12 hours of sleep & the spider

The spider was as big as my face and I killed it with my left-foot running shoe. The first pass with the shoe only knocked the spider to the ground and there was that sickening moment when it was scrambling, all eight legs vicious and flailing. It was going to escape. I raised my shoe a second time and crushed its life away. Then I went back to bed. The spider is still there, between my bass amp and my kitchen door, a flat spider smudge, a warning to the others.

Now. The story, in context...

I fell asleep last night at 6:30. One minute I was reading "Clockers" by Richard Price and the drug dealer with the ulcer was furtively trailing another drug dealer who may or may not be a hired killer. The next minute it was 7:53 p.m. and I was trying to figure out if it was morning or night and what exactly was going on. There was somewhere I was supposed to be. Wasn't there? Confused, I decided to make my life easier and stumbled across the room, turned off the light and went back to sleep.

5:43 a.m.: I woke up. Wide awake. Kind of. Was it day or night? Rain pouring down outside. Check the window, light looks the same at 5 a.m. as it does at the middle of the night. I felt very little motivation to be actively awake, but, darn it, I wasn't tired. I was moving toward the kitchen when -- pause gasp heart attack -- BIGGEST SPIDER IN THE WORLD, crouched and evil-looking. Massive, lying in wait for babies, virgins, puppies and truth. No way I'm going back to sleep with that monster lurking. But you know the rest of the story.

7:53 a.m.: Wake up again. Groggily assemble clothing and push hair into something somewhat resembling dignity. Check my phone. Two texts, both from Bishop, both from last night. The first one reads: "Where are you?" The second one, several hours after the first: "Did you fall asleep?"

THAT'S where I was supposed to be last night, at the sports bar with Bishop, watching the Giants game.

Oops.

Watching Giants games with Bishop might be my new favorite thing to do in Astoria, even though it's only happened once before. It's like watching Nebraska games with my sister, or following a forester in the forest. The folks dig this stuff. They are closer to despair and elation in this element, be it football, baseball or forest, than they are anywhere else. Sincere and wondrous and it pulls me in. I'm a sucker for honesty.

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Some news stories, if any of you still care (and I've been told at least four times this week that my job doesn't matter. It gets to one after a while, but one must make one's money somehow and journalism is my equivalent of football so...yes, we move on)

1. Glory be! A boat! Boat is a weird word. Booo-at is how it SHOULD be pronounced, I think. Let's change this together.

2. Controversy.