i got another opportunity to assemble a box of fun and cleverness just a few weeks ago. as i'm sure just about every one of you knows (i doubt many people who don't actually know me read this) i am an only child. which is mostly fine, but has left me occasional wanting the kind of brotherly relationship found in much pop-culture. for much of my public school life i wished i had an older brother to help me learn how to defend my self and to play me good music, though i made due with good friends, though we did have some kind of crap taste in music. i have known a few brother sets over the years, a few happy but a few taking the normal sibling rivalry to occasionally dangerous heights. specifically i'm thinking of my cousins who are about as different as two people can be who were the product of the same couple.
i still wished i had had a brother.
then i lived with Caitlin, Blyth and Kristina and got some sisters. which was/is truly awesome, not that we haven't had our moments of fighting and annoyances, but when it comes down to it we know we love each other. the first few pieces of mail i sent out from down here went to them.
and it was through them that i met my fake brother, well the person i would like to be my fake brother anyway and more importantly the recipient of the package i just sent out.
mid summer of 2008 just as the Olympics were happening in Beijing, Kristina's little brother came to visit. half way through the summer between his junior and senior years, he came a few days before his mom arrived so he could check out the city with his big sister and her friends.
so for a week me, Kristina, Caitlin and Blyth showed him the city and our favorite parts and a lot of our apartment. in between all this tourism and on the nights where Kristina and Caitlin wanted to do things that an under age boy shouldn't be involved in but whisky gingers should i stayed home and watched Olympics (i watched an absurd amount of Olympics last year). it was really fun. he is a smart kid and we had a lot of fun conversations about things while we watched and while we wandered around town. it was nice to have a boy to hang out with, not that i don't love my sisters and the few homo friends i have. it was also fun to hang out with a teenager who doesn't make me want to go back in time and smack my self for the things i know i used to do. really he made me wish i could go back to high school and be friends with him. so i did the next best thing and was friends with him in the present.
we didn't get to hang out for too long before he had to return home but even a week and a half of having a surrogate brother was awesome. and i've tried to stay in touch. sending him the occasional note about his favorite SF based ice cream treat (the delicious Its'-It) and i've already sent him a post card from here in NZ. then Kristina told me about moving him into college and i decided to get together a box of back to school fun for my little bro. it was another of my ideas that would have been super duper awesome if i'd had the time and resources that the idea in my head required. but for my budget and time it turned out well. three books from the Popular Penguin series we have at work (sufficiently boyish and college-y, Cats Cradle, Fever Pitch, and Quantum of Solace) a sweet NZ t-shirt (i know of no other country that loves the image of it's own outline as much as here.) and some school supplies including a notebook that i redecorated with crap i've accumulated here in NZ. all in all some good work i think. if anyone knows how i can be a professional care package-er let me know its about the only thing i really am good at and like to do.
anyway more letter related blogging coming up. i hope ...
