The other night I bought a Quiznos sandwich at the Mall of the Emirates. And it made me miss my brother.

You might laugh, especially those of you who know him, that food of all things made me miss him. But I did.

I have a specific reason that this sandwich triggered the effect, though. It was back when I lived at home, three years ago. Every Monday for a year, or at least 24 weeks, I stopped at Quiznos on my way home from work and took it to him while he running his now-defunct coffee shop, and we'd watch the television show 24.

And that was back when 24 was still good. You know, like, three season ago.

Anyway, while I've been in Dubai I've kept a pretty regular schedule for talking to my parents via Skype - pretty much two or three times a month. The eight hour time difference between the East Coast of the US and Dubai is pretty rough, but we try and make it work on Sundays.

But on the weekends my brother is usually busy, and then during the week he's working, or at least when I am available to talk he is. So we rarely chat.

Sure, we instant message occasionally - for a while it was fun when he was at the coffee shop late and I was up early (the next day) we'd IM.

But not lately.

And it's sad, because we're actually quite close, both in age and in interests. I'm sixteen months older than he, which is just old enough to think I know more than he does, but young enough that we used to be confused as twins. Especially since we're so damn cute.

True, ever since college he's grown his hair out on his head and on his chin (his goatee can pretty much touch the collar of his shirts, if he ever wears a collared shirt, that is). And as you know I've gone the other direction and buzzed all of my hair off - speaking of, it broke 110 degrees here today. Happy first week of May.

Anyway, it doesn't help that my brother and parents went to Walt Disney World the other week, and as you know we Edwardses (Edwardsii?) are pretty fond of the Mickey Mouse.

I talked to my folks mid-vacation, and had a minute to talk to my brother, but it wasn't the in-depth theme park discussion that I hoped for.

And then since then we just haven't found the time.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I miss my brother. I'm really looking forward to seeing him in July (right before his birthday, no less!) and hopefully spending some quality time with him eating sub sandwiches and watching Kiefer Sutherland.