Meg Stinchcomb ’04 is a delightful young lady, always well-versed in the latest political issues and often wielding a pair of sharp scissors.
 

After changing your major 55 times, what are you currently majoring in now?

Political science—but I actually only changed my major once. I was a philosophy major, and thinking about a double major in that and poli sci.
 

What about legal studies?

Well, that’s a minor here, and I’m actually not a legal studies minor anymore, because I didn’t take enough of those classes.
 

So, do you want to go to law school?

Yeah, probs. How about you?
 

Maybe. Do you want to go right away?

Uh, no. No, I’m going to take probably three to five years off and work at nonprofits and see more what I’m interested in before I go to law school.
 

Are you applying to any particular organizations so far, or are you kind of waiting on that?

Well, immediately after graduation, I’m hoping to get a paid position working on the Kerry campaign, or basically just any campaign for the Democrats in 2004. I feel like that’s where I want to put my efforts right now. If that doesn’t work out in a paid position, then I’m going to get a summer job and see what I can do before the summer ends, working in nonprofits.
 

Are you going to stick around the Twin Cities?

I’m staying here this summer, because I extended my lease, and after that we’ll see. If Bush is reelected in November, I’m going to Prague.
 

Did you study abroad in Prague?

No, no, I’ve never been there—but I hear it’s really cool, and that they need people to teach English, and I know English, so …
 

Do you speak Czech?

No. No, not at all.
 

Have you traveled much?

No, not at all—that’s another big reason why I would want to leave the country, besides Bush being reelected. I didn’t get to study abroad, because I changed my major.
 

You’ve been involved in a lot of things related to gender politics, and I know that you’ve worked in a couple of nonprofits since you’ve been here—Minnesota AIDS Project, some other stuff …

Well, I also worked for the Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing last summer, and that’s when I first became really passionate about affordable housing issues. Eventually, I’d like to do something with housing.
 

So you’ll combine it with law or something, maybe open your own legal/housing clinic?

Possibly ... the org that I worked for concentrated on the eviction court—they would defend tenants who otherwise wouldn’t know their rights against their landlords. I would like to do something more toward policy change—it’s really important to help people defend themselves when a landlord’s been abusive, but even more important than that is changing the law so that the landlord has a much harder time being abusive in the future. And so that more people have access to housing.
 

Is your landlord abusive?

No, not at all. Our landlords are really, really great. They’re wonderful.
 

Have you ever been evicted?

No, I’ve never been evicted.
 

That’s great. Now, Minnesota tenants have a lot of rights, right?

Yeah, this is true. And actually, in Minnesota you can’t be evicted when it’s cold outside—you can’t be evicted during certain months in the winter.
 

Good to know, parties in the winter. So, you’ve been talking quite a bit this semester about some kind of makeup class?

Yeah, I’m actually taking my first fine arts class this semester. I need it before I graduate, and it’s a makeup class–it’s stage makeup, design and application, in the theatre department.
 

What kinds of makeup have you been doing?

All kinds of stuff—we had a drag day; we had a fantasy makeup day where I was an evil clown; we do a lot of stuff with aging, so we learn how to create the impression of wrinkles; we do all kinds of fun stuff. It’s a great class. Lately we’ve been getting more into latex, which is really, really painful, so that hasn’t been so great.
 

Have you ever seen Mrs. Doubtfire? Is that mask realistic?

[laughs] Yeah, yeah, I bet I could do it on your face.
 

Wow. Yeah, I remember you being really excited about this drag day thing, so maybe if the law/affordable housing thing falls through, you can be a professional drag king.

Yeah, I don’t see why I can’t be a public interest lawyer by day and a drag king by night.
 

I wonder how many drag kings are professional lawyers by day.

Probably a whole lot. There are probably a lot of people who actually perform as public interest lawyers. There’s a whole lot of performativity involved in that, the way people present themselves as gendered lawyers.
 

So, your junior year, you lived next to kind of a party house, right?

Well, yeah, I did live at 1610 Dayton—we didn’t have a whole lot of parties, but the people next door in 1604 Dayton had a whole lot. They were great neighbors, and we mooned each other all the time. I remember one party, which was incredible—the cops came, and I had already left the party, and it was pretty late at night. A whole bunch of us were watching through our window that faces like three of their windows as the cops came. We saw people in all rooms of the house just scatter and get herded out by the cops.
 

Did you take in any “refugees”?

[laughs] Um, no. No one really got in big trouble that night, it was just cops comin’ to strut their stuff and show some authority.
 

What else is important to know about you?

Well, one very important aspect of my life is that I give haircuts.
 

PBG [our photo editor, who had been silently snapping photos until this point]: You give haircuts?

Yeah, amazing haircuts. Do you need a haircut?
 

PBG: Yeah, bad. As you can see [displays long, flowing, Farrah Fawcett-esque locks].

Yeah, but your hair’s been long for a while. What kind of haircut do you want?
 

PBG: I don’t know, I haven’t decided yet.

All right, well, we should talk about it.
 

PBG: Yeah, I’ll get back to you.
 

DM: You had a faux-hawk for a while.

[laughs] I did have a faux-hawk. And I’m a little embarrassed, because I sported a 2003 faux-hawk, and it was so 2001, let’s be honest. But I do give really, really great haircuts.
 

Do you charge for them?

No, they’re free. But I do them all at Portland and Wheeler. So you pretty much can’t get a haircut with me unless you just happen to be over there when the mood strikes, and I’ll just start snipping away at someone.
 

Do you do a lot of drastic haircuts?

No, mostly just whatever fits someone’s face shape, and stuff like that. And I provide a lot of gossip.
 

Do you think there’s too much gossip at Macalester?

If there is, I definitely contribute to it. It’s probably my fault as much as anyone else’s if there is. I love gossip.
 

I love gossip too. That’s the whole point of going to a small school, right?

I think the real problem at Macalester is that people even care. You should just accept the fact that everyone’s going to know everything about you, and then people should just do whatever the fuck they want anyway.