On Siblings

My brother and I are incredibly close, and I just spent the last few weeks with him and his wife in the Bay Area. Since he is five years older than me, we never fought and I remember being ecstatic when he let me play spy with him and the neighbor kids - I was three and could pull off a fairly accurate impression of an exploding building. Ah, what a sad talent to have lost.

Visiting my brother was also a re-education of sorts, as I have been 'brotherless' for the past year and a half, minus Skype and cell phone calls. We watched tons of films based on Marvel/DC comics (Iron Man and Batman) and I became fairly well-versed in video games once again. It's very little sisterly of me, getting overly eager at the story scenes in games and listening intently when he describes some aspect I would never know of or even intend to learn about on my own. The sibling roles are fun, though, and there is something about the older brother glow that has always been reassuring. I wouldn't like to imagine how different - and potentially prissy - I would be without him.