Her hair might be curly, but her head's on straight.

When she was four years old, my older sister covered herself head to toe in mud, including what had been a brand spankin' new outfit all in white, but left a half-inch perimeter around her hairline and eyes. My mom's weird sixth sense told her Julia would end up completely on the opposite side of the cleanliness spectrum and took a picture to guard against possible denial. The photograph shows her on our sidewalk with bemused grin and grimy fingers still playing with the stickiness of the mud on her left palm.

Freshman year of high school Julia was my ride to school. Every single day I was ready at least five minutes after she wanted to leave. Things got thrown, words got screamed, but she never once left me.

We didn't talk much about boys and things; no one in our family did. But when I had sex for the first time, she was the only person I could think to call.

Once we were going to a holiday party with all her friends in Richmond, and she was wearing a pair of nice black pumps with one of the heels held on with packing tape.

She has a crush on her yoga teacher. I take from the same teacher at a studio here in DC, so she begged me not to tell him that she slept through his class last week.

She says her lifelong problem of not being able to tell right from left has actually helped her mirror her students when she teaches yoga. "If I never knew it was supposed to be my right hand, I can just assign a new name to it for an hour and a half."

She doesn't follow sports, but she made a spreadsheet for her office NCAA tournament pool and won. Happy Birthday, Julia.