My Bro, help me to understand the nature of the beast younger sibling, and remind me how much I actually do love him.

My brother, lately, speaks in either a broken spanglish northern New Mexican accent or a regaled country bumpkin draw. The reasoning behind this was unclear to me at the time of my visit with him (Thanksgiving holiday) and despite receiving a few words of explanation it remains mostly unclear at present. I suspect the spanglish is a direct result of both spending time with Borracho and/or the Spanish Language class he is taking at the University. I find the spanglish extremely amusing and have begun to incorporate a lot of it into my daily conversation también.

I forget what prompted the exact reason for me to tell him “you know, sometimes you should think about why people are trying to get rid of the stuff they set outside for trash pick up.” Semi-unrelated, I recently learned of a scheme of his to go out on the nights before trash pick up and collect bags of aluminum cans set out on the curb for recycling. I’m assuming (read: hoping) he’s only picking up pre-sorted bags of aluminum and not mixed trash bags to latter pick out/sort the aluminum from it. I’d been pre-warned about this however by an email that simply read: “price per pound of aluminum = $1.20 I am gona be rich!” For my Bro’s sake I hope he can find a recycle center that still pays for cans.

I used to share a small apartment with my brother. It was impossible, or rather not probable, to come home and not find something new looming in the living room. I’ve come home to road signs, road cones, large lengths of rope, car parts, lumber/sheets of plywood, new very large “art” project materials… etc. The list goes on. Some days I’d be lucky and it’d only smell like spray paint inside the apartment, or I’d find a new poster staple-gunned* to the wall. It’s quiet now with out him.

My brother will let you when he is unwilling to exert the necessary effort to not “fuck up your shit.” Odds are “your shit isn’t worth it.”

He’s starting a hiking club in Albuquerque. If you’re female and you’ve been to a college party in ABQ recently you’ve probably heard about it. Upon pointing out that UNM has an actual hiking club I received this awesomely (I almost cried I was so proud of him) honest response: “Look man, I know there’s already a hiking club at UNM – I’m just doing this to puro meet chicks”

It's great talking on the phone with my brother.
Typical phone greeting: “Whad-up up man?”
Typical start of phone conversation: “Oh man I’ve been up to mad shit, I got all kinds done today… ”
Typical phone salutation: “Wheno-bye.”
Actual voice mail received (9/10/06): “Aye, necesito más peligro para la tortuga! [Pause] Wheno-bye.”

One of the things we have in common (maybe I learned from him, actually now that I think about it I did learn it from him) is we are both very honest with our parental unit. This means we tell them the truth or when faced with a situation when we know they wont approve of whatever goings on, we logically/conveniently omit the truth (i.e. turbos and other high dollar expenses).



* Definition: sta·ple gun n
a powerful device used to project heavy metal staples into wood or masonry**

** I also use a staple gun to affix everything to the walls.

Per Melisa per Lacey: too good not to post

I'm not sure I know what to think about this... Comment as necessary.

As long as females can fool males in thinking they're faithful

At the heart of all long-term relationships lies a fundamental deception WOMEN only stay with men for security, and men only stay with women for sex. It's a cynical view of human relationships, but researchers now say it is the driving force behind the evolution of monogamy--and women started it. By offering sex all the time, females in monogamous species disguise whether they are fertile and trick males into sticking around.

In most species, females only have sex when they are fertile. This is because sex takes energy, and carries the risk of disease. But it also means males can easily tell which females are fertile, so they don't waste time on mates that won't get pregnant. Indeed, males usually give females no help in raising their offspring. "The male strategy is to stay with the female for as long as she is fertile, and then to leave," says zoologist Magnus Enquist of Stockholm University.

But in some species, including birds, porcupines and humans, the girls have wised up. By cutting down on visual and chemical cues, and by having sex all the time, they stop males from telling whether they are fertile. "The male has no cue," says Enquist. "All he can see is the behavior of the female."

Once males are blind to a female's condition, he says, it's no longer worth their while chasing lots of partners, because the one they're with is as likely to be fertile as any other. "There is a search cost. It takes some time to find a female."

Although this idea makes intuitive sense, until now it was a mystery whether the trick works. Normally, a male choosing a stable relationship over a philandering lifestyle would have fewer offspring, putting him at an evolutionary disadvantage. Would women hiding their fertility by offering sex continuously be enough to tip the balance?

Enquist and his colleague Miguel Girones from the Netherlands Institute of Ecology in Nieuwersluis decided to investigate. They created a mathematical model to test the theory, and found that under certain conditions, monogamy is the preferred option. Even in a population where males were used to having many partners, if females started to conceal their fertility, the males settled down into long-term partnerships.

"Classical explanations of sexual behavior always focus on the male," says Enquist. "But this gives stronger focus on the woman." Evolutionary biologist Anders Moller from the CNRS, France's centre for scientific research in Paris, agrees. "This is driven by females," he says. "When ovulation becomes concealed, the males stay with the females longer."

But animal behavior expert Mike Siva-Jothy of Sheffield University argues that tricking males into being monogamous isn't the only reason for females' high sex drive. Having lots of sex with lots of different males might ensure that at least some of their off spring were fathered by good-quality mates.

Although this idea doesn't fit with the traditional view of monogamous societies, Siva-Jothy points out that even in species where pairs bond for life, the females cheat. "When avian biologists went out and looked at the DNA profiles of the offspring, they found that everyone was having a romping time," he says. But so long as females can fool males into thinking they are being faithful, their strategy of hidden fertility will still work. "They have to be cryptic because they don't want their partner to find out," says Siva-Jothy.

Source Citation: Marchant, Joanna. "Sex, lies and monogamy.(research into the habits of monogamous animals)(Brief Article)." New Scientist 170.2288 (April 28, 2001): 4. Expanded Academic ASAP. Thomson Gale. NMSU Las Cruces. 6 Nov.2006&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T002&prodId=EAIM&docId=
A74885887&source=gale&srcprod=EAIM&userGroupName=nm_a_nmlascr&version=1.0>.