Sunday, May 3, 2009

how we deal

I feel like this last week or so has had all the elements of the first third of a really awful horror movie: Erratic weather! Rampant fear of a virus with shady origins! A clean cut student who is actually a psycho killer! The inexplicable removal of the Facebook "Recently Updated" Friends page!

I think it says something about my descent into apathy that instead of my typical OCD paranoid android response to all of this, I haven't really paid any of it much concern at all. And aside from this timid woman behind me in line at CVS the other day who asked the salesman if they sold "masks," it seems to me that most of the New Yorkers I've observed share my general lack of concern.

I stood on the corner waiting for my friend for 10 minutes last night, listening to the floating bits of conversation ("Dude, I'm sure he was just saying he wanted you to come"; "I bet she doesn't even know it's from American Apparel"). The sarcastic banter and meaningless platitudes, it's how we are and it's how we deal... We read about a virus we don't really understand; we make jokes and "funny" websites. Someone brings up the "Craigslist killer"; you say it's your next Halloween costume. We read about the economic turmoil and then flock to "Obsessed" and "Fast and Furious." You tell me the world is going to end; I spend 10 minutes re-ordering my Netflix queue.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You don't have an adequate tag for this entry.

Anonymous said...

I concur. Perhaps "signs of the apocalypse" would be appropriate.