It's around noon at the Zenith restaurant in Manhattan and Lisa Loeb has already been up for six hours. Bright and early this morning, she was making her rounds through radio's dreaded morning drive time show circuit and, after a vegetarian lunch, will head to an undisclosed movie audition. Despite the early rise, Loeb is striking. A few blond streaks wrap around her raven-locked pigtails, which match her long, furry black dress that zips up the middle. A faux-leopard-skin collar and cuffs round out the ensemble.

\\Indeed, Loeb oozes girl-next-door charm and wait-till-you-see-me-with-my-hair-down sex appeal, but her delicate voice and lush folk-pop songs have made her more than just the protagonist in every twentysomething guy's baby-sitter fantasy. Thanks to former neighbor Ethan Hawke, she scored a smash hit on the "Reality Bites" soundtrack ("Stay") before even signing a record deal, and her debut album, 1995's "Tails," went gold. Now she must deal with every promising new artist's nightmare: the sophomore slump. While there's nothing as spine-tingling as "Stay" on her new album, "Firecracker," the record stirs up a few chills after a listen or two. Like its predecessor, the album consists of one beautiful pop song after another, sung with as much power-punch emotion and mellifluous harmony as any contemporary artist could muster. Life is sweet for Loeb, but there are still a few things that really eat her up.

\\You picked a vegetarian restaurant. Are you a full-fledged vegetarian?

\\No, not at all. I eat fish and I don't mind if something touches chicken or has chicken broth in it ... I just get grossed out when I eat chicken. I wish I ate red meat, like pizza with pepperoni, hamburgers and stuff like that ... filet mignon.

\\You wish you did?

\\Yeah. I remember it used to be good but it just grosses me out now.

\\What made you give up red meat?

\\I saw that movie "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover," and they eat a piece of his stomach and it looks like chicken. I didn't think about it at the time, but when I went back to school, I was eating the cafeteria chicken and all of a sudden I like looked at the chicken and I screamed and I threw my napkin down and I never really ate chicken again.

\\You take a shot at Jewel in your current bio. What's that all about?

\\I was just kidding around. I talked to her during Lilith Fair, and I'd always see her talking about living in a van and all that, and I always listen to her and think, God, I'm not very glamorous, am I? I grew up in a house with a room, and so I was like pushing that fact. I didn't grow up with any crazy lifestyle. I took piano lessons, I lived in a house, I can't give you any story about living in a van so I'll just tell you the straight truth, you know?

\\Yeah, she's getting a lot of backlash for that -- "Saturday Night Live" did a spoof on it. Do you think the media is evil that way?

\\I don't think the media's evil, I think that sometimes there's a lack of respect and responsibility toward their subjects. I like the kind of journalism that tries to teach people or enlighten people about the artist, not show them 10 reasons why you should hate this person.

\\Have you gotten that one before?

\\Well, no, I haven't gotten that specifically, but there have been cases where people turn things around and there's just no ... respect. And it's bizarre 'cause it doesn't happen in real life. That only happens with superficial press situations.

\\Like eating thin rice noodles and vegetables with a reporter at a vegetarian restaurant?

\\Yeah. I mean, we're all cynical, I know that. I remember once I was doing an interview with somebody from one of the bigger magazines and we were having a great conversation and toward the very end of the conversation he said, "So, some of my women friends want to smack you because they think you're just so vulnerable. What do you think about that?"

\\And I said, "Are you kidding me?" And then right after that he's like, "Can I see your band rehearsal?" And I'm like, "No." What an asshole, you know? Like, why am I wasting my time, I could be writing music or doing something interesting.

\\You're a self-confessed control freak. Are you worried about what I'll say about you?

\\Well, I've had conversations with people where everything's cool and they're asking questions and we're having a conversation, and then I realize later what the article is and it's totally different, total disrespect -- *total.* It's just weird to be put in a position where you're opening up to people and those people, like, take your music or what you've said to them and totally change it around.

\\What else really makes your skin crawl?

\\Oh, unfinished wood! Like chopsticks and popsicle sticks and that store in New York -- Gothic Cabinet Craft -- everything in it. It just gives me the chills.

\\That's odd ... and the last movie that made you cry?

\\Almost every movie makes me cry. I saw "My Best Friend's Wedding" on an airplane and it made me cry.

\\Well, we've covered what upsets and irr