tales of disaster: the retelling.

Please excuse my silence. I've been dealing with this monster of a drama in the past two weeks or so. eta: just kidding--less than two weeks. it just feels like lots of time is passing, but in slow motion.

here's the story:
my aunt, to me, "you've suffered a lot of trials for a little, young twenty two year old!"

well, this is a lifetime of adventures, even when i'm not trying!

i spent friday packing and preparing to move. i'd packed about ninety percent of my things, and pulled them all out into the living room. my moving help was arriving the next morning, and after having moved so often (and typically, so haphazardly), i was determined to make this an organized, easy, relatively painless move.

in the middle of the day i took a nice long nap. it was chilly, but the sun was shining through my window and it was nice to lie there in my olive green room, half asleep, in the warmth of the sunlight. my flatmate charly took off around five thirty in the evening to go to her aikido class. awhile later, it had gotten much, much colder (the bay area has been experiencing a serious cold front--apparently it even snowed in san francisco on saturday), and i flipped on the heat. i kept running around the house, packing and moving and organizing, and after awhile i took a break, put on my headphones, and started watching a movie on my computer.

now, my flatmate has a dog, and the dog had been acting a little silly since everything in our house started getting packed up and moved around. after charly left the house, the dog had been following me around, and she started scratching at my door after i closed it. scratch scratch, whine whine. i kept telling her to go away, and she would be quiet for a minute, only to scratch again. finally, after about ten minutes (maybe?), she scratched incredibly hard, and then yelped. as i sat up and took my headphones off, i realized i smelled smoke. i thought that maybe i'd left something on the stove and forgotten, even though that's not at all something i normally do.

i opened the door to see kajal, the dog, pressed against my door, and half the hallway's floor in flames. kajal ran past me into my room, but i coaxed her out, fearing she would get trapped. i couldn't find my cell phone at first, so i ran through the house trying to find it and opening doors to let the smoke out. i ran back into my room to call my phone from my computer, found it, and then dialed 911. as i ran out of my room, the hallway wall had started burning, and the flame was bigger and taller than me. i ran past it and into the kitchen, where the smoke was so thick i could barely see. i ran out the back door and called for kajal, who had disappeared into the backyard. i grabbed her collar and literally screamed to the dispatcher, "MY HOUSE IS ON FIRE! send help, please, my house is burning down!"

people talk hypothetically about what they'd grab if their house was burning down, and that's a nice thought, but all i could think about was getting the dog and getting the fuck out. get the baby and GO.

i stood outside, barefoot and wearing thin pajama pants and a tank top, with kajal, watching the fleet of firefighters water down the house. a neighbor brought me a jacket. several asked if i was ok and needed food or water. my flatmates came home a little over an hour later, after finally getting my bazillions of phone calls. charly was in tears when they drove up. once the firefighters left, we surveyed the damage as best we could with giant flashlights. we stood in the house, aimless, and unsure what to do or where to go or what to even grab. they had turned the electricity off, and the house still felt warm.

we didn't see the extent of the damage until the next day, in the sunlight. although the firefighter said that on a scale of one to ten, it was a three, the damage was still fairly severe. they had to create a makeshift floor for us to walk on. two flaming doors had been ripped off their frames so they could be extinguished: one was found half charred, on the curb, and the other was found under the lemon tree. dave's bed is ruined, a huge bunch of my clothes and everyone's bedding got destroyed. what wasn't burned was ruined by the heat and smoke. the walls are covered with blistering paint and the windows are adorned with blinds that are paused in their half-melted form.

if it had been five minutes longer, i would've been trapped in my room. the hallway would've been too firey to escape from (plus, the floor fell through), and there are bars on my bedroom windows (to keep intruders out). the likelihood of both kajal and i being hurt is extremely high. and instead, we lucked out.

yeah, we lost some stuff. it's actually terribly lucky that we all were moving anyway, so we aren't homeless. the emotional trauma is worse than i thought it would be; all three of us who were living in the house are experiencing highs and lows. the financial hit is going to end up being huge; i had to buy a new mattress, and i don't even know what clothes i lost yet. i now have only one pair of pajama pants (which are currently soaked in firehose water and burnt wood--i've been sleeping in leggings/yoga pants), and i lost a ton of (really cute) underwear and stuff that i wore on a regular basis. what bedding and clothing i tried to salvage may still be ruined by the smoke smell that has permeated everything in that house.

the worst is the emotional distress, though. we're all experiencing ups and downs and trying to pull together. i definitely feel more bonded to my flatmates after this experience, even if we aren't flatmates anymore. we're still spending the next few weeks going back to the house, picking through to see what we can salvage and what's worthless, to clean up as best we can.

what a fucking ordeal.

on the upside, i'm in my new place, which is disorganized and strangely empty, but lovely. i have a little green tea kettle and my new mattress came this morning, so i can sit on my cozy bed and type type type. i still feel exhausted, but things are going to be ok. photos of the disaster: coming to your computer screen soon.

sometimes i feel like my life should come with a DISCLAIMER: NOT FOR THE WEAK OF STOMACH OR FAINT OF HEART. if it didn't actually happen to me, i'm not sure i'd believe it. it's all so ridiculous.

written february 27th, 2011