"So, yeah, I did the whole career quiz thing, and my empathy was zero and my megalomania was like 100, so I went with supervillain," Auntie Arctic said around a mouthful of pad thai. "It was either that or homemaker. What about you?"

What are prions? Prions are proteins. What do prions do? Prions kill you.

And the next day, after everyone had slept and woke and reconciled and had enormous amounts of coffee, a group of us went out to Castle Island and walked along the harbor's edge, trying to convince ourselves that it was actually the year 2000. That felt like the future, and we didn't actually feel like we were in the future.

Despairing of marvels, we settled for mockery,      danced on the magicians sofa,      swung from his chandelier      and burst through one last door to find . . .