A list of things I have in common with my cousin, Ollie.

Life can be even more enjoyable when you have a dear kindred spirit within your family. People often celebrate their ties to their siblings, or a favorite grandparent, and I have been lucky to enjoy the affection of many of my relatives, near and far. But some relationships aren't really dependent on growing up with someone nearby, or having major childhood events in common. The person most like me on this earth is my favorite cousin, who, happily for me, also makes his home in the City I love, San Francisco.

We are not alike in every way. I was born and raised in SF, and wish to stay here for much of my life, while he grew up as an army brat, and spent much of his childhood in Europe, moving when his father was transferred between Italy and Germany. His parents ultimately called Ohio home, but it didn't suit my cousin, who moved to San Francisco to enjoy his adult life in a much different environment from what the Midwest had available. (He finds the entire idea of me bumping into people I attended elementary school with amusing, with comments like, "that's right - you didn't LEAVE!")

My cousin is older than I am - I was still a teen when I would visit him and his partner at their home on Halloween to carve pumpkins.

He is a man.

When people attempt to guess our ethnic backgrounds, without fail they identify my cousin as black and identify me as white, even though we are both multi-racial. My cousin is just capable of showing off his skin pigment in a way that I have never been able to manage.

But aside from those things, we are remarkably alike. So alike, that I want to keep a list of the many things we have in common, since more and more of them keep coming up, and I'd like to have a record of this fun list, which I can add to from time to time. Asterisks represent something that, to our knowledge, is not represented among other near relatives on our father's side.

• We are the eldest of two children. (Of the five siblings our fathers were part of, only our fathers had children, and they each had two.(Note: we have an uncle whose children are not known to the family for 'reasons' (?), so this may require an update.))*
• Our younger siblings have each pursued careers in medical assisting.*
• We are each "bookish."
• We are tall.
• Our kneecaps point outward slightly when we sit; we are prone to knee problems of various sorts.
• We love enjoying the outdoors, especially hiking.*
• We are bicyclists.*
• We are vegetarians.*
• We became vegetarians in the same year.*
• We are generally sliding toward veganism.*
• We are Buddhist. *
• We are partial (romantically) to white boys.*
• We are geeks, in the current classical computer/culture geek sense: we both like computers and software, cameras, Star Trek, Blade Runner, etc.
• We have similar laughs, and make similar facial expressions.
• We are liberals.
• We are avid photographers.
• We lived along the 21 Hayes bus route within walking distance of each other for many years.*
• We do not bother owning a car.*
• We worked within a couple of blocks of each other for many years.*
• We worked in the same building for several months.*
• We are homeowners in SF.*
• We often bump into each other on weekends, despite living in a city of about 800,000 people.*
• We do volunteer work.*
• We have strange digestive maladies.*
• We left college the first time around without getting a degree (though for different reasons).*
• We are computer enthusiasts recreationally.
• We publish web pages.*
• We identify as multi-racial, rather than as black or white.*
• We carry reflective bands to wear over our clothes to make us more visible when we walk around at night (a likely side effect of our zeal to be seen and acknowledged while biking at night.)* (This is considered to be a little odd.)

Some of the things we have in common may not strike you as being especially unusual. But you haven't actually met our families and seen us in that context. The idea of naturally Buddhist vegetarian people among the collective pool of our relations (should you be lucky enough to know them, and hear them cackle powerfully in the night) is not probable. At all. The odds are staggering, really.

This list will grow, when I pay it some attention.

updated december 10, 2007 and code refreshed February 2019

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