Aftershock

I had an appointment with my doctor this morning to stock up on allergy-related prescriptions. I am NOT going to suffer this year.

The opening weekend of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf went very well. We had a good sized-house opening night and received great feedback from folks after the shows. There is a review in today’s Herald Times (you’ll need a subscription to access the article). If anyone is interested, I can email the text. I am going to check into posting full reviews to the Starrynight website. I don’t think there’s a problem doing so, as long as credit is given where due, but I want to make sure before inadvertently violating copyright. An Indiana Daily Student review is also forthcoming (although it is not in today’s paper).

I meant to record my first earthquake experience the day of said event but I was unconscious for most of the day. Quam quam, here is the story of ‘The Time I nearly got Starrynight Productions banned from the John Waldron Arts Center, or, Quake 2008′.

It was early Friday morning. Russell and I had been painting the Woolf set since about 1am at the Waldron and we were both feeling pretty exhausted from lack of sleep all week. At around 5:40am, I was in the 2nd floor bathroom cleaning paint brushes and wishing I were home in bed. I was exhausted and felt sick (due to a combination of paint fumes and low sugar levels). While cursing a paint-saturated roller, I suddenly felt/heard the building vibrate. Since I was near the sink and had been running hot water for quite some time, in my sleep-deprived haze I immediately thought, Oh, goddess, I just broke the Waldron. I shut off the water and leaped away from the sink. I tensely waited as the shaking continued for a few more seconds before ceasing. The shaking stopped, I assured myself, This is good. Now rinse out the rest with cold water so you can get the hell home.

Finally, we made it back to the apartment and, before collapsing, I managed to call my boss Linda at 6:30 to tell her I wasn’t going to be able to make it in that day.

“Did you feel the earthquake?” Linda asks me.

“Oh, no. I didn’t know we had one.” Huh, that’s odd, I thought, after getting off of the phone, I guess it wasn’t big enough to… oh.

So what I thought was the ruination of the Waldron’s plumbing at my hands was a 5.2 magnitude earthquake with an epicenter located 97 miles southwest of Bloomington. Aftershocks are still being felt (14 between Friday and Sunday). The U.S. Geological Survey measured another 4.5 magnitude aftershock around 12:40am.

In looking back at my first quake experience, I am:

1. Thankful no one was hurt.
2. Thankful to have had the experience.
3. Peeved that, in this moment of potential crisis and personal injury, I was found frozen and panicking, not because I was afraid for my life, but because I feared that I had inadvertently caused the Waldron thousands of dollars of damaged, resulting in the premature demise of Starrynight Productions.