May I say, if you were suddenly put into a woman's body, wouldn't you be slightly interested in your breasts, and why people look at certain parts of you, and why certain parts move like they do?

I was born in Washington, D.C., and I was raised in Milwaukee.

I think it became blurry because I grew up in a very private family. I mixed privacy and secrecy up somewhere along the line. Everything became a secret, and I thought that was how you should live. Lying about everything. The mask I put on as a kid to survive was the funny lady. Then the funny person all of a sudden became harder to do without substances. Substances let me keep the mask on longer. Until it doesn't work anymore and you're just a mess.

Right now one in three teenagers meets the medical criteria for addiction, which is scary. I'm so driven because when I walked into rehab, I was like, "Am I still drunk? Did the guys give me the wrong address? Am I at a summer camp?" And it kills them. Deaths attributed to drugs and alcohol have overtaken all other emergency-room deaths.

I like people-watching and fading into crowds.

Onstage, I was never the ingenue.

My fantasy life made me survivor. One day I knew that me, this skinny, ugly girl who was only invited to slumber parties when they were forced to - someday I knew I would be someone. That was my driving goal. It wasn't to be famous. I didn't want furs and signing autographs, I didn't care about any of that. I wanted to be someone other than myself.