At 4:42 am I woke up. I’m not sure if I was just rolling over, or if my rattling closet doors were the cause. But soon my bed beneath me began to shake.

The earthquake lasted about five seconds. And the only damage it did to me was keep me awake for the new couple hours, the first 30 minutes of which I spent culling the web for information on earthquakes. I’m not sure how earthquakes work, so my big fear that this what I felt might be preliminary to something larger.

The quake happened in Oakland, which is across the bay a half dozen miles away.

After a while, it seemed the rumbling would not return, so I closed the laptop and tried to sleep.