Doooooooooom…

I seem to be taking a lot of flack from friends since yesterday’s quake rocked the East Coast. Here I am visiting friends and family in Northeastern Pennsylvania and enjoying NOT being in the heat in NOLA for a change, and suddenly there’s an earthquake.

Personally, I didn’t feel a thing, although friends of mine did. It’s unlikely I would have noticed anything, as I was wandering around the Harford Fair with a high school pal of mine, and any rumbling of the earth that we might have felt was mostly likely camouflaged by the tractor pulls going on behind us.

Now, with Irene skirting up the East Coast, the berating continues. My reputation as the Harbinger of Doom is not intentional, though it’s not entirely unwarranted either. In 1972, the year after I was born, the Northeast got creamed by Hurricane Agnes. In the late 90s, after moving with a friend of mine into a small town in Northeastern PA, an F3 tornado tore through the area, leaving a path of destruction a half-mile wide. In May of 2001, I moved to New York City and several months later was watching one of the towers fall from the corner window of my midtown office building. In June of 2005 I moved to the Big Easy, and…well...we all know how that story ended.

I can see where these coincidences are perhaps a little…eerie. But I’ve never really destroyed anyplace I’ve simply been VISITING rather than living. So for now, at least, can you people please stop trying to run me out of town? I’m leaving next week anyway, so you can all stop offering to come over and pack my bags for me.