I am Facebook friends with my thirteen-year-old brother John and was recently doing a little low grade stalking of his profile to see what he was into what I could that I did not already know from being his brother. It turns a whole lot.

My brother is widowed. What heart-breaking news for Facebook to break. Am I bitter that I was not invited to the ceremony? Am I resentful that no-one cared to mention this last Christmas when everyone was assembled for our annual meeting in Bismarck?

I’m not bothered. I understand these things are not always easy to talk about, and so I will give him space on this issue and not speak to him about it until he brings it up.

It’s seems he’s moved on though, since Cole Gendreau is listed as his life partner.

My brother is also apparently a genius. He studied at the University of Oregon and he’s only thirteen years old. What were you doing at thirteen? Certainly not calculus. Probably you were still drawing on walls and having occasional accidents.

I’m not sure what he studied at The U of O, but he’s working as a garbage man, so I have a hunch it was waste management. Important work.

Religiously, John is a Jedi. He’s not the first in our family, but he’s the only still practicing Jedi. The other Jedis in the family only observe the major Jedi holidays when princess Leah is in attendance.

Even more impressive than his university degree and garbage man job, I thought was his command of fifteen-languages, including Black Speech, (which he clearly learned from Calvin or Joash [our ‘brotha’ brothers from the other colored mother]) Blackfoot, Urdu and Hiligaynon.

John and I both had this in common:

 

 

 

 

Ditto, John.

John’s also been crashing proms around town according to recently tagged photos. Here his with my brother Isaac, who is a traditionalist in the sense that he is the only Armstrong without Facebook.

 

John’s an innovator, who just  yesterday with our madre and padre  developed a new sport called Snow Kayaking which is as badass as it sounds. You can see from this picture of my mom that it is terrifying:

 

That’s right John Wayne, ““Courage IS being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.”

If that’s not out of control, the texting happening between my siblings is, where you will wake up from an afternoon nap to hundreds of diatrades pinged back and forth like medieval catapults penetrating the castles of sanity.

These texts conversations go along swimmingly enough, but sooner or later someone calls someone else a “mailbox head” which if you know my family history is extremely offensive. All of our heads are vaguely shaped like mail boxes and that stings.

It made everyone feel horrible.

After the “mailbox head” has been dropped it’s just a matter of time before someone demands free products from somebody’s boyfriend or girlfriend. This time it was whoppers.

Good news on the homefront is that with my cousin Carter’s engagement, there is less pressure on this branch of the Armstrong tree to produce my grandfather Rich a great grand heir, something he has been openly demanding from his throne in the assisted living center he rules.

Any one of his grandkids, regardless of if they are 18 or older: What do you want grandpa for Christmas?

Grandpa: Hurry up and make a baby!

The texts this weekend were I think especially cagey because most of the phone numbers are hailing from 701, which is shattering records for snowfall like dishes at a Greek wedding. Hence the Snow Kayaking. They expected to be real Kayaking. But Facebook tells me their making the best of it, which is a good distraction for my little, widowed brother John.