trust me when i tell you that it’s not easy being my little sister.
throughout the years i did things like chase her around with knives, i threw her keys on the roof of the house, i vandalized her posters and magazines, i may have killed one of her dogs, hid a variety of things, listened in on a few conversations of her talking to her friends to find out if they had crushes on me, and continually lobbied to my mother that she was being far too generous with her. normal brother stuff.
but the worst thing i did was get born. and worse, i did it a year before she did.
i steamrolled through elementary school, junior high, and high school like a tornado. every teacher, student, and principal knew my name and either totally hated my ass or fell in love. and because we didn’t look very much alike, people would constantly say, “you’re tony’s sister?”
what little kid wants to be known as somebody’s sister? especially when she was an angel and i was far from that. look at that body language!
angie and i could not be more different. i was super good at sports and terrible at getting good grades, my sister was an honor roll student and a cheerleader. because of that there were a lot of clashes within the pierce household, and when my mom got a stereo the common war zone was the living room and the soundtrack was ac/dc’s back in black, which angie got for a gift and which i instantly purloined and cranked as loudly as possible every day for many years while she practiced her flute.
if there was a career in how to torture your sister i would be a zillionaire. i believe there were incidents of locking her into basements, closets, neighbors houses, cop cars. i remember certain moments where fellas would come over to court her and i told them they were at the wrong house. and of course there were the firefights.
and yet my sister stuck by me. probably because i never narced on her during some of the many stealth parties that she threw when my mom was out of town. and i was always there to protect her in the shadows of school, like any brother. not that she needed my protection, there was very little that anyone could have done to torture her that she didn’t experience in the safety of her own home.
years later my sister met the man of her dreams. and the funny thing was, i liked him right away. dave is mild mannered, smart, patient and still calls my mom mrs. pierce. thats respect. they bought a huge house. filled it with all the animals that angie loves, comfy couches, pretty much everything that she had in the barbie dreamhouse that i turned x-rated and then lit on fire but now it was full-sized and wonderful.
so what has my sister done lately? no offense to my friends with kids, but she and dave brought to the world the cutest little girl in the world. kyla joanne.
when they were out here last month, kyla was sick but never cried. it was amazing. i dont know what they put in her bottle but all that little girl ever did was look at you and smile and point at you and hold your finger and laugh. if she closed her eyes and started to get irritated, my sister and my brother in law knew exactly what to do. it was crazy. full on esp. they should write a book.
so heres to my sister, bears fan, bulls fan, cubs fan, def lepard fan. her first concert, with me, was the jackson five, but then i think her second one was rick springfield at great america. if i was a good brother and ever called her, id know.
happy 23rd angie. i love you so very much. i love that you call mom “mother”, i love that you still live in the silly suburb that we grew up in. i love that you are your own person and nothing like me and a much better soul. and i love that you are my sister.
anti + iron mouth + terra
we’re going to sort through the nominations.
maybe i should just make a paypal button and cut out the damn middleman. 
even though i have a feeling that alot of the giving that will be happening today is people giving to themselves. and thats fine too.