I was thinking today about cd's that moved me when I first heard them. First off, remember when they used to be called "albums"? Or "records"? Anyway, I told my Ray of Light story - here is another.

I, like most of America, loved "Jagged Little Pill". I remember being in the drama room hearing "You Oughta Know" and wondering. "who the hell is this?" That entire album really connected with me, along with the other brilliant female-driven records coming out then (To Bring You My Love, Post, Under The Pink, Not a Pretty Girl). But I have to say it was Alanis' second album, "Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie", that really touched a piece of me deeply.

Released November of 98, Billboard said the album was, "a clear step forward, teeming with ambition and filled with new musical ideas and different sonic textures." I was 21 (was that just a great year of awakening or what?), and I was living in Hayes Valley in San Francisco and working in the Castro. And I was learning about spirituality, yoga, and the possibility of things other than MTV. And it was truly somewhat dark and scary. The song "Thank U" helped me to pull through a lot of the revelations that I was coming across, and a lot of the newly found anxieties.

"How about no longer being masochistic
How about remembering your divinity
How about unabashedly bawling your eyes out
How about not equating death with stopping"

I was learning to let go in a whole new way. It was then that I started really losing the extra 80 pounds or so that I was still carrying around then. And I began dealing with my family issues also by finding acceptance in who I was. Songs like "That I Would Be Good" and "UR" would go on repeat, as I would journal or walk the city. In dealing with love and its lack of light in my life, I would play "Can't Not" and "I Was Hoping" to exorcise demons of past relationship hopes gone stale. And Alanis' spiritual awakening mirrored feelings that I had with the songs, "One", "Baba", and "Joining You". Sure, it wasn't the most coherent album, and having been listening to it now, the songs don't live up to that classic status that "You Oughta Know's" teenage rage created. But for me, it wasn't just the musicality of the album. It was that there was someone out there who knew what I was feeling, and thinking about it the same way that I was. And that is what still makes me blast "Thank U" to this day.

A couple years later, I got to meet Alanis, and in the few moments that I had with her, I told her how much that album affected me. I didn't realize how much it had until I was holding her hand and looking into her eyes, and I was saying, "it was so nice to know that we were feeling the same exact things." She, of course, looked at me like I was crazy. But she thanked me, and I went on my merry way to find my next musical infatuation.

If you don't know the record, it's on my recommendation list. It did not sell as well as the first one, but it's a great testament to an interesting artist of the 90's and her musical, emotional, and spiritual growth.

And she had Ryan Reynolds. If you haven't heard, they are no longer together.

My new infatuation.

I want it.

What about it?