Weezer, original lineup. 1994. The year of my College Program. Kurt Cobain killed himself. John Travolta proved cool again in Pulp Fiction. The Clinton Administration, pre-Monica Lewinsky. We learned that OJ drives a white Bronco … very slowly on the freeway. A time when life was not necessarily simpler, but it certainly wasn’t as scary as it is today.
I wasn’t scared to ride on airplanes or other mass transit systems. Well, I was, but not for the same reasons. I was more frightened of getting mugged or harassed by someone who smelled like he had not bathed in a week or used a toothbrush since he was 7.
I turned on the news at 6 a.m. this morning and heard about the London bombings. It’s truly horrifying. After about 10 minutes, the newscasters broke away from national coverage and resumed local news. The Super Doppler indicated Hurricane Dennis was headed straight for my hometown. The weatherman said the worst-case scenario was that Dennis would hit “New Or-leens” (I know it’s a common mispronunciation, but it irks me almost as much as people who say “Illinoissss”) and cause major flooding because the city is below sea level.
I talked to my mom later, and I could tell the stress of Tropical Storm Cindy, which passed not two days ago and created a ton of debris, and the impending Category 3 Dennis was getting to her and the rest of the city. She said the newscasters were already talking about evacuation, and reservations for hotels from Baton Rouge to Houston were already being snatched up.
So much fear.
I saw War of the Worlds last weekend, and I promise, I’m not giving anything away when I tell you this. At the onset of the “War,” Tom Cruise is driving his frantic kids through the city dodging lasers, flying 18-wheelers and crumbling buildings. His precocious 10-year-old daughter quietly screams from the backseat, “Is it the terrorists?”
Christy and I were both affected by that scene. That’s the “post-9/11” environment we live in. The one where little kids are more scared of the reality of “terrorists” than the silly but horrifying urban legends that made me sleep with my hands in a fist – hiding my thumbs – every night from age 7 to about 15.
It’s sad. How do we cope? Remember how, in the days after Sept. 11, Letterman, Leno and Conan all took time off from nightly comedy because it seemed almost insensitive to laugh or to be happy? We learned pretty quickly that, while it seems appropriate for a while, in the long term, you just can’t live that way.
That’s the best thing about time. It really does heal. And, thank God, today, I heard that we have an extra second in 2005 – a leap second at the end of this year! I think we might need it.
So, I guess this is how I cope. I immerse myself in the mundane details – work, laundry, surfing iTunes, checking on the status of my new MINI Cooper, coming up with new blog entries and trying to win concert tickets.
That’s the good news from today. I won two tickets to see Weezer at Hard Rock Live. I actually already have a ticket, but I have two friends who don’t. Mundane? Maybe, but telling them that I have tickets for them to a show that sold out in 18 minutes is going to make me so happy. And if I die tomorrow on a double-decker bus, then I at least want to know that I spent as much time doing things that make me happy in this life as I possibly could – as mundane as they might be.
1 comment:
Glad you got the tickets!! Whew, I thought for a minute I had an extra one on my hands. Isn't it funny how even after 2001 we have again gotten so comfortable. I can't imagine the poor Iraqi people who are victims every single day and this is now...mundane.
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