Jenn and I went to a free play reading on campus last night. The play was "The Graceland Archives", and I found it quite enjoyable, although the introduction of the ghost of Elvis in the second scene seemed a little deus ex machina to me.

On the way there, we ran into my brother Jim, who is doing a six-week pre-college program here. I haven't been able to see Jim a lot during that time, since I've been out of town for much of it, so he was really excited to see us. We invite him to Yum Wok for dinner tonight, and arrange my spotting him some cash as requested by my mom. We tell him where we're headed. "Oh really? I was going there too!" Happy coincidence! We go together.

Turns out he wasn't really going there, as he admitted to us afterwards. Why did he feel the need to lie to us? "If you wanted to hang out with us," Jenn admonished him astutely, "why didn't you just e-mail us?"

My guess is that he's still a little intimidated being on "my turf". Here, I'm "college Gus" instead of "brother Gus". And, come to think of it, since we're four years apart and separated by another brother, Ben, with whom I'm somewhat closer, we've never really done all that much hanging out, just me and him without Ben. I think we're just starting to reach the point where the age difference doesn't make that much of a difference, and we can start to relate to each other on the same level.

Jenn, God bless her, is helping the process along by inviting him to her second annual birthday party for the Queen Mother of England. (My girlfriend, ladies and gentlemen.) I hope Jim doesn't feel too intimidated at a party full of college-aged kids. Although, if he could have a two-hour conversation with Donovan two years ago and not be intimidated, I think he's in pretty good shape.

The most exciting revelation of last night was that my little Jimbo will be bringing a "special someone" (his words, adorable little teddy bear that he is) to Yum Wok tonight. I only hope that this is a "real" girlfriend, and not the friend-who-Jim-is-interested-in-but-isn't-interested-back scenario that he's fallen into in the past.

Of course, the pre-college program ends in two weeks, after which she'll be going back to Minnesota, so there's not much hope for a viable medium-to-long-term relationship here.

So now Ben is the single one. (I'm not counting Chrissy, because she's 8.) This comes as a shock to me. Why? Because Ben is dead sexy. He's got the best looks of the three of us, and he's got that softspoken-sensitive-intellectual-but-still-fun-and-goofy persona. And yet he's gone through a whole year of college single. From what I've gathered, he's spoiled for choice - true to form, he's got a flock of girl admirers, and he's even expressed interest in one or two - but he's still single.

I couldn't be happier for him. He's setting high standards for himself. Among dozens of potential girlfriends (I'm exaggerating, perhaps, but only out of a jealousy that's taken years to cultivate) he's remained single, because he's only interested in a highly meaningful relationship, and he knows that something like that takes a long time to find. A few months ago, in one of the few conversations we've had about the subject, he told me that one of the main problems he had in a lot of his high school relationships is that he's not really interested in a highly physical relationship, or even a moderately physical relationship. I'd imagine it's hard to find a girl his age who shares those sentiments. He's got high standards for himself, and he's sticking to them. I couldn't be more proud of him.

Or maybe he's just enjoying being single. Stranger things have happened.