[MTV] just wanted a regular person that knew a decent amount about music.I'm so used to doing solitary interviews. You have some control - it's quiet, it's just you with your tape recorder and the person. Then when I was in front of the camera, I broke out in hives, which I continued to do well after I got the job.

[On a high school visit by Destiny's Child:] Then they appeared, golden Glamazons resplendent in hot pants the size of a dryer sheet and gold stiletto boots. The kids in the front row, clearly on funkiness overload, had the walleyed look of the Today's Catch section of the supermarket.

And when I say [M2 was] lo-fi production, it was so great and grimy. I was used to that world anyway, because we shot in bars, we shot in thrift shops, we shot on the street. And the bars, they would have just opened, and still there was barf on the floor and beer. We certainly kept it real. It was a small crew.

The worst was I had little control in terms of smoothing out my questions and making myself look good the way I could in print. All the ums and uhs and rambling and apologies and hyenalike laughter at something that really isn't funny. You know when an artist will crack a joke, and you're like, "That's so hilarious," like, the fawning laughter that you can at least cut when it's print? It's just all out there, and it's really humiliating.

I grew up in New Jersey in the '80s. That means one thing: Big hair. ... I had big hair, my boyfriends had big hair, we all had big hair. Our prom looked like the poodle division of the Westminster dog show.

When they've shut down, you get more nervous. They react to that, and it's just this hideous shame spiral. Although sometimes that can be some good train-wreck TV. That's another reason it's definitely difficult - when you are just not connecting, and it's there for the world to see.

I was working as a staff writer at Rolling Stone. I had a friend who worked at MTV, and she called me and said, "They're looking for VJs for this new channel. Do you want to try out?" I had zero TV experience, but I thought, "Well, what the hay."