Quaking in my boots

I woke up around 1am this morning shaking with the disconcerting sensation of being on a roller coaster. Initially I thought it was a dream but as I came to I realised that it was something real. Once it stopped I went through all the possibilities and, having assessed the room and flat for signs of disruption, decided that something had happened to me. All I could come up with was that i had had some kind of fit. My 'fitful' sleep that followed was anxiety ridden and full of doctors and tests and thoughts of losing my driving license and medication for epilepsy. I told my boy about it this morning and it was only then that he told me about the earthquake. Man, I have never been so relieved to hear about a natural (mini) disaster.

It's funny how our disasters are so puny. We have mini tornadoes, mini floods, snow flurries and now mini earthquakes. If a meteorite ever hits the UK you can be sure it'll only smash the window in some old boy's greenhouse but will still make the 6 o'clock news.

My girl felt the quake too but her educated analysis of it was even more off the wall. She decided that it was someone going to the toilet in her house. I put it to her that her fellow house dwellers must be elephantine or seriously ill for her to draw that conclusion but she loyally disregarded that suggestion. I wonder if our reactions to these things reveals anything about our psyches. My conclusion may well reveal deep rooted pessimism about my own frailties and consiousness of impending doom. Hers seems to reveal a sweeter, more noncholant, non self obsessed acceptance. Either that or she's a doughnut head.