Got the shakes

Okay, so yeah, it takes an earthquake to get me to post again. Just give me a break. I’m from the east coast and I just survived a 5.8.

The weather is beautiful out here in SoCal, but Jesus, there are a whole lot of things that can kill you. Mudslides, floods, droughts, heat waves, smog, bears, mountain lions, tsunamis, meteors (I saw it twice in one year, one summer, actually), Lindsay Lohan after 5 pm, and earthquakes. It’s really incredible. There are more potential deathtraps out here per capita than anywhere else in the US, bar none.

So my office resides on the 5th floor of a very sturdy-looking building about 30 miles west from the quake’s epicenter. People always talk about the Northridge quake out here, which I believe was a 6.7 and did a hell of a lot of damage, including 72 killed. Estimates aren’t in for this one, but there weren’t any fatalities reported as of yet. I have no idea how dozens of people aren’t killed every time one of these happens. I can see a major freeway outside my window here, and traffic went to a complete stop when it happened. Of course, that’s the logical thing to do, but what if you aren’t in a position to stop? What if it happens right when someone’s breaking right in front of you? What if the one faulty bolt supporting an I-beam is not only in your office building, but holding up a rafter right over your head?

Apparently, I slept through most of the last one that I experienced in Long Beach. I can’t imagine that one was anywhere close to this on the ole Richter scale. When your building is swaying back and forth and things are falling off of shelves like an angry poltergeist is roaming through the room, it’s disconcerting. Still more disconcerting is that it feels like time stops so God can have a tantrum. This was a minor quake compared with most others, but it still feels like the shaking isn’t going to stop. It seems to go on forever, even if it’s just 30 seconds.

If you’re at the foot of a pissed-off volcano that’s blowin’ up like a sixteen year-old girl’s Blackberry, it would suck, but maybe, just maybe, you might be able to outrun that lava/ash/falling chunk of smoldering evil. And if some jackass risks your life on the freeway because they just installed a spoiler and glass muffler on their Celica and they cut you off going 110 mph, maybe, just maybe, you can swerve out of the way in time and angrily point to your Yorkie On Board sign. And if you’re ambushed by a hungry mountain lion while hiking, maybe you’ve smoked enough pot pre-hike to make that mountain lion think you’ll taste like a cashed roach, covering your jugular vein with both hands until he leaves you alone.

But an earthquake is different. It has to be the scariest natural disaster outside of a Poseidon-style ocean liner-sized breaker. There is nowhere to go in an earthquake. They tell you to sit on the floor with your back facing a strong doorframe. Guess what? On any floor above the second, it doesn’t really matter what you do. Because if it’s really bad, you can’t leave the building in time, and if the whole thing comes down, sitting in a doorway is about as helpful as ducking and covering to dodge a nuclear blast. And say you’re outside. Okay, the entire earth is coming apart…where should I go? Quiznos?

One sidenote about a specific LA reaction to the quake: I have a friend in town staying at the Chateau Marmont, one of the biggest scenes out here. Celebrity spotting there is barely fun, it’s too easy. In any case, I just called my friend, who said he didn’t feel it at all there. In fact, he was lounging by the pool. No one else poolside felt anything either. So not only do people in LA not know what’s happening in the rest of the country, they have no idea what’s happening outside of their personal oasis, in their own city. That’s just too good.