Hey, I know it’s been a few weeks, sorry bout that, but I still needed to tell you guys about our visit to the LPA conference in July. Well, as you know, my mom and dad left for a few months in Tuscany. That’s where my Dad grew up and Mom and Dad go back every so often, and G and I have gone with them for short trips too. This time my Dad had business reasons to go so they’ve both gone for what was supposed to be just two months, but now has developed, apparently, into at least six months. I wasn’t about to go since it’s my senior year (woohoo!!) now and there is no way on Earth I’d miss that! Since G is mostly house-bound it just made sense for him to stay here too, and I would babysit, err, I mean, help him with stuff. Going to the LPA conference was scheduled way back already, and I’ve always gone, so it was no big deal to assume I would accompany him there. Like G had mentioned before, my parents are real liberal-minded, but it is still super amazing to be treated like an absolute adult in that way. Obviously, I look and am mature enough to be on my own, and for legal reasons G, being as old as he is, can be considered my guardian, even if in reality it is the exact opposite!

Now, like I’ve said, I’ve gone every year of my life, and I must admit it was a little awkward for me as a five or six year old to stand with my parents, themselves not short by any stretch of the imagination, while all these little people – adults! – stood and talked to them or others around us. I was tall (duh) for a five year old, standing in at over 4 foot, and these old (!! although, in retrospect, they were probably only in their mid- 30s or 40s for all I know) adults, were chattering away beneath my line of vision, probably at about 3 foot or 3’6 or so. I totally felt like a fish out of water. It’s true Georgie has always been as tiny as he is (actually even tinier when I was 5 or 6 and he was 13-14), and I was used to that of course, but as a sister you always assume your brother is the exception (well, ok, he kinda is) and that no one else is near anything like him. But when you see lots of really short teens, or kids older than you, even adults, even grandpa age, then it hits you very powerfully.

Maybe if I was older when I first met other LPs I would not have been as powerfully effected, but as a kid, even though G was never ever even close to as tall as my waist, still, looking down at people other than my very tiny brother, was an amazing, educationally enlightening, experience for me. In short (haha), it was totally thrilling for me. Of course, as I got older, and more used to both the experience of socializing with much shorter people as well as the conference schedule in general, it became almost second nature to me and I learned to like, even look forward to, the annual event for different reasons. Not least of which was I met some really great people.

Of course, outside of the annual week with the LPs, the closest I would (and still) come to seeing really short peers or older people on a regular basis was my neighbors Lauren and even her brother James (sorry James! But you’re really short for a guy, in case you didn’t know!).  There was this one boy in 9th and 10th grades who was an LP, probably standing at about 3’10, and we talked about our differences a lot and enjoyed each other’s friendship, but his family moved away two years ago so I haven’t seen him since.  Maybe it’s just me – or my town -- but I just don’t (or didn’t) interact with, or even see too often, little people.  No one I knew (does it ever really happen?) was ever shrunk down from regular height to tiny size due to radiation or trauma, or experienced that rare but so cool (!!) shrinking disease I’ve read so much about. Truth is, I have no idea how I’d react to friends or people I know coming down with that disease. It must be so incredibly hard to deal with someone you’ve always known as, say 6 foot, dwindling down over time to, 4 foot something and eventually much less (how short do such people get? I can’t believe it’s ever less than 18 inches, that would be off the wall crazy).

Trust me, as a 6’7 teen, I know how frustrating it is to experience size change (err, as in my own growth) over a short period of time, like the year between LPA conferences, seeing adults you know as seeming to gradually shrink each year you see them. Don’t even ask me what it was like to go away to sleep away camp for two months over the summer (following the conference of course) and grow several inches over those months and come home to your teeny tiny older brother, seemingly tinier than ever. I went away only two or three summers at the most, but it usually took Georgie himself a while to swallow the new fact that I was that much taller than him. As I got older, he would be less emotional about it, having gotten used to the whole summer growth experience, but it still amazes me. My growth has definitely slowed as I’ve gotten older but I am pretty sure it has not stopped completely. So bring on those extra inches, I want to see those LPs, including G, shrink! Haha, no, but G has always been tiny, so there was no real “surprise” at seeing him, as an adult, so tiny. It’s not like he was ever my height and just shrank. That thought itself even makes me laugh inside – I cannot imagine an adult human being any tinier than G. Well, he does hold the world record, so my celebrity brother is more than enough LP for my town! 

So getting back to the conference: we got there by plane as you might have imagined. We usually buy G an infant ticket, since it is just much easier for us to transport G in a baby carriage, he doesn’t take up anywhere near enough of a full plane seat, and no ever thinks twice about the really small baby with me. This time, however, airport security (assuming G was my son!) had me pull his shirt up and pants down to show we weren’t transporting anything illegal that way. Luckily G is almost entirely hairless on his body so no one suspected his not being a month old.  I also had to hold him as I walked through the x-ray machine. Kinda ironic, I thought to myself, that on the way to a little peoples’ conference Georgie had to be submitted to such humiliation based entirely on his size. Well, there were lots of other similar ironies to be considered at the conference hotel, though thankfully we didn’t know about them just yet.

The little guy has already told you about our experience when we first checked in, but bear with me as I repeat it from my own, much different and higher altitude, perspective. The taxi from the airport had dropped us off directly in front of the hotel entrance so, allowing the bellboys to get our stuff from the trunk, I carried G inside. As soon as we walked in, we recognized many familiar faces. Now, obviously, at 6’7, I’m used to having people shoulder or even boob height but it still is a bit overwhelming to be surrounded by below-waist people. So as we walked in, I lowered G to the floor, let him talk to his friends from a non-infant-like position (although now he was to them as they were to me, barely coming up to their waists) and we both slowly made our way to the check-in counter. 

On the way, I saw my friend Eric, who is about 21 or 22, dark hair, now also sporting a dark beard, still only reaching 30 inches in height, so just barely over my knees, although probably weighing a healthy 35-40 lbs. His height places him squarely in the “smallest people in the world” category, together with probably 50 people or less. Of course, Georgie leads that group, and no one else comes close, but every member of the group, is breathtakingly, heart-tuggingly, tiny. Eric hugged me around the knees in greeting, and not wanting to make it too awkward, I bent down to my knees, bent forward towards him and put my arms around him, kissing him hello. “Haven’t seen you in a whole year, big guy, how’ve you been?” He told me how his past year was, including the progress he’s made in his business. We walked slowly as he talked, with him looking way up and me way down so we could see each other’s eyes. He has a different condition than Georgie, so obviously he is much bigger and his voice isn’t anywhere as near as tiny. So although there is still a huge height gap between our eyes, I hear him perfectly. That is not always the case with Georgie.

Now, I know, normally you’d think a guy in his twenties should have no business speaking to, or being too friendly with, a teenaged girl, but I think the whole huge height difference between us thing kinda makes that moral point mute. Anyhow, I waved down to Eric saying goodbye as G and I approached the desk. I like Eric. Not sure why. Short guys (ok, in Eric’s case, really really short guys) seem to try harder to get the girl, and I can appreciate that in them. I am not saying I would ever get intimate with guys knee high, I’m not saying I wouldn’t either, but I like them and love spending time with guys of such stature. 

Anyhow, since G is the main member of LPA in the family (my parents and I are “family-members”), he was the one who had to sign us in. Well of course the counter top is high, but this being an LPA conference, they had set up mini ladders and step stools all over. But G, even though he tried, climbed, almost crawled, up to the highest level of the ladder in front of the desk, still couldn’t reach his head over the top. Looking down at him there, I am sorry to say but I almost burst out laughing since my eyes were directed down, and the girls at the counter were looking expectantly at me, thinking I had come to sign in myself, not having seen G at all, and there was G all way down there, although still much below the vision of the girls on the other side of the desk. So, despite my laughter, I also felt suddenly so very sad for G, how it must have been the epitome of irony that at a little people’s convention he couldn’t partake fully of the conveniences because of his height. On the other hand, however, you can totally understand how the convention organizers cannot expect adults (plural) of Geogie’s height and provide special conveniences just for them, as most of LPs known to modern science are of a significantly taller stature. So -- what could I do? -- I reached down and lifted the little man onto the marble desk-top, and I, still way taller than him, smiled at the counter girls and introduced my older brother to them. “Oh. My. God!! He’s soooo cute!! What is your name, little man?” Ugh. So humiliating and degrading. My heart ached for the pain, embarrassment, he must have just endured, must no doubt endure every day, as a result of such jerks. But George, the tiny adult, started talking their ears off. I was glad he is so able to handle such an experience, I’m not sure if I was in his tiny shoes whether I would be so good-natured about such humiliation. 

Of course, as you’ve heard, the girls started asking us if they could take his pic, first as selfies, their holding him near their faces, then with me standing over him, bending my head down near him so that we would both appear together in the pic. When they tried taking them without my bending down, G appears slightly below my boobs, my giant (to him) globes seeming to nearly completely overshadow him. I had to put my foot down, otherwise, I thought, they’d start Tweeting it or whatnot all over, and any sense of decency would be forever out of our reach. So I told them firmly, but politely, they could only take two with the both of us in proper position. I may only be 17 but I like to think my height lends me a sense of authority. Sure enough, the two twenty-something girls were more than happy to oblige my request.