there's more than corn in indiana - edited to include EARTHQUAKES

I've decided to break my intended temporary hiatus because holy smokes, there was an earthquake here last night. I grew up with an incessant fear of tornadoes, hail the size of softballs, and tempermental river banks, but never once in my entire 25 years of life have I ever thought I'd experience an earthquake in the mostly-quiet midwest region of Indiana.

I believe it's a direct correlation to Johnny Depp's recent visit - first come the stars from the west, then come the weather phenomenon from the west. Next we'll have a mudslide off the one hill in the entire city.

I have a weird internal clock or brain misfunction that wakes me up at 3:30 every morning - even if I'm passed out cold. Every morning I wake up, roll over, and look at the alarm clock. When I see a time in the hour of 3 a.m., I instantly think of the part in "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" when they're talking about 3 a.m. being "the witching hour" or whatever. Scares the hell out of me even just thinking about it now.

Anyway, I woke up last night at 3:30 on the dot, as usual, went back to sleep, and woke up again at 4:30 when my bedroom windows were rattling so hard I thought they would shatter. I groggily thought, "Man, it must really be storming out there!" Then I closed my eyes, intending to go back to sleep, when I realized my bed was shaking back and forth, almost like someone was sitting on it and bouncing up and down. I shot up in bed, saw nothing, and assumed it was a ghost. I fell back asleep a minute later, apparently not too concerned with the ghost in my room.
I woke up for work two hours later, took a shower, turned on the news, and heard the reports of people saying their beds were shaking and I thought "HEY THAT HAPPENED TO ME!" and then I realized I wasn't crazy.

But what *is* crazy is that while typing this post, at exactly 10:16, we felt an aftershock. My officemate and I had been joking about it all morning, and then our desks were moving and our lights were swaying. We have a rock quarry about a mile away, and they blast once a week or so - the dynamite is loud and the tremors shake our buildings. We're used to that. This wasn't anything like that. This aftershock - I think that's what it was, anyway - lasted maybe 7 or 8 seconds and literally rocked us. It didn't just shake like the blasting at the quarry, it actually rocked us back and forth. It was a very strange feeling... actually pretty creepy when you think about it.

At least it's fun to have an interesting story to tell that doesn't involve corn. That's rare when you're living in the boondocks.