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.