Natural Disasters

There are many types of "natural disasters".

There's the "shart", for those of you who haven't seen "Along Came Polly" it's when you think you're going to fart, but you shit a little.

There's that skin flap that forms under a woman's arms sometime in her 50's usually.

There's showing up at a formal event in the same outfit as a woman your friends all refer to as "the ho-bag".

But the natural disasters I'm writing about are the kind involving weather, and the earth. When someone tells me about a disaster, I find it difficult to not want to compete with them for who's lived through the worst natural disaster. I'm not sure my desire to win this particular competition is natural, or healthy, or smart.

And although it is true that many people have lived through disasters much worse than my best or worst, it is possible that I could still win the coveted "Most Freaked Out By a Natural Disaster Award". The awards ceremony for this particular award is fairly small and low key, and currently it is not being televised. The MFOBANDA nominees are often a rag-tag bunch, straggling along a tan carpet into the school auditorium , which was randomly chosen out of a dirty hat for that year's event. They are often hurt, injured, shell shocked, flinching and wincing as they pass by the disposable camera purchased to record the ceremony for posterity.

You see, about nine months after moving to L.A. I had found my own apartment. It was a small studio apartment. It had one large room, and a small kitchen. A hallway went around a corner to the bathroom, and in that hallway was a built in dresser, and vanity. The living room had a Murphy bed tucked behind a pair of large doors. I had furnished the whole thing with "found" furniture, which I cleaned up and improved as much as I could, and things that had been given to me by various people I'd met who felt pity for me. I was very proud of the fact that I had a pretty nice set up, and hadn't spent any money other than a couple bucks on a few yards of fabric to cover a chair.
But I digress. In the middle of the night, I think it was around 4:00am on January 17th, 1994 the Northridge Earthquake struck L.A. This was my first earthquake and it was a pretty big one. I was awakened by the sensation on laying in the bed of a pick-up truck as it flew down a bumpy dirt road. It was pitch dark, it was loud, I was naked! Everything was falling all around me, things were smashing and breaking. It went on for about 20 seconds, which felt like an hour. When the walls and the ceiling and floor stopped moving, it was still pitch dark. Car alarms were going off everywhere, people were outside the building talking in excited and frightened tones. I was afraid to get off the bed, I'd heard things breaking, I had bare feet. I slowly carefully lowered my feet to floor and felt each step before taking it to the light switch. No power, I picked up the phone, no phone. I needed to find clothes and get dressed and find out what I'm supposed to do! I started to panic, because my apartment was on the ground floor, and from the side of the building someone could easily break a window and step right in, and there I was naked, startled, no way to call the police, no lights, no one else in the building to here me scream. jThe thought of this nearly paralyzed me with fear. It sounded like everyone was outside. I thought I should be out there too. I had some candles, I lit a lighter to find them, and thank god I didn't blow up.

You should never light a match after an earthquake, gas pipes break or leak, but I didn't know. I didn't know how to survive here, it hadn't occurred to me before. I finally got some candles lit and looked around at the destruction. I was in disbelief! Cabinets opened and emptied themselves, even the hall closet threw up all over the place blocking the door. I found clothes and it took me a while but I found shoes too. I moved the pile of crap blocking the door and exited the building. Everyone was out in front of the building telling their story. The whole neighborhood was out there talking to each other and assessing the damage, in L.A. neighbors talking is a strange sight indeed.

There were many aftershocks, smaller but still disturbing earthquakes that followed the initial one. Every one of these made me feel a little sick, and scared. You never want to see a building you're standing in move the way a building moves during an earthquake. After a couple of weeks, the aftershocks were getting very small and not that unsettling. I had a very large avocado tree outside my apartment window, and when we had an aftershock I would run outside and pick up the avocados. I'd call my friend and say, aftershock! I'm making guacamole for the game. I put a big nail by the door and hung my jeans with the wallet in the pocket and a t-shirt on it. I put a pair of shoes just below them on the floor so I could find everything in the dark. i had management fix the closet door so it would latch properly and felt a little more prepared, but shortly after that was when the anxiety attacks started.

I would be on the freeway and traffic would slow to a stop and I'd be sitting their, one car locked in like a puzzle piece with thousands of other cars just sitting there, stuck no way to get out....STUCK. I would start pulling at my clothes because I couldn't breathe and they felt tight around my neck, but they weren't. This feeling, this panic began to extend to any situation where I felt unable to move, being in a large crowd where it was difficult to move or raise my arms, on a bus with people sandwiching me in, anything like that.

You never forget your first earthquake! You never know what will break inside you when you are truly shaken.

MFOBANDA acceptance speech:

First of all, I'd like to thank all the slightly less freaked out people without whom this award would not be mine. I'd like to thank the mental health professionals I've come in contact with for nominating me. Id like to thank the pharmaceutical companies for being there when I needed them, and I'd like to give a shout out to all my peeps who know what I'm talking about!