I have OCD and, literally, walking on the left, needing things to be in even numbers with few exceptions. One and seven, any number that ends in seven, that's all me. All the tics like the pulling of the ear and scratching of the palms, all me.
I operate with this sense of needing to live up to what I am asking of people. I am, by far, my own worst critic.
Colleges prefer to enroll wealthy students because they know it's more likely that they'll pay for full tuition without needing financial aid. They're also more likely to have parents who will donate large sums of money to the school. When the privileged students graduate, they're expected to join the alumni association and also donate cash.
I write pretty much when I can. I used to be very particular about needing certain conditions for writing, but when I had children, I discovered that I was a lot more flexible than I thought.
When I grew up, you needed to have straight hair. It's symbolic of needing to be like everyone else, needing to look like everyone else. And what that meant was looking like the dominant ruling class in America.
I just feel not many people hear that you should feel good inside and feel happy within your soul, instead of needing to look a certain way, so I always try and talk to people about that.
The lockdown, in general, left me with a sense of needing to become more independent and instead of being intimidated, I decided to do the engineering on some of my new releases.
I use music as therapy. Whenever I'm feeling angry or needing some 'me' time, which is quite regularly, I'll go and bang a piano or flesh out something on a guitar.
My husband is always telling me: 'We're on holiday - we don't need to have an itinerary!' But I always want to see as much as I can. Sometimes, I come back from holiday needing a holiday.
My confidence came from always needing to compete.
