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What is the first foreign country you ever visited?
I went to Mexico when I was in high school with my show choir, Power and Life. I was 17. It was the first time I saw really poor people and it freaked me out. I grew up in Kansas and was very sheltered. I wasn’t wealthy or anything, we were upper middle class, but [in Mexico] there are kids poor and begging with no shoes and it was a real eye opener when you begin to realize there’s a whole other world out there.

What place in the world is on the top of your list to visit?
Right now it’s home! Because I spend so much time traveling and going everyplace else, my first choice is to be at home with my kids and my wife.

If you and Tammy Lynn could settle down anywhere in the world in any home you like—a famous castle, mansion, or house—where would it be?
What a fun question! Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie. I’m telling you it’s so funny, Tammy and I being in this Hollywood world for a while, when we’re just Midwestern girls who want to have a house with a white picket fence, bringing home the milk and eggs. The whole big powerful money thing, it was exciting for a while, but now it’s way too much work.

What has been your most memorable experience mixing with the locals while traveling?
Tammy and I decided for our summer, because I wasn’t working, that we wanted to take a month off and I said, “Just find me a lake with a boat, that’s all I want.” We went to Indiana, which is her home state, and there’s a beautiful lake there. We rented a house [in this town] and let me tell you it was as Republican as you can get. Very wealthy, Midwestern folks, and we went in like, “Oh boy, here come the dykes that are gonna turn the lake upside down, people are going to freak,” but our neighbors could not have been nicer, could not have been more helpful. I sat there going, “Hey, I need to look at my own bigotry. I’m thinking these red states are going to be bigoted, but I need to give everyone a chance.” [They weren’t nice to us] because of my fame, because half of them didn’t know until later, “Oh you’re a singer?” So as a community we need to get a little braver and really just be ourselves, be good people and not put on a defensive thing. I think that most of the good people in the Midwest and this country have learned a lesson. Have [thought], “OK, they can get married. They’re here, there are going to be a certain percentage of people that are gay, and that’s just the way it is. They’re not hurting me and I’m not gonna hurt them.” Although they get a little uncomfortable because they have to explain why there are two mommies, they’re starting to get it. I believe it.

What are the most essential items in your suitcase?
Eye makeup remover. I have an arm compression sleeve, because I had some fifteen lymph nodes removed from breast cancer, so I have to wear it when I fly. My notebook, whatever book I’m reading, and glasses—now that I’m freaking 46 years old I can’t see a damn thing. Pisses me off!

When choosing a hotel, what are some of the amenities you consider absolutely essential?
Q-tips. A good shampoo and conditioner in case I’ve forgotten mine. Good soap, I’m particularly fond of the L’Occitane Lemon Verbena. I love the smell of that.

What is the best or most unique souvenir you ever brought home, and where is it right now?
I actually stopped because I’ve brought so many things home! Now I’m trying to travel light—enjoy it and leave it there so I don’t have to bring it back. But I like to collect fine art and blown glass. The whole house is like art. It’s cool.

If you could meet with anyone from the past, who would it be, where would you meet, and why?
Somebody like JFK or Eleanor Roosevelt. Someone in power that made the good choices, the hard, good choices. I would want to talk to them about how they did that and why and where they gathered their knowledge. I’d like to talk to Thomas Jefferson because I think the forefathers had a lot more going on than we give them credit for, and I think we’ve lost a lot of their insight. When you realize our constitution has these words, “The pursuit of happiness,” I think we’ve really lost track of it. Not the pursuit of property—it’s the pursuit of happiness

[Published: November, 2007]