TUESDAY EVENING

I just got off the phone with my brother Pit Pat. It's awesome because we used to hate each other. I mean, seriously. I'm talking about some really wicked, seething rancor. We were a regular pair of beta fish. My folks had to do everything they could to keep us from scratching each other's eyes out when we were kids. One night, when they were out he tried to strangle me with the Nintendo cord.

True story.

As the younger sibling, it's essentially my duty to blame on him: He was an asshole. But now we are great friends and I find that I can confide in him things I can't talk to any other family members about. Plus it's great because we come from the same background. I can say things like, "do you remember the time we were going to go out and see a movie about the Smurfs at the North Shore Theater, but then mom and dad ended up getting into a huge fight and mom broke a beer bottle over the kitchen table and threatened to cut dad with it and we were left out on the back porch with our winter coats on for like, an hour, shaking from the cold and the noise while they fought something awful?" And he'll say, "Yeah."

That's really special.