I Stop Hating Karen

At first after she's born, I hate my sister Karen more than anything. She cries all the time, and she poops her diapers. And the grown-ups don't notice how disgusting she is, they just keep on liking her. They take millions of pictures of her. They never take pictures of Linda or me any more, but all Karen has to do is sit there, and out comes the camera, because that's apparently the cutest thing in the world. She sleeps in her crib. I want to know! How is that special? I sleep too, and no one ever wants to take a picture of me. She washes dishes. What's so big about that? Don't I do the same thing practically every night?

Creepy Moment

My sister Karen is fourteen, and there are times when it feels like she is growing away from me. Even at her young age, she knows infinitely more than I do about style and popular culture. She knows how to make friends, and boys ask her out, whereas I am a lonely loser with only a few friends, and those feeling like they are drifting away from me. I would like to look like Karen. – I would like to be Karen, I think sometimes. I'm tired of my world of dead history and literature no one else reads. Karen's world is The Thompson Twins and wine coolers and Mollie Ringwald movies. It seems fresh and alive.