Quake Queen

Strike-Slip
	I'm the only person I know who thinks about earthquakes ten times a day minimum. At least I'm the only person in the city-of-no-angels that will admit to it. February 9th, 1971. That was the day of transition. 5:59 a.m. To be precise, it was probably a minute later. I didn't know what an earthquake was right at 5:59. Earthquakes don't really scare me anymore. It became my obsession to find out why they pay us their surprise visits. I found out why. I found out where. But like everyone else, I don't know when. Actually, sometimes I have known when. Once I wrote this really sad earthquake love song because I think there could be nothing sadder than if there is a big earthquake in the middle of the night and your boyfriend is with another girl and he doesn't come look for you. Anyway, I wrote this song that I thought was pretty good. I went out on the roof at work that day to read it to a friend and right when I began reading there was an earthquake-5.8 in Sierra Madre. Not only that, but I had left the song in my boyfriend's mailbox on my way to work. I called him immediately. He said he had just read it. He stopped seeing that girl for a while. Somehow my subconscious has developed a self-protecting earthquake alarm clock. It goes off at random intervals. Now! What would you do right now if the ground started shaking real bad. It just pops into my head. I guess to mentally prepare me. Get squished, usually is the answer. I don't park in parking structures. Ever. Believe it or not, I don't have an earthquake kit either. I've been in the belly of the beast. The mother of all the baby beasts that spread out around us like veins. The San Andreas Fault. I've been in it and all up and down it. I love it. It makes me quiver every time I go to it. I even got a job singing in a lounge right-well, as close as you can get to being right on it. It's a tiny tiki lounge in the middle of nowhere. Anything near Barstow is exactly in the middle of nowhere. You wouldn't think it was on the San Andreas Fault. The place is always packed. Don't people know? I used to stand there singing "Under My Thumb" and wait for the blowfish to sway. They never did. Five years of weekends singing five sets a night and everything just stayed still. People did dance, of course, or I wouldn't have lasted five years. But the blowfish didn't. I got bored. I venture out there now and then from my apartment on the Elysian Park Fault. I have a spectacular view of the skyscrapers downtown. They don't sway either. So far, the little bar remains unerringly the same. Resplendent in its tiki opulence. My ex-boyfriend still plays saxophone there. He's still waiting for something to happen. Me, too, I guess. I just sit there and listen. And drink Passion Punches. And watch the blowfish glow in the calm desert night.

Strike-Slip

   I'm the only person I know who thinks about earthquakes ten times a day minimum. At least I'm the only person in the city-of-no-angels that will admit to it. February 9th, 1971. That was the day of transition. 5:59 a.m. To be precise, it was probably a minute later. I didn't know what an earthquake was right at 5:59.
   Earthquakes don't really scare me anymore. It became my obsession to find out why they pay us their surprise visits. I found out why. I found out where. But like everyone else, I don't know when.
   Actually, sometimes I have known when. Once I wrote this really sad earthquake love song because I think there could be nothing sadder than if there is a big earthquake in the middle of the night and your boyfriend is with another girl and he doesn't come look for you. Anyway, I wrote this song that I thought was pretty good. I went out on the roof at work that day to read it to a friend and right when I began reading there was an earthquake-5.8 in Sierra Madre. Not only that, but I had left the song in my boyfriend's mailbox on my way to work. I called him immediately. He said he had just read it. He stopped seeing that girl for a while.
   Somehow my subconscious has developed a self-protecting earthquake alarm clock. It goes off at random intervals. Now! What would you do right now if the ground started shaking real bad. It just pops into my head. I guess to mentally prepare me. Get squished, usually is the answer. I don't park in parking structures. Ever. Believe it or not, I don't have an earthquake kit either.
   I've been in the belly of the beast. The mother of all the baby beasts that spread out around us like veins. The San Andreas Fault. I've been in it and all up and down it. I love it. It makes me quiver every time I go to it.
   I even got a job singing in a lounge right-well, as close as you can get to being right on it. It's a tiny tiki lounge in the middle of nowhere. Anything near Barstow is exactly in the middle of nowhere. You wouldn't think it was on the San Andreas Fault. The place is always packed. Don't people know? I used to stand there singing "Under My Thumb" and wait for the blowfish to sway. They never did. Five years of weekends singing five sets a night and everything just stayed still. People did dance, of course, or I wouldn't have lasted five years. But the blowfish didn't. I got bored.
   I venture out there now and then from my apartment on the Elysian Park Fault. I have a spectacular view of the skyscrapers downtown. They don't sway either. So far, the little bar remains unerringly the same. Resplendent in its tiki opulence. My ex-boyfriend still plays saxophone there. He's still waiting for something to happen. Me, too, I guess. I just sit there and listen. And drink Passion Punches. And watch the blowfish glow in the calm desert night.