Rasputin Dead? Politics, Writing, Reality

 I think Rasputin is dead. That is the name I gave to the rat invading my apartment. He (I do not want to contemplate a female) is a black-and-white domestic rat. I put out the sticky traps on Sunday night. However, I added a little surprise of my own: peanut butter and brown sugar sandwiches laced with D-Con. I woke at about 1 AM on Monday morning to hear this thrashing noise from the kitchen. I thought Rasputin was in the trap. Nope. He had taken the sandwich hidden in a plastic sandwich bag and was dragging the trap back into his den. Only the whole apparatus would not go. Then the rat ran off. In the morning, before work, I dragged the sandwich back into the middle of the kitchen floor. I also noticed that the beastie had eaten the peanut butter/D-Con combo that I had placed in the actual killer trap without tripping the device. When I got home, I noticed he had eaten about a quarter of the sandwich. Today, nothing had been moved of the sandwich. There was also the sandwich top lying away from the bag. No sign, or sound, of him tonight. I think he is dead. Tomorrow I work on certainty.

I worked over a little today. I strained my back, and was pretty much exhausted by noon. I came home, barely able to stay awake, watched an episode of Jack Ryan, and then collapsed for two hours. Since then, I ordered dinner from Domino's, worked on this post, did a little reading and a little writing of emails, and plan on finishing the night with Russian Doll. I feel like a slight fever. 

Dr. Febe Armanios's The Evolution of Coptic Orthodox Wedding Traditions (Public Orthodoxy) gave me insight into the Coptic world, and it also gave me food for thought about our own culture - that marriage is more than a contract between two individuals.

I have read Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude. I paid no attention to the byline when I read “Multiple Worlds Vying to Exist”: Philip K. Dick and Palestine on The Paris Review's site. I was not expecting much when I saw the title, but I feel miserable tonight and did not fight my curiosity. It was time well-spent, giving me much to think about regarding my evolution of thinking on the Israel/Palestinian conflict (albeit, I think Leon Uris did describe the nakba) and also my own writing about settling the Midwest. I think this will rub off into my "Chasing Ashes". Otherwise, I am rationalizing why I am letting my sore body excuse my not writing.)

Amy Shearn's How to Figure Out the Macro and Micro Setting of Your Novel (The Forever Workshop) is another I read with "Chasing Ashes" in my mind. First, in light of my idea that within Indiana there is no Magic Mountain to give perspective to life; secondly, in how Thomas Jefferson's grid system imposed an antagonism between the geometries of nature and of humankind. I had that second idea in the story already, but I think it needs more explicit emphasis.

Five obstacles to Trump’s peace plan by Sergey Radchenko (Engelsberg Ideas).

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