Mariah put on all the primary colors and showed off those stems for the cover of this week's Parade. With her new album E=MC2 coming out April 15, she's got a lot to talk about these days, like how she is forever 12. Nope, no birthdays for the woman with the mermaid room and who likes to lounge in her kitchen, just "anniversaries." That's not all from Mariah, she also talks about what it was like growing up and how she's come back after that infamous breakdown. Here are highlights: [1]

[1]

• On Being an Outcast: "I felt very much like an outcast when I was younger. No matter where I went, there was always this sense of not really falling into place or into one category. I moved around a lot when I was growing up, so nobody knew me and I was never one thing or the other. Being biracial, I didn’t really have somebody to look at and say, ‘Okay, this person is exactly the same as me, and they’re out there.’ A lot of kids have said that to me, ‘Until you put your first record out, I didn’t feel like there was anybody that was the same as me.’ People who don’t feel like they fit in can identify with me. I promised myself when I was a little girl that I would never forget what it felt like to be a kid. I never wanted to grow up and be out of touch with what that feels like.”
• On Getting Older: "I’m eternally 12. And that 12-year-old inside me is an eternal optimist. I know what it feels like not to have fame or money, and I do still feel like that same person in many ways. Honestly, I don’t even have birthdays. I call them ‘anniversaries.’ It really is about being as young as you feel. Some people convince themselves they’re old, or they think, ‘I have to grow up now; I can’t have fun.’ I will still always choose a day at Disney World over a night in Las Vegas, because that’s who I am."

To see more of Mariah and hear what she has to say about her breakdown just

• On Her “Breakdown”: “How do you climb back from the shambles when everybody counts you out? That can be a very difficult thing to come to terms with, especially when you’ve had so much success from such an early age. I have such faith in God that I really had to surrender everything and just know that I was going to be okay. That’s truly where I had to go to when it felt like the bottom. More than anything, it was learning to grow up and take care of myself. Not treat myself like the corporation wanted to treat me, but treat myself like a human being. I’ve faced my worst fears and come out of them okay. Everything is always going to be all right as long as I hang on to the person inside of me."

I never thought I'd feel this way, but there's something a little endearing about Mariah in all her kinda craziness these days. Plus, I gotta give her credit because girlfriend's looking pretty great these days. Golf claps for Mimi.