Date: March 23, 2020
Quarantine Day: 9
Last Song I Listened To: “Heartbreak Weather” by Niall
Horan
Last Person I Communicated With: my mom
Last Thing I Ate: Doritos and guacamole
Last Thing I Read: currently reading These Witches Don’t
Burn (2019) by Isabel Sterling
Current Mood: tired
One Thing I’ve Accomplished Today: went grocery
shopping
One Thing I Want To Accomplish Today: do my dishes
(ew!)
One Reason I’m Stressed Today: time to start doing
schoolwork again
One Reason I’m Happy Today: the cashier at Dillon’s
told me she liked my “crazy cat lady” bag
Dear Apocalyspsers,
You know it’s an apocalypse when the highlight of my
day is grocery shopping. Normally, I loathe it, but it’s been my only excuse to
get out of the house recently—and I only went to one store instead of my usual
3 or 4!
via GIPHY
(^^^Me in the grocery store today!)
It was actually a little surreal going to the store.
Some aisles looked perfectly normal; others were bare and picked over, and I
couldn’t help but think, “Is this how it starts?” How long before all the
shelves are picked through and there’s nothing left? I (wryly) thought
about the “shopping” scenes in The Omega Man (1971). Based on how empty
the toilet paper, hand soap, frozen foods, and canned goods aisles were, the
convenience store that Neville and Lisa go to is way better stocked than I
imagine a grocery store would be during the actual apocalypse.
But I also suddenly understood how so many people
succumbed to “panic shopping.” When you’re walking through the store and come
across the last 2 frozen pizzas, you suddenly wonder if you need a
frozen pizza, too (even if you know that you have 3 in your freezer at home). I
think it’s a normal human reaction to then think, “Am I going to be able to get
this ever again? Should I but it now, just in case?”
Of course, to an extent, that’s just me being my
usual, dramatic self. I don’t honestly think that COVID-19 will send us into an
apocalyptic existence a la Omega Man or I Am Legend (2007) or The
Road (2006), but this feels like the closest we’ve been to the likes of such
a catastrophe in my lifetime. I remember a few other scares—like H1N1 “swine flu”
and Zika virus and Ebola—but schools never closed for those. I remember growing
up in Alabama and how bread, milk, bottled water, and canned goods would fly
off the shelves if a hurricane or snowstorm was predicted, but that only ever
lasted a week or so. COVID-19 feels…bigger, but I refuse to wallow with a “we’re
doomed” attitude. (I’m far too stubborn to believe that this is the end of
humanity as we know it.)
(While I was looking for the meme below, I found this informative article from CNN that suggests it might actually be New Englanders--NOT Southerners--who started the "buy up the milk and bread" trend!)
(While I was looking for the meme below, I found this informative article from CNN that suggests it might actually be New Englanders--NOT Southerners--who started the "buy up the milk and bread" trend!)
And, if you dig through the panic and look past the
misinformed Facebook posts, there is some good news. China has now closed all
of their coronavirus hospitals, and an article from The Independent reports
that around 3,200 of the over 80,000 cases of coronavirus in China have been fatal.
The paper also reports that over 65,000 people diagnosed with the virus in China
have already made a full recovery (Dalton). That’s only a 4% fatality rate, and
while it’s always sad that anyone dies from a disease, there have been much
scarier death tolls, and I’m trying to hold on to whatever silver lining there
might be. Just yesterday, too, one of the other GTAs—Winniebell, who’s an
international student from China—posted pictures and a video of her mom and
little brother at the park and said that “people could live normally again.” It’s
a relief to see that progress is being made. If this was an apocalypse movie,
that wouldn’t be the case.
Oddly enough, I’ve always thought the phrase “like a
movie” was supposed to be a good thing. And then I took this class, and I can
say that I’m very grateful that my life hasn’t been like any of the
movies we’ve watched.
Movies (and books, for that matter) are usually pretty
predictable. For example, we pretty much know that Katniss and Peeta will end
up together when they’re both alive at the end of Mickingjay—Part 2 (2015).
It’s not surprising when the Man dies in The Road. We’re not totally
surprised that Neville finds a cure in I Am Legend and then dies, even
if we haven’t read the book or seen the other adaptations; that’s a pretty
classic trope. But real-life isn’t like a movie. There’s no script, no
predictability, and if I’ve picked up on any “vibes” this last week and a half,
it’s that we’re afraid of the uncertainty that comes with COVID-19: “Have I
been exposed?” “Will I show symptoms?” “Can I get tested?” “How
long will we have to social distance? Will I or my friends or my
family get sick?”
You know, when I said I wanted the real world to be more like Harry Potter I just meant the teleportation and the magic stuff, not the entire plot of book 5 where the government refuses to do anything about a deadly threat so the teenagers have to rise up and fight back.— Denizcan James (@MrFilmkritik) February 22, 2018
Thinking about what kind of movie life is now made me
think about a tweet I saw a while ago. I think it was back during March for Our
Lives, but it still works now: “You know, when I said I wanted the real world
to be more like Harry Potter I just meant the teleportation and the magic
stuff, not the entire plot of book 5
where the government refuses to do anything about a deadly threat so the teenagers have to rise up and
fight back” (@MrFilmkritik).
When I said I wanted my life to be more like a
movie, I meant like a rom-com with a happy ending or Pitch Perfect (2012)
where everyone becomes friends and they win the big a cappella competition. You
know, happy things.
The one similarity I do see between some of our
movies and the current situation is the persistence of the human spirit. Despite
being the last man on Earth, Neville kept fighting and surviving. Katniss made
it out of the Hunger Games not just once, but twice (and, arguably, three
times!). And, today, we see doctors, nurses, pharmacists, grocery store employees,
sanitation workers, postal workers, fast food employees, and more still going
to work making sure that the country can still half-function and that essential
medical equipment can get to those who need it. Broadway is closed, but artists
are still making art from home. Celebrities are live-streaming themselves
reading to kids. People are trying to make this work.
And, as long as the human spirit persists, I think we’ll
make it out of this particular apocalypse.
May the odds be ever in our favor,
Katie
Works Cited:
Dalton, Jane. “Coronavirus: Wuhan doctors celebrate closure
of last temporary hospital after dramatic fall in cases in China.” The
Independent, 14 March 2020, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coronavirus-wuhan-masks-video-doctors-nurses-hospital-a9402631.html
@MrFilmkritik. “You know, when I said I wanted the
real world to be more like Harry Potter I just meant the teleportation and the
magic stuff, not the entire plot of book
5 where the government refuses to do anything about a deadly threat so the teenagers have to rise up and
fight back.” Twitter, 22 Feb. 2018, 5:52 p.m., https://twitter.com/MrFilmkritik/status/966822999839125504
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