Meet the peta2 Staff: Rachel

Hometown: Downtown Detroit, which I have a ridiculous amount of pride for. Don't hate!

Favorite Bands: Nine Inch Nails, The Cure, Sister of Mercy, AFI, Kill Hannah, Bauhaus, The Birthday Massacre, The Smiths, Joy Division, Placebo, VNV Nation, Zeromancer, Jeff Buckley, Bad Religion, The Veils, Interpol, Blaqk Audio, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Tears for Fears, Smashing Pumpkins, Team Sleep, From Autumn to Ashes, Brand New, At the Drive-In, Rise Against, Autolux, Slowdive, Massive Attack, Hanson, In Flames, :Wumpscut:, Angelspit, Skinny Puppy, The Shins, The Decemberists, The Doors, Pink Floyd, Tegan and Sara, Porcelain and the Tramps, Psyclon Nine, Peter Murphy, Apoptygma Berzerk, Christian Death, The Cult, Portishead, Blind Melon, Mindless Self Indulgence, And One, Combichrist, A Perfect Circle, Tool, Duncan Sheik, Johnny Hollow, Damien Rice, David Bowie, The Mission, Seal, The Arcade Fire, Stabbing Westward, Puscifer, Imperative Reaction, The Mars Volta, London After Midnight, Between the Buried and Me, Deadstar Assembly, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Faint, The Church, H.I.M, Guster, Jimmy Eat World, My Bloody Valentine, Psychedelic Furs, Tiger Army, TV On the Radio, Henry Rollins, VAST, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Deftones, Assemblage 23, She Wants Revenge, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden.

Latest Blog Entries:

About Me: I'm an only child. I laugh a lot. I have random celebratory dances. I've got a lil' gangsta in me from being raised in Detroit. My favorite thing to do at night is dress up and go out to goth night—I love to dance! I've never learned how to drive; I bike. Trent Reznor is my personal hero. If you get to know me, I'm one of the goofiest people you'll ever meet. I can be overly honest. I took hip-hop dance classes for five years. I love soccer and (Detroit) hockey. My favorite thing to do with friends is watch marathons of The Office, The X-Files, The Simpsons, or Ghost Hunters—or throw an '80s dance party. I was a complete dog person until my ex-boyfriend and I rescued a cat a coworker found outside; it turns out she completely changed my life and way of thinking. I started to love cats so much that I began volunteering for a local animal rescue in its cat adoption center. Since then I've worked in direct animal rescue and rehabilitation for three years—I've rescued scared dogs from garbage cans in the dead of winter, from the side of freeways in downtown Detroit, and from chains driven into the floorboards of houses. The animal rights movement is the most important thing to me—second is music.

I Love: Animal liberation. Davey Havok. Fran Mark. Boys with tattoos. Ghosts. The Paranormal. Ghost Hunters on SciFi. The Office. October. Halloween. Autumn. Photography. Graphic design. All animals. Olives and Tofu—but not at the same time, well ... maybe. Iced soy lattes. Independent coffee shops, bookstores, and record stores. Band shirts and pins. Fake leather goth boots. Falling in love in the fall. Poetry and writing. Small concerts in even smaller clubs. Skylines. New York. Boston. Grocery shopping at Whole Foods. '80s New Wave. Tabling at shows. Being front row at concerts. The artwork of Vincent Marcone. The writing of Henry Rollins, Elizabeth Wurtzel, Sylvia Plath, and Alice Sebold. Eastern philosophy. Being picked on. Coconut, banana, almond, and cinnamon smoothies. Vegan cupcakes. Thunderstorms. Cold weather and rainy days. Collecting candles. Vegan Chinese food. Old-school black-and-white horror movies. Nosferatu. Zombies. Anything with pumpkin in it. Michigan lakes in the winter. Indian food. Jasmine tea. Getting flowers. "Meat tray" demos. Indie films. My cat, Hannah.

I Dislike: Apathy and neutrality. The smell of gasoline. Driving. Plane trips. Hot weather. Teen comedies. MTV. Objects being pushed at me slowly. Wal-Mart. Drugs. Cigarette smoke. People who lie. Being hungry. Most fruit. Headaches. Most movies. People who won't dance with me on goth night. Ignorance. Bad music. Drivers who try to hit you when you're biking!

Albums That Changed My Life: The Fragile: Nine Inch Nails. Disintegration and Pornography: The Cure.

Movies That Changed My Life: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, American Beauty, Mysterious Skin, The Crow, Good Will Hunting.

What did you want to be when you grew up? Photojournalist.

Why You Went Veg: I went veg in high school after doing a newspaper article on the fur industry. I remember staying up really late one night writing it and crying my eyes out seeing all the images of minks, foxes, and other animals who were being skinned alive. I remember sitting there thinking that by being a consumer, I had the power to affect this industry. Some of my research was done on PETA.org. I remember distinctly sitting in my dark living room and just taking all the images in at once; I felt so guilty. From then on, I decided that I was no longer going to support anything that funded abuse, rape, and cruelty to animals. I couldn't ever imagine having my companion animals treated that way—why would I pay for other animals to be tortured?