I found her in the wreckage. She was the only part that could be pieced together and saved, brought back out of the water and understood more because of it. I met Dani on the all-girls floor of a university dormitory.

Dani is brilliant. Beautiful. Deep and darting. She is always story, sometimes teller.

Also: bold in public places (especially city buses and elevators), a lover of words, word tricks, and sweet potatoes, appreciative of art and artists, properly profane and sarcastic, unconventional, spontaneous, and quotable.

Being friends with Dani has extended my peripheral into laughter caught by better lenses.

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