I (finally) have a new post up at Fringe Magazine: Confessions of a social media whore/pimp.

Now I’m going to Twitter about it.

My good friend Katherine just had a piece published in Education Next. If you’re at all interested in education, teaching or learning, you should check it out.

At work the other day, my boss’s iPod shuffled and landed on one of my favorite songs: Joni Mitchell’s “Case of You.”

I heard this song for the first time as a kid, in my dad’s car. He often played Joni Mitchell albums, but this was the first time I sat up and took notice.

As a child whose strong emotions and outbursts weren’t something her parents or friends at the time understood or approved of, I found a lot of comfort in song lyrics. Musicians, much like writers, were people who not only felt what I felt, but also felt it so strongly that they sang about it. I may have been a freak in my own life, but in the world of music (and books), I was, like, kind of normal. (Yet another reason why I became a writer.)

Just before our love got lost you said
I am as constant as a northern star
And I said, constant in the darkness
Where’s that at?
If you want me I’ll be in the bar

Sure, to some, “Case of You” may be just another song about just another dysfunctional relationship. But to me it wasn’t. Listening to it for that first time, I heard a woman whose love for someone is so great that she’s willing and able to stick it out through all the bad. Whatever he’s going to dish out, she’s going to take, and keep standing, there, for him. Because that’s what you do for someone you love.

Oh, you are in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh, I could drink a case of you, darling
And I would still be on my feet
Oh, I would still be on my feet

While this song more or less describes how I care for the people in my life—friends, family members, past boyfriends—it also conveys what I desperately want from those people. To stay with me, despite all the emotion and need, all the “freakish” sensitivities and writer-like qualities.

Really, though, I think this is what everyone wants. Some people are just brave enough to sing about it.