Interview

If you ever wondered. (I interviewed myself for lack of a better subject!

1) Who are you, name-wise?

           

            My name is Sara Ashley Heistand. My nickname is Henry, but my pseudonym in writing is S. A. Heistand. I was named after a Fleetwood Mac song. My sister, Allison was named after an Elvis Costello song; I’m jealous. I used to have a lot of nicknames. Sarie, Bobblehead Doll (that was a weird one), Cleopatra (that was a weird one too). Psychologically speaking, I think I have struggled a lot with Who I Am. I try to take on too many personas at once. I want to be everything and I want to control how people view me. I think by now I don’t what it’s like to Be Myself because it is myself to develop a new person to become. I’m very insecure, obviously.

            Just a list of people I’ve been:

Hank – radio show host

Sara – your gracious hostess at Kings Family Restaurant

S. A. Heistand – author

                        Henry – class clown

                        Sarie – daughter, the cutesy follower

                        Cleopatra – strange gothic creature (8^th grade, a very good year)

                        Bobblehead Doll – awkward 7^th grader

                        Sara Jo – awkward 4^th grader

 

2) How old do you feel?

 

            Well, I don’t feel eighteen, for sure. I’m sure everyone says it, but I feel a lot older. I can’t really relate with people my own age—especially now that I am finishing up high school in cyber-school. I have a job which feels foreign to me. I’ve been accepted at a university. The fact that my life is quickly changing—again—is frightening. I’ve always thought of myself as helpless, as a little girl, but now that independence is impending… I don’t know how to react. All my impressions of college and adult life have come from recycled plots of sitcoms. I hate clichés, but I guess life is really what I make of it. I can only pretend to act my age though, ‘cause I never actually feel it.

 

3) What do you want to be when you grow up?

 

            If and when I grow up, I’d like to be on the radio. Right now I’m in practice. I have an online radio show at Blogtalkradio.com/clefhangers. I love talking. And music. And writing. That’s what Clef Hangers is all about.

 

4) What music do you enjoy then?

 

            It’d be cliché if I said “everything” because no one can like everything. For example, polka, but I do listen to a lot of WYEP that has a decent assortment of excellent radio-friendly folk, rock, rockabilly, NPR, alternative, and alternative-alternative. They’re also the only station in this side of Pennsylvania (as far as I know) to play They Might Be Giants. Given, I’ve only heard it once. That gives them major props from me.

 

 

 

 

5) What’s with the obsession of They Might Be Giants?

 

            They’re different and neutral. You can hear every style being emitted from Them but always knowing it’s Them. For one, it’s weird that They can do that, but it’s also infinitely cool. I’ve seen Them four times in concert and I swear that there’s no one that can possibly compare. Speaking from a generation of recycled trash and reverting taste, I say that They Might Be Giants know how to roll, as well as rock but still keep a sense of refreshing humor.

 

6) They Might Be Giants seem to know a lot about music and musical instruments. Do you know how to play anything?

 

            They’re inspiration, really. But in seventh grade I decided to learn the flute as I was being passed down one anyway. I hated it. So tinny and absolute. I had piano lessons when I was little, but only learned the basics of the right hand when I realized that I would have to practice. However, this November, inspired by the Marvelous and All-Knowing John Linnell of They Might Be Giants (and boredom of staying home all day) I decided I want to learn a new instrument and quite possibly the difficult and stigmatized reed instrument in all the land.

            The accordion.

            I bought one using the money I was saving for college and I gotta say. It’s the best and not nearly has hard as it looks. It’s amazing how much I recalled from music notation and those very few piano lessons. Nary a single regret for the four hundred dollars to buy my Italo-American beauty—affectionately called Ana Ng. From a TMBG song. Damn straight.

 

7) What makes you you?

 

            I’ve experienced a lot, but it’s not bragging—though it may sound that way because I’m interviewing myself. I just want to make it understood though. I like being me, though I could stand to be a little thinner. Not too thin, I like having meat on my bones and I rather not have men looking at me anyway. Or, that’s a lie, because who doesn’t want to be noticed?

            I’ve always been very ambitious. When I was in elementary school I made skits with my little sister, Allison and mangled them in to The Flower Power Show. I was incredibly bossy and tried hard to run things. It’s hard-wrenching to watch those tapes, because I was a total hag. Then, I wanted to be a poet, so I wrote “Whisper”—about a horse. It made it to a book of kid-poems and the company sent it to my school where I had to read it aloud in a school assembly. Also, it made my mom cry and got me sent to the counselor’s office. I didn’t write poetry again until eighth grade (and that was very dreary stuff). In ninth grade I made a rebellious online rag called Chronic Absence where I posted rants, bad poetry, and bad stories. I put up fliers in my junior high and got two other people’s attention. One turned out to be a future friend of mine, and the other was my first boyfriend that I got entirely too into. Last summer I wrote a book of (better) poetry and self-published it on Lulu.com. I sold three copies. One to my mom, one to me, and one to my Grandma’s friend in Arkansas who gave it a bad review. So now I’m a radio host.

 

8) Why radio?

 

            There’s something destructive in radio. It’s a wave of culture and it has the power to influence. Not the reason I’m into it, however. But it sounds too cliché and subcultural if I say “the music, mannn.” Because it isn’t all about the music. I guess it’s the reaching out and grabbing people by the throat, really impressing them. Voices really move me and I feel that if I can do that with somebody, I can be self-actualized. But the music’s really cool too, if, y’know, I could play things I like. But that won’t happen. I can’t name things I like. Besides They Might Be Giants. Because I’m a freak.

 

9) What are your future plans?

 

            To go to college and not work in a restaurant ever again. I want to have a family someday, but I’m not sure if I’m going to have a traditional marriage. I hope I find someone, someday, no where near now—otherwise I’ll just be on my own. But everyone says that, so I’m expecting I’ll be pregnant and married for three years within five years from now.

 

10) Where are you going to college?

 

            Shippensburg University for Communications and Journalism (and a minor in English). Also, a concentration in Broadcast Media. I’m planning on working in the college’s radio station and on the literary magazine.

 

11) Why do you like accordion again?

 

            It’s a beautiful instrument with a beautiful sound (when played correctly and not polka). It’s very versatile and can play virtually everything, manipulating the sound made simple. There’s a lot of good music that includes the accordion. Yann Tiersen, They Might Be Giants, The Decemberists, Gogol Bordello, Jason Webley, Flogging Molly, Corn Mo, They Might Be Giants…

 

12) Do you plan on having children?

 

            That’s something I often fantasize about, but don’t find realistic. Though I find it very realistic that it’ll happen one day. I want a son, named Henry, because I find that would be too cool. I’ll probably put him through public school for elementary school and middle school, but ask if he’d like to do cyber-school by then.

 

13) Do you speak any foreign languages?

 

            German and badly. At my old school I was awesome. I had a 102% before I left. We used to play a game about how fast someone could write on the whiteboard a German demand. I was the quickest. I pride myself on that. Nowadays, I have a C (though it may be raised to a B) and it’s my lowest grade. Everything else is a 92% and higher. I love the German language though. It’s raw and passionate. You pronounce every letter. People think it’s a phlegmy and repulsive language. I think it’s great. I have a German penpal named Markus who helps me with my German, teaching me things that my German teacher could not.

 

 

 

 

 

14) What’s your beef with relationships?

 

            I never really had a good one to stand by. Of course, I’ve only had three boyfriends since 9^th grade and I’ve never had any good interpersonal relationships with any men. I haven’t lost total faith, but I’m an absolute feminist and when I see crap in quickly generated comedies about frat boys looking for sex in college, my hope levels decrease critically.

 

15) What is your favorite book?

 

            Harry Potter, by George! The whole series. I have an amazing attachment with the books. I virtually grew up with Harry Potter. The books end when he’s seventeen and I was seventeen when the last book came out. That was an astounding and emotional string. I’ve been through crap and Harry’s been through worse crap. We’re both getting along.

 

16) Are you religious?

 

            I used to be, for all the wrong reasons. I was Presbyterian before my family questioned the church for being too strict. I was Interfaith, because my mom decided she wanted to be her own reverend. I was Wiccan, because I wanted to rebel and be more in touch with my “sacred feminine”. I still think that’s a beautiful religion and I can understand the beliefs there better than Christianity. Of course, then I was Lutheran for a good two months because I thought that my boyfriend of Chronic Absence fame would stay with me if I was. That was an idiot mistake. And now I am free of everything. I’m perfectly happy not knowing about the universe and all its secrets. I love to love. I don’t need forgiveness because I know that I haven’t done anything too terrible. I don’t hate people because they choose to love. Religion is a crutch (to me, I have no problem with others practicing their beliefs as long as they’re not harmful to anyone) and I don’t need all of those responsibilities when I’m trying to focus on living proper.

 

17) Who do you live with?

 

            My friend, Krysty’s family. My dad and I agreed to kick me out and my mom moved away to Wisconsin three years ago. My 11 year old sister Autumn followed suit two years ago and my 16 year old sister Allison did last summer. I’m the last sane one of the clan to remain in Western Pennsylvania. I didn’t feel comfortable moving up there too. I don’t think I could be close with my mom again. I don’t really know her anymore. And my dad. Erm, he’s not even worth discussing.

 

18) How are you so calm about the crap that’s happened to your and your family?

 

            The nice thing about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is that it causes things that happen to you (even the mundane) to not feel the least bit real. I don’t realize that I’m asking myself questions. I don’t remember distinctly learning the accordion. It feels like a movie is playing when I try to remember my last four They Might Be Giants concerts. It doesn’t feel like I was there or that it happened to me. I open my mouth to speak and it doesn’t feel like I’m talking because I don’t recognize or think what I’m saying. I used to think that I was acting through someone else, that I was the one in my head, and that I was inhabiting someone else’s body, but then I realized that I was crazy. Nothing seems real to me. But it makes the hours at work flyyy by.

 

19) Are you excited about writing a book?

 

            S’okay. I wrote a poetry book before (called “LEAD BASED”) but it was very uniform and very bland and very confusing. I’m working on a better one from things that I have learned from this Creative Writing course. I’m planning on calling it “fruit punch” as it’ll be sweet, but destructive.

I’m also trying to work on my confidence.

 

20) How do you think you could make yourself a better person?

 

            By staying out of romantic relationships and working on furthering my potential career in radio. Or journalism. But not the bland kind. Though it takes years to get up to the level that you can rant and rave through editorials.

            I also want to learn more about music. Theory and such. I’d like to know what it is I’m doing when I pick up my accordion.

            I want to be funny and suave. I want people to like me for me and not the bags of fat that cushion the fall.

            Otherwise, I’m good. I just need to work on my confidence.

 

Author's Note

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