The door to my room swung open and my dad was standing there in a panic. It was four thirty in the morning and still dark out. He asked if my brother and I were alright and after we responded he told us to stand under our doorway in case of an aftershock. I was barely eight years old and my brother was only five. We had no idea what was going on at the time and didn’t know what to think. We were initially more annoyed than anything at being awake, but slowly as we heard more about what had happened we spent an entire morning scared and standing in a doorway in the dark. Unfortunately for other people that day, our morning had been much easier than theirs.  Read 

“You know this is how you’ll die,” I thought to myself. I was lying flat on my back on the carpet just outside of my bathroom, sweating and starting to worry. It was getting so hot that I would momentarily lose vision before shaking my head furiously to restore my sight. My stomach was a boiling vat of acid and I wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball, but I knew that would only make the overheating worse. I tried to calm myself, but when things start to scare me I breathe faster and shorter, I panic. I started gulping for air and once again I was doing the mental life checklist I had done so many times before. This was ten minutes ago.  Read 

If I ever turn into one of those bloggers that constantly whines about their significant other or why they feel fat that day, feel free to find interesting and creative ways to put me down. I try to generally talk about positive things on here because nobody wants to read the Real World thoughts of a girl pissed off that her roommates can’t do the dishes, OMFG! Or they do, but the people who read that aren’t my target audience anyways.  Read 

The door downstairs swung open and Brian knew that his dad was home for the day. Brian used to be able to tell that his dad was home before his car got there, either from his loud truck engine or the ‘dog alarm’ his dog erupted into whenever his dad arrived. Both of those were gone now. The dog ran through his days and the truck was replaced with a shiny new one, that somehow even with a larger engine, managed to be infinitely quieter. Now Brian couldn’t tell that his dad was home most days until that door downstairs swung open.  Read 

My parents have had a lakehouse south of Bakersfield, CA since before I was born. I’ve grown up there as much as I did in my hometown. I started skiing up there when I was 1½ years old, wakeboarding when I was 8, and I’ve been blowing things up for as long as I can remember. I’ve grown up with most of the kids there since we were all born and everyone is like family. With all of us getting older, going off to college, and generally becoming adults, we don’t see each other as often as we used to. One weekend, however, almost guarantees that we’ll all be at the lake at the same time, the 4th of July.  Read