3.2 Delirium

I got called a wimp yesterday for waking up at 4:25am Saturday morning to a 3.2 earthquake, the epicenter of which was almost directly underneath my apartment. The ironic part is that I spent most of my time at work last week cranking out emergency prep. plans for our office suite and shopping at Costco for everything from canned goods to crowbars. Hurricane Katrina has produced quite the wake-up call for my office-mates who seem to have completely forgotten that we are living and working atop the fault most likely to have a 7.0 or greater in the next 25 years or so.

And so it was that at 4:25 on Saturday morning, I lay in bed, wide awake, for no less than half an hour, capitalizing on that crazy delirium that only happens when you're dog-tired - thinking about what the hell I would of done had that been the Big One. It really does beg the question, why do people live in places that they know will eventually crumble? I think it all comes down to history. People settled in the Bay Area long before the utterly devastating earthquake of 1906...long before they understood the extent and depth of the fault lines running rampant. Almost exactly 100 years later, the Bay Area continues to be a major harbor and an unprecedented intellectual center, supporting the entire northern California region. Add to that the fact that it's one of the most beautiful and diverse places on the entire west coast, and you've got yourself a pretty convincing argument as to why people choose to daily ignore the fact that they are living on top of inevitable disaster.

It's moments like those at 4:25 in the morning that cause me to ask myself "What am I doing here?" For about half an hour I'll swear to myself that as soon as I get through graduate school, I'm getting the hell out of here. Then I wake up in the morning and stare out across the bay at the Golden Gate bridge on my commute to work and think, "What the hell! It's so worth it!"

What I did on Labor Day... Don't forget the magic!