Earthquakes and All These Coincidencii

A barely contained rant stemming from distress

Hot off the presses: There was an earthquake today in Bangkok, a seismic wave that started in Myanmar. Bangkok is inland so this isn’t common. I repeat: earthquakes are NOT common in Bangkok, Thailand. The last major earthquake to affect the city of over 11 million might have been over a decade ago. Ah, lucky me.

And is this the first architectural collapse I’ve had the privilege of experiencing? Hardly! I was there when there were tremors in Philadelphia and New York City, again, both cities NOT known for their earthquakes, albeit, they were very mild and resulted in little disruption or destruction. I was also the DIRECTLY ADJACENT neighbor of an abandoned house collapse in Philadelphia as recently as 2020 (that yellow truck that escaped unscathed? That’s mine).

(Photo cred: Emma Lee/WHYY)

That was fun times. I was home when it happened. I thought the goddamned world was ending.

Who has two thumbs, shit luck, and was there in 2003 when New York City blacked out for almost 30 hours? This ladyyy….

Today started like many days have for me since transitioning here from the US to pursue a career in writing and entertainment. Breakfast and morning stretches, packing my bag to get some writing done, the fan a-whirrin. I was sitting on a stool in my widdle kitchen composing the outline for my book and coming up with fun chapter names when I had a sudden sense of vertigo. A microsecond of ~WeIRd~ feeling followed by nausea followed by racing thoughts like, “Oh, God, am I going to barf? Did I eat something weird? Am I sick? Is this a stroke? Is this how I die? Wait, I feel better but I still feel like I’m moving somehow. How could that be? Is the building moving? But, how? How do I know if it’s the building or me? Look at something that’s a fixed part of the building. It’s like the water cup in Jurassic Park. Oh, God, this light fixture is full on swaying. In a concrete high-rise. That’s an earthquake. Is it getting worse or better? I think it’s getting better. Film it for a “neat” thing to post! Nope, that’s getting worse. BITCH, GET THE FUCK OUT!"

I run out into an empty floor. Stairs! There’s no one in them??? Just go, the building is still swaying to the groove of DOOM AND IMPENDING DESTRUCTION [Now is a good time to mention I put on the most slap-happy sandals before I ran out and am now slap-clap-dapping my way down 16 flights of stairs]. For the majority of the flights, I’m alone. Confused and freaked the fuck out, but alone. When I hit the lower floors, suddenly people are bursting into the stairwell, also at high speed, also wearing whatever the fuck they happened to be wearing - or not wearing. If you’re doing some elementary mental math a la, “if a woman on the 16th floor with no bra and only pajim-jams on is running down the steps at a rate of 30 sandal slappity slaps per minute, how long will it take for this earthquake to end? [answer in minutes, show your work],” you should be coming to the conclusion that despite my respectable athleticism, AN ENTIRE 27 FLOOR HIGH RISE IS STILL GYRATING LIKE SHAKIRA’S HIPS FOR A LONG-ASS TIME. The lower we get, the more crowded the stairwell becomes and the higher the ensuing panic levels. At the 3rd floor, people are actually screaming in fear. We burst out into 103 degree weather and spill into the street. No one knows what to do. This just doesn’t happen.

I’m very glad and grateful to say the damage was minimal considering the force. A building under construction collapsed and 40 some-odd workers are unaccounted for at the moment but there hasn’t been any other reported injuries or deaths. We’ll all have to wait and see though.

And the name of the chapter title I wrote just before it all went down remains:

[true story]