Twenty six bottles of years on the wall...

My dear brother turns 26 today...

T h e   G r a y s o n   2 6   
1.  his welcomed sleeplessness
2.  willingness to surrender to sillyness
3.  his unintentional style
4.  he is both an early bird and a night owl.
5. how undenyably hard he works and how he somehow makes things look effortless
6.  the way he makes fun of the intonation of my words, even in serious conversations
7.  when you wake him up, he answers you before he is awake which makes for a nonsensical conversation that lasts too long before you realize he is still sleeping
8.  his dreams - both night and day
9. he gives great spontaneous toasts
10.  his love affair with coffee and wiskey
11.  he sees beauty in quirkiness
12.  the way he loves Cheyenne
13.  his comfort with awkwardness
14.  his discretion in dramatic situations
15.  the way he can make fun of himself and others in a way that somehow builds people up
16.  his ability to turn the smallest moment of his day into a story with characters and a plot and climax and resolution, when someone else might have just said "Someone on the street bumped me and made me spill my coffee"
17.  the way we can talk on the phone for two and a half hours or 5 minutes and he is still sincere and it always makes a difference in my day
18.  his singing in the car and everywhere else really
19.  how he romanticizes everything and yet has a very firm grasp on relaity
20.  his simple charm
21.  his complex character
22.  the way that he carefully plans things so that spontanuity can exist without making him irresponsible
23.  oh his laugh...
24.  he makes me feel like I am always doing the right thing.  I don't know how, but he does.
25.  his Strider face and his relationships with animals
26.  the connection that we have when we're sitting in the car or across the country or late at night or on vacation or on the phone or in the darkest place or the most important moment but mostly in the times that would otherwise just pass by.