Michael J. Fox is my cousin

Really, he is. I swear. We don't call him that of course. In our circle, he just goes by Alex. You know, Alex P. Keaton. My cousin has never driven a Delorean masquerading as a time machine, only an orange Vega stationwagon. I am also pretty certain that he's never been deputy mayor of New York. But he is just as funny as Michael J. Fox nonetheless.

He was born on this day 38 years ago - a meager 17 months after I made my appearance. A cousin by lineage, a brother by heart. As far back as I can remember, we were inseparable. That is until I had to move away from home to get on with life. Once I moved away, we used to write letters all the time - you know, the way people communicated before the internet was in every home and people had blogs. Of course, we never addressed our letters to each other using our birth names. No, we made up stupid stuff like "Stymie's Home for Orphan Midget Wrestler's" or "Larry Sausage's Truck Stop Temporaries." I'm sure we caused more than one mailman to take a double take when delivering our mail.

I called him tonight to wish him happy birthday and to tell him to enjoy it while he can because when he hits 39, body parts are going to start falling off the man.
There are so many good things to remember about the times we spent together. Now, we didn't end up marrying twins and living next door to each other with a secret tunnel that joined our two houses. That is probably a good thing. But I wouldn't count out the cross-country Winnebago tour whenever we hit 75 and retire.

Happy birthday, Alex.