Jealous of Fiction
I’m reading through a backlog of People magazines. I’m still back in January, issue-wise, so I find myself yelling at the celebrities, frozen in time at various parties. “BRAD PITT, WHY IS YOUR HAND ON TOM HANKS’S ARM? HE WILL HAVE COVID-19 IN WEEKS! SIX FEET APART SIX FEET APART SIX FEET APART!”
Just kidding, it’s now something like eighteen feet apart. Isn’t it quaint how once upon a time—like between the printing of the issue of People magazine and now—we thought six feet was enough?
Anyway, the pictures are old and the people are blissfully unaware.
Josh and I went through this back in 2016 with the election. We had old episodes of @Midnight, and we watched them after we knew the results. There’s Chris Hardwick, joking about Trump, AND HE HAD NO IDEA THE SORT OF SHIT THAT WAS ABOUT TO GO DOWN.
I wanted to shake Chris Hardwick and tell him to wake up and join us eight days down the road.
It’s awful.
I’ve also become jealous of fictional characters. They go out to dinner. They do not think about COVID-19. Of course, they don’t when the book was written in 2018. The author had no clue, therefore her characters have no clue. They get to dine out and see their friends and ride on public transportation. They take planes. They travel.
No one dies. Or, sometimes people die, but they don’t die because they’ve gotten COVID-19. They do not worry about every little cough. They never think about toilet paper.
I want to live in a book. Or an old issue of People magazine.
6 comments
I’ve been spending a fair amount of time in Pawnee, Indiana. Watching Leslie Knope and her friends interact normally and do “regular” things makes me fondly reminiscent. Like, how quaint: they’re hanging out at JJs to eat waffles, instead of chatting via Zoom.
Re Jjiraffe’s comment above: we had never previously watched Parks & Recreation and just started it a few nights ago. It is very funny, and yes, it’s nice to see people doing “regular” things.
I feel ya, Mel. I am reading a delightful little romance right now called The Unhoneymooners because I am finding myself unable to read anything “heavy” (i.e., most dramatic fiction, thrillers or non-fiction) in my current state of mind. I would normally dismiss a book like this as too predictable and formulaic, but it’s just what I need at present.
Yeah I know when I see people on TV close together I’m like gahhh!
I was wondering the other day… Will TV shows that take place in the current day make this crisis part of the storyline?
I completely get it. And I find myself policing other people like I have no business doing.
We’ve been watching American Idol, which was, of course, recorded for the most part before COVID-19 became a reality, or at least before isolation became our way of living. And we’ve been hanging on every episode, wondering WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN THEY GET TO AMERICA’S VOTE? How are they going to do a show that requires people touching other people in the middle of a pandemic? Online, it turns out. (!!!)
Books are good right about now. Though my son is reading Station Eleven, replicating reality in fiction …
YES. I am now only one week behind in my PEOPLE subscription, but holy moses, in the beginning when I was reading about things pre-COVID (and then pre-SUPER EMERGENCY COVID) it was almost tears-inducing. I was like, “remember when everyone touched each other? Remember when there were movies and red carpets?” all the stupid stuff you read People for, and it’s all no longer reality. It’s so true that fiction reminds you of what life was. Your 2016 story made me laugh and then sob inside a bit. 🙂
I definitely agree that watching people in busy bars and restaurants, shaking hands, hugging etc on videos is very disconcerting! I think I’m used to it now, but for a while there, as I was getting used to “social distancing” life, it really accentuated the differences. Everything now seems to be separated into pre-COVID lockdown and post-COVID lockdowns. Even my Yoga with Adriene – I’m still following along with a programme she recorded in December or January, and it seems weird that she’s not referring to the thing that is top of everyone’s mind these days.