birthday layers

Today is my oldest brother's birthday. I've got two older brothers, so I'm the baby, and the only girl, and before you think yup, she was a brat may I also ask that you add tomboy to that mental picture. So I'm a brat tomboy, which should explain a lot. Rest assured that if I ever break my hand punching someone's face, I'm gonna pitch a fit.

Growing up, whatever my brothers did, said, wore, or listened to, I desperately wanted to as well. I grew up wearing black and refusing to wear skirts and listening to heavy metal music and rocking out to Anthrax, Metallica, and Motley Crue, and then as my brothers' tastes varied as they got into college, I started getting into Pink Floyd, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, etc. Come to think of it, I STILL wear black and refuse to wear skirts and am still listening to all those bands. Hmmm...

Anyways, both my brothers are amazing guys, honest and direct, hilarious and stubborn, hard-working and incredibly talented (one is an 3D effects animator, the other focuses on graphics. I can't even draw a stick figure very well). I look up to both of them very much, but here's the thing...I don't know them very well.

Oh, it's not for lack of trying, I promise. But there's a bit of an age gap, and I'm, well, a girl, and I've got my own stuff going on in LA. But most of all, there's a little bit of distance because that's how we were raised. And this isn't going to turn into a post about my crappy childhood, because this isn't a blog where I dump that stuff on you guys. But I will say, of all the things that make me the most heartbroken about how the three of us were raised, you know, besides the physical abuse and stuff, is the fact that my father pitted the three of us against each other. We were taught that our siblings were never our allies -- they were our competition, our threats, and it was made very clear that there was only so much love to go around and that we had to compete for it.

Fuck that. And I hardly ever swear on this blog so you can get how pissed off this makes me.

Anyways, I'm steering this post in the wrong direction, as I'm trying to make it lighthearted and instead heading really quickly towards an Epic Fail on that one. Because the point is, of all of this, of everything that I am saying here:

If you really, truly want to get to know someone, check out their wish list on Amazon.com.

We had asked my brother a while back to get us a list of stuff he wanted for his birthday, since we usually try to celebrate it on Thanksgiving because that's the date closest to his birthday when we're all gathered around the same onion dip, and lo and behold, Sunday night an email appears in our in-boxes with a link to birthday bro's Amazon wish list. And I'm scrolling through it, noticing the usual stuff, like some Godsmack albums and Pink Floyd posters and Boston Bruins gear, and then there's the Salvador Dali print of Swans Reflecting Elephants WAIT WHAT?

And there is it, both Swans Reflecting Elephants and Van Gogh's Starry Night, on his wish list. And I know my brother is incredibly intelligent but I'm still like, How does he even know who Dali is? In my entire not-that-long life we have never had a single conversation where he expressed interest in any type of art that was created long before computers, in the dark age of paint and brushes and women who weren't the size of starving Abercrombie and Fitch models.

And as someone who loves art (in a pedestrian, hey that looks familiar, must be whats-his-name kind of way) this absolutely blows me away.

But then I think about it - isn't my Pink Floyd, Boston Bruins, Battlestar Galactica and Godsmack loving brother allowed to have layers, just like me? I wouldn't want someone to look at the things I like and assume I don't know a Jackson Pollack from a Monet. Or that I'm just some air-headed blond who doesn't know the difference between Picasso and LOL Cats.

It got me thinking - what else don't I know about him? What else will I find out about my brother, if we just keep talking, if I don't let my busy life and my brat tomboy persona and the past get in the way?

So happy birthday, big brother. Here's to keeping people on their toes, and never, ever apologizing for being yourself. Your talent and your drive make me so incredibly proud to be your little sis.

And can I borrow that Godsmack album sometime?