Andy never comes over to my side of the bed, so I was really surprised when I woke up with him crawling on top of me and the earth rocking under me. Maybe he was thinking that his side of the bed was next to the huge bookcase that he was always going to nail to the wall tomorrow. Or maybe he was thinking that he wants me awake to be terrified with him, but there wasn't really time to think, so probably he didn't. We sat there on the shaking bed, naked, hugging each other hard. I knew I was going to die, and I was ready to go peacefully. I didn't notice it was dark and I didn't notice everything in our kitchen cabinets was falling onto the floor. I only felt Andy clinging to me for his life, and that's a fine way to go.

When the shaking stopped, I got our earthquake flashlight out from under the bed. I had seen pictures of the San Francisco earthquake, where sides of buildings fell, and all I could think of was Channel 7 filming our bedroom while we were naked. I made my way to the closet, over fallen books and crumbled plaster. Everything was on the floor, so I took the first four shoes I could find, and an armload of clothing. Andy sat on the bed stunned. "Put this stuff on," I told him.

Then Andy wanted to see if our earthquake food was okay. He went to the kitchen, and I shined the flashlight onto the floor. "This place is trashed," I said, "we have to get out of here."

We went outside with our neighbors and listened to radios and watched fires burning all around us. When the sun came up we could see the cracks all over the building, and it didn't look safe to go back, but Andy and I weren't ready to give up.

We stand in our apartment, in the doorway. Everything that could have broken did. "We have a lot of gluing to do," I say, thinking that when something's broken, it's better to just throw it out, but that's a hard thing to do.

Andy has this collection of junk that used to be his dad's, before his dad ditched the family for a younger woman. All the stuff is broken, and Andy has tears in his eyes, but he knows what I think of his dad, so Andy turns away from me. I put my arms around him, and hold him. And while he cries into the crook of my neck, I look around the apartment and wonder if it's worth trying to fix anything. We manage to spend two hours in the apartment doing nothing but making paths that go to more debris.

We go out to lunch because we neglected to put a can opener with our earthquake supply of canned food. The only restaurant with running water in Santa Monica is La Salsa. It's like a movie set there -- fallen buildings in the background and movie stars in the foreground, munching on Mexican food. Andy and I order, but we can't eat. We walk around town looking at other peoples' damage, looking for the most significant casualty.

At home we try to clean up, but the aftershocks are in the 6.0 range, so everything has to stay on the floor. It gets dark quickly, and since there's no electricity, we go to bed. The building is yellow-tagged, which means it's not condemned, red-tagged, but no one is willing to sign a green tag to vouch that it's safe. We should be staying in a hotel, but that seems like giving up hope prematurely. So we lie on our pillows, and when there's a 3.0 aftershock, we don't move, and when there's a 5.0, we go to the doorway.

I realize that I am lying there in bed, next to Andy, hoping for another 7.4, but I know it won't happen again. Not for me and Andy.