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Tiffany Chu's avatar

Haha why does this remind me of my own little brother.. Oh, the things we could have accomplished if not for them (kidding, not kidding).

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Esmé Weijun Wang's avatar

My brother was a mischievous kid. Now that we're significantly older, I rely on him so much—and he's grown up to be such a wonderful parent and amazing adult.

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Anne's avatar

How rude of him!

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Anne's avatar

Do you even acknowledge his presence? LOL

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Holly Holt's avatar

Such a tragedy! I, too, wanted to be on Star Search. Watched it every week…dreaming.

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Charles Huang's avatar

I'm going through your TUS writing intensive, and just read this substack piece. I'm appreciating how you like to integrate humor to lighten the mood of life, lol. I'm the younger brother in my family and I wonder how much I've menaced my older brother in our years, ha.

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Esmé Weijun Wang's avatar

Haha! I think being the younger sibling allows some freedoms that the older sibling doesn’t tend to get. But the grass is greener on both sides, I reckon!

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Margaret Goff's avatar

What a great story of the hopes and sorrows of childhood. Adults didn’t live in our world where anything was possible if we just tried our best. And the feelings of anger that we often had to eat from sibling stupidity and ignorance.

Your dream of being on stage with Ed McMahon reminded me of my friend who always wanted to play Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.

Our area summer arts camp chose the Wizard of Oz when I was 12 and she was 14. She practiced hard for the part of Dorothy, but lost out to another girl who was a fantastic singer. My friend was the understudy. She was crushed and inconsolable.

Her family was very close to the director’s and somehow my friend did get to be Dorothy. The other girl sang all of Dorothy’s songs.

My friend was so elated to have her dream come true. I cannot imagine how the other girl felt having the greater part of her role removed.

I sat on the stage as a Munchkin.

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Esmé Weijun Wang's avatar

lol I also auditioned to be Dorothy in a school play, but in the end was just a Munchkin (Munchkin solidarity!)

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David Perlmutter's avatar

He was too young to know what he had done....

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Esmé Weijun Wang's avatar

Oh, of course he was! He was so small. I wasn’t even that mad at him at the time, I think—just frustrated!

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