2.   Disco queen! During those few months at Barnard, I was introduced to the New York club scene and my love affair with dancing began! My roommate Vera was a former gymnast who had attended a private girls' on the Upper East Side and wore Agnes B, her dorm room bedding Ralph Lauren (we were both introduced to the Greek society of Manhattan at her debutante ball at the The Plaza Hotel that Autumn). She was also one of the girls who strapped on go-go boots and danced in cages above the dance floors at the height of the NYC club scene! Tagging along, I passed out slips of paper with promotions for clubs on them, and we got in for free everywhere (I was 17). I remember the first club I went to ever was having a trans fashion show and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. We went from club to club, often staying out all night and finishing up with breakfast at dawn at the Coffee Shop on Union Square. New York was a lot less sanitised in 1990….there’s a PetCo where one of my favourite old haunts was. The Palladium was torn down by NYU. There was the Limelight, Tunnel, Roxy, the Living Room and I could just dance and dance all night….ah, to be young again!

3.   From the bright lights of Manhattan to the corn fields of Illinios! I ended up being a sales associate at the Limited in the Hickory Point Mall in Decatur! Turns out I wasn't even really ready for Millikin yet, so I left at the end of my Freshman year. I loved loved loved selling clothes! And I was good at it! I spent more than a year there and even considered never going back to college....but thankfully came to my senses. However, I still look back on that time fondly, and the team of mangers. Ah we had fun! (photo bottom left is the Limited gang getting drinks at Carlos O'Kelly's)

4.   Just before I started college, when I had just turned 17, I worked for CBS Sports as a translator and fixer for the 1990 European Figure Skating Championships in St. Petersburg (then still Leningrad). My memory is a bit vague, but I got myself on an Aeroflot flight and showed up to work for the British crew who I’d met when I was doing a bit of work for ABC’s Prime Time Live in Moscow. They told me they needed someone to translate for them but it was up to me to convince the CBS folks of my worth once I arrived. Apparently I did (although I think I also lied and told them I was 18) and spent 2+ weeks working night and day to put together packages and arranging things for the crew (I still have my press credentials pictured below center). I remember it as the hey day of figure skating - Godeeva and Grinkov, Viktor Petrenko, The Dusheneys, Scott Hamilton, and Verne Lundquist. Back when I thought I could take over the world!

5.   I suppose you’ve guessed by now I’m more than a little theatrical? At Millikin that first semester I declared a Theater major. Perhaps that’s why I dropped out as it didn’t really suit me. When I went back to college it was as an English literature and writing major…much more my speed. Many of my friends remained theater majors and we hung out in my very cool apartment - pictured above with lots of Coke cans.

6.   At Millikin I became the Editor-in-Chief of our university’s newspaper, The Decaturian. It was a huge amount of work but excellent practice for when I still thought I wanted to be a journalist.  I spent hours on early-generation Macs putting together the issues with a very rag-tag group of student reporters trying to come up with stories in our sleepy little town and school. 

7.   After I graduated from Millikin (it took me 5 years, but I did it!) I moved to Chicago. In that year before I started grad school at Columbia (back in New York City) I worked as a hostess at the Signature Room restaurant on the 95th floor of the John Hancock building. I lived in a little apartment right up next to the EL train tracks in Wrigleyville which was so close to where the Cubs played that I could hear the crowds roar and the lights flooded into my rooms during night games. It was my first experience working in a restaurant and think it was actually here that I started thinking about food as a career. A chef who worked there made a bunch of us dinner and I thought I could do that! It was also here that Chris Farley asked me out as his date for New Year’s Eve - he lived in the building. I politely declined. (photo bottom far right is New Year's Eve at the Signature Room)