I’m in a forest. It’s dark, but I have no trouble seeing everything around me. My senses are alert to everything...the owl flying above me with the squirming half-eaten mouse in its beak, the cicadas dropping slowly from branches to the pine-needle-coated ground. I find that I’m walking without realizing it, through the trees and on the crunchy pine needles...and crap, my toe is bleeding. Even in dreams I get woozy at the sight of blood; my head suddenly feels like an anvil on my bony shoulders, so I lean on an old tree and look up, away from my scarlet toe.

Her mother used to have a job, at Barbara’s kindergarten, but then they told her she had to leave. Barbara was still fuzzy on the details; her mother told her that six-year-olds didn’t need to worry about such things.

Now I’m living in Nashville. I’ve now lived exactly one week in my own little house with one of my fellow singer-songwriter roommates. I’ve cleaned my kitchen every day (a shocking fact) and not hated it (again, shocking). I’ve done my dishes every day. I’ve made my bed every day (okay, that’s a lie, I didn’t make it today).

Friends with a music major? You’ll be okay.

There are many, many types of people, and one of life’s biggest struggles is finding a way to get along with all of them. When someone has different interests and passions than you, how do you relate to them? I am here to advise you on how to get along with an especially odd group: music majors.

People who have chosen to pursue a career in the unstable, unpredictable world of music are a rare breed indeed. They’re the ones with the imaginative minds and the loveable scatterbrained personalities. They’re the ones...