And when I say doing karaoke with Jen, I mean that I was either A) sitting in the audience, listening to Jen sing; or B) singing, with Jen as my audience; or C) singing, with Jen, with great feeling, towards a bunch of empty chairs. A hopping Saturday night in Japantown-- you should have been there. (Really, you should have, we could have used at least one audience member.) We sang everything from Britney Spears to Barry Manilow. Frank Sinatra to ABBA. It was, as Jen is wont to say, a party.

Originally, we had no karaoke plans. We were just going to see Possession and eat popcorn, both of which we did. Possession is an extremely dramatic movie. Everyone's a poet, and they all dress in very picturesque clothes and say very impassioned things, and pause feelingly while they stare at each other. Feelingly. The back-in-the-day love story is pretty good, but the present-day one, I just don't buy. Gwyneth tries her hardest to sell it, but no matter how good her English accent is, no matter how trembly her lips get, it just isn't happening. I don't see the spark and as a result, don't much care about their drama. Plus, they don't speak or dress or act like real people. That doesn't help either.

Okay, that was a tangent. My actual topic is my little sister.

God, I love her. She's probably the most passionate person I know-- which is both good and bad for her -- she doesn't really do "mellow" all that well. She fits perfectly in L.A., since she's always on the go, always thinking, questioning, challenging the norm, and (since she's a Virgo) worrying about everything.

She's got an energy that attracts people to her; it makes people want to be near her. Heads turn when she walks into a room; she inspires tremendous amounts of love and devotion (even the creepy stalker kind) from everyone who meets her. And she's so goofy and fun. And gorgeous and creative and smart.

When I think of my sister, I remember all the weird games we used to play, growing up. We made up this elaborate family, whose house was basically the world, and there were like twenty kids. The babies were played by our dolls, the rest were played by her and me and our across-the-street neighbor, Rose. Every game revolved around that family-- we made one of the brothers a mechanic -- we took them white water rafting in the pool-- and one of them (a girl named Toe) was a rap star.

I guess everyone played weird games with their siblings, but we started a band. We played a game that involved throwing fruit at each other. We ran obstacle courses. We played mermaids and mermaid hair salon. I'd like to think we were unusually weird children.

We used to make videos, too-- they still crack us up to this day. There's one where my sister and cousin played drug dealers-- of course at the time, they were both about ten years old and had tiny squeaky voices, so the delivery of lines like, "You got the cash, man?" was pretty hilarious. Their names were "Blood" and "Knife" I think. Scary squeaky-voiced gang names.

Then there's the museum story-- we went to the museum and I told her that if she leaned into the fountain and got the coins, we could keep them. (Note how she gets the coins and we split the profits. Yep, I was an older sister alright.) Then when she leaned over to reach for the coins, I pushed her in.

No, no, no. You see, I was trying to grab her sweater to keep her from falling in, but I didn't get a good grip, and okay, so yeah, I pushed her into the fountain, but it was an accident. The way she tells the story, I was a cruel child who wanted to see my sister fall in a fountain. In actual fact, I just wanted the cash.

And oh, we used to fight, too. She likes to tell the story of how I almost broke her nose one day, pushing her into a table-- as I recall, I pushed her, and the table got in the way. We would beat each other up and play mind games with each other and scream and scream at each other-- but then again, we would also gang up in revolt against our parents, or sing to each other, or have slumber parties in each other's rooms.

My childhood was, in many respects, lonely: I never had a lot of friends. But in most respects it was never lonely: I always had my sister. I don't know what I would have done without her, or who I might have become. She always looked up to me, as little sisters are wont to do, and it inspired me to live up to her admiration.

But I always looked up to her too-- I still do. I admire her warm heart, her infallible sense of style, her sense of humor, and the way she lives life to the absolute fullest. I admire her thirst for justice, her generosity, her quick laugh, her brilliant smile.

I say this over and over again, but I can't believe how lucky I am. Through a completely unlikely set of circumstances, she and I ended up in the same family. It has to be some kind of destiny, some kind of fate, some kind of orchestrating principle. Because I can't imagine not knowing her; I can't imagine growing up without her as my sister.

Happy birthday, little one. I love you.