I remember standing outside my brother’s door, looking at the stickers that covered its surface.  Things like a snake with “Don’t Tread On Me” written across it, or the iconic grinning redhead, Alfred E Newman from Mad Magazine.  Some of them were new and some half peeled off.  I didn’t have stickers on my door.

“Sam?  Are you in there?  What are you doing?  I want to play too.”  I whined.  It was my perfected annoying-enough-I’ll-get-my-way voice.  “Go away,” he said, his voice muffled by the door.  “Come on, please,” I dragged out the eee of please.  Pressing my ear to the door, I heard some whispers and then, “Get lost.”  I could tell by his tone that I wasn’t going to win this one.  Sometimes he let me play too, but most of the time I was not invited into his inner sanctum.  Sometimes when he wasn’t around, I’d sneak around his room and look at stuff.  There wasn’t anything very interesting, but it felt exciting and naughty to be in forbidden territory.

I always wanted to be closer to him, to get his approval or at least his attention.  Most of the time, the best way to do this was to annoy him.  I’d intentionally do things to bug him, just so he’d tell me to stop.

Every week or maybe every other week, we’d get two quarters for our allowance.  Then we’d go downtown to buy candy, either with our parents or by ourselves since it was only a few blocks away.  He’d buy two candy bars with his money, and I’d buy 25 one cent candies and put the other quarter in the bank.  By afternoon, he’d have eaten both his candy bars.  From then until our next allowance, I’d flaunt my stash at every possible opportunity. 

We’d be watching TV and I’d pull out my bag of candy and maybe eat a few Sweet Tarts, those were my favorite, partly because of the flavor and partly because they lasted so long.  I pop them in my mouth one by one, sucking slowly and letting them dissolve in my mouth.  “Mmmm,” I’d sigh and he’d scowl at me.  If I was feeling especially nervy, I’d smirk and say, “What happen to your candy?”

He was pretty good at ignoring me, but I’d always push a little more.  I walked a thin line between getting a response which is what I wanted, and getting pummeled.   Even though we fought a lot and he was way bigger than me, I was never afraid of my brother.  I knew he’d never really hurt me, at least not intentionally.  I idolized him and wanted to do whatever he was doing and see whatever he was seeing.  And sometimes when he was in a good mood or maybe he was bored, we’d play peacefully together for hours.

I remember sneaking into his room when we were supposed to be sleeping and playing board games, whispering so we wouldn’t get found out.  Or on hot summer days, we’d play in the backyard with hoses and sprinklers.  Laughing, we’d run and spin and jump through the cascading water.  Or in the winter, we’d build snow tunnels out by the road where the snow plow left piles of hard packed snow.  Some of the best times of my childhood were when we played together.

There is a little part of me that still feels like a pest.  I will always be a little sister, hoping to be included and not caring if I annoy people.  As an adult, I am pretty fearless socially.  I know that not everyone enjoys my company.  As long as I’m included, I don’t care if everyone likes me. 

As it turns out, this is a pretty good attitude for a performance artist.