Another day, another surreal conversation:

I just got off the phone with my brother. He sent me email asking me to call him, so I did. Apparently he's had another of his magickal psychic visions, and he knows that there's going to be a nuclear war "in, like, three years." This is the genius who failed to predict the big snowstorm on Christmas Day, and got stuck on I-95 for a while.

He wanted to know if my husband and I would be interested in joining the colony he's going to start with some of his friends when it all goes down.

"The first thing we're gonna do, after it happens, is build geiger counters," he said.

"After?! Why don't you build 'em now?"

"Hey, that's a good idea! Thanks!"

I told him I had decided a long time ago that I would like to be at Ground Zero in the event of a nuclear war. The conversation fizzled out shortly after that, and I'm sure we each hung up thinking the other was crazy.