My Brother, My Baboon

If you could choose to have a sibling, would you choose one? An older/younger sister? An older/younger brother? Well, I didn’t have a choice, as many kids don’t, I decided to come out and ruin my brother’s only child reign. That’s right, I have an older brother and you would think we’d fight a lot but we actually got along for most of our lives. In fact, if I could go back and choose, I’d be happy just with him all over again.

My brother is about 30lbs lighter than this now. Parenthood: The New Diet Craze

I would hate having an older or younger sister, much less a twin sister (my husband still hopes I have one that was separated from me at birth).

courtesy of memeaddicts.com

My brother and I shared a room for years when we were kids. Being raised in a Hispanic household, this means, shit was loud all the time. Whether it was the Spanish music, the parents arguing, mom arguing with the neighbors, or dad cursing at the TV throughout soccer games. When it was bed time, my brother and I would usually close the door, hop in our beds, and just talk about nonsense. What I remember distinctively were his hand puppets he would do to make me laugh. We had a bunk bed and sometimes I would be on the top bunk while he’d be on the bottom bunk. He would raise his hands with all his fingers pressing against his thumbs and just make them “talk”. It was a simple act but I found it hilariously funny. He would do this with both his hands and the puppet would “eat” the other puppet or attack it. Another night time routine we did was “Guess This Song”. “Guess This Song” was a game where we would knock on the wall to a beat of a song and the other would need to figure out what song it was. Again, it was something so simple but I remember it clearly and thinking, how could my friends with siblings fight with each other and we get along so well?

D’aww!!

As I grew, my bother started to unknowingly teach me new things. The truth is, my brother has taught me a lot. I used to be obsessed with the boy band bullshit sensation that owned the 90’s pop wave length. Until he played his Metallica’s tape: Unforgiven I & Unforgiven II.

MIND BLOWN.

He taught me there was good music out there. I never knew music like this existed. My life up to that point consisted of the Backstreet Boys (the time before N*Synce happened), Barbies, and McDonald’s chicken nuggets as the only option for a meal. McDonald’s chicken nuggets are still my go-to nomnom. It felt like my ears and brains were hit with a sledgehammer and I really heard boy BANDS. The type that were in a real band and played real instruments, not just danced and did the same hand gestures throughout their music videos. The type that had MEN instead of boys. These songs weren’t about “girl, I love you,” “girl, I need you, “girl, come back to me.” These lyrics were some seriously deep shit that left it up to its listeners to decipher what it meant to them. Up until this point, I didn’t know music could be so poetic. The lyrics weren’t simple. These two songs were not, in the least bit, literal as all pop songs were (are). You had to find the meaning yourself. My bedroom posters that once held a shit ton of BSB were replaced with Metallica, Korn, Kittie, even Kid Rock (before he went country).

I had to black out some words that were so inappropriate for my age at the time! And pictures of some people.

At one point in my young life, I had thought, “OH EM GEE, I MUST BE GAY!” It was because my lady bits started to develop early and the crimson wave came crashing down with a flood of emotions I didn’t know how to handle. I “came out” to my brother in our kitchen one afternoon and he simply said, “no, you’re not.” And you know what? He was right! What I meant to say was: “I can now appreciate another girl’s real beauty.”

I was about 13 and thought I had to be gay because I started to see other girls changing for gym and thought:
“She has a flat chest, I wish I had her chest.” (I had developed boobies, like, really young and have hated them ever since.)
“Her legs are so smooth looking, why do mine look so gross and hairy?!” (I wasn’t allowed to shave my legs until the summer after 8^th grade)
My brother saved me a real uncomfortable conversation with my parents and the follow up conversation that would have just been, “JK mom & dad! Penis all the way!”

Having only an older brother to play with, we played a lot of video games. I remember playing Batman The Video Game (fucking game was hard as shit. I hate this game.), Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, TMNT, Sonic, Tiny Toons, Little Ninja Brothers, Dark Stalkers, Twisted Metal, Doom, Duke, Tekken, King Of Fighters, and Zelda (another game for me that was impossible), just to name a few. My brother played more and I remember seeing Metal Gear Solid and FFVII but that was too much for me. I just watched him play when the games weren’t too colorful to attract my interest. This did not make me popular with girls my age L They were more into make up, push up bras, make out sessions with heavy petting, and girl scout than video games. It was really the only time I was able to bond with my brother… until one of us delivered a beat down to the other and got upset (it was mainly me 😀 ).

I was pretty clingy. And pretty awkward.

I want to say fighting games like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Tekken influenced my brother to go into martial arts (TaeKwonDo). He started really young, too!

I think my brother(left) was like 16 here.

This led to his own school 🙂

Lozada Martial Arts

He got me into martial arts as well (honestly, I just did everything he did because everything he did was cool). There isn’t any pictures of me because no one took pictures of me in my uniform doing anything D: Naturally, I took his classes so he did get to teach me the basics of the style. My husband is full aware if he tries to be slick, I will ax kick him to oblivion!

Despite living in different states, I would like to believe we’ll always stay close. Anyway, I promised my sister in law some more pictures of my brother so here are some random facts about him.

1. He likes knives, swords, stars, anything sharp… even though he shouldn’t be trusted with anything sharp.

2. He had the typical hot friends.

3. He likes hiking -.-

4. He has a sweet spot for his feline friends… even if they do not welcome the love.

5. He was a fat baby. Really fat baby.

Here is one more picture for shits and giggles. We know how to ruin wedding pictures 😀

I had green hair and he had a mohawk.

THE END!