Shake ‘n’ Wake

The whole bed beneath me jerked violently back and forth, five feet maybe ten each time, the mattress bouncing and shaking more and more with each thrust, the dimly-lit walls wiggling as if they were made of rubber, and after I had flung myself onto my feet and into a pair of pants and ran desperately to the front door, I was surprised to find when I stepped into the brightness of a freshly-ignited dawn that life seemed to be continuing on as usual, the most dedicated (and presumably high-paid) of the infamous Japanese businessmen already whizzing by in their cars at what must have been four thirty or five in the morning.
Despite the evident lack of damage, and although the five floors of apartments above hadn’t fallen in on me and my own ground-floor living quarters like I had so genuinely expected, I decided right then and there that I did not like earthquakes, and that maybe it was time to get the hell out of Japan.

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A Bath for Bill

In retrospect, I’d say that travelling was quite similar to using a new bath salt: exciting at first because it’s new and different but then you’ve been in too long and your fingers start to prune and get all nasty just like they do for any other bath you’ve ever taken – but I have to admit, Bill’s excitement to see Barcelona and Santorini, Cairo and Istanbul, Tokyo and Singapore, Auckland and Ushuaia and all those other places I’ve already been to not once but thrice, seems to have reignited an excitement in me that I rendered long gone. Although I desperately long to settle down and stay right where I am for once in my life, Bill gave me the gift of feeling young again – that wondrous excitement of youth – so I suppose the least I can do for my husband is pour in the salt and take a bath with him.

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