We Are Family

Not wanting to be the selfish type, I think it's time I let other people step into the spotlight of my little online world. Next up, my sister Laura who is 5 years my junior. She is going to kill me dead when she reads this, but she will first have to cross a continent and an ocean, so I should be able to receive some sort of warning and evacuate to higher ground...

Of course, this little piece of airing dirty laundry is direct revenge for something she did to me when I was 12. It was a dark and stormy day in Anaheim, California. There I was in class, trying to be cool. Trying to be funny. Trying not to get beat up. Suddenly, the door to the classroom opened and there in the doorway stood my 7 year old sister glaring unblinkingly at me, soaked from the rain outside. She proceeded, in front of all my classmates, to put her hand on her hips, and before it was even the thing to do, she moved her head from side to side like Shanaynay and yelled at me "Rooooooobbbiiiiieeeeeeeee, you got my umbrellllllllaaaaaaa". I was mortified, petrified and shaking with anger. My sister just stood there, hands on her hips and then, in a move that was a definate channeling of our mother's personality, held out one of her hands toward me as if to say "and don't even think about making me walk over there get it myself." I out my tail between my legs, got up and took her the umbrella. Even though I wanted to beat her with it, I handed it over gently. I heard about that for the rest of the year and well into the next grade, so I think a little revenge is now in order...

While I was running around plotting duets with Olivia and trying to exasperate my parents enough to ship me off to NY if for no other reason than to get rid of me, my sister Laura, then 11 or 12 had far greater ambitions. She didn't want to team with anyone, wasn't out to create a career of her own that would have had the critics clamouring for more... Nope. My sister Laura had but one dream, and that dream was to be Olivia Newton-John. She didn't just want it, she was obsessed with it. She went around making us all call her Livvy, which apparently is what Miss Newton-John's inner circle called her. Fortunately this delusional phase only lasted a few months and suddenly and quite without warning Olivia was blown off Laura's radar screen by the hurricane that was Janet Jackson. She took control, called us nasty, told us to wait awhile and we were both obsessed with her. Countless hours were spent watching MTV, waiting for her to ask us what we had done for her lately, all the while studying every move she made and then recreating them in the privacy of our own living room. Our own private pleasure principal. While I had excelled in the dance moves common to high-school musical theater, Laura seemed to channel Janet and much to my dismay, she was doing happy feet and cabbage patching all around me while I could barely move my shoulders up and down. I was definately a hopeless nerd and my sister was putting me to shame. By the time I learned those moves, they weren't even done anymore and the only thing I got was a whole lot of laughs. And they weren't laughing with me.

Even in video games, that until then had been my domain, my expertise, she was ruthless. As soon as she got ahold of Mario or Luigi, she would kick my digital mustached Italian ass all over the place. I, in turn would call her something insulting like "dweeb" or "butt face" to which, she would respond in kind and soon we would be engaged in hand-to-hand combat, each threatening to tell on the other one as soon as the parents came home only to be forgotten about as soon as the next Janet video aired. At that moment, it was time for rehearsal.