My life is almost always interesting. Today I do not feel well. Nothing serious. Last night I did not sleep. Much. I did keep alternating reading between two Scandinavian crime novels, neither of which I like. One is an Icelandic ghost story from a writer who doesn’t usually do ghost stories—so I was fooled into thinking I would like it. I do not. But Marsha, my sister-in-law does so I will give it to her. I like nothing supernatural or Sci-Fi, life is odd enough as it is. The other is a newish Norwegian writer and I always want to love Norwegian stuff. I do not. So sometimes I tried to read a New Yorker article about Putin… which led me to…

Anyway I finally fell sort of asleep and dreamed about coconut spiders. I took notes when I got up because it was so strange. I don’t even know if there is such a thing and I decided not to Google it in case there are. But I wasn’t really terrified… and I am more afraid of spiders than nuclear war or Albuquerque cops. So it seems my office (wasn’t my real office–more like “The Office”) somehow got two coconut spider eggs, quite large they were. Eventually they started cracking and a spindly spider leg or two crept out. And then they broke wide open and two huge spider babies burst forth. And walked around. And played. And bonded. And lived in our office. They looked like large gangly tarantulas. But then one ate the other and the remaining Big Spider sat in the corner and stared at us, I suppose wondering if he/she would eat one of us first or we would eat him/her first. We closed down for the holidays and we left food and water but when we returned the Giant Coconut Spider was gone forever.

Honestly I dreamed that. But also I worked on my writing assignment, played on Ancestry.com (my family expands—Norwegians just may take over the world–and you all will be sorry you said we weren’t exciting people), ate a large sweet potato and didn’t feel well. Almost thought it would rain. No.

I’m switching to a historical biography of James Madison tonight. Nothing will make me feel better about American presidents than reading about Putin last night. Scary dude. I read a description of him someplace that said a squat powerful body with a rat-like face. Not how any of us want to be depicted. So let’s see what is said about Madison—about whom I know nothing.