I'm a worker. I do the work to communicate, and I want people to embrace it, and when they do I'm happy.

You don't want to OD on improvisation.

My mother and father had so many ups and downs and stayed with each other and helped each other. My mother took in ironing and she was a waitress. My father was working in the factory and he did people's tax returns.

I had met Michael Stipe, and he was such a kind person, and extremely understanding, so I asked him if he knew a photographer who would come to Detroit, where I lived, who would be child friendly and who would respect my home. Michael suggested Steven [ Sebring]. One day a knock came at my door, and when I opened it, there was Steven. He's been like a brother ever since.

By the time I was 10 or 11, I was completely demoralized. I thought, "I'm done. I'm never going to be a missionary," because my indiscretion column, whether it was little lies or stealing a Chunky bar, kept me from sainthood.

I can't judge how another person does their [music] work. Everyone has a choice and the music industry is much more open that it was when I was younger. Certain things are gone, others have developed, but everyone makes their choices. Pop music has always been about the mainstream and what appeals to the public. I don't feel it's my place to judge. I just look at things as a fan, I like or or I don't like it.

Yet you could feel a vibration in the air, a sense of hastening. It had started with the moon, inaccessible poem that it was. Now men had walked upon it, rubber treads on a pearl of the gods. Perhaps it was an awareness of time passing, the last summer of the decade. Sometimes I just wanted to raise my hands and stop. But stop what? Maybe just growing up.