250225 Was The Earthquake Just For Me?

February 26, 2025 Journal No Comments

Was The Earthquake Just For Me

My routine is unhealthy. Somehow I fell into this routine of staying awake all night, then trying to get back into a more normal cycle.

Apparently I am not succeeding. I just looked at the time on my laptop, and it is already after 3 AM.

I think I will keep this post short, and put myself into bed as soon as I can.

Sunday – three days ago – I went out in back about 8:00 AM, half-expecting Pedro to show up as he said he would. When I got out there, I saw that Coquito had wrapped his rope around a shrub, and had limited movement, like the morning before.

I kept my distance from the horse so that it would not be able to kick me or rear up and trample me, as it tried to do the morning before. Working together, Coquito and I were able to clear the rope from the shrub and Coquito was able to roam a little farther than before.

I went over behind my house, and I noticed the second horse – Nena – had also wrapped a rope around a shrub. It was easier to fix this situation, as Nena showed more patience than Coquito, and I was able to free the rope quickly.

I poured a little honey onto some apple pieces, and brought the apples out to the horses. They both enjoyed the treat, but Coquito became outright aggressive, cornering me next to a tree to block me from going anywhere.

When I brought out the final handful of apples, the horse began to chew on the paper bag I used to carry the apples. When I pulled the bag away, Coquito bit my arm, close to the wrist.

I cleaned the wound a few times with soap, and now there is a scab in the shape of Coquito’s teeth.

Later in the day, I walked to the store and came back, only to see that Coquito was in the park, on the other side of the park, tied to a fence. I crossed the field just to spend a few minutes with him.

The horse kept pacing back and forth, snatching grass and weeds wherever he found some. He walked toward me, but I stayed slightly beyond reach to avoid getting bit again.

When I left, Coquito tried to come to me, but I continued to keep a distance. If I had had time, I believe I could have become friends with Coquito.

[Up to here. It is 3:40 AM, and a good time to shut things down for the night.]

[Update: Wednesday 26 February 2025 9:25 AM]

Maybe today will be different. I woke up in bed, not sitting at the desk. Before going to the computer, I was dressed, downed my medicine, gotten clothes ready for the laundry, and did 40 pushups – well, push-outs. When I looked at the clock it was 8:30. In the interim, I straightened up the bedroom, got the laundry going, cooked some potato wedges, and watched a magic trick on YouTube. The Wifi has gone out twice in this time.

So, to catch up to now, here are the main events since Sunday.

Monday, I fussed around a lot with website technology, and got nowhere. I did some lessons of Coursiv, about AI prompts. As I worked into the night, at 1:45 AM Tuesday 25 February 2025, the house shook. It lasted about 45 seconds or so. When it finished shaking I looked at the time. There was no noise in the neighborhood, so maybe everyone else slept through the earthquake.

I found a website that tracks earthquakes. Apparently there have been quite a few, lately, registering about 2 on whatever scale they use. In fact it looks like there is seismic activity all the time. But I did not see a report of the earthquake I felt until about 25 minutes later. There was a 5 point earthquake out at sea at the time my house shook. Probably not enough to trigger a tsunami warning, but it was the strongest quake on the chart.

I ended up not going to bed until 7 or 8 in the morning. And slept until about 11 or 12. This was yesterday. If there is one word I can use to describe my day, yesterday, it is “disoriented.” I had no idea what I should be doing or when. I knew of things I had to get done, I just didn’t have a motive for doing any of them.

I think I tired out mid-afternoon and took a long nap. It was already dark by the time I woke up.

So, yesterday evening, I did some work on some websites and played with DNS at my server to see if I could connect with my autoresponder and the lead creator. As noted above, it was already 3 AM when I began writing this post. At that moment, I think my life might have changed.

I was able to write fluidly, without stopping to daydream and blame it on writer’s block. I was able to keep writing until I could feel exhaustion. And that was when I stopped writing and went to bed. Before I fell asleep, I took note of the fact that I wrote fluidly, and that writing could be the therapy I need. It forces me to keep my thoughts organized.

So my challenge today – maybe every day – is to make sure I write something.

It is now 10:05 AM. I am not stressing about it being too late to go to the beach, or anything. To the contrary, I think I’ve gotten this day off to a good start.