Слово не воробей, вылетит - не поймаешь. (A word is not a sparrow; once it flies out, you can't catch it.)

Person... know? My friends are all hilarious, otherwise I probably couldn't be friends with them. Ha.

No. No, no, no. Blargh. I would be a really bad person for that job. I wouldn't want to do basically ANYTHING the job would require.

Hmm. Regina Spektor in 2004 or so. Amélie-les-crayons would be pretty neat, because it's all spectacular.

I became a vegetarian when I was 10 and never looked back! Now I'm a vegan.

I think you're actually the only one so far! :)

Well, when I came back, I slept ~12 hours, so I think it's safe to say it was exhausting, for one. I'm sure that's partly because I had to get up at 4:45 a.m. EST to catch the metro to the bus to the airport. And then because I refuse to use the moving walkways in airports.

No, but seriously, the trip itself was great, and I think very important for me on many levels. The Lavender Languages & Linguistics Conference is focused on language use and linguistic practices in LGBTQ life — or more broadly, on issues related to language and sexuality generally. There were so many wonderfully thought-provoking presentations... thought-provoking not only with regard to my (I guess you'd say) scholarly interests and pursuits, but also to my music.

The first day or so of the conference, I was completely convinced that I wouldn't be able to present my paper. I was terrified and felt very, very unprepared. But I buckled down and managed to focus, and I pulled it together. That in and of itself is a really big deal for me, as I tend to have a lot of trouble reining in my thoughts.

My presentation ("Between lavender and light blue: Negotiating transnational and local gay identities in Russian") was well-received, and I feel incredibly grateful for the support and encouragement people gave me (and for the questions they asked).

Working on my paper/presentation, I spent quite a while considering the Russian "dilemma of the self," an identity crisis that has preoccupied the Russian people for centuries. Questions of identity and the self were also central to many of the presentations I heard. I definitely found myself relating a lot of these ideas to my own experiences and my own identity.

I'm inclined to write pages and pages about this, but I'm not sure I'm ready to, and I'm not sure what form it should take or where it should end up... and on top of that, it's late and I'm sleepy.

So I'll just say that at some point I really want to expand on certain thoughts I have about my music. Why do I call it "awkwardly charming vegetarian straight-edge queer alternative piano pop"? How is my music "queer"? Shouldn't I be worried about whether my definition of my music will alienate a lot of potential fans?

(These questions interest me, in any case.)

But, um, anyway, DC was great! Haha.

Yes! I find that everything overwhelms me easily. I thought this was just some kind of inherent trait, but there are actually reasons for it that hopefully I can resolve eventually through therapy.

At the time you asked: no. Now: yes.

Oh!! It isn't canceled, the date was just wrong -- it's tomorrow, the 5th! It's at 1:45 p.m. It would be so awesome of you to come all that way to see me!! :D If you can't make it this time, there will be more stuff happening this summer. (I'll post gigs as soon as they're confirmed.)

I'm glad you think my music is awesome! :) The inspiration comes from a lot of different sources: books, movies, random people/places/things I see as I go about my day, etc. A lot of my songs are my reactions to this input; they're my way of speaking my mind. When I'm just talking, I often feel like I can't connect my thoughts to my speech. With lyrics, I get all this time to make sure I'm expressing myself the way I want. Of course, the person listening might not always know exactly what I mean, but they're free to interpret it however they like.

Awww... no, I'm taken. *hug* Sorry!

I've been a vegetarian for so long (12 years) that the real question seems to be: Why *wouldn't* I be a vegetarian? To which I have no answer.

I became a vegetarian at 10 years old for a few reasons. One was that I was sick of meat; its tastes and textures were unappealing to me, and eating it made me feel like I was going to vomit. Another reason was my love and concern for animals. Another influencing factor was the mad cow disease scare.

Now that I'm older and more informed, I feel that I have every reason to be a vegetarian. Economically and environmentally, it makes sense to eat lower on the food chain (e.g., whole grains and vegetables rather than animals that had to eat a bunch of food in order to be eaten by humans).