April 5th, 2024

 I woke up to my bed shaking and my neighbor playing Mac Miller’s “The Quest” through their open window. An odd occurrence hit the tectonic plate of the East Coast. We all thought only Angelanos knew of earthquakes, considering their airy, fractured nature consisting of unnaturally fog riddled sunshine skies, bizarre exercise fads, baby botox, and Erewhon pricing. The east is more rooted in reality, or so we thought until the earthquake hit and the people ran to Twitter, Instagram, Threads, to share their thoughts on what it’s like to not be so different from those whose yards smell like Jacarandas. Of course, I only saw the New York perspective on social media even though I felt it in Boston. No one ever talks about Boston unless they’re expressing their disgust for it. 

I find it unsettling the way people are so sure of things these days. No one woke up on April 5th thinking there would be an earthquake. Everyone was shocked to their core that such a thing could happen. I guess they all thought that because we are living in times where Biden is sending military aid to Israel, drugs are being decriminalized only to see an increase in hospital visits because the weed is so strong everyone is convinced they’re on deaths door, cocaine is being cut with fentanyl causing people to bypass the hospital completely and end up in the morgue, abortions are banned here, then there, then in your state. I guess with all that going on they thought there’s not much more that can happen that would shock them. It’s kinda funny that with all that arrogance all it takes is a little rumble to send them spiraling. 

“Well in those days we thought we’d live forever. We thought the more we had to regret, the better.” Eve Babitz wrote in one of her stories in Black Swans. She was living in a different era, in the city where everyone surfs while those across the country are going to work. Her world is just as much a product of delusion as mine is and those who don’t believe in earthquakes in New York. I have blind spots of my own, I’ll admit. There was a time I was so sure I’d see Juice WRLD at Bonnaroo, one more album from Avicii, and would put money on Lil Peep staying alive and never seeing sobriety from Lil Xan. I, however, did not feel any sort of surprise that I woke up to my bed shaking. It’s happened before, but usually when someone else is in it with me. Very few things shock me these days. Not because I’m arrogant and have convinced myself I’ve seen it all, but because there’s so much I have yet to experience, so much I do not understand, so much I might never get to see, so much that can still happen, that I feel it would be rather foolish of me to think there’s no more room for earthquakes in Boston. I watch hockey, afterall. A game where the Rangers might lose to the Blue Jackets. An experience in which you can watch Boston win the presidents trophy and lose the cup. 

Odd things are happening around town. There are rumors. There are stories. Joan Didion said that decades ago and it rings true on April 5th, 2024. But she wrote that no one was surprised by the Manson murders, and wishes she could forget that. What I’ll remember most about my generation is the surprise, the shock and awe. A product of delusion. Perhaps Didion’s California is more rooted in reality than the place I currently call home. A place so firmly dictated by arrogance that they’re so sure they could never be blown away, and yet one day they were, and they could no longer be so sure of anything anymore.  

In a daydream as we get higher, fuck work girl let’s get fired, Mac Miller sings through my open window. I’d like to live in his delusions, in the delusions of those around me, but my belief system is that of anarchy, which means anything goes and I gotta stay on my toes. I’ve had to think my way out of psych hospitals, therapeutic boarding schools, OD’s, an abusive relationship, and drug addiction before I had my first legal drink. All those artists I mentioned are dead. Except Lil Xan. He’s been sober longer than I have.