Bracing for the Big One

At 8.04 PM Pacific Time on Tuesday October 30th, somewhere in San Jose, about five miles below the earth, a magnitude 5.6 quake erupted along the Calaveras Fault line (as recorded by the USGS). Nearly 55 miles away, sitting at my desk in my third-floor studio in San Francisco, I felt the tremor.

As it turned out, it wasn't the much anticipated Big One, just another California jitter, enough to rattle some panels and panes but not enough to leave a lasting impression. When the rocking and the rolling subsided, I turned on my PC. I wanted to make sure it hadn't been short-circuited. To my relief, it rebooted without any incident. I also found a new message in my Outlook mailbox. It was from the Girl in the Moon.

"It would be nice to get together," she wrote, "maybe over coffee sometimes."

Even though the floor beneath me was perfectly still by then, I felt wobbly all over again.

At a speed-dating party a couple of weeks ago, I found myself seated opposite Claire, or the Girl in the Moon, as I'd like to call her. (When you have to undergo 20 dates in a span of two hours, you have to rely on silly mnemonic devices to remember who's who. In my annotated score card, Dana6, who wore knee-high leather boots, was the Femme Fatale; Beth12, who spoke with an Irish accent, was the Celtic Princess; and Claire16, who reminded me of Clair de Lune, was the Girl in the Moon.)

My so-called date with Claire lasted only five minutes. If it were up to me, it would have gone on considerably longer. But the protocols didn't exactly permit leisurely talks and lingering goodbyes. It was called HurryDate for a reason.

Apparently we both found the fleeting five minutes agreeable. When she turned in her score card, she declared she'd like to see me again. I did the same when I turned in mine. That produced what's known in speed-dating lingo as "a match," giving us the chance to contact each other directly. After exchanging a few emails, we both arrived at Cafe Puccini, a quintessential Italian coffeehouse in North Beach, for our second date.

Neither of us had anticipated the sky would turn gray and unleash a relentless shower that would last the entire day. When I walked up to the cafe, I spotted a familiar figure. I recognized her through the slabs of rainwater overflowing from the edge of the roof. Her boyish trim, reminiscent of the jazz-era bob cuts, was unmistakable. Bundled in a waist-length trench coat sprinkled with droplets, she was peering into the fogged window to see if I was inside. She didn't realize I was standing next to her.

"Excuse me, is this seat taken?" I asked.

She turned around and flashed a disarming smile, the same one she'd somehow managed to maintain through her 20-odd speed-dating rounds (having made small talk with some of the men present myself, I could testify several were just plain odd).

"I can't believe you Googled my hometown," she said.

The whole HurryDate experience could well be a carousal ride. We jumped in. We rode alongside random strangers. We shouted out our stats (occupation, hobbies, quirks, phobias, allergies, and so on). Then we switched horse. And round and round we went, to the point of dizziness.

After a dozen encounters or so, most of the names, faces, and biographical details inevitably became a blur: Was Kelly18 the graphics artist with a cute smile? Or was she the interior decorator who gave me an unsolicited lesson on the different shades of beige? Was Stephanie7 the one with a Southern accent? Or was she the one with nothing interesting to say?

Before my five minutes with Claire ran out, I decided I didn't want to forget her. So, amidst our hasty farewells, I requested, "Quick, give me the name of your hometown. I need something to remember you by."

Once I got home, I researched the town and found out, from the tourism promotion section at the city's homepage, that the new owner of P. J.'s Restaurant and Lounge (quite possibly the only respectable establishment around for a romantic meal) had made "many changes," including adding "a lounge chair in the rear" and "a pool table." I teased her with this discovery in one of my subsequent emails.

"Do you know we had a rogue speed-dater that night?" I told her.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"One of the men decided he wanted to talk to only a few women, not everyone," I explained. "so he just jumped from table to table without following the hostess's instruction. I think that messed up the whole setup."
"I didn't know that," she said. "Now I'm wondering if I picked him. What does he look like?"
"I don't remember," I said.

Actually, I had a pretty good idea who the man was. At one point, the frustrated hostess pointed out the offender to us. I could have exposed him to Claire by name. But jeopardizing someone else's chance at romance seemed to go against the code of chivalry.

"There was that one guy that was so nervous," she recalled. "Poor man!"
"It was probably his first time with speed-dating," I suggested.
"I felt so bad for him," she continued. "He was kind of socially awkward, so it was worse, but you gotta give him credit for trying. I wanted to do something to put him at ease."
"So what did you do?" I asked.
"I asked him what he'd do during his free times," she said. "He said he liked to read. So I asked him about his favorite books. Suddenly, he came out of the shell. You could see him blossom. It was great!"

She spoke with the delight of a Franciscan monk who had fed a vagabond, with the relish of a marine biologist who had saved an endangered shark. At that moment, I felt the incredibly urge to lean over and kiss her, to skip the necessary small steps, to take one giant leap instead.

These are cynical times. With so many failed expeditions, more and more singles I know are adopting the fend-for-yourself attitude. Sometimes, after a particularly disheartening episode, they go into an emotional withdrawal, expecting the worst from humanity, offering the least to their potential mates. They take refuge in the dark side of the moon.

That's why, whenever I witness an act of kindness, I know I'm in the presence of something special. Who knows? Claire's sweetness might be a reflection of her small-town upbringing, where folks bake pies for their neighbors and offer lemonade to weary travelers. Or it just might be her character.

A few hours later, we walked across China Town. The oncoming pedestrian traffic, the sporadic puddles, and the boxes of brocade slippers, sandalwood fans, and incense rolls spilling out onto the sidewalk forced us to huddle closer under a single umbrella. As we approached the intersection where we must part, I heard a melancholy tune, drifting from a grizzled Chinese beggar playing a single-string instrument on the steps of a mossy building.

"Let's get together again and see where this goes, OK?" she said.
"I'd like that," I replied.

Then she stepped out from under my umbrella, unfurled her own, and began climbing a steep hill. I felt the earth beneath me grumble. It was a cable car rolling along the track in the same direction. Eventually she became a shadow, a tiny part of the cityscape, made up of winding roads and historic hotels obscured by the heavy downpour.

A great quake is a once-in-a-lifetime event. I know it can be devastating. Still, I'd count myself fortunate to experience it. I'm hoping this is the Big One.