aftershocks

by about 2pm yesterday afternoon, it was almost like there hadn’t been an earthquake at all. if it hadn’t been for everyone asking “did you feel it?” (which started to strike me as somewhat dirty after a while) and it’s incessant coverage on all the news and tv stations, i probably would have forgotten about it.
that made me think about human nature. this big, horrible, scary, life-threatening thing happened and instead of running around making sure that you’re prepared in case it happens again, you push it out of your mind and get back to normal just as quick as you can. it’s a remarkable self-defense mechanism, actually. it’s completely dangerous in the long run, though. it’s why history repeats itself and people never learn from their mistakes.
i got home last night and i didn’t even think to look around for cracks or anything which had fallen over until about nine o’clock. i’d totally forgotten, which was astounding considering i spent three hours watching seattle news coverage of the aftermath. there were no extra cracks which i could see and the only thing that fell over was a small, plushy pig which slipped from it’s place on the bookshelf. and, now that i write that down, i probably dislodged it myself when i pulled out a book for meghan. nevermind, nothing fell over.
to tell the truth, i’m slightly offended that no one i know even thought to check if i was okay after the quake. the american news stations reported the quake was felt “from portland to the canadian border”. uh, yeah. everything stops at the 49th parallel. sheesh. it was felt from portland to kamloops, dammit. that’s way past the border, buckos. if it could be felt in portland, it was very likely felt in vancouver. worry about me, dammit! yes, i’m selfish. shut up.
by the way, i found my silver fountain pen this morning.