My mum is totally crazy for fashion still. Her job was as a laundress, but I loved it when she would dress up in her red suit with a mini jacket and flared trousers and get her wig fixed at the hairdresser's - it was the time of wigs - and we would go shopping.
When I was younger, I had a perm, and it was really big. My mom was a hairdresser, so even my dad had a perm! I looked like a poodle, but it was cool at the time.
I attend Internet conferences all the time, and they literally make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
I got the regular call, that they were doing a Broadway musical of Hairspray, and would I come and audition. I was familiar with the movie, because at the time it came out my lover wrote for Premiere magazine, and we had to see everything.
I remember loving 'Hairspray.' I was obsessed with it, and I didn't realise why. I felt so connected to it at the time because there wasn't any other kind of representation. So when it happens, you think, 'wow, I really connect with this movie. Why is that? Maybe it's because there's a girl like me up there on the screen.'
Okay, I'll say I would go back in time and bring scientists with me and create a hairspray that would not cause global warming. But it would still give us '80s hair.
If I feel really ugly or unhappy, sometimes I'll choose bright colors so they'll make me feel good. Yellows, pinks, light blues and orange. I just want to feel good all the time if I can. And colors and hairstyles and all that kind of helps out.
I definitely do like change. I don't know if my hairstyles reflect that, but I don't like the same old thing all the time.
As an artist, you can always learn different ways to refine your look. I mean, you look at any one time in my career and you see all the hairstyles I went through. You make changes until something feels comfortable with you. And people vibe with it because they can see the difference.
I have always been very into pagan hairstyles. If I were alive a long time ago, I would probably have been burned at the stake.
I get people being frightened of me. One time I did this photo shoot where I had hairy armpits - I was really digging it, but they were like, 'We'll airbrush that out.'
We've seen in the last half century an incredible shift. This is just an extraordinary time to be alive.
I did three club tours before I started playing concert halls, and the clubs were half full the first time around.
When I was young, I was supposed to study in the afternoon, and 4 - 5:30 P.M. was playtime. The entire day would revolve around that time. We would play anything - kabaddi, cricket. Those one and half hours would feel like 5 minutes.
Coming from a background of being onstage, you're onstage for two and a half hours and you're in it for the whole time no matter what you're doing. Even if you don't have a line, you have to stay in it.
I still feel 18, and I probably act that way half the time.
Being right half the time beats being half-right all the time.
Half the time, I feel like I'm 12. And the rest of the time, I feel like I'm 80. So I guess I'm somewhere in between. No, I feel great. I've got my health, and that's the most important thing.
While on the space station, I kept up with news a couple of ways - Mission Control sent daily summaries, and I would scan headlines on Google News when we had an Internet connection, which was about half the time.
People think it's funny that I enjoy dreaming so much. I just use it as a form of entertainment. It's very private. I don't see my dreams as separate. I mean, half the time I'm wandering around dreaming anyway.
