A long, sappy entry.

2002-04-30 - 2:04 a.m.

Twenty-three years ago today, I got a baby brother. He was named Philip, because my dad is french and my mom is english and they wanted a name that both families could pronounce without sounding silly. Same with my name. Which isn't really "the-magus," by the way.

We have a bunch of pictures of me with my little brother, and since I was just under two years old when he was born I have to rely on the pictures and what my family tells me to know who he was when he was little.

My mom and dad say he was blue when he was born, which isn't really all that odd, I guess. Blue is his favourite colour. I was born jaundiced. Yellow is my favourite colour.

My dad, when he was 12 or something, fell through some ice and got frost bite on his ear. He lost a small chunk.

My brother, on the same ear, in the same place, has a little extra flesh, in the same shape of my dad's missing part. He was always close with dad.

We moved around a lot, and so for most of our lives, we were each other's best friends. I remember playing Lego with him all the time, like once, after my parents were divorced and my mom got in a fight with her mom and we had to live in a motel for a few weeks...we decided we would build the tallest ever tower of Lego that you could ever find.

Lego played an important role in our childhood. Whenever we got in a fight, we would decide that we had to divide our Legos up between us, as it was our communal toy. So we would sit down in the bedroom, boxes and boxes filled with the stuff, and start to divide the pieces. One smooth piece for him, one for me. It was important that we each got the same amount of bendy pieces. Any special pieces that were in odd numbers got set aside for negotiations later.

Somehow, by the time about half the lego was sorted, we'd be talking like friends again, and then we'd be playing. I can remember doing this many, many times but I can not remember what any of the fights were about.

When he was in grade primary and I was in grade two, he had three girlfriends. I was jealous, because he'd kissed two of his girlfriends on the cheek and one of them on the lips.

In grade four he had a really mean teacher, but he got revenge. Mom made us go out and buy plants for our teachers. He bought his teacher a cactus, and on the note he wrote, "I hope you prick yourself." Mom made him take the note off, but she let him give the cactus.

Phil could draw really well. It's his gift, and something that he can take far.

He's painted, sketched, cartooned his way through school.

I think he thinks of himself as a misunderstood artist.

In high school he failed an exam because when he was asked "Who is Napolean?" He explained the intricacies of icecream made up of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. He wrote between 500 and 1000 words, which is what the exam asked for. The teacher had to fail him, but gave him a point for creativity. Mom tried to be stern, I think, but it was difficult. I think he's really proud of that exam.

He's now twenty-three, and living in a colony of artists. It's actually an apartment, not a colony, but they live there and do artsy things. I'm a lowly writer and so am not privy to all of that stuff.

We've grown apart, but we can still talk like grownups who know each other really well. It's tough for me to realise that eventually there will be someone in his life who knows him better than I do. Maybe there's someone who already does, but I'm not ready to believe that yet.

Because I also know that no one will know that whenever we fought we'd always reconcile over Lego, and even if I tell them they won't know.

Happy birthday Phil.

Love,

the Magus

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