There's a little bit of magic, everybody has it.

I was in a funk at the beginning of last summer. The kind where I could barely get out of bed in the morning or off the couch on the weekends. The kind where I ended every night with 2-3 drinks just to turn my brain off. The kind where I cried, a lot.

I was fun.

And then one day, I was on a walk, and one of my buddies (Katie or Erin, I can't remember which one) texted me:

So they sent me "A Better Son/Daughter." 

Sometimes when you're on, you're really fucking on

And your friends, they sing along and they love you

But the lows are so extreme, that the good seems fucking cheap

And it teases you for weeks in its absence

Luckily, it took approximately one listen for me to fall in love with it, and we were able to remain friends. But the bigger thing that happened was that Jenny Lewis pulled me out of my funk (the Lexapro also helped), and suddenly there was no other music worth listening to. I subscribed to Spotify and listened to every Jenny Lewis/Rilo Kiley song available, all the time, and I fell in love. When I first heard her song "The Next Messiah," I had this thought: "Why does anyone need to do drugs when songs like this exist?" The music from that song pulsed through my veins - I felt like I'd injected it into me. 

This happened with so many of her songs. I felt like she'd surely written "Head Underwater" for me. Obviously she'd read a bunch of my short stories from college and wrote "Late Bloomer." I fell hard for Jenny right as her new album Voyager was released, and not long after I first heard her, I saw the hilariously irreverent video for "She's Not Me." And then also the video for "Just One of the Guys," with Brie Larson, because OF COURSE SHE'S FRIENDS WITH BRIE LARSON. I kept looking for a song I hated and I wasn't finding any. Everything was so good. It all felt written for me.

Because Los Angeles is awesome, I was able to see her in concert for the first time about 6 weeks after I heard her for the first time. 

I like to pretend she's singing right to me here.

Best. Concert. Ever.

I think it's best if writers write for themselves, write what makes them happy, and what they believe in. You want to know your audience, but you don't want to cater to them too much or you risk losing your voice. But dammit, how great would it be to know that what you are sharing with people is changing them? That what you have to say matters so much, and is connecting on a very real level? THAT is rad. THAT is the dream. I feel lucky to have this girl and this music.

One of those "likes" is from her.