So last night, I was puttering about, and I finally got myself to bed around 1.30-1.40a.

I lay down as I usually do, in the centre of the bed with my arms stretched out in the Jesus position (I'm making certain that the next time I have to share a bed with someone, I will be almost completely unable to do so naturally).

Ten seconds later, there was a noise above my head. I had enough time and the presence of mind to cover my head with my arms, and then, BOOM!

I have two eight foot shelves above my head, one holding a few light pieces of junk, the higher one holding about 100 lbs of books. It was the latter that suddenly pulled out of the wall and crashed down on my head.

It was like during the earthquake, when my father was buried under the mound of books that were shelved above his head, except that in my case, the shelf itself came down, and most of the books were hardcover.

So I lay there calmly, under about sixty books, most of which had fallen on my head and chest. I did a mental inventory of myself, and I didn't seem to be hurt, not even my right breast, which got more than its share of pounding. So I sat up, checked my glasses, which I always put on the lower shelf, and which were fine, and started picking up the fallen books and stacking them in tall piles on the remaining shelf.

I stacked and stacked, notice that a mirror that had been on the upper shelf had cracked, brushed all of the plaster off of my sheets, then picked up the shelf itself. And realized exactly what a close miss I had had.

The shelf hadn't touched me at all, not a bit, and thank God, because I could barely lift it. An eight foot long shelf made of thick particle board weighs...I don't even know how much it weighs, but an astonishing amount, and if it had hit me, if it had landed on me like a ton of bricks, I don't know how I would have gotten away without having broken a bone or gotten a concussion.

I finished putting everything back, turned off the light, and lay back down on the far edge of my bed, as far from the remaining shelf as I could. Then I got back up, turned on the light, and took all of those books off the shelf and put them on the floor. I don't think that I could have taken having the same books fall on me a second time in a single evening.

It took me ages to fall asleep, because every time a cat jumped on the bed, I startled away, heart pounding, eyes wide.

Immediately after the crash, the first thing that I did was I realized how much worse it could have been, how fortunate I was. I had the warning sound and was both able to protect myself a bit and I didn't have a heart attack from just having everything hit me unexpectedly. And Jesus, what if I had been asleep rather than having just lain down? No cat was lying under the spot where the shelf fell, as there usually is, so no cat was hurt, or no cat, hearing the warning sound and streaking away, hurt me. I was completely unhurt, just strained my back a little, nothing happened to my eyes or broke my nose.

It could have been so infinitely worse, that all I could think was what a lucky person I am. Of course, I guess that really lucky people don't have shelves of books fall on them in the middle of the night, but if something like that had to happen, I'm terribly grateful that it happened in the way that it did.

Do you look on disasters as blessings?

And we're still talking about To Do lists, feeling a great sense of accomplishment, bad movies we love, too much vacation, strange little rituals, making ourselves look younger or older, hypochondriacs, favourite musicals, happy birthday, the worst remake ever, cartoon character crushes, what Amazon.com might come up with next, vacations, what we did this weekend, insomnia, dreams that we thought were true upon awakening, weeping at movies, true love, and swearing.

Today's horoscope:
You focus on all the little details tonight which can be helpful in setting the scene for love, but don't let it interfere with the flow!

One year ago today:
And some, like the coulis of prune and the praline with a hint of curry, I was glad that I didn't get!

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Last Updated Fri 1 September 10:18:09 2000