The only way out is through

[rinue]

Half the house is now sick, although I am starting to recover, so at least we have a baseline idea of how long it takes to come out the other side. We all spent several hours this morning shoveling feet of snow out of the driveway and then took lots of painkillers and had shaky arms for the rest of the day. We gave up on the idea of passing dishes during dinner, and for my own part I mostly just leaned toward my plate so that I only had to bring my fork up a few inches.

Captioned the Arizona shooting memorial service very accurately, except during readings of King James, because my computer's context recognition is just not up to 17th century English. Was moved by President Obama's assertion that the little girl who was shot was jumping in puddles in heaven; I believe few things could be further from the truth, but I am surprisingly affected by the idea that other people believe this and need to believe this. Otherwise, only choked up during "Fanfare for the Common Man," because it is such a bold and simple notion.

Heard there was a small earthquake in northern California and realized with shock that on some deep emotional level I don't believe earthquakes can happen in winter. I think of them as seasonal events. This is absurd, and I can't imagine how I formed this idea.

Conferenced with Shuang, my friend and the editor of Hayseeds. She's sending us a first cut tomorrow, and seems pleased with it, which is definitely a good sign.

Comments

[movingfinger]

The quake woke me up. It was in f*king San Luis Obispo and a 4.5 and it jolted the bed. I hate that because I lie there for quite a while every time waiting for one of three things: more earthquake, the cat to do something (the bump feeling of a small one is like a cat jumping on the bed), or a person in the room to do something else. There is never a person. There is never the cat, these days, she's too arthritic. There is only a wee bit of an earthquake.

People do have this kind of superstitious thing about earthquake weather (see James Blaylock). It's totally irrational and without support in geology. ...My older OED doesn't have "earthquake weather" in it. I wonder where the exact usage started. It is certainly widely recognized now.

[bevjunior]

I definitely have earthquake season ingrained in my head and yes, winter is not earthquake season. Is it possible that there is something to do with the axis's position in relation to the sun that makes tectonic events more possible. If I recall the southern hemisphere tsunamis and things of the past ten years were winter and the great northern hemisphere earthquakes and eruptions were summery. Am I nuts? Idk.

[movingfinger]

Your selective memory is at work, combined with reporting bias. There are quakes and eruptions all the time. For example, I bet you've forgotten that there was a biggish quake in Turkey last winter, in early March, and just last week there was about a 6 in Iran. Both of these were reported in the general news media. As for eruptions, Alaska and Kamchatka are cooking all the time!

The USGS website has a catalog of seismic activity which is either interesting or alarming, depending on how you feel about quakes, but it does show that everything is happening all the time.

[rinue]

I'm pretty sure there's no link whatsoever. However, I'm also pretty sure there is a correlation between what season it is and whether it makes the news. Based on my captioning of local news across the country, I find there is a weekly slot where you have to fit your "extreme weather human interest" segment. In the winter there are plenty of blizzards, in hurricane season there's plenty of hurricanes, and floods and tsunamis are also somewhat seasonal. Earthquakes are all the time, and therefore less interesting unless they're huge, or unless nothing else is going on . . which I suppose is a season.