As with most phobias, the fear of flying does make...

My size has helped make me an amazing performer too. The cliche of the Funny Fat Friend: I absolutely was that character - I am that character... It's a complicated bag of tools I acquired, and I've put them all to work onstage.

A few years back, when my style was 'punk grandma,' I picked up an amazing pair of sandals - orthopaedic ones, with really thick soles. I've given them away to a friend now, because these days my look is more '1980s substitute teacher gone wild.'

I thought to be feminine was to give in to straight culture, or the beauty standard, but in my heart I had a flair for fashion and style. They were passions I kept secret because I didn't understand I could love clothes and hair and makeup and still like girls.

The heart never grows better by age I fear rather worse, always harder. A young liar will be an old one, and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older.

Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.

I had used eclectic therapy and behavior therapy on myself at the age of 19 to get over my fear of public speaking and of approaching young women in public.

I think I'm a bit less inhibited, and not thinking too much before speaking. It's not about being shameful, I'm just a bit more unabashedly myself because of this thing, and it probably started at age 15. I can be around people and say what I think without fear.