4 Jobs I’ve Had

• Window girl at 1 hour photo processing stand. The stand was one of those small boxes in the middle of a parking lot, enabling people to drive through for one hour film developing. Though I started out at the drive through booth in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot in Arkansas, I quickly advanced to more behind the scenes jobs. Before long, I was at the “real” location, in an actual building, working in a darkroom. It was a good job for a 17 year old, and I learned quite a bit about old-school film processing. I really wish I’d stuck with that through college … there was a darkroom on campus but I never got around to using it. Being able to manually control the development of my photographs was probably the first thing I did that revealed any innate creative compulsion towards art in me.
• Cashier, Disc Jockey. This job was in high school, before the photo store gig. The CD store was in the mall in Hot Springs, and I worked part time after school sophomore and junior year. Can you imagine that? Working in a mall CD store in Hot Springs in the early ’90s? We had the tall CD packaging back then (I tried to Google image search for an example, but apparently it’s so arcane no one even has photos of them), and the weird plastic handled tape cases. Yes, tapes. Cassette singles, even. My manager was a disgruntled gay man “stuck” in Hot Springs (more precise: stuck living in his parents’ basement). I only stole from there once, and most of the money was used to drive to Ft. Smith to see this vegan straight edge kid I was dating at the time.
• Childcare provider/ babysitter During college, I followed up on some nanny experience I’d gained during a year off in Philadelphia to make extra money babysitting for one of my professors. His adopted daughter was high on the autism spectrum, and I learned a lot about the condition through her. She was amazing, and I continued to be her pen pal for years after I graduated. That job took on a lot of new and important significance for me after my son was diagnosed with Asperger’s last year.
• Web Producer, public radio My current job is pretty awesome — I oversee web development, content, do all the editing and new media / design work at the NPR affiliate station’s site here in Austin. Love it.

4 TV Shows I’m Watching

• Like Michael, I’m pretty much hooked on LOST & Breaking Bad. Both are great, but I think the writing on “Breaking Bad” is absolutely brilliant. You’ll never look at Malcolm (in the Middle’s) dad the same way again.
• Almost anything on the History channel
• Talk Soup. Joel McHale is hilarious. I don’t care.
• I don’t really watch enough tv to pick four

4 Places I’ve Been

• Mannheim, Germany. Lived there for a while, southern Germany is kind of depressing.
• Portland, Oregon. I was born in Portland, moved to Texas as a kindergarten student.
• Philadelphia, PA. As alluded to earlier, I took a year off between high school and college in Philly, fell out of love, got on a bus to go home, lost most of my record collection. All ended up well — he dated an old friend of mine after that, which was awesome. Not.
• Boston, MA. I lived in Boston twice: once as a law student and once as a new mother. The new mother experience (in East Boston) was much more fun. My third week of law school included 9/11, a ridiculous job and a creepy landlord.

4 Music Artists I’m Listening to Right Now

• Shining (Oslo, Norway)
• Steve Young (the old stuff) – not the football player.
• Monotonix (Tel Aviv): they’re coming for SXSW, and I hope I can catch them!
• Shearwater (Austin): the new record is awesome. Duh.