Music was always the distraction so it was the obvious choice to pursue. My dad always said to find a job I love to do that way it wouldn't feel like a job. So I did that.

I've dated all kinds of guys and didn't know who I'd end up with. But I kind of assumed it would be someone more like my dad than not.

My dad had a commercial film company so he had a videotape player before anyone. So he got Mel Brooks movies or Citizen Kane or some classic old movies. And every summer the revival house in Evanston would show the great films from the '50s and '60s and '70s.

My dad bought me a guitar and people would ask me to play.

My dad's a beautiful man but like a lot of Mexican men or men in general a lot of men have a problem with the balance of masculinity and femininity - intuition and compassion and tenderness - and get overboard with the macho thing. It took him a while to become more I would say conscious evolved.

Going to the theater is such a joyous experience. My dad would take my sister and me to plays when we were very young like six or seven years old.

My dad would give me $10 which is a lot of money when you're 9 to sing at church on tables at restaurants at family functions just about anywhere.

Without my dad I wouldn't be here.

I didn't know my dad for a long time. My dad was on drugs and my dad was at the VA Hospital my dad was off in his own world selling drugs or using them or there would be crack heads in the house or whatever it would be.

Great dad. Yeah he would ask me for money on birthdays and you know inappropriate times. And I just wrote him off like 'You're not a father.' I just learned you cannot emotionally invest in people who are not attainable.