.:: The StrongBrain Collective ::.

Part 1:

Tiffany Chapman is the name of my younger sister. When we were young, we suffered an unusually strong sibling rivalry that led to years of a festering discordant relationship. We didn't respect one another. But, as we grew older, we began to view each other in ways we could appreciate and even adore. For me, I respect Tiffany's raw intelligence, her confident demeanor, and her ridiculous sense of humor. It is now a joy to spend time with my younger sister, rather than a fearful chore. I look forward to visiting her. She makes me laugh and she's immensely fun to be around. Plus -- and this point is so necessary -- she tells me what to wear.

However, before I get to the shopping, a little background is necessary so that you can get to know the person that I call for fashion advice far too often. These stories are just too damn funny not to share to the picayune portion of the universe that visit sb.org.

Tiffany is just extremely likeable. People are captivated by her gregariousness, infectious laughter, and blunt sense of humor. They literally form circles around her to see what she'll do or say next, and she definitely plays to the crowd, too! Plus, out of the two of us, she got the looks. I got the academic brain. She got the looks. She once was challenged at a bar to demonstrate her knowledge of current events:

"Tiffany, you're really smart, you have a ton of common sense. But I am willing to bet that you don't know who the vice president of the United States is!"

Tiffany was put on the spot and began to blush. Then, so as not lose face amongst her group of friends, she took a stab in the dark: "Bob Rumsfeld." She mixed up Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Dreyfus' character from The American President .

Good thing she got the looks in the family! And her naivete is charming, too!

This is a girl who, at a bar with a group of girlfriends, loudly retorted to the lame pickup line of, "Where are you girls from?" with "Our fathers' balls!" I don't know the boy's reaction to this witty comeback, but it's brilliant for three reasons: (1) Obviously, hearing a girl shamelessly shout that out for anyone to hear is just funny in and of itself. (2) The fact that there was no attempt to placate the lonely gentleman and his poor self-esteem is also reluctantly amusing. (3) Just the truthfulness of it all! She went so far past her actual residence, past her place of birth, past her mother's fallopian tubes, past her mother's womb, past her mother's vagina, past her father's penis, past her father's vas deferens, directly to the source: the sperm orbiting the testes, just itching for the opportunity to create her and her friends. I still chuckle at this.

There's also the time when she ambled into the men's bathroom at another bar -- I can't imagine that she was sober -- with her now ex-boyfriend and proceeded to pretend to make use of the urinal. She went so far as to throw her right hand high up against the wall with her left hand holding an imaginary penis. She even made low, guttural grunts of pissing pleasure in imitation of men. The other temporary inhabitants of the restroom were either aghast or doubled over in howling laughter. I still chuckle at this.

I definitely appreciate her bluntness, too, in the style of "fathers' balls" humor. I brought her out to visit some of my friends at a Boston-area drinking establishment where she met Andy and his girlfriend, LeAnn. LeAnn has been blessed with very large breasts, which she proudly -- and justly -- exhibits. Whilst I make continuous concerted efforts to avert my gaze or pretend that her breasts don't actually exist, my sister takes the antithetical approach that I might have to adapt one of these days: She grabs LeAnn's breast with her left hand and says something akin to, "Wow, you have enormous tits!" I will always chuckle at this.

Tiffany is also pretty and I'm increasingly reticent to bring her out with me and my friends, especially after this New Year's Eve when a friend of mine (JEFF SULLIVAN -- jdsull76@hotmail.com --bombard him with insults please) that had only met her once ... momentarily ... at a bar ... a year ago, plastered me with questions about her. JEFF SULLIVAN even went so far as to hand me his business card with instructions to pass it on to my sister. The muscles that cause a person's arm to lift in the air and swing in a violent motion towards an offender's face tensed savagely. But the combination of extravagant amounts of alcohol, laziness and astonishment at the brazenness of JEFF SULLIVAN'S attempt at getting in touch with my sister via her own brother prevented me from being violent. Also, I was tinged with regret that Tiffany was not herself present to deal with this lummox in typical hilarious, embarrassing fashion. I will never chuckle at this.

Well, you get the picture. We are now good friends, as brothers and sisters should be. She's frickin' funny. But, in addition to her shock-value laced, yet underlyingly intelligent sense of humor, I've recently become privy to yet another aspect of my sister's brilliance upon which I was compelled to communicate -- the eerily cold determinism with which she approaches clothes shopping. I've always been dependent on her fashion sense, but this Christmas shopping trip with her was unmistakingly eye-opening.

Visit again next week (or so) for that story!