tiny_dancer raze is it weird that what i remember most is the last thing you ever wanted anyone to notice? you hated your hands. your palms were always sweating. even when they weren't, you thought they were. i held your hands once. whatever they were wet with, it didn't feel like sweat at all. it felt the way mist looks like it might feel if you could touch it. it felt like everything we were never going to be. here's what i remember: the word "omnivore". we were sitting on my front porch. there was a candle in the shape of an o giving us enough light so we could see each other in the dark. "i wonder what the rest of the word used to be," you said. "quick. what's a good word that starts with an o?" "omnivore," i said. i wasn't trying to be funny. it was the best word i could think of off the top of my head. but you started laughing. you couldn't stop. laughs are like yawns. if they're good enough, they'll get their hooks in you whether you want them there or not. and your laugh was better than most. we must have laughed for ten minutes, until we were crying and laughing at ourselves. omnivores. i remember the living room of the house you were watching for a friend one weekend. i brought over "la belle et la bête", "the point", and "the red balloon". you made popcorn and we tried to figure out which remote made the dvd player work. before we could do anything, the power went out. we sat in the dark until the humidity got to be too much. we drove around with the windows down. you took me to the house you grew up in. it was better than any movie we could have watched. i remember playing "a little touch of schmilsson in the night" for you on vinyl and then hugging you at four in the morning in the driveway before you left, and feeling my feet leave the ground when you decided to lean back and lift me up just to see what would happen. what happened was you almost fell over, and you almost brought me down with you. i remember wednesday nights at the kildare house with you and paulina. the conversations went so deep, she said it was like group therapy. after the first or second time, wednesday wasn't a day anymore. it was group. paulina said she did a great elmo impression, but she wouldn't do it in a public place. you couldn't see her face when she did it. she had to be under a blanket or covered up somehow. she laughed like she wanted to run away. she said the little girl she babysat always made her bless her stuffed animals before she tucked her in. one night there was a song on the radio i'd never heard before. i knew the voice, but it didn't make sense. this was satellite radio, and they were playing a song i didn't know by yellow wood, a windsor band that didn't exist anymore. i wrote some of the lyrics on the back of a torn envelope. "if in the evening all you do is watch tv 'cause you're too tired for anything else you're just like me just remember as you struggle through the day relief awaits you friday's not that far away" i did a google search when i got home. it wasn't yellow wood. it was "weekends" by the perishers. they were swedish. i remember the night your hair was so dark it looked wet when it wasn't. you had a migraine that knocked you out. i brought you a cold washcloth for your forehead. you laughed and said, "you're fucking awesome." i remember your upright piano. it was in tune with itself but almost a whole step too low for the rest of the world. i tried to play "mercy street". i couldn't get through it. nothing was where it was supposed to be. i remember the sound of you sobbing on the phone when you found out your sister was getting married. not because you were happy for her. because you were convinced you would never have what she had. i remember the look i gave you the last time i saw you. i remember what your face told me it did to you. and i remember your hands. you said you'd always wanted a turntable, but you were intimidated. you didn't know how to start a record collection from the ground up. i bought you one of those portable suitcase record players and went through my records to find all the duplicates. dire straits. elton john. split enz. bill evans. kate_bush. the police. jackson browne. i found another copy of the harry nilsson album you loved for three bucks. i couldn't believe it. i brought the records and the record player that looked like an old typewriter or a sewing machine over to your apartment and grabbed "madman across the water" while you were in the bathroom. i put the needle down on the first side and "tiny dancer" started to play. you walked into the living room and smiled. you took my hands. we danced. and for six minutes you didn't think about your damp palms. you let your body move to the music. you sang along to the chorus while i thought about what a gift the saltwater on your skin was, because it made a memory i knew time couldn't take away from me. 211023 what's it to you? who go blather from