Margaret Olivia: Drama Queen Extraordinare

"so em, where are you staying when you come visit?"
"uhh...my bed?"
"umm...thats jonah's bed now."
"oh. well. do you think he'll mind if i sleep in it cause its technically mine?"
"its not technically yours. you dont live here anymore."
"oh. well. can you not say 'visit'. it makes me sad. i'm coming home."
"this is not your home anymore. you have no place here."

i kid you not, this is how my 12 year old sister talks to me. she's out of her mind. directly after this part of the conversation, we go into what she's going to be for halloween. after suggesting the powerpuff girls (which, by the way, a very good friend of mine who is definitely male and definitely in college is also dressing up as. im sure if we're lucky enough we'll see it on facebook.), she howls with laughter for a good five minutes when i mention "professor x". just roars. this leads us, somehow, to the part of the conversation during which she tells me a campfire-type tale that started out "in eastern europe long ago, there was a rabbi who..."

maybe its just cause she's my sister, and maybe this wont translate at all, but oh my god this girl makes me laugh. i forget sometimes that she's only 12. its not even that she's all that mature, its just that she's so much goofier and so much more spirited and confident than i could ever hope to be when i was 12. she's the girl i was jealous of in middle school. the girl who looked like she was 16, had awesome older siblings, was totally self-aware, made all the cute boys laugh.
she has her faults. we get in our share of fights. and within two days of seeing her, i'll probably want to take back all of these nice things i'm saying about her. but. she makes me laugh. and, even though she's my sister and i dont have much of a choice, its the people who make me laugh who make everything worth it.