I left the Midwest feeling like, "People are small-minded, they don't want to ask questions, they don't want to think out of the box." Some of that was true.

I was toying with the idea of ambivalence a lot. It's something I work on, not being so invested in outcomes and being more engaged in the process of my life.

I'm 33, my generation, when I was young, we'd go out into the woods for the entire day and come back for dinner. I was definitely a kid of the '80s, who was out and about.

I'm really close to my family. As I get older, it's like they're the only people I really talk to.

I lived in a small city on the Mississippi River across from Iowa, so I didn't have a country upbringing, but in high school we would go drink kegs in cornfields.

Whether I'm a hero or a zero doesn't really matter. It's all perception.

You need to get out of your comfort zone, return to the Midwest, see some family, and, as cheesy as it sounds, work the land - plant some trees, maybe take up watercolor.