After many days of grocery store food, sitting down for a deliberate, slow, expensive eating time can be the best.

It has happened a few times that I've found myself in a surprise mid-tour recording session.

In 2002 I did a big tour of Europe, by train, by myself, on foot, all the time walking from train station to the venue, in a weird town, in a weird country. I'd brought an acoustic guitar with me but it got broken somehow in transit.

It feels weird to play songs that I don't really... feel any more.

I was really into Michelangelo in seventh and eighth grade.

I'm singing these songs about death and stuff. I see somebody who's, like, in their sixties or seventies at the show, and I'm like, 'Yeah, sure. Fair enough.'

Somebody from Pitchfork Festival wanted me to have a Microphones reunion. It's a joke. It's just me.

Twitter is so stupid. I mean, it sucks!

I feel like I spend most of my time in a state of writer's block! When things do come out, they come out quickly.

I do spend time trying to find good melodies, and I try to remember them when I do discover them. But also it's mostly intuitive; I noodle around with the line until it sounds and feels right.

I sometimes think about the life that my daughter will have with no mom. What does it mean to have a ghost mom? Not that I can do anything differently about it. But it's an inferior version of what we had planned, you know? This was not our top choice.

I always like to play in beautiful cathedrals, when I can somehow get access to do a punk show there.

One thing I've heard that makes sense to me about grief is that there's this conception that it's a thing that you process, and then you're done processing it. But really it's not a thing that has an end, it's just what life is like now. You are living with this now, probably forever.

Eric's Trip is still a huge influence on me. The style of those recordings and the rawness of them is very inspiring. And the density of the distorted parts, amazing.

I'm artistically satisfied and happy.

If I wanted to make big, bombastic, distorted, echo-y, trippy music, the atmospheric stuff, a studio is nice. But it's nice to know that it's not necessary.

I don't think my music is that big of a deal - my entire life is parenting. The fact that I make records and go off and play shows is a small percentage of my day-to-day existence.

It's really hard just making dinner as a single parent, but I'm figuring it out. I just have to be more focused and efficient with my little scraps of time that I do have.

There's a lot of music out there that's like, 'I'm so mad! I'm sad! I'm into skulls and crossbones and the color black,' and that's just meaningless and shallow. So much of metal is about that and it's hard to find metal that is substantial and meaningful in terms of its content.

Nirvana really touched me as a teenager and started making me pay attention to music as a participatory thing that I could do.

My exposure to independent music was via Nirvana and grunge so I'd never gotten into punk. I don't really like that music of Crass, but I love the band, and I love their way, and their presentation.

For awhile the only thing people were talking to me about my music, that's all they ever said: 'You must be a nature lover. Are you camping all the time?'

It is something I've noticed - that my audiences are young. My only thought has been because I play all-ages shows. Even so, they're pretty young, and sometimes I'm nervous the content of my songs - these weird, ambiguous, philosophical ideas I'm trying to articulate. Are the kids getting it? Is it going over their heads?

We had a simple 8-track studio set up in the record store where I worked. And just staying after work and experimenting, realizing what was possible with recording - that's why my project was called The Microphones at first. Because it wasn't even songs really. It was just sound.

I remember discovering that I loved recording - that breakthrough when I was in high school getting to record for the first time.

A rising tide lifts all boats, and you have to start with job creation. We will never get there until we replace all these jobs that have been lost.

As a physician for over 30 years, I am well aware of the dangers infectious diseases pose.

Once we as doctors are entrusted with the well-being of our patients and their children, it is our duty to take action, to be selfless, and fulfill our obligation to the service of others. I did so willingly, and it brought me great joy throughout my professional career. However, I always had a desire to do more.

I've been watching and involved in presidential politics since 1960 when I first voted, and the Republican, the conservative candidate in the primary is always going to lean right and come back to the center for the general - the opposite for the Democrat.

States should require vaccinations for communicable diseases, like measles and the mumps. But you can't catch HPV if an infected schoolmate coughs on you or shares your juice box at lunch. Whether or not girls get vaccinated against HPV is a decision for parents and physicians, not state governments.

As long as I am in the Congress, I will continue to fight for and defend our sacred values.

President Obama has already ended Medicare as we know it.

I don't want to continue to fund Obamacare.

I think Tom Frieden, the CDC director, is a good man, is a good doctor and, I think, basically has done a good job.

For goodness' sakes, back in 2006, when we were about to lose the battle in Iraq, thank goodness our patriots fought in the Anbar province and Fallujah and turned that thing around.

I believe I was sent to Washington to fight for and defend our traditional values of smaller government, lower taxes, a strong national defense, and the lives of the unborn.

There are some problems, and maybe these huge magazines, even, for someone who says, 'Look, I just use an AR-15 for target practice,' but do you really need to be standing there shooting at a silhouette a shot a second or even quicker with that kind of weapon? For what purpose?

Americans are fed up with how things are going in the country right now. They see more job losses, rising debt and plummeting home sales. They feel let down by a government that passes one 2,000-page, trillion-dollar law after another instead of focusing on addressing the problems Americans worry about every day.

Yes, we can pay the interest on the debt. We can renew the $500 billion worth of bonds that are coming due. We can mail out our Social Security checks. We can make sure those Medicare claims are honored. We can pay our military. We can protect our veterans. But when you get beyond that, the soup gets a little thin.

Deep ocean drilling is not new.

Spending on largely ineffective programs - although well intentioned - is a detriment to fostering real job growth.

I truly believe that the job creators, those people making $200,000 a year, are the small business men and women that create the jobs and ultimately will help the middle class and the poor.

I have actively opposed every bailout, every rebate check, every so called 'stimulus.'

I am angry - mad - at the Chief Justice, John Roberts.

For the life of me, I can't understand why BP couldn't go in at the ocean floor, maybe 10 feet lateral to the - around the periphery, drill a few holes, and put a little ammonium nitrate, some dynamite, in those holes and detonate that dynamite and seal that - seal that leak. And seal it permanently.

With an extraordinary amount of federal employees authorized to use 100% official time on behalf of their union, the federal government loses the immensely valuable civil service for which he or she was originally hired to perform.

Everyone depending on foreign fuels are all too inclined, it seems, to let jobs leave this country.

I will be personally seeking alternatives for my family's health care coverage, just like the rest of Americans affected by Obamacare. In the meantime, I will do everything in my power to fight this terrible piece of legislation.

We can't take our ball and go home when the consequences mean a weaker America.

A lot of people get elected to Congress, and sometimes a part of their pledge is a term-limit pledge. There's no accountability.