07 March 2006

I'm the Before and He's the After

In two months, I'll see my only sibling for the first time in ten years. We've lived in different states and just missed each other on our respective travels but how in the world did a decade go by since I saw him last?

At forty-two years old, my brother is still a distance bicycle rider. He's worked construction most of his life and has the sinewy build of a man who can't eat enough to keep up with the calories he's burned. He's outdoorsy and tanned. A shrewd and skilled business man, he now runs the family general contracting business and manages single projects that equal the dollars generated by the cafe in a whole year.

How can I compete with that?

I'm five or fifty pounds over weight. My hobbies include lip-synching songs from the eighties in the bathroom and experimenting with funny voices for my dogs. I'm not certain I even own a bike but if I do, the basement has absorbed it wholly. Instead of making hundred thousand dollar deals, I make cookies. I'm pasty... and all that that implies.

Two months. I need Tony Robbins, Tony Little and if those don't work, Tony Soprano.