Me during the quarantine.
So, America…you see why making
healthcare for-profit and unavailable to the poor might have been a bad idea
yet? No? Well, you will before long. Just wait for more celebrities and
politicians to get the coronavirus. Throw some of those greedy CEO’s and bankers
in there as well. As soon as people who aren’t poor start getting it, maybe we’ll
see some changes. If they can stave off a revolution before that happens, that
is. Keep charging people rent and not paying them, choosing instead to throw
imaginary money at the stock market, and see what happens. They'd rather keep playing their stupid game of greed than save lives. The wonderful thing
about this virus is that it’s exposing human society for the farce that it is
and always has been.
Anyway, I thought maybe I ought to
address the current chaos that our fragile global civilization has been flung
into. Now having been through a couple hurricanes since moving to Florida, I’ve
already witnessed grocery shortages and a general sense of panic in the air,
but this coronavirus pandemic has brought things to a new level. Every event is
cancelled, every non-essential store is closed. I’m an introverted shut-in
anyway, so being quarantined doesn’t make that much of a difference to me, but
I also have a 14-month old son with cabin fever to deal with. However, I think
even I am beginning to get cabin fever. I’ve never seen it where everything’s
closed. Where when you go outside it looks like a ghost town. Again, maybe
hurricanes have given me a taste of it before, but this is still something new.
Am I afraid of getting coronavirus? Well, I’m 33 years old, and it’s more deadly to older people. I think I’d survive it, as would my wife Deborah and son Jareth. During the initial outbreak I wasn’t worried. But then again, now I’ve heard of younger people dying from it too. One guy was a reasonably healthy 34-year-old Armenian-American too, who caught it at Disney World, not far from where I live. That’s about as close to home as it gets for me. Maybe it’s a gamble I wouldn’t want to take. I remember when I had really terrible bronchitis back in 2012. I almost thought I was at death’s door. Coronavirus is certainly something I wouldn’t want. I don’t want any of the older people I live with to get it either. I have a supply of hand sanitizer I try to keep on my person. I haven’t resorted to surgical masks, but I’ve heard they don’t actually do much anyway. I’m not exactly a nervous wreck over the possibility of getting the virus, but I’m staying cautious too. I’m more just in awe of what’s going on in the world because of this.
235 cases in Armenia as of 3/24/2020. Also, they put a surgical mask on the statue of Mother Armenia!
Even though I live in Florida, my
time spent in Armenia in 2015 has led me to follow the news from there very
closely. Sometimes closer than I follow American news to be honest, but that’s
in part because I have a supreme distaste for hopeless American politics. The coronavirus finally did get my
attention in late January when it hit Iran, one of the countries that borders Armenia.
Eventually someone did bring it to Armenia from Iran, but it was contained, and
I heard the person recovered. However, then Italy began to get it really bad,
and a woman who’d been travelling to Italy came back to Armenia and attended a
wedding in the city of Etchmiadzin, spreading it from there. Last I heard there
are over 200 cases in Armenia. No deaths yet. The country is on lockdown. No one can fly in with US citizenship. So much for my vacation plans (ha, I'm joking, I'm way too poor for plane tickets to Armenia). But
from what I’ve heard the quarantine isn’t being followed very well; much as it isn’t being
followed in England either, apparently. Americans already distrust each other
and don’t like interacting with one another, so maybe it’s easier here.
Back home in California it’s pretty
bad. San Francisco is empty, the whole state is on lockdown. It happened there
before it happened in Florida. Here, we knew it was serious shit when Disney
World closed. They don’t even close for hurricanes sometimes, unless it’s
really huge and coming straight for them.
Deborah and I discovered a new book shop in downtown Cocoa, Florida,
called Hello Again Books. Just opened a few weeks ago. Charming place. They
sell coffee and alcohol as well, and do writing workshops and poetry nights.
Finally something to do around here. And then the pandemic hits. I’m wondering
if the shop will still exist when this pandemic is over, for however long it
will last. I feel sad for all the small businesses affected by this. No one’s
going to bail them out.
It’s a lesson on the web of life,
this virus; on how interconnected we are as a species. Someone gets sick China; a couple months later my Writer’s Guild meeting is cancelled, the 2020
Olympics are postponed, and the stock market crashes. The Butterfly Effect. It's affected things in both small and huge ways. It’s pretty amazing if you think about it. One would hope this virus ends up
making more people look at the big picture, to see reality for what it is and
question our priorities as a society. But, sadly some people are determined to
keep their heads in the sand, so we’ll see.
I’ll write about this more as more
time passes. Hence this is Part I. How many more parts there will be depends on
how much longer this pandemic lasts, and whether or not I or someone in my family gets the virus.
Anyway, have some apocalyptic music. It seems relevant.
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