a giant TV.

I wrote so much about fandom and participation for NPR that I eventually realized my most fertile way of participating in music is to actually play it, at least in a way that made the most sense to me.

I've never understood people who play up the artifice of music.

I think short-term goals are important. Trying to set a missive for yourself for the entire year can be daunting, and it can feel too easy to fail or fall short of that.

I've always been interested in queerness and underground and fringe and periphery, and who and what flourishes in those spaces. Those spaces that are darker and dingier and more dangerous, more lonely. What comes out of there, to me, is the life force. I'm excited when the center reaches over to those places and pulls inspiration from them, and translates it for a lot of people.