What? Hey, at least it's hot.

So Alexis gets here today, what a pisser. He supposedly just cleared through Houston. And here I was hoping he'd get caught in the morning traffic run. I can't wait to go to Mexico, get away from it all. It's getting back that's gonna be a problem. If I don't find my papers, man, how am I gonna prove I'm a US citizen? Especially with security and shit getting tighter along the border. Still, it's well worth the risk. Visions of relatives' faces keep swimming into my daydreams constantly: my cousin Gil, who was five the last time I saw him, such a little dinosaur-loving bundle of hugs. Gera, my man, always so smooth with the ladies. *grin* All the aunts and uncles and all that good stuff. Sometimes I'm walking around the warehouse minding my own shit when I'll get struck by T�a Carmen's smell, or that of T�o Kayo's house. I miss everyone so much; it sucks balls being so far away from them all.

Especially from Daniel. He's the one I miss most of all. And I know, I know, I'm not supposed to play favorites, but what the hell. Danny and I grew up together on Huelita's house, with his brother Ricky and the Dud. Those two aren't even my cousins to me, they're my brothers. But despite the fact I used to hang out more with Ricky as kids (neither of us could run and play tag with the other kids - him because of his weight problem, me because of my crooked feet and clumsy orthodontic shoes, so we'd sit together in the dirt and make mud pies or examine bugs), it was always Danny I was closest to. When I got that scar on the back of my leg (it's not so big now, but at the time it occured, it ran down from my upper thigh to the back of my knee, nasty shit), he was there. White-faced and wide-eyed and completely useless, but he was there. The first memory I have of... well, anything, is of him standing naked in a drain taking a piss. We were, what? A year and a half old? Maybe two? When Huelita and T�a Lili died a mere year apart and the whole family feud thing started, we used to lie together, side by side on the hood of one of our uncle's cars, staring up at the stars while everyone inside argued and yelled. We were eight then. And, of course, he used to always scare the shit outta me ever since I have use of memory. He used to tease me a lot too, as if I were the younger one, although I'm six full months his senior. He was my best friend growing up, and I've missed him terribly all these years I haven't seen him. The teenage years were awkward for us both, of course, especially with that six year gap where my family never had enough money to go back to Nuevo Laredo. All of a sudden I was fourteen and I wasn't sure we still connected, or that he even cared enough to try. But we both got over it, and now we're not ashamed to give each other a hug in public again, and we'll hang out in his room whenever we go visit and watch animae. I'm not so much into it as he is, but we share the same passion for drawing and comic books. And of course, we're both fuckin' goth pricks. It's always about who's got a new pentagram pendant or whose spikes are bigger or who's got more skulls on their shirt. Who likes Metallica more. Fuckin' sibling rivlary at its best.

And he never did stop teasing me.

See, I miss all that, I miss him so much. Because we talk about all the important shit too, like problems with friends or the home life or our aging parents. We give each other advice, and his are words I'll never take lightly. He's probably the person who's most like me that I've ever met, who seems to understand me completely to the point where we don't even have to talk out loud to say things to each other. We'll just sit together on a park bench and eat ice cream and just... bond. I've never been able to do that with anyone, not even with my sister. Well, sometimes with my sister. But I honestly believe Daniel is my soul mate, if there is such a thing. I believe he and Ricky were gifts from God to my sister and me for the two brothers who died before we were born and we never met. It's like we all share the same soul and it was just split into four parts. It's the only way I can explain being so close to them despite the distance and all the years that have gone by. Ricky y Dany, Toty y Gis. Just typing this entry makes my heart beat harder in my chest, and I feel immeasurably good. Toty y Ricky, Dany y Gis.