Lisa Margonelli directs the Energy Policy Initiative at the New America Foundation. Her book about the oil supply chain, Oil on the Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank
Q. What is the best gift you have ever received?
A. Definitely a five-dollar pony. I grew up on a farm in Maine, and our neighbor was selling it. My father and I went and got it on Christmas when I was nine years old.
Q. What comforts you?
A. Those Emergen-C drinks. Before I was doing policy, I traveled a lot. I spent a lot of time in Nigeria, Iran, Chad – tough places to travel. If you arrived really late or things got really screwed up and after a long day, you can’t figure out where the food is, two Emergen-Cs are the most delicious thing.
Q. When do you feel most creative?
A. Early in the morning or when I’m on a deadline.
Q. What is your favorite thing about San Francisco?
A. The smell in January and February of all the flowers. I grew up in Maine, and in January there were really high snow banks all around. I got on a Greyhound bus to Boston to take a flight here, my first time coming to California. I got off the plane and there were birds and bottlebrush flowers and this amazing smell and I thought, “Ah, California.”
Q. What is the best advice you have ever received?
A. A friend of mine went to Dollywood to do an interview, and Dolly Parton walked in wearing this amazing bright pink jumpsuit and really high Lucite heels. My friend said, “I wish I could dress like that.” And Dolly said, “You could, if you just would.”
Q. What is your greatest extravagance?
A. I like fancy olives.
Q. Where would we find you at 10 a.m. on Saturday morning?
A. If things were going well, I’d be running. If things were not going well, I’d be procrastinating, getting cleaning done.
Q. Who is the one person living or dead you would most like to meet for dinner?
A. Dolly Parton.
To read about Margonelli’s panel on green jobs, click here.
*Photo by Mabel Jimenez.