So, last night a huge shlef of books crashed on my body as I lay in bed, and afterwards all I could think was about how much worse it could have been, how lucky I am.

Do you see the blessing in a disaster?

-- Kymm Zuckert (hedgehog@hedgehog.net), September 01, 2000

Answers

Oh, yes.

I had a stroke & open heart surgery a few years ago. I am so happy to be alive I can't even tell you. I came so close. Life is a gift.

That being said, Kymm, you're entitled to some self-pity. A bookshelf fell on your head! That sucks!

-- Sara Astruc (astruc@astruc.com), September 01, 2000.

Jeez, Kymm, you are so very lucky! Dario nearly had a heart attack just from hearing me tell the story (this is one of his pet fears, and why we will never have a bookshelf anywhere near our heads).

Honestly, I can't think of a single disaster that has befallen me personally. That alone is something to be thankful for, most definitely.

-- Dawn (amgraffiti@superplin.com), September 01, 2000.

Oh, Kymm, how horrifying! I just told the story to Jeremy, and he told me an even more horrifying similar story, which I probably shouldn't share with you but I will anyway. We know this creepy guy who has a glass eye. (He's not creepy because he has a glass eye; he's creepy and he happens to have a glass eye. Just to clarify.) He told Jeremy the story of how he lost his eye: he was asleep one night, and a shelf fell on to him. He had a statue of a stork on the shelf, and the beak hit him right in the eye.

Just goes to show, you shouldn't have stork statues in your house. And you shouldn't have shelves over the bed, I guess.

-- Beth (beth@xeney.com), September 02, 2000.

We had a fire in our building some time ago, and it smoked everything in our apartment even though ours wasn't the one that burned. We were on vacation at the time, and a pet service was looking after the kitties.

It was a tremendous upheaval for us, but it could have been so much worse! It could have been ours. We might have not had the good sense to get renter's insurance. Our kitties might have been hurt or lost or killed. I don't even like to think about what could have happened.

As it was, we lost a lot of junk and got a chance to get some brand-new stuff to replace irreparably damaged belongings.

Now we're being forced to move, so we're hoping that there will be a silver lining in this disaster as well.

Catriona

-- Catriona Richardson (catri696@purpleturtle.com), September 02, 2000.

Okay, that is way too gross! As far as I am concerned, my greatest fear is something happening to my eyes. Anything about eyes being poked or popped or falling out of people's heads just gives me the crawly heebs.

Thanks, Jeremy!

-- Kymm Zuckert (kymmz1@yahoo.com), September 02, 2000.

I cannot be the only one who, upon reaching the part of the story where you started stacking books on the remaining shelf, was mentally shrieking NOOOOOOOOOOO! If you hadn't set them on the floor I don't think *I* would have been able to sleep tonight. I take it they don't have earthquakes in Jersey or you never would've put shelves there in the first place. No one in Seattle has so much as a picture frame hanging above her bed.

-- Kim Rollins (kimrollins@yahoo.com), September 02, 2000.

Every job I ever lost was a disaster at the time, but usually the job I got next was better. If they won't keep you, you don't want to be there.

We lost our house to the bank. I worried over it, tried to prevent it, it happened anyway. If home ownership, and good credit, define being in the middle class, we slid back out of it. Which Barbara Ehrenreich identifies as a big fear middle class people have. Fear of Falling.

It took us five years to work our way back up to home ownership, but we did.

If I had sold a book, I would be writing books that sell. I didn't, and wrote what I write instead. Found a way to support myself and do that. I think the books are better than what sells.

Adversity is the jewel in the head of the toad.

-- Jack Saunders, The Daily Bugle (www.thedailybugle.com) (jacksaunders@mindspring.com), September 03, 2000.

New York is in fact on an earthquake fault. One of the obnoxious local or national anchormen published a thriller telling what would happen if the Big One hit, and I seem to remember checking it out and being told by people at the Federal Emergency Management Agency that it was mostly accurate but they just didn't think it was worth doing earthquake preparedness in New York.

Kymn ... please ... move those bookshelves.

-- Diana (diana@alum.mit.edu), September 03, 2000.

The first thing I thought when I read the story was, "Kymm, you grew up in California, how could you put something over your bed?" I used to have pictures over my bed, but after the Northridge quake, the only thing that goes over my bed is a soft dream pillow. Eventually I want to put some sort of tapestry there, once I find (or paint) one I like.

I also practically jumped out of my chair when you started putting the books on the second shelf. Very glad you took them down, otherwise I was going to have to fire off a stern e-mail.

As for silver linings in disasters, well, I can't think of one right now, other than my apartment surviving the Northridge earthquake with no more than a few broken glasses (though the broken bottle of Kaluha (sp?) wsa a bit of a disaster).

My older brother lived ten minutes away from me, in Sherman Oaks, and his building was destroyed, as was my best friend's place in Granada Hills (she was actually pinned down under a bookcase, but threw it off in one of those superhuman surges of adreneline when she heard her roommate calling for help). Her parents' house in Northridge was also heavily damaged. And a couple of friends and their baby lived on the first floor of the Northridge Meadows apartment building where so many people died. They not only made it out alive but were able to help others to escape.

To this day I think, "It could have been so much worse."

-- Carol (webgal@ordinarygoddess.com), September 04, 2000.