Where are you? NYC (work) and Hoboken, NJ (home). At the moment I'm at my desk pretending to do work.

What are you? editor, Caught In Flux; freelance writer, Spin Online and my friend's zines; coordinator, VH1 and Nickelodeon Rights & Clearances dept. (American cable networks)

What do you make? publications, money (hardly any), food (once in awhile)

What do you love? music, attending live shows, traveling (or, more specifically, the moment just prior to traveling), vacations, e-mail, Entenmann's chocolate chip cookies, Mexican food, early '80s Rough Trade music, the 99-cent bins at the Princeton Record Exchange.

What do you hate? rude, bullying and/or offensively ignorant people; cashew nuts, sesame oil and tahini; sleep headaches; having to work when I'm low on energy; the oxymoronic music genre called "commercial alternative".

What do you listen to? lately: Sleater-Kinney, the Magnetic Fields, Dolly Mixture, France Gall, Richard and Linda Thompson, WFMU-FM in general, the Mountain Goats, Stereolab, the Go-Betweens, Holiday, Wandering Lucy.

What do you watch? The Simpsons, Seinfeld reruns, movies once in awhile.

What do you drink?Non-alcoholic: water, Minute Maid juice, Vintage Seltzer, weak coffee at work, Diet Coke. Alcoholic: Rolling Rock, Yuengling Lager, Samuel Adams.

What do you smoke? cigarettes twice a year at most.

What do you take? decongestants, Vitamin C (when I remember), aspirin.

What do you believe in? remarkable coincidences.

When We were 16.

Where were you? Monroe Township, NJ.

What were you? a student at Monroe Twp. High School.

What did you wear? pretty much anything from bargain outlets like Marshall's or TJ Maxx. The uglier it was, the more likely I was to wear it.

What did you listen to? new wave music (XTC was a favorite that year) mixed in with hardcore, punk, Young Marble Giants, synth-pop, and a couple records I'd rather not mention (hint: I still hadn't completely outgrown my progressive-rock phase).

What did you watch? TV.

What did you love? college radio, my infrequent trips to NYC, and promise that both seemed to hold for me.

What did you hate? most of my classmates, my high school, and the structure that allowed for the concept of adolescent popularity. I went to a fairly blue-collar school that didn't promote originality, creativity or individuality too well. I internalized a lot of this, and it led to a lot of hating myself, too. It took me well into my 20s to completely get over it.

What did you drink? water, soda, juice, chocolate milk.

What did you smoke? nothing.

What did you take? shit.

What did you want to be? a writer of some sort, but primarily out of Monroe Twp.

Who did you fight? I wish I could say something rad and punk rock like "authority, man!" But I fought nothing, really, at least not outwardly. The actual physical fights stopped by age 15 or so.

Who/What did you believe in?

Where did you go? to and from school; to Manhattan occasionally.

What did you learn?That adolescence is NOT the best time of one's life that parents tell you they are. That it's a period of horrible transition that's best left behind, and that young adulthood is infinitely preferable.


November 1996.