remember the rain

i think late summer 2006, bill just graduated that may. the summer after we drank the whole bottle of jack daniels not really knowing how sick it would make us. the same year we all went to las vegas, sleeping on each other's couches and beds, still living with homework.

but it was the end of the summer. remember the rain?

claire's parents were out of town and we set up our new home in their living room drinking only wine and something was wrong with their satellite dish. we watched claire's old vhs of dinosaurs the tv show in shorts, tank tops and flip flops. even though it was constantly raining. it broke all the knobby summer smelling juniper needles off on top of her parents' roof and we'd get them stuck on our skin when walking up to her door. and laze about the love seat and sectional, little chenille summer nests.

the warm hush of summer air sort of mixed and twisted with sometimes cool raindrops and created a crushingly empty medium that touched all the exposed skin. remember? i didn't know whether to be happy for the end of summer or beginning of fall. or sad for both. there was nothing from either seasons present those last weeks, it was empty weather.

i remember best that day i walked in slightly soaked, my legs were dripping wet from the puddle by my car but i had a light gray sweater wrapping my arms, and all three boys were arguing which one was the best dressed out of themselves. bill, of course, knew he was the best. and the childish sulking didn't leave his eyes for at least an hour after we all told him he was the worst.

the build's cd had just come out around that time too, i think. bill would play it when it was especially overcast and the raindrops weren't especially warm. and we'd argue over the cover art and track list, sitting on the chenille ships in claire's parents' living room. the satellite dish was still broken and newspapers piled up under the collection of shoes near the doorway. someone, maybe claire, i forget, would put allies of the seahorse on repeat and we'd kind of lay there with our wrinkled clothes thinking about everything. who knows? i don't remember my thoughts from the end of that summer. we were all worrying about something i'm sure.

later, about a year after that summer, ashley would put the build cd on while it was sprinkling rain and we were reading magazines in summer dresses, heating up chinese food. she said the build was perfect for this kind of weather. we didn't really think of it at the time but it was because we listened to that cd a hundred times in the overcast gloom in claire's living room. i finally just realized that.

so toward the end of july built to spill was coming to albuquerque and we all bought our own tickets. someone, i think bill, bought the new built to spill cd and none of us really listened to it even though the concert was that night. bill was furious that none of us were listening, really listening, to the cd so he kept starting it over. we must have listened to going against your mind 40 times that day. it was day time but the clouds made everything dark and we just sat around each other the whole day on those old couches. everyone stopped talking sort of and we listened to the whole cd but also listening to the cars slushing by on wet roads. the still wet warm air inside the house.

we all laughed forever when bill chose going against your mind as his myspace song. we joked it was the only one he ever listened to. i think we all still kind of believe that.

it's not the end of the summer or raining warm drops but it's one of those hot spring days that reminds me that summer is pretty close. we're wearing our summer shorts from the bottom of the closet again and getting ready for built to spill again.