Able was born in San Carlos, one of the Peninsula’s many arbitrarily-separated little cities. After moving up and down the peninsula, her formative years were spent in Palo Alto and Belmont. She notes that Palo Alto is celebrated for having more rug stores than food or clothing stores, and Belmont is cozy like Beaumont in the musical “Footloose”: there is nothing to do there and dancing is illegal. She has since moved to Santa Cruz to study at UCSC, but she stays out of desperation to not return home. Able thinks about those little things in life, such as whether vegetarians can rationalize eating animal crackers or how long she can survive on toast.