Intermission
a creative coffee break from writing the play

• Sam
• You are so beautiful it hurts.
• Siren
• Yeah, that’s my thing.
• Sirens
  by
  Deborah Zoe Laufer

We’re way off-story.

the Siren to Sam
in
Sirens
by
Deborah Zoe Laufer

The last few weeks have been quite sleepless. Our Dog had nighttime diarrhea, and finally all-time diarrhea. I won’t go on about her flatulence, which was 100 times regular dog flatulence. Our Dog is some 13 years old, which physically compared to human years is like 72. It’s dog years and physical size that determine the comparison human years. The larger the dog, the older she is. Her doc has determined she’s got IBS. She seems to be on the right combo of food and meds for the moment, and she’s finally sleeping through the night.

Last Sunday, a 2-3 hour wind storm took down a ton of trees and power lines. We were without power until Friday. There’s many folks still without power. Not sure in retrospect what exactly caused such sleepless nights during the outage. I only know I didn’t sleep until Friday. Grocery stores and restaurants continued to function, neighbors looked out for each other, and our updated California earthquake kits came in very handy. We are not poor, infirm, or sick, and so the lack of power was not threatening to our lives in any way. You gotta keep at least one eye outside your own life, and see what’s happening around and beyond you.

I can’t write when I’m exhausted. Well, I could. It wouldn’t be any good. During these last few weeks, I’ve mostly made notes about new play ideas which are grabbing hold, reading and researching for some of those potential plays. And obsessively following the U.S. campaign for President. I’m looking forward to the debates beginning, and making our way to November. I’m pulling for an Obama landslide, in case you wanna know.

Today I am feeling replenished. I’ve set myself a modest writing re-entry goal: Five pages on the play I haven’t finished. If they don’t come, I’m putting that play in a drawer and moving on.

One of many examples of trees downed in my neighborhood.

Around 5:37 this morning, we were awakened by the house shaking. At first I thought, "must be a thunderstorm," and as the vibration wore on, I thought, "WTF, an earthquake?"

One of the reasons I left California was out of weariness of expecting the next "big one." My Higher Power has a wicked sense of humor. Honestly, I’ve recognized at least one other tremor in the year we’ve been here. They pretty much happen everywhere, don’t they?  In San Francisco, tremors occur with all the time. When you grow up along a fault line, you don’t freak out when there’s a moderate or minor tremor.  I was cocky about it at times, too. "Oh, a 5.2? No biggie."

When you know how devastating quakes can be, however, you learn to do the best you can to prepare for one. Which means: prepare to survive as best you can during, and then afterwards. No one can telll you when a bad quake is going to hit. It’s a little like guerrilla warfare. You know it’s gonna hit, just not when or where exactly.

Today is the anniversary of California’s 1906 earthquake. As a kid, I was taught the earthquake itself didn’t do much damage. It was the fire that caused San Francisco’s collapse. As an adult, I learned that the fire story was a lie, perpetuated by the real estate and business community, which was trying to prevent panic about moving to San Francisco back in the day. The fire was bad. Sill, it was the earthquake, not the fire, that set the City in ruin. Thousands of people–not hundreds as originally reported–lost their lives. Gladys Hansen set the record straight in her wonderful book, Denial of Disaster.

Denial of Disaster was published shortly after the Loma Prieta quake of 1989. Oddly, this book helped me through some my post-traumatic stress from that ’89 quake.

Years later, I studied screenwriting with James Dalessandro, who wrote a novel about 1906. He made a pretty good documentary about the quake, too, The Damnedest Finest Ruins. Brad Bird is directing the film of James’ novel.

Fortunately, in today’s quake, centered in Illinois at 5.2 magnitude, no one was hurt, no real damage sustained. It was a little tough watching the news people here who did not know how to report the quake. Uh, folks, we don’t call the police when an earthquake hits. We call the USGS.

Folks here love to talk about the pending big one expected along the New Madrid fault. That fault line throws out a magnitude 6.0 or greater every 80 years. It’s over due. People talk about this pending quake like it’s a source of pride, or it’s some kind of weird contest with California. No one seems prepared for it.

Yeah, I’m a little cranky today.

I’m prepared, too.

Specific Gravtity Ensemble does theatre, "wherever we damn well feel like it." I’ve always loved theatre in unusual places, like cars, fields, or stairwells.

Can’t wait to see what these folks do. We have tickets for next weekend.

Video from last year: