My Brain During an Earthquake

Things that went through my mind when my chair first began to shake.

– What the hell?
– Oh, God. It’s a ghost. And it’s mad at me.
– Maybe it’s psychokinesis. (I just wrote a book about the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory so I have these things on the brain.)

It gets worse and I run to the back of the apartment to where the woman who comes once a month to clean my apartment is (it’s my one indulgence, don’t hate me). The building is swaying and shaking now and I’m terrified. We think they must be doing some construction work next door. I yell out the windows, “STOP IT,” three times. Those neighbors now think of me as the crazy lady next door.

– Should I grab the cats and leave?
– Maybe we should go to the roof and jump over to the building next door. (My building is an old tenement, which tilts as it is and is in bad shape.)

I pick up the phone to dial 911 to complain about my neighbors when my cleaning woman says “earthquake,” and I realize she’s right. Her husband calls and he says he felt it in Queens. I see tweets are flying by and they’re feeling it in Maryland. I finally turn on the news.

VERY freaking scary. I was just thinking the other night about 9/11 and what those people felt in the last moments, when the floor gave way beneath them and there was nothing they could do to save themselves. I swear my building is tilting more. Or maybe my tilt-detector is out of wack.

A beautiful bird I saw yesterday when I looked out the window for my pigeon. Something I do all the time now. The Wild Bird Fund called to follow up about my pigeon release, to make sure it went okay. They are great people and run a great organization.