NISTER IS GETTIN' HITCHED!!!

I am starting to recognize a pattern here.


Mid 1980's....Sam is dressed in a white leotard and has her hair sloppily pulled into a side ponytail. I of course follow suit and dress in my ever-so-flattering full body spandex ensemble. If I hadn't spent my entire childhood looking like a boy, if I too had hair long enough to even brush, I am sure I undoubtedly would have screamed until my locks were also lopsided on my young head.


Fast forward to 1991...Sam likes Trolls? I love Trolls! Sam wants a pair of Girbaud's colored jeans? So...do...I. Sam would rather buy the game Jaws on Nintendo than Rollerskating? Even though Jaws is the scariest creature ever and could jump out of the TV screen at any given moment and rip your face off with one razor blade chomp, giving me terrible nightmares for months? Ummm, so do I.


Sometime in 2007....Sam wants us all to raise a ton of money and climb a really tall mountain? So dooooo I!!!


Like most younger sisters, I have looked to my eldest sibling for all the answers to all the questions that bother me so. What to wear, what to watch, where to go, essentially how to live. Maybe it is the curse of the middle child or maybe I just have one bad-ass sister, but Sam has been one of the most influential companions I have. If you retrace every major decision I have made in the past 6 years, alot of them will lead to one common denominator. The Nister.


I like to see it as my ability to be flexible. Some people use the term "pushover" instead of "flexible" but hey, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Chicago was a perfect fit for me and couldn't have been a better choice had I made it myself. (I did...but a slight sway in my thinking was alllll sister.) I fell in love with all things Chicago. I delivered my very first Arabic baby from midget parents there (not technically midgets but they were short). I fell in love for the very first time, walking the very vibrant Clark street and being dumped in a very Midwestern native bush. Yes. Chicago was witness to my process and transition to adulthood. And the very best part of living in that great city, was that Sam was a short bike ride away, living her exciting urban life, in a studio identical to my own. (Just guess who rented theirs first?)


My love for all things Nister even took me to the ends of the earth. Or rather, the top of it. Three months in Africa doing nothing but climbing mountains, losing all my belongings and following orphans around made for the best vacation of my life. Not many people know this, but after my wallet was stolen (the first time) Sam schlinged out all of her own shalingi so that I could eat copious amounts of avocados and write emails home.


So when the news came that her and Scott decided to make the stomach turning plunge into forever-ness, after I hysterically cried and hysterically laughed...at the same time, my happiness was suddenly trumped by slumping despair. Oh no! The time has finally ticked into reality...the sister following will need to come to a halt. But who am I!? Where am I!? Whaaaaat am I!!? If there is no nister-badister-babushka-shister close by?


It was a tie-dye composition of emotions. Ecstatic that I would be gaining the worlds coolest older brother and ambivalent that the timing was...how do I put this...not good for me. I thought I had at least another solid year until they engaged. Plenty of time to run off into more adventurous terrain, like the back jungles of Peru to fight communicable diseases with hot French doctors. At least with that itinerary, I strategized (if thats a word?) I would be ready to move to New York for the continued version of sister love. So? What? Just because they are 'super duper' in love and 'aren't getting any younger' they feel they can just press the fast forward button...on my life plans? And how ecstatic can Scott really be when they are 6 months post-honeymoon and Miss "I need my Nister right here right now!" comes a knockin'? I need to face it that we are nearing the end of a very comfortable and pleasant Jamie and Sam era. Is anyone else feeling this pressure?


The few moments of palpitations calmed and vanished when I realized that our bond is tighter than the silly notion of an era. Sam and I have a loving (in a totally I love you! I hate you! fashion) relationship. And although she has been so very paramount in my Vida Loca, I actually attribute a lot of her life successes to my doing. Had I not been young and impressionable, she would have never peed in a cup, sprayed toxic hairspray in it and than forced me to drink it saying that is was lemonade. I allowed her to be the decision maker, the boss. And look! Columbia-bound! You see, we need each other.


Once the realizations come...they just keep coming. Most of you know that my next stop on the life-train was due west, to this little place called San Francisco. I have been talking about it for months now. But, duty calls. I have a sister to follow! If Sam have less than four-hundred and something days as a bachelorette, than by god, she needs one dedicated sister right by her side to make sure she doesn't get:
1. Lonely
2. too stressed
3. stiff...from the lack of bending on a regular basis
4. Lonely
5. bored...cause what is there to do in New York?
5. DEPRESSED...because that is surely to happen when I am absent. Ask anyone.


So yes....let me reiterate my flexibility. I have an ass-kicking job that will lead me to all 50 states (but never West Virginia) in the union, including Guam and Puerto Rico. I want to live in as many places I can before I have a house payment and before my uterus gets leased by something that kicks and has a heart beat. I am not in school, I am not gagged and bound and ooglie-googlie in love with anyone and the little possessions I have managed to hang onto, all fit in just a few bags. Who better meets the criteria? Flexible...I am the definition.


So the jury is out. I have both California and New York Nursing licenses pending. I am a pendulum and I can sway either way. It is kind of like when you are eating an ice cream cone on a sultry summer day. The scoop begins to melt and you notice streams of cream running down the right and left sides, making no plan to brake before it hits your knuckles. They both pick up speed and you get all confused because you don't know which side to lick first before your hand gets all sticky.


Here are my feasible options...vote for your favorite....


A: San Francisco...rollerskating association, Napa, surfing


B: New York City...NISTER, David Letterman, Central Park


C: Peru...Hot French doctors, Machu Picchu, Latin Flair






*****The Dwyer sisters are equally obsessed with each other...just for the record*****