Oh, Brother, Why Art Thou?

I love my brother. I don’t blog about him enough, but I should. Really. I have mentioned him before in passing, but he definitely deserves his own post. He deserves a multitude of his own posts. The man is a character.

He is my younger brother, six and a half years my junior. Growing up as children, the gap was too big for us to really share, except for the games boys play at home when nobody is looking. Hide and go seek in a twelve by thirteen bedroom, fort building from sheets and pillows and the infallible Millennium Falcon. Things like that.

However, it was not until he hit his teens that we really started seeing eye to eye. It was during these crucial years that our father passed away, sending the boy into a spiral that scared the shit out of me. He had some rough patches, traveled some seedy roads, until it all came to an abrupt stop. Our entire family spun out of control during this time before the gravity of genetics reeled us back into stable orbits. In that time, my brother went from being that troublesome teen and metamorphed into an outstanding man. He is a person with enough personality and character to fill a novel. A whole series.

Just last night, as my wife and I were strolling the streets of a Cabbage Town (will blog about this place later), I suddenly burst into laughter.

“What?” she asked.
“Nothing, just remembering,”
“Must been funny,”
“Remember when brother was over at the house, talking about that girl?”
“The short one, that nobody knew was short?”
“Yeah, that one.”
“What about her?”
“Well, I just remembered him saying that she wore those giant heels, that she couldn’t even walk in, and she looked like…”
At this point, brother put down his beer, and stood up, curling his hands into his chest to make them smaller. He then inclined his body forward and took one exaggerated step in front of the other, before he turned to us and said [about the girl] “She fuckin’ walks like a T-Rex, in those shoes.”

Tell me, how could you not laugh your ass off at that. He is plagued with things like that, which enliven any situation.

I also have a sister, thirteen years my junior. But that is another post all together. She is a wonderful girl, with whom I share an uncanny understanding. It’s almost a psychic connection, if I was to go all cheesy on you all, which I am not. I love my brother and sister. I draw inspiration from them both, which only makes me sad when I see or hear about siblings that don’t even speak with one another.

No Beer-Can Crushing Boobies. Sorry

I know where I was supposed to go, but as you all know, plans change. Fast and suddenly. So was the case yesterday. As tempting as it was to see Blondie squeeze our discarded cans of PBR between her un-inflated bosoms, we decided against it. We visited my cousin J’s house, and saw the family for a bit, and met a couple of her friends. One of them, “A”, had an unnatural fear of going home and finding a large black man with a machete waiting for her in her living room. When asked if a large white man with a knife would be different, she admitted it might still be bad…. But fear took the form of a black guy for her. Go figure. Apparently nun-chuck wielding ninjas and gun toting Mexican’s are just not scary enough. Needles to say, she did not come with us, I don’t care how cute she was.

So, the three of us, (J, H, and G) headed to a little area called East Atlanta. A quaint place surrounded by good beer drinking spots and a myriad of personalities that continually add spice to my city. It was three or four bar-hops later that we ran into some folks I haven’t seen in months. It was the perfect finish to a great evening. I saw so many personalities, travelled the city in the company of the folks that I love, and had the opportunity to chat with people which only enrich my life, and the voices of my characters.

It is on nights, weekends, and weeks like these that I find inspiration, true inspiration, to continue my work, and keep writing. I want to write them all into my book, though I know it only make it over crowded. I will, however, write them all in my books. All the ones to come – published or not – I want to capture at least a sliver of the fantastic people I have been so lucky to encounter.

And so I say, with only a small smirk: Thank you Atlanta. Good night.