My brother

is down in New Orleans. But he's not in the House of the Rising Sun or anything. He's in the Army. He got back from Kosovo last March and got a job with some financial company. We didn't communicate much when he away last year. I don't know why. The older I get, the more I feel I don't really know my brother and sister as well as when we were kids. I'm not sure why that should be surprising to me, but it has been. Sometimes after I spend a week with them in person, everything feels normal and okay again, but I haven't seen my brother in a couple of years, and when I get his emails I'm just bewildered by some of his comments. I expect he feels the same way about me.

He's 35 and he still sounds so twenty-something, and he's always trying to sound so tough and hardass, and he's really anti-women right now because he claims they all just want to know how much money he makes and get married and have babies, and he's gotten so rightwing Republican and agrees with everything my parents say about everything, and is gradually losing his goofy sense of humor. I don't know how to have a conversation with him any more. What's worse he'll agree with me about certain things, and then tell Karen or my parents something completely different, so I never know when he's being sincere or just diplomatic.

Do either of you ever feel this way about any of your sibblings?