To swallow, of course – not break with a spoon and grind into dust powder the way five-year-olds swallow their pills.

I don’t know if the heavens are conspiring against me, but this entire week, forgetting to use my iPod as I drive, I’ve resorted to listening to 94.7, which decided to be cruel and play just about every hypnotically addicting Alanis Morissette hit from the 90s. As much as I’d cringe over the flooding of old memories of my high school days when I used to tape-record all the grunge rock I could get my little nimble fingers on, I decided to resist the struggle and admit it. I like Alanis Morissette. No, I love her. I’m an Alanis junkie. I feel like I understand her, and she understands me. Listening to her is like having a conversation with her in a diner over a mug of coffee, a glass of wine, and second-hand smoke that comes billowing at me between interjections, spilling secrets and break-up confessions. Her lyrics are incredibly raw, thoughtful, vulnerable – but uncomfortably gritty with an iron-clad fist that’s clenched tightly. Her folksy voice is a bit screechy, screamed out, but also soft like a wafting ribbon caught in brambles or a crooked tree.

I wanted to pay tribute to the one female artist that has gained my entire trust and full attention span across her entire collection of unabashedly great music – break-up songs, angst songs, regret songs, and revelation songs. But she resists letting her problems get the best of her, as her blase attitude shows; she’s floating above them – instead of being trampled below. Despite the pain that laces her songs about all the experiences she’s gone through, there’s also an overwhelming sense of arrival and enlightenment. She’s a poster child for the introspective 90s grunge-rock-modern era,  re-discovering herself in my car, with every experience and relationship she encounters.