xtcian

9/3/02 By all accounts, my

9/3/02

By all accounts, my sister was a bit of a surprise in 1972, showing up in my mom's 41st year as a little present to all of us boys thinking we were going to rule the roost in a quadratic algorithm of testosterone-charged superpower. If she was a boy, her name was to be Joshua, but instead we got Michelle, and in many ways, she keeps all of us honest. I don't know anybody who so perfectly mixes my generation's affinity for sarcasm and idealism better; she's a poster child for all things good. As a kid, she was intractable to the point of mild mania (a famous story she hates involves a rainy day and a pair of Wellingtons), but then again, she got shit done. Playing with Michelle for the afternoon meant no fucking around there was going to be a castle built with playpeople and a working moat, and if you weren't helping, you were bloody well in the way.

Michelle shows one of her creations, a bizarre trans-species mix of G.I. Joes and PlayMobile people, circa 1977

Well into adulthood, she always had her ducks in a row, even when she was a goth chick, and even if it meant a shitty job in a place like West Covina, CA so she could pay her way through junior college. She ended up graduating from Millikin University in 1995 with a major in musical theater, and spent a few years in Chicago and Kansas City being the best thing in some otherwise middling shows. Heeding the bad advice of her brothers (je suis culpable), she moved to Los Angeles and probably would have gotten a great gig there if all of us hadn't moved to New York within months of her arrival.

NYC, however, has been both a blessing and a curse for her being a natural organizer and leader, she is unfortunately one of the world's greatest waitresses, which makes the food industry all too easy a trap. She disappears into every restaurant like quicksand, emerging every month or so with plenty of money but an empty heart. She was fabulous as a wily sorority girl in the Pink House movie, as well as Mac's play The Second String, but the next day always found her back in Union Square Café stripes.

Michelle, Easter 2002

September 11th changed a lot for Michelle, however, as she was one of the first volunteers down at Ground Zero, and wrote so well about it afterward that her words found their way into Slate Magazine. They eventually gave her a week-long diary that recounted her new passion: becoming an EMT and getting certified in emergency medicine. So when an opportunity arose for her to cross the United States as an EMT as part of the American Frontiers Public Lands Trek, we basically told her she couldn't not go. Two months walking across America and nursing hikers back to shape? No brainer!

The trek itself is actually pretty cool in a country criss-crossed with privately-owned ranches and huge swaths of corporate holdings, not to mention the freeways and various other trouble you can get into whilst in the countryside, it's actually a novel idea to cross the U.S. entirely on lands owned by you. Ostensibly, you can take the path these trekkers take, and not get fucked with by anybody, not get permission, not have to do anything but breathe and put one foot in front of the other. It seems a perfect fit for my sister. Michelle is that rare kind of non-self-righteous vegetarian, the perfect tree-hugging liberal who also likes dumb boys and gets her toenails done. She makes idealism palatable, because she understands ennui as well as anyone.

And her writing, which is descriptive yet simple, hooks you unwitting. Read her daily journals on the American Frontier bio for her, and you can feel the hunger for a pesto pizza after a week of eating outside, you can hear the lap of cold river threatening to spill into her dugout boat. Even now, as one of the Trek's sponsors is dropping the ball (she won't say which one) and failing to give the journey any press, Michelle is determined to make them pay for their disdain. She called us tonight to get one of our journalist friends to write an article on the Trek, so that a tree falling in the forest truly can make some noise.

Last night she slept in Island Falls, Idaho after three days of pounding rain. I looked at the map and discovered that she is mere miles from Last Chance, Idaho a town I doubt she will ever visit, either literally or figuratively.

detail from family portrait, 1988 Michelle and I had hair that was truly the envy of all we surveyed