memories while rereading *case sensitive*

I gave Kate and Max a copy of my yearly mix, which was still a burned CD at that time, and Kate loved “Palmyra” the best, which is still one of my most favorite songs, tuned precisely to my particular sadness. For my 30th birthday they gave me a collection of 45s. The kind of friends where you gave them a gift and they gave you an even bigger gift back, even if you hardly knew them. But always something made or found, not shiny and new. On Brevoort Place I told Kate she could grab a wine glass from the shelf, and she took one down and held it out to me without a word. Inside lay a dead daddy long-legs in a bed of dust. I laughed and washed it in the sink right behind her. The kitchen was the hallway between the bedroom and the living room. It was never totally clear which room should be which, so we went back and forth, or I did. One day my friends came over and took apart and reassembled the bed in the other room. It was good not to have it in the room where I’d sat up on it and cried till I lost my voice. Even to myself I act like it’s a mystery, why I lost my voice when he left or I told him to leave, but the answer is no one’s ever cried so hard. That particular sadness.