Could It Be About the Earthquake?

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Okay, yes, there was an earthquake. Yes, it was big and fun and rolling. Some bricks fell off of some buildings, one person is dead. From a heart attack. Some cars got smashed (which actually does amuse me. Someone was so happy at eight a.m. this morning, when they pulled up and got that primo spot right in front of the building. And then by noon, their car was crushed under two tons of bricks and falling masonry. Sweet, sweet Fate).

When big stuff like this happens, I want to hear the stories from the people I know of what they were doing and thinking when it happened. It's important and interesting to me. But I could not care less about a stranger's earthquake experience.

And that's all you got when you turned on the news yesterday, well into the night.

From a news perspective, there are like, five bits of relevant information:

1) It was a 6.8 earthquake. There's fun to be had in riding the evaluation see-saw from 6.2 to 7.0. But once the number's set, you can let it go. Recap it on the 11:30 news, y'know.

2) It was a few miles north of Olympia, 29 miles underground. San Juan plate. That's interesting stuff. We all become minor geography experts for a brief time when we have a personal, selfish reason to knowing. The rest of the time, it's like "Middle East? What? I suppose you go about halfway towards the East."

3) Old masonry and brickwork fell down off some buildings. Some cars and trucks were smashed. If there's anything more fun than seeing some poor schmo's car under a ton of bricks, it would be seeing my car under a ton of bricks (let's see an adjuster call THAT fixable!).

4) No one died. Okay, one guy dies later in the day of a heart attack. Would it have happened anyway? Who knows. Maybe a Doberman would have jumped out of a boat that he was gratuitously kicking, scaring him to death anyway.

5) No real aftershocks are expected. Bummer, bummer, bummer, bummer, bummer.

That's it. Report that news and get off the air. If you're worried that people may still be wondering about those five things three or four hours after the quake, heck, block out sixty seconds every ten minutes and repeat it.

Why would you put on caller after caller relating their personal, very boring not more than mildly entertaining quake experiences? Either find the quake superstars, or get off the air.

Lame: "I had just had the chain on my motorcycle replaced and was riding home, in the viaduct, when the quake started and I thought, oh no, my back wheel's going to come off so I got off the road and the noise kept going. And it was funny because I had thought as I got on the viaduct, oh, I hope there isn't going to be an earthquake."

Lame: "So I was at home and lying in bed and my dad came in and told me to get up and do the dishes but I didn't want to because I had had a pretty late night last night so I didn't get up and I stayed in bed, and then my bed started bouncing up and down and I thought it was my dad coming in and bouncing my bed. Because I hadn't got up to do the dishes, y'know. But it was the earthquake."

Superstar: "It was the best sex we ever had. Transcendent."

Lame: "We were at a high school basketball game and the earthquake happened and we met with the refs and talked and decided to have the game anyway and the Roosevelt cougars band went into a spirited rendition of We Will Rock You and the team did. They won, that is."

Lame: "I was sitting in a good hard wood chair, this one I'm still in now, in fact…"

And on and on, except for the superstar story, which didn't happen, but should have. It was like there was a lame-only story rule. And where did I hear all these insipid tales of the coolest event of the last fifty years? On N-freakin'-PR! They had nothing better to do all afternoon than let Seattle call in and collectively make the coolest event ever into a mundane washed-out shared experience.

That's what I resent. The cheapening of experience. (I also acknowledge that I'm doing it here. Everyone within a hundred miles of Seattle is talking about nothing but the quake today. I just was too lazy to write anything else last night.) You take this once-in-lifetime event and give everyone the soapbox for five minutes to talk about it, and suddenly it doesn't seem so unique and special.

You hear everyone's story, and unless you know them, it's boring. And then you realize that maybe your experience was boring. And then suddenly, boom. The most exciting thing to happen to you since puberty has been classified as boring. Sigh.

I totally understand why everyone wants to talk about it. I'm hopping to tell the story of what I saw to everyone who will listen as well. It's so outside our experience, it cries out to be shared.

Whether you're thinking about it or not, a good solid natural disaster highlights how fragile we are. How likely we are to be crushed under our own creations. We live on this tiny little crust of the Earth with fifty miles of atmosphere above us mucking around with our lives, and hundreds of miles of earth below us, doing God only knows what. That balance shifts or changes, and whoosh, we're wiped out. We have so little claim on the Earth. It's spooky to be presented with a proof how vulnerable we are, and on what tenuous permission we build our civilization.

I think everyone should have more fun with this fact. We are mortal, we strive to better ourselves and our world, but we could be wiped out and we have no control over that fact, so you may as well enjoy yourself.

While the Earthquake was going, I was hopping with excitement by the windows. They didn't shatter immediately, they weren't bowing, so I wasn't worried. I was all about watching the show (and an amazing show it was! I didn't want it to end!). I look around, and people are looking all worried, trying to get into doorways, and generally not having fun.

What's the point of that? This building was built probably before I was born! Whether it was going to stand or fall in an earthquake of whatever magnitude we were experiencing was a decision made way before my time that I had no input into and no control over now. You're here now, your fate was decided the moment the Earth started rolling. Accept it and have fun and enjoy the cool ride and show! What more do you want?

It was the ultimate chance to seize random, chance enjoyment. I couldn't believe when people calling in to the talk shows weren't saying it was the most fun they've had all year. How could the earthquake be anything but extreme fun?