Look who's 24

So my "little" brother Kyle turns 24 today. I say "little" because he's younger than me but I could also say it because he's shorter than me.

He lives in Brooklyn. It's where the cool kids live. He's more than a little bit hipster and more than a little bit post-modern. But he doesn't have an ironic haircut.

I remember when my brother was this loser who wanted to play tennis instead of soccer, and wanted to learn how to bake cookies inside with my mom instead of letting me beat him repeatedly at the sport of his choosing outside. He was a strange kid too -- randomly developing a strange and sudden addiction to jazz music, then to Hakeem Olajuwon and the Houston Rockets, then to hardcore rap, then to chess, then to crying whenever we wrestled, then to singing, then to drama, etc. And not in that order. Even stranger to a pessimistic older brother was that he tended to have good taste in whatever his musical genre of the moment was, and be pretty successful at everything he tried hobby-wise: baking, tennis, acting, drawing, chess... his collection of gigantic chess trophies makes my single "Most Improved Player" plaque seem a little underachieving.

For my first few years of college I thought he was pretty lame. Whenever I came home he'd be wearing some clothes he stole out of my closet. Also he was really into singing but I wasn't that impressed. I could sing too and I didn't think he sounded that much better than me.

But by the end of college we'd had some real bonding moments. Like the time he threw up on my dorm room floor after eating some bad Mexican food and the time he came to a party with me and I completely ignored him, but he still managed to make some friends. I also remember sitting outside our piano room (we have one of those, seeing as how we are - as a family - so incredibly gifted musically) and hearing him sing again. And it didn't sound like me anymore. It was so amazing that I cried. Or at least, that's the way I'm going to remember it.

There was more brotherly bonding after college. We agreed to stop picking on our sister Monica for no reason. He visited Charlottesville and I'd visit New York. We saw some great concerts. He continued stealing my old clothes.

And here we are. He's 24 and more of a friend than a brother. I love the kid and I'm always cheering for him and bragging about him. I've always got his back and I'm always going to be the older (and bigger) brother with the stable-but-kind-of-boring-finance-job who will fund his hipster lifestyle as I live vicariously through his creative adventures (if he ever needs it).

If you haven't read his fantastic music blog yet, give it a read (and take his advice): http://cemusic.blogspot.com/

Sorry your brother isn't as cool as mine.

Happy Birthday Kyle.