Eryn Brown is a Los Angeles Times science writer. Before moderating a conversation with the coauthors of Zoobiquity about what doctors can learn from animal medicine, she sat down in the Zócalo green room to talk about hair goop and ice cream sundaes, her prom dress and how her New Yorker magazine cancels out her Us Weekly.
Q. What don’t you leave home without?
A. My hair goop-it’s called “Alterna something or other,” and they discontinued it. I’ll have to find something new to leave home without shortly.
Q. What’s hanging on your living room walls?
A. There is a picture on my living room wall. It’s abstract and other than that … a TV, and some lights. It’s really boring. [Laughs.] Sorry.
Q. Where do you go to be alone?
A. I like to take walks in the hills-the valley side of the Hollywood Hills, in Sherman Oaks.
Q. What’s your favorite sundae topping?
A. Chocolate chips. Or Heath bar.
Q. How do you cure the hiccups?
A. I lean over, as if I were touching my toes, and I have a glass of water, and I drink the water out of the outer lip of the glass while upside down, and it works.
Q. What’s on your nightstand right now?
A. I have a Kindle that’s loaded up with a bunch of stuff. And I have a book I picked up in the office, a chick lit kind of novel, and I don’t even remember what it’s called. And then I’ve got Us Weekly magazine. The Kindle has The New Yorker though, so there’s my cred.
Q. What person do you want on your side when the apocalypse comes?
A. I want my sister on my side because she’s tough as nails. She’s younger, and if she was mad at me that day maybe she wouldn’t be on my side …
Q. Who was your date to the prom?
A. My date was my friend, his name’s Charles Miles. We ate at Benihana. He wore a rented white tux. I had a white ’80s sort of tiered mini-dress thingy.
Q. What’s the last thing you bet on?
A. Blackjack in Vegas.
Q. How do you procrastinate?
A. I surf the Web. If I have a deadline sometimes I will do other types of tasks for work that aren’t related to the deadline, odious things I wouldn’t otherwise want to do but become more appealing with the deadline looming.
*Photo by Aaron Salcido.